Slow Cooker Maryland Crab Soup

For the 200th anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner, we had friends and family over to watch the Blue Angels air show and have a crab feast on the roof. It was a long but really fun weekend. The crabs were freshly steamed and sold by the bushel in west Baltimore (not for the faint of heart). It was great because there were a few out-of-towners who had never picked crabs before, so they had plenty of help.

When we set the crabs out, I asked people who weren't eating the legs or claws to set them aside for me in a separate bag. Well, the bag inevitably got mixed with trash so I ended up picking a few of the last crabs and saving the meat. It took about 4 or 5 crabs but I had a very nice pile of lump meat to put in the Maryland crab soup I planned to make.

I was exhausted at the end of the weekend but still determined to make the soup, so I threw the legs into my crockpot with half an onion and some carrots and covered them with water to make the stock. It turns out, that was key to making the soup taste authentic. When all was said and done, my boyfriend said "this tastes like Maryland crab soup." Coming from him, that meant it was a winner!

Ingredients:

For Seafood Stock
2 dozen crab legs and claws
1/2 medium onion
1 cup carrots, sliced thick
2 tsp chicken bullion or soup base
6 cups water

For the rest of the soup
1 pound lump crab meat
1 bag frozen soup veggies containing okra, lima beans, potatoes, onion, carrots, celery
2 cans (15 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
Tabasco sauce (optional)

Directions:

1. Place seafood stock ingredients in a large crockpot and cook on high for 8 to 10 hours.

2. Remove crab legs and claws, onion, and carrots from the pot. You can pull out the meat to add to the lump meat and cut up the onions and carrots for the soup, if you wish. I discarded my stock vegetables because there were enough in the frozen soup veggie bag already.

3. Add canned tomatoes (along with "juice") and veggies and cook on low for an additional 8 hours.

4. Add lump crab meat and a dash of Tabasco sauce just before serving. Serve with crackers if you wish.