Grown-up fish sticks

I just love Budget Bytes's blog. Her recipes are solid, delicious, nutritious and cheap. Fits all my criteria for a perfect meal.

Tonight we made grown-up fish sticks.

[Edited to add: I linked to the original recipe, but I wanted to make sure it was clear. This is Budget Bytes's recipe and I did not modify it at all.]

It was easy! In 30 minutes, I microwaved potatoes, made fresh bread, heated baked beans and fried the fish sticks. Here's what happened:

• Defrosted a package of frozen tilapia fish sticks in the fridge during the day
• Chopped the fish into halves and then thirds
• Dipped the fish into a flour/cajun pepper mixture, then into egg, then into panko, then into a hot, oiled pan
• Fried until golden. Flip and repeat. 

We tried this dairy-free tartar sauce. Essentially, I mixed mayonnaise, frozen dill, mustard and lemon juice and omitted the yogurt. It tasted like mayonnaise but was a good side.

Delicious!

Making your lemonade POP with a fruit infusion

This post is inspired by recipe hoarders original fruity lemonade. Thanks recipe hoarder! :)

This was a super-easy, kid approved drink!

I mixed lemonade from lemon juice as directed by the package. I poured a little lemonade into my mini Cuisinart and blended ~2 cups of frozen blueberries. Mix the pureed berries back with the lemonade.

The kids loved the sugar high. I loved adding whole berries to their sugary drink. This will be an excellent treat come summer.

Week of February 25, 2011

Tilapia fish sticks
Vegetable and chickpea curry (crockpot)
Pot roast (crockpot)

Napa cabbage with spicy peanut sauce
Chicken with olives
Beef and broccoli stir fry
Bean burgers

Snack:
Quick curried chickpeas

Shaun lunch:
homemade pizza
Corned beef

Dairy and soy-free chocolate marshmallow pops

For Valentine's Day, E and I surfed Foodgawker and this recipe caught her eye. It was easy to make, kid friendly and tasted like chocolate peeps on a stick. Definitely sugar overload for me, but I think E could have eaten the whole plate.

 

Recipe: 

6 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate

1 TB lard or other approved baking oil

4-6 TB powdered sugar

1 container of sprinkles

1 bag of marshmallows

1 bag of popsicle sticks. 

Melt the chocolate and oil/lard over a double broiler. I used a pan in a pan. When melted, add chocolate to taste.

 

Remove the sweet chocolate from the pan and place in a shallow dish. Place the sprinkles in a separate dish.

Stick the marshmallow on a stick and roll in the chocolate, then roll in the sprinkles.

Run around like a maniac when on a sugar high. Regret giving your young children 5 pops to eat. Enjoy!

Daily homemade bread from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day"

I know I haven't posted in a while and I'm going to post more often. I'd say that at least two meals a week are ones I'd like to share; they are tasty, nutritious, cheap, easy to make ... or some combination of the above.

For my comeback post, I'd like to share my adventures with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This book change my life! Those of you who know me IRL have probably heard me go on and on and on about this book. :)

Due to T's allergies,  I started scouring ingredients for dairy and soy. I started to buy bread at $5 a loaf on a weekly or twice weekly. It was way too much. I had heard about the book but when we visited my friend M, we ate bread fresh out of the oven and I was sold.

It truly spend only five minutes a day and I make fresh bread daily. For those who haven't heard for this took, essentially what I do is mix flour, yeast, water and salt together in a storage container. I let it sit out for two hours and pop it in the fridge. Then, when I want to make bread, I just pull off hunks of dough, dunk it in flour and place on a greased baking sheet. It bakes in 25 minutes. I don't clean out the storage container between batches and the remaining dough develops a lovely sourdough taste.

Let me share some pictures.

 Bread on a baking sheet (I tried to rotate the picture but it got lost somehow)

 

 Rosemary and roasted garlic flatbread (half-eaten). S's favorite. 

E took this picture. She loves the bread, especially fresh out of the oven.

 Bread in a container in the fridge. 










http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=1616 is the basic recipe I use. I also make the flatbread and rye recipes.

Let me know if you want more baking tips or want to borrow the cookbook!

Shana

Week of February 19

Tacos
Farfalle with caulifower and sausage
Sausage and carmalized onion bread pudding
Slow cooker brisket with brown gravy (crockpot) ---> cannot make because we are limited to dairy/soy free :(
Chickpea taco stew (crockpot)
Worlds most frugal soup (crockpot)
Sweet and sour pork (crockpot)
 

Week of February 12

Lasagna soup (crockpot)
Loose meat sandwiches (crockpot)
Asian pepper steak (crockpot)
White bean with fennel and sausage soup
Lemon garlic fish
Whole wheat pasta with sausage, fennel, olives and tomato

Valentine's day treat: Marshmallow pops
No bake peanut butter crunch bars

Corned beef sandwiches

Week of Feb 4, 2011

Chicken nuggets
Chinese lemon chicken (crockpot)
Jumbalaya (crockpot)
Spaghetti with spaghetti sauce
Minestrone (crockpot)
Red curry beef with mushrooms, peppers and cilantro
Potato soup (crockpot)

Shaun:
Corned beef sandwiches
Breakfast burritos