Good 'Ol Fashioned Crab Bake

My mother-in-law, Barb, celebrated a milestone birthday this year, but her birthday plans were derailed by circumstances beyond her control. Usually we hit up Red Lobster for her annual birthday dinner, but this year we decided to bring the Red Lobster to her.

First, we stocked up on supplies at Sunterra. I love that place. It has some of the highest quality, seafood in the city. We picked up lobster tails, king crab legs, shrimp, chorizo sausage, potatoes and broccoli. We based our meal plan off a restaurant in Seattle called the Crab Pot.

After stuffing our lobster tails with butter, garlic and cajun seasoning, we baked them in the oven.

Lobster tails.

Then we steamed some broccoli, boiled some potatoes, and chopped the sausage into bite sized pieces.

Prepared fixin's.

Next came the crab legs. Oh... The giant, giant crab legs. We had to break them down into more manageable pieces so we could fit them in the pot.

King crab legs.

Then we piled everything into the biggest pot I have ever seen and cooked it all up. Here is Ashley and I tag-teaming the world's largest pot.

The crab bake pot.

 But more importantly, here is what the results looked like:

Crab mix.

Dinner.

Oh, but it doesn't end there. We washed it all down with some Fentiman's Curiosity Cola. And that was before we hit dessert! And let me just add, I love Fentiman's. The Ginger Beer is my favourite, but the cola's are tasty as well.

Fentiman's Curiosity Cola.

For dessert, we tried out some chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. I used my new stand mixer for the first time! It's so pretty! And purple and girly! Let the number of exclamation marks express my happiness!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kitchen Aid stand-mixer.

I've never made peanut butter buttercream before, but I'm now convinced that my buttercream recipe is infallible and can pretty much be modified for any flavour. I topped them off with some chopped homemade peanut butter cups that Ashley made. Let me just type that again. Homemade. Peanut butter. Cups. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Chocolate peanut butter buttercream cupcakes.

I don't think it was exactly the birthday my mother-in-law envisioned, but it really turned out for the best.

Happy Birthday, Barb!