Had some family friends coming in from out of town and my FIL was going to order some crawfish from Sammy's. I've been wanting to learn how to cook something other than breakfast foods, so I volunteered to go by the accompaniments for the boil and boil the crawfish at the house, as opposed to buying them boiled from Sammy's.

I spent more time than I'd like to admit on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday reviewing the countless recipes and procedures posted on tigerdroppings. As with most questions I have, I went on Google and I typed my question followed by "tigerdroppings" and was presented with no less than a dozen threads explaining the intracacies of boiling crawfish. These threads, which span almost a decade, fully explained the process, the various seasonings that should and shouldn't be used, and the biggest pitfalls to avoid for beginner boilers.

The night before the boil, I had to reassure my wife that I knew what I was doing and that the good folks of tigerdroppings wouldn't steer me wrong. On the day of the boil, as with most boils, there was a lot of questioning my tactics and overall recipe. Almost everyone of my responses to the critics started with "On tigerdroppings...".

In the end, the crawfish turned out great. I thoroughly enjoyed watching my wife and in laws in shock at how good the crawfish came out.

But I couldn't, in good conscience, make it through work today without thanking tigerdroppings. If you ever posted your favorite crawfish recipe, answered a question about boil procedure, or even gave your insight at odd things that can be put in a crawfish boil, I salute you, my friends.

I'm sure someone will ask what I did in terms of recipe, so I'm adding it here. I'm sure y'all will pick it apart and trash it, which is perfectly fine. I took some tactics from various recipes and put them together into one.

Step 1: Wash the crawfish thoroughly. I didn't purge because of the study conducted by LSU which was cited multiple times on tigerdroppings. I washed them at least a dozen times.

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Step 2: Fill up pot 1/3 with water. I was a little short on the water initially and had to add more water during the boil. Wasn't a big deal, but I'll know for next time.

Step 3: Add 12 lemons (cut in half and squeezed), 3 garlic cloves (pulled apart), 6 onions (cut in half), jar of crab boil, 8 oz liquid crab boil, 3 packets of crab boil. Bring to boil for 5-10 minutes.

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Step 4: Add red potatoes. Wait 5-7 minutes.

Step 5: Add crawfish. Bring back to a boil. Once the pot starts boiling again, turn the burner off and take off the lid.

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Step 6: Add sausage, frozen corn, and mushrooms.

Step 7: 5 minutes after adding the sausage, corn, and mushrooms, I added asparagus, brussel sprouts, and green beans. I got the idea for those from reading a thread about odd things to put in a crawfish boil. I just took the wrapper off of the green bean can and poked some holes in the top. The asparagus and brussel sprouts were put in a mesh bag.

Step 8: After the burner is off about 10 minutes, I start checking the crawfish. I checked the smallest crawfish I could find, as recommended by multiple posters. When I start checking the crawfish, I added the pineapple- another item I took from the "odd things" thread.

Step 9: Pour the crawfish on the table and enjoy.

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TL:DR- Thanks tigerdroppings for all of the great insight, which made my first crawfish boil a success.