Chemo Type 3 Cycle 2 + 15 – Crawfish :)

on April 20th, 2013 by Craig - No Comments

04/20/2013:

10:00: I wake up, time to go outside and start prepping for the crawfish boil. My dad is off picking up the two sacks of crawfish…

10:30: My dad gets home with the crawfish. He puts them in the shade and wets them down…

11:00: I start defrosting some shrimp by running multiple small streams of water from a hose over the shrimp we had frozen in the back freezer before they start going bad, they are almost a year old…

11:30: We open the first sack of crawfish and dump them into a large bin and pour salt over them and fill up the bin with water. This is to purge and wash off the crawfish. My dad puts his hands in the bin to stir up the crawfish and move the water around. This also allows any dead crawfish to float to the top for removal. I am not going to put my hand in that dirty water, because I don’t need to risk infection because they do bite/claws clamp down on your skin, and the mixture of dirty water and an open wound is not the best mix for me. While he is doing that I position the pot on top of the burn and center it. I then fill it up to the mark in the pot from past boils. I then fire up the burner and let the water start heating up.

11:45: My mom gets home with some of the extras she was shopping for, celery, hotdogs, sausage, squid, corn, garlic, onions, mushrooms, lemons, red potatoes, a container of craboil mix, and whatever else we are going to throw in. We help her unload the car.

12:00: I throw the craboil into the water. This stuff will get to you if its not windy and you breath the powder in as you pour it… It gets to you too after the water gets boiling too..

12:10: My dad puts the bottom of the basket inside the bin to hold the crawfish in as he dumps all the dirty water out, and it comes out pretty dirty. We fill the bin up with water again and once again he stirs them up one more time. This time the water comes out clear, which is what we want. We again strain the water using the bottom of the basket. We then throw all the extras, the celery, hotdogs, sausage, squid, corn, garlic, onions, mushrooms, lemons, red potatoes on the bottom of the basket. We then dump the bin of crawfish on top of the goodies. I check on the pot of water, and it’s boiling really nice. We put a 2×4 through the basket handle and both pick up and move the 39 lbs of crawfish plus the extras to the boiling pot. The 2×4 helps ups lower the basket into the boiling water and not have to worry about getting burned by the boiling water or accidentally touching the pot when trying to lower basket and being off balanced with that much weight.

12:35: The water comes back to a boil. Now we must let the crawfish boil for 15 minutes.

12:40: I start defrosting some frozen squid that my mom had brought home.

12:50: It’s been 15 minutes. I turn off the burner. My dad wants to try something new he read online. Our freezer on the back patio that we just hooked up the filtered water line too is full of ice. We dump all of the ice onto of the crawfish to cool the water off and stop the cooking process. This also causes the crawfish to sink in the pot to sit in the water and soak up the spices and flavors.

1:00: All the squid is defrosted. We open up the second sack of crawfish, pour them into the bin and pour the salt over them and fill them up with water to start the purging process for the 38lbs sack of crawfish.

1:20: It’s time to take out this load of crawfish. We pull up the handle, insert the 2×4 under the handle and bring the basket up allowing it to drip a little before moving the basket out into the middle of the grass for a quick final cool down. We then dump the basket of crawfish into a big ice chest and bring it inside.

1:30: I fire the burner back up on the pot.

1:45: The pot is at a rolling boil again. I drop the squid and the shrimp into the pot. Both are inside of their own mesh bags so that we don’t have to fish all of the individual shrimp and squid out of the water.

1:50: My dad strains the crawfish

1:55: The water comes to a boil again. 5 minutes for the squid and the shrimp…

2:00: I turn off the burner and let the squid and shrimp soak for 15 minutes.

2:15: I take the shrimp and the squid out and bring them inside.

2:20: I fire up the burner again for the second sack of crawfish, my dad is straining the water out again.

2:25: The water is boiling again.

2:45: We throw the extra goodies into the bottom of the basket, and then we throw the crafish on top. We then insert the 2×4 and bring the crawfish over to the boiling water and lower them in.

3:00: The water is boiling again, 12 minutes of cooking time.

3:15: We turn off the burner, we don’t have any ice this time, so we will just let them soak for 15 minutes.

3:20: I am inside eating some of the crawfish that we cooked earlier, yummy!

3:40: We go back outside and take 2×4 and pick the basket back out the pot and back into the middle of the grass. These we have to cool off with water from the hose to stop the cooking process and to get them cool enough to dump into the ice chest that way they don’t keep cooking while in the ice chest.

Well I figured since I love crawfish, and I won’t be able to have them for a while going with going through the Stem Cell Transplant, I thought I would overdo a crawfish boil and just make myself not want any for a while by having too much. They tasted great! Also had some shrimp, hotdogs, sasuage, squid, corn, garlic, onions, mushrooms, lemons, red potatoes and many other add ins to the spicy craboil water Spicy Horseradish mixed with Ketchup makes a great dipping sauce as well!