Wednesday, July 25, 2012

the day i gave up fried foods*

monday night i attempted to make okra.  epic epic epic fail.  i knew it would be difficult because frying food (at least for me) seems to be extremely challenging.  but i was not prepared for how badly this would suck.  not only did this grease up my whole stove, countertops, and like five dishes, but it didn't brown, it turned to mush, the breading fell off and never got crispy, and was so gross that baby girl wouldn't touch it, even after begging for it for like half an hour, and when honey got home, from the corner of my eye, i saw him try a bite and gag a little bit.  when did that sentence even start?!  like ten years ago?  yikes.

anyways... i tried to eat a little bit but couldn't handle it.  but you can tell i'm still in mourning because i didn't have the heart to throw it out... it's sitting in a tupperware in the fridge.  i'll probably wait a few more days before tossing it.  so disappointed.  my dear grandmother would be so ashamed.



the good news though is that when i'm not attempting to fry something in the kitchen, i mostly get it right!  last week i made a recipe similar to this one for sausage stuffed french loaf and it was excellent.  it's the second time i've made it and it's awesome.

and i made rice krispies for that bbq on saturday and was so tempted to dig in that i just decided to make a half batch for myself and finished my whole 8x8 pan before i even went.  i'll write my weekly post tomorrow but let's just say that for several days in a row, i was gaining a pound a day.  heaven help me i'm eating so much food these days.  but just for the record... this recipe is better than the official one on the rice krispies websit

tonight, i made chicken pot pie based on this recipe.  i used potatoes, carrots, corn, and a little bit of celery.  it ended up being a whole lot of stuff, especially when i added the whole ton of cooked shredded chicken from my freezer that i was trying to use up.  sooo, i made modifications and doubled-ish the the sauce. so it wouldn't be dry.  and because i knew it wouldn't fit in a pie dish, i put it in one of those 2 or 3 quart dishes.  sooo, the way i draped the crust over wasn't the prettiest but it got the job done... it just barely fit everything in.  and... it tasted wonderful.  win!  short notes on modifications: probably 2 cups potatos, one cup carrots, half cup corn, third cup celery, at least half cup onions.  onion powder in sauce instead of celery seed.  boiled the veggies (and chicken just for good measure) in 3 cups water with 2 chicken bouillon cubes.  and when i drained that, that's the broth i used for the sauce.  2 cups broth and 1 and a 1/4 cups whole milk.  probably a third cup of flour... just eyeballed it.  and tasted the sauce as i went to make sure it wasn't bland.  for next time... maybe less flour so the sauce isn't so thick.  i like the pot pies that are runny when you spoon them out!

and as a side note, just because i thought it was kinda funny, baby girl kept referring to it as a cake.  and she would eat the pie crust part off the top and leave the rest and ask for more cake.  oh baby girl.

ps- to anyone that has ever seen the movie 'how do you know'... shame on you for not warning me that it is boring beyond belief.    

* i will always love and savor fried foods... this is just merely referring to the delicious fried foods i had envisioned my domestic self preparing for my family for dinner.

1 comment:

ok said...

I'm not sure how you breaded, but your problems are DEFINITELY from your oil not being hot enough. My mom always just slices the okra, tosses it in flour, then semi-pan fries it in an inch or so of oil. The tricks are: get the oil good and hot before you start adding the okra, don't crowd the pan by adding too much okra at once, and allow the oil to come back up to a hot temp before you add more. When you add the first okra to the pan it should sizzle and pop. If it doesn't, your oil isn't hot enough. That's why it gets soggy and why the breading falls off. Better luck next time!