This was a couple of weeks ago, now, but our house has seen this menu again a couple of times since then: BLTs with tomatoes from our garden and homemade bread with green beans from our garden. The perfect summer meal!!
08.14.11 Brunch
After our usual Sunday morning whammy biscuit donuts before church, Andy and I had egg burritos for lunch to use up some stuff: eggs from our chicken, red and yellow tomatoes from our garden and some leftover avocado.
08.13.11 Dinner
Meg and I were home alone last Saturday night, so we made about 5 gallons of Southwest casserole and had some for dinner with an avocado.
08.12.11 Dinner
Since I’m only home to cook a couple of nights a week now, I try to pack a lot into those meals! This one was fresh corn casserole (a little chewy, though), shells and cheese, and steak.
Fish Fry
A new fish place recently opened off of Mark Twain Avenue in Hannibal that my father-in-law, Mark, has started to frequent. The proprietors go fishing on the Mississippi River daily, haul in their catch, clean it all for you, and open for business around 10:00 am. So if you want fresh catfish in that general area, this is apparently the place to go.
Anyway, Mark decided he wanted to host a fish fry this past weekend, so many of us descended upon Hannibal, MO to have a mix of catfish and buffalo fish, among other things.
Mark borrowed the equipment, but basically, we were outside heating up canola oil in a dutch oven over an outdoor propane burner. This one is very similar to the one I just got for my birthday to use in beer brewing. It took a little while to heat the oil up to the desired temperature, but he had an issue with the candy thermometer we were using. As in, it wasn’t working properly, so the first few fish didn’t quite fry correctly.
After he turned the burner down a bit, things improved. It only took a few minutes for each fish fillet to be cooked through. I was kind of amazed how the smell of fried fish permeated the air surrounding the frying rig. I mean, you can smell fried fish in a restaurant easily, but that’s an enclosed space. This was very easy to smell from 30 feet away. Mmmmm…
The buffalo fish isn’t one I’d ever had before: it’s the “wavy” one in the picture above. The catfish looked like your typical filet, so nothing too special there…except for the flavor, of course. Brooke also made hushpuppies, and those were pretty spectacular. The hushpuppies didn’t go in until after the fish was done, so as to not mix the flavors too much.
Brooke really wanted to try corn fritters, though. They’re similar to a hushpuppy, but not quite. She made up the corn mix and took it out with a little scooper, dropped it into the fryer, and they turned a nice, golden brown. I think they were a bit softer and less dry than a typical hushpuppy, but in the end, they’re pretty similar entities. Is there a reason to have both? Probably not. But hey, they were both spectacular, so I didn’t complain.
In all, the food was excellent. I can’t say I get fresh catfish very often, especially fish that was caught on the same day. I think I preferred the catfish over the buffalo, personally, but they were both really good. I think the corn fritters went over best with people, but the hushpuppies were almost gone by the end, too.
I don’t think we’ll have to try too hard to get Mark to make this a yearly (monthly?) event. 🙂
07.30.11 Dinner
Scrambled egg from our chicken. She’s been eating mostly grass and bugs so her eggs are super bright!!
We had the eggs with sausage and peppers (from the garden), homemade bread that I froze awhile back, and mandarin oranges. Andy was disappointed we didn’t have all home grown things, but someday we’ll have our own fruit. Probably not oranges, but fruit of some sort!
07.29.11 Dinner
Fried chicken, fresh green beans, and mashed potatoes and gravy. The potatoes were sort of polka dotted since I threw in a yam to give them a little nutritional value since Meg has decided mashed potatoes are her favorite food!
07.23.11 Dinner
Mmmm, brats…can’t go wrong. A side-product of Mom sending me to Hy-Vee with her card, we had both pineapple and beer brats, as well as corn on the cob and sweet potato chips.
Thanks again for everything, Mom! They turned out really well! 🙂
07.22.11 Dinner
Mom, foolishly, had me pick up some meat from Hy-Vee on the way home, so I splurged on some bacon-wrapped Hawaiian chicken grillers, bacon-wrapped turkey grillers, and corn on the cob. We also chopped up some potatoes and grilled them in aluminum foil. We’ve had better corn before, but it was pretty good, all things considered. The grillers were spectacular, though. The Hawaiian chicken grillers were stuffed with ham, pineapple, and various other seasonings. Excellent!
And another nice picture of the family just before eating. Meg got a bit messier as the meal went on. For the most part, Brooke and Mom stayed clean. 🙂
07.14.11 Dinner
Steak, mushroom, arugula, and cheese fritata. This one meal cleaned out more than half of the random containers in the refrigerator, so I’d call it a success!!
