Crawdad or Crayfish, that is the question

Whether you call these babies crawdads or crayfish they are good! On Beaty's Creek we have our choice of big or small and blue or red varieties. The kiddos and my MIL are masters at catching them. I can catch them too but only if they "catch" me first, if you know what I mean.... We have been eating crawdads out of Beaty's Creek since Sean and I were little ones so our kids have little choice but to continue the tradition. Beaty's Creek is a beautiful little spring fed creek that is clear with a rock bottom so the crayfish are always so clean and pretty. I love living here for the natural beauty and the natural "food" that abounds. This is What's Cookin on Beaty's Creek today.

Needed:

5 pounds crawdads- *see note below* cleaned
Big Pot
Water
Salt
Oil

To clean your freshly caught crawdads you remove the the 3rd tail piece and pull. This is deveining the crawdad and much easier than shrimp. Now bring your water to a boil with 1 cup oil and 1 cup salt. I taste my water to see if it tastes good, make sense?? Like you do for pasta. When water is boiling, drop crawdads in and boil for 3 minutes then drain and enjoy!! Add Old Bay if you want a spicy version.

*This is how we clean our crawdads after we have cleaned our crawdads. Hee hee. Bring water to almost a boil in your tea kettle. Now pour hot water over your cleaned crawdads, and mix them around in the water. Pour water off and cook crawdads, as you like.

Fried Frog Legs

Ransome and his cousins were at the creek last night and came home with a pouch full of frog legs. Now those are some fresh legs...heehee I fried them for their lunch today and Ransome did not care for them, go figure. Now Ransome's little sister, Raine, just loved them,
she is such a country girl. :) Ransome and his cousins have brought in a bounty this week from Beaty's Creek. We've had fish, crawdads, and now frog legs courtesy of these young men. This is What's Cookin on Beaty's Creek today.

Needed:

20 frog legs-cleaned
2 cups white cornmeal
1 cup flour
3 T black pepper
3 T cayenne pepper
5 T sea salt
3 eggs
2 cups of milk
Oil


Soak frog legs in a mixture of 3 beaten eggs and 2 cups milk for 30 minutes. Mix together all of your dry ingredients. Add your frog legs a few at a time to the dry mix. Shake until well coated. Add to a caste iron skillet that has about an inch of oil in it that has been heated up until a tiny bit of four sizzles when added. Cook until browned on one side and then flip and brown the other side. I cooked mine for about 4 minutes on each side but time really depends on the size of the frog legs. Serve hot.