A Little Bit of Home Cookin

So I attempted to make fried catfish, hush puppies, and black-eyed peas for dinner last night. Now before you jump to conclusions and say "Well how hard is it to dump peas out of a can?!?" I'll tell you that the peas were 100% homemade. I bought the dry peas from our cute Cafe Regis (aka Regis Grocery), soaked them overnight, added some bacon and sent them cooking. They actually turned out pretty tasty, which is a good thing since I now have four bags in my freezer!

Second item was hush puppies. As a child, I made the BEST hush puppies. It wasn't just me that thought this, everybody that ate them loved them. Sadly, I have apparently lost either the gift or the recipe, I'm going for the latter. Overall, last night's shut-up dogs, as some folks call them, were good although I didn't quite have enough onion. And for all those Perry, FL family members I was missing the key ingredient.....that's right, Guava Jelly. (For those that have never tried it, don't knock it until you do - it's a little bit of heaven on a plate.) I'm headed to the grocery today on a search for the all important Jelly of a Guava. I'm naively optimistic that I won't turn up empty handed, especially since we have this fancy, gourmet grocery called Babcock and Miles. They claim to be a 'Merchant of the Delectable'. Well, Guava Jelly, is definitely delectable.

Third item was of course the fish. I purchased the farm raised catfish from the frozen food section of the Good Earth Market in Billings. (You know, when I 'go to town'.) For me, that's a perfectly acceptable (and affordable) way of buying fish. The key though - defrost COMPLETELY! I dislike putting fish in the microwave to defrost because it normally ends up slightly cooked (ick!) So last night I tried thawing the old-fashioned way and must not have fully accomplished my goal. After coating my fish in the corn meal/flour mixture and letting it sit for a bit I tossed it in the pan (with the oil from my hush puppies....I wasn't counting calories). All in all, it turned out edible, but just okay, with one end still a little chewy (this end is now sitting in the bottom of my fun but practical trash can). Some lessons learned: Thaw COMPLETELY, rinse the catfish (aka bottom dweller) very well, and figure out why my corn meal/flour coating didn't stay on very well (as you can see in the picture above)...I'm thinking I needed more flour, or milk, or something.

All in all - my meal was a 6 out of 10. I'll be taking a break from fried foods for a while although I do have a bag-o-pups to finish. (By the way, have you ever noticed that the word 'fried' and the word 'friend' are just one letter apart? A coincidence? I think not.)