Triple Seafood Cream Cheese Spread Platter

There are three seafood, shrimp, lobster and crab. The shrimp is authentic, purchased frozen and precooked. The only thing to do with it, is remove the tails and chop into bits. The lobster and crab in this recipe, are not authentic, but a mere colored substitute. I believe it is a flavored cod, molded to appear to be crab or lobster.

At any rate, it's good, and we use it.

The cream we use, is a mixture of one tub of flavored cream cheese added with one tub of whipped cream cheese. This ensures that you can spread the cream cheese across your platter and that it has a flavor.

The cream cheeses at the grocery store have many flavors. Our favorite, and the one we used for this platter, is Chive and Onion. The whipped cream cheese has no set flavor. Another good flavor would be Garden Vegetable.

He used several tubs of Philadelphia Cream cheese. The whipped, mixed with an Chive and Onion flavor. He spread it on a platter so there was an even layer across the entire plate.

He then dribbled Chili Sauce across the whole surface. Then, he took one can of shredded crab meat, one bag of chunk style Imitation Lobster, and about 20 peel and eat shrimp from the butcher shop at our local grocery store. I rinsed the shrimp and removed the tails by squeezing the end of the shrimp and the tail just popped off.

He then sliced the shrimp and lobster into small pieces. He scattered each across the surface of the chili sauce. Then, sprinkled three cheese Cheddar cheese shreds across the top. He took a Triscuit that was the new Wasabi and Soy Sauce flavor and dipped one into the cracker spread. He decided that some dill weed would be good, so he sprinkled dry dill weed across the entire dish.

Then, we covered the plate with a paper towel and a paper plate and set it into the refrigerator to keep moist until we head to the party later.

The party is tonight at 7 p.m.

My hubby used a chili sauce, which apparently has a pepper flavor. Many times, people will dip their shrimp in cocktail sauce, which is different in that cocktail sauce is a mixture of a ketchup product and horseradish.

He used an entire jar on his creation.

The seafood goes on top of the chili sauce. It is the third step.

The shredded cheese is the top layer. A bag of shredded cheese across the top of the dish. About 2 cups will do the trick.

Sprinkle dill weed across the top of the cheese. It adds a little bit more flavor. It's optional, but it does enhance.

We purchased two kinds of crackers for dipping. Triscuits with the Wasabi and Soy Sauce flavor. Triscuits are hard and are good to dip with. They do not break as you are scrubbing your cracker through the heavy ingredients. We also used the Chicken and Biscuit crackers. They have a nice salty flavor and are compact enough to maintain shape all the way to your mouth.

That is the problem with using a Ritz cracker or a Club cracker. They are good tasting, but they break off in mid swipe, leaving you fishing around in the dip for the broken piece of cracker. Embarrassing when you are trying to maintain that little finger in the air grace.

Beep... the text message read that the neighbors were having a party and we were to bring a beverage to drink and a dish to pass.

Well. The beverage was easy enough. A cooler filled with waters, pops and beer.

The dish that my hubby decided to make was one that he had been thinking of making anyways and this was the perfect opportunity to show off his culinary skills.

Many, many people have made this particular type of spread. My personal favorite is the taco meat version with layers of cream cheese, refried beans and shredded cheese. You then dip a tortilla chip into it.

I took a picture of the finished plate of spread. We tried it on Triscuit crackers and on Chicken and Biscuit crackers. Both are very delicious additions to the dish.