A Meal I Will Never Eat Again

     In 2010 we were night fishing at out local lake and we found a LOT of crawdads. We were with my sister and her boyfriend (now husband) so we had 4 people catching crawdads. My sister is the pro at catching crawdads, I might have to have her do a "How To Catch Crawdads" post. I had never eaten crawdads, so my husband said he'd make me a crawdad dinner and we filled up our cooler.

 

Our Catch

      We had some really big crawdads. A couple looked like baby lobsters!

Doesn't the one on top look like a baby lobster?

 

      We had the crawdads inspected. Really we just wanted to see how the dogs would react to the crawdads and when we found one without claws, we decided to find out.

Sasha Doing Some Investigating.

     We put one of our bigger coolers in the fishing wagon and "purged" the crawdads for a couple days. Having the cooler in the wagon made it easy to take the crawdads out to drain the water and add new water to the cooler. We also added an air pump to make sure they stayed alive.

Purging The Crawdads

 

      We set up the turkey fryer in the back yard (since there wasn't hot oil involved, we set it up by the patio, we NEVER cook a turkey this close to the house) and added some water and a bunch of Old Bay seasoning and a few Bay Leaves.

Hot Water with Some Seasoning

 

      We added some red potatoes and the smell was AWESOME!

Potatoes Added To The Water

 

      Then the corn was added to the water.

Adding Corn

 Then it was time to add the crawdads! We drained the water out of the cooler (that patch of grass was really happy that summer).

Sasha Helping Drain The Water From The Cooler

      The cooler went back in the wagon and moved to the cooking area to wait for the potatoes and corn to be almost done.


Almost Ready To Add Crawdads

Purged Crawdads Ready To Become A Yummy Dinner

"The Big One"

      We also had our "guard dog" on duty in case anybody tried to escape.

Our Guard Dog

      The crawdads were added, we watched them carefully so they weren't overcooked.

They Look Done!

 

Steamy

      We pulled the basket out of the water and let the water drain out.

Almost Time To Eat!

 We took the crawdads out of the veggies and went ahead and took the meat out of all of the crawdads so they were easier and less messy to eat. If we had dropped anything while sitting at the table I'm pretty sure the dogs would have eaten anything before it hit the floor, so this was the safest way.....or so we thought.

A Bowl Of Yummy Crawdads

      I learned that I LOVE crawdads. I think I like crawdads more than lobster! So why is the name of this post "A Meal I Will Never Eat Again?" Because later that night my mouth felt funny and my hands itched really bad. I had never had an allergic reaction to food before so I didn't know what was going on. The next day I realized what was going on and started taking Benadryl and the itching and weird feeling went away. I was the one that had taken most of the meat out of the crawdads which is why my hands itched so bad. I couldn't even eat the leftover potatoes and corn or touch the bowls they were in until they had beed washed!! A couple months later I started giving my dogs Glucosamine and found out I have to be care about getting that on my hands because it has crawfish in it!! I had no idea you could be allergic to one type of shellfish and not another. I can eat shrimp, crab and lobster but I will never eat a yummy crawdad ever again.....*sniff.*

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