Hello friends and Happy New Year! Sorry I’ve been absent for nine. whole. days. 2015 came in like a lion! We’ve had all sorts of things going on, many of which I’m excited to share with you in the come days. But before I get too far down the road, I wanted to do a quick recap on our New Years celebration!

The New Year for us means spending time with family and friends while sharing traditions. Growing up in a very strong Croatian family means that I have some pretty unique recipes that not everyone knows about. Those recipes have become our traditions and a way to embrace our heritage.

Are you ready to learn all about Croatian Dungeness Crab? Roll up your sleeves, layout some newspaper on the table, and get your hammers!

This year we had a large group of family in attendance for the New Year, so we purchased twelve beautiful Dungeness Crab. We have a group of people that love crab, so we purchased about one crab per person.

The crab were all firm and filled with rich flaky meat. For those of you not familiar with Dungeness Crab, the best months to eat crab are ones that end with “-er” think September, October, November, December and the crab is sure to be delightful!

Just look at those beautiful orange legs!

After boiling the crab and cleaning out the “guts” we set out to prepare for our New Year feast! The crab was broken down into manageable pieces by pulling off the legs, breaking them at the joints, and then breaking the body pieces into half. Much of this work can be done with your hands and a hammer.

The trick is to just crack the shells enough so that when it’s time to actually eat you can pick the meat out of the shells without too much of a struggle. You have to be careful with the hammer not to explode the shell into shards. It takes a little bit of practice, but the effort is well worth the reward!

Here I am with my Dad cracking away. We’ve been doing this my whole life and the conversation while cracking crab is always the best. We’re a competitive bunch, so this job tends to get done pretty fast!

Special thanks to DJ who took many of these photos for me while I was cracking away!

If you look closely, you can just see the cracks in the shell that will allow the “special marinade” to soak into the crab and make the picking easier when it’s time to eat.

And here I am…happy as a clam…uh, crab!?!

After all the crab is cracked, it’s time to fix up the marinade. The marinade consists of sweet onions, lemon, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and water. Just writing out the ingredients gets my mouth watering!

We didn’t have a bowl big enough for twelve crab so it was split up between three bowls. Each bowl received sliced onions and then slowly the lemon, water, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper were added.

I don’t have the measurements for how to go about making the marinade. To be honest, you’ll know by the taste and by the smell that you’ve arrived at the peak flavor combination. It’s a bit of an art, and I like it that way!

After everything is mixed, put the crab in the refrigerator for one to two hours before eating.

While the crab marinated, we walked on the beach…

This is one of my favorite spots on the Oregon Coast. My Grandparents lived near Rockaway Beach, and as a child visiting Grandma and Grandpa always meant eating fresh crab! Such good memories!

As I’m sure you can imagine, dinner was simply amazing! Potluck style with crab as the star of the show…fresh baguettes are also a must!

Some people like to eat the crab as they pick it…they don’t have the patience to wait. I on the other hand fill up my bowl with crab meat and marinade, and then go for a fresh piece of bread to soak everything up! It’s divine!

With happy smiles and full stomachs we brought in 2015 with the most amazing Dungeness Crab the Pacific Ocean had to offer! It’s going to be a wonderful year, I just know it!