It has been a busy 2 weeks since my last post and I hope you all are doing well today! Our neighborhood has started having food trucks visit for the year and I have been in charge of scheduling most of those this year. My daughter LOVES getting a heads up in advance of her favorites coming.... which mostly include the taco trucks and the dessert trucks. Our first two visitors of the year were Tacos & Bla Bla Bla followed by Pound 4 Pound Sweet Treats. You can imagine how excited she was for those two in our first week.
Also this past weekend a few of us started cleaning up the street outside our community. Picking up trash on a public road might not sound very glamorous but the feeling of accomplishment when you drive by now and see the results is fantastic. We had 6 people and filled 8 contractor bags before calling it quits for the day. Even better was the next day another couple went out and finished the area we had stopped. My friend and went to breakfast after clean up and couldn't believe how much better everything looked on the drive back home afterwards.
As delicious as the food coming to our neighborhood is sometimes you have a craving for a taste of home. I love where I live and I am so glad our family moved to South Carolina BUT so many foods and flavors of where I grew up just aren't a thing here so you compromise and do whatever is necessary to get that taste of home from time to time. Everyone who knows me has heard me talk about crabs, Old Bay, snowballs with marshmallow, pit beef, King syrup and all other manner of things that are not common outside of Maryland and sometimes not outside of Baltimore itself.
My dad used to make the best hot crab dip. It is so rich and delicious. However, it is also too rich to eat a lot at once and something you tend to only make for parties or special occasions. Starting with full fat cream cheese, a full bag of Italian Blend shredded cheese and including sauteing the onions, peppers & garlic in real butter you can guess what the calories look like on even a small amount of dip. That craving for a taste of home was just calling out to me though. At that point I decided see how light I could make it and still get that real taste that I craved. A creamy blend of blue crab and Old Bay.
Keeping it simple this actually doesn't have very many ingredients.
8 oz blue crab meat
8 oz neufchatel cheese, room temp
1/4 cup Italian blend cheese
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno
1 scallion
1 tbsp skim milk
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
Preheat your oven to 350.
You want to deseed the jalepeno and finely mince the pepper, onion & garlic as small as possible.
Mix everything together in a bowl thoroughly. If you have lump meat be careful not to break all the lumps too much apart. One of the best things is when you get a chunk of crab in one bite. Since I am away from home though I didn't find any lump at the store that day and I have claw meat here.
Once everything is mixed well transfer to an oven safe dish that will hold at least 2 cups. I actually used a stoneware bowl. I love these bowls as they are good stoneware, dishwasher safe, microwave safe and oven safe. You can also use a small casserole dish or whatever oven safe container you have on hand. I also sprinkled some extra Old Bay on top because I feel it's hard to have too much Old Bay on any type of seafood dish.
Once everything is good to go bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes or until heated through. Serve up with crackers, pita or whatever else you wish to dip. Another great thing with this crab dip is to use it as a filling for chicken breast with some extra cheese over the top while it bakes. So good!
Here is the recipe card with nutritional information. The nutrional information was gathered by entering the ingredients into www.myfitnesspal.com and calculates at 1/4 cup serving size.
Also, if you are interested in the original crab dip recipe I am attaching that as well for anyone who wishes to indulge in the full fat version that I remember having as a teen.
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