Sometimes You Just Want to Indulge

Sometimes you just want to indulge yourself, even if no one else in your house will eat crab cakes. (Fools.) I had stopped by our local butcher and food store, Carnivore Oak Park, to drop off some hand-sewn masks for the staff, and they had these gorgeous ramps in the refrigerator case.

Now, I’ve never eaten ramps before, or even seen them, but they were so pretty, I had to try them. I brought them home, along with some asparagus and fresh made crab cakes from Carnivore, looked up recipes, and discovered the consensus was to treat them like leeks or scallions, and that they would respond well to grilling.

A little olive oil, salt, and pepper later, voila! I even plated it up pretty, even though it was just for me. Well, and for you guys. I did the asparagus and crab cake in the toaster oven, sliced the ramps in half (both because they wouldn’t fit in my grill pan otherwise, and because I thought the onion-y parts and the greens might need different cooking times), and twenty minutes later, I tore into this deliciousness.

The white and red ends of the ramps are sweet and onion-y; the green leaves are just slightly bitter, and they pair beautifully with the the roasted asparagus and crab cake (which I tossed on the grill pan a bit at the end, just to brown it nicely), esp. accompanied with a bit of tartar sauce.

There’s lots of both roasted asparagus and grilled ramps left (crab cake all gone, thank you very much), and my tentative plan is to take some of the chicken stock I froze a month or so ago at the start of all this madness, and turn it into a soup. Toss them in a pot, add the stock, add cream, simmer for a bit until blended, then use a hand-blender to puree into creamy deliciousness.

The only problem is, I really would like to top that with a little fresh crab — I might have to go back to Carnivore later today…