Fresh Maine Lobsters

So a few weeks ago, my Man had the opportunity to go see his brother in Maine.  His brother is a professional fisher and also skippers ships for people.

Anyway, there was a wonderful opportunity to get lobster and a VERY good price, but you had to buy 100 POUNDS to get it.  Well, I love a good sale, but I had never even eaten lobster so, hmm, what to do.  I asked some of my good friends if they would like to get in on the deal.  Enough people wanted to share that it made it possible!
 (Thanks, guys!)

 

Man came home with 3 coolers filled with clicking, live lobsters and seaweed.  Most were a really good size of about 1.5 pounds each.  We ended up with 76 lobsters.

 

He happened to come home on the morning that Boy and I were to be at a field trip an hour away.  But I had 90 minutes before having to leave....

 

Most of my friends, like me, didn't have a clue about what to do with these critters.  I called my Brother-in-law, he said

 

"you catch em, you cook em, and then you eat em"

 

Not exactly what I was looking for.  Then I found a website for a restaurant in Maine that explained if you couldn't eat them right away, how to best preserve them.

They needed to be "blanched" for 2 minutes, put in ice water to stop the cooking, drained, dried, and then they could be flash frozen.

 

I had both of my canners filled with salted water boiling when he arrived.  Gave him a kiss and started tossing those critters into the water.

 

 

I got 2 coolers full done before we had to leave for the field trip. 

That evening we had lobster for dinner!  It was so good!  What a treat.
(I don't know what was up with my funky camera here!)

 

 

 

My Boy LOVES seafood.
We usually have King Crab for his birthday, and always have this pose!

Now here it is a few weeks later, and I made lobster stock with the shells and I'm figuring out how to can it because you can only have so much seafood soup!