Southern Catfish, Air Fried!

 I've made this once before and it came out good. This is a slight variation on my first attempt. Let's see how it goes.

This recipe is for 1 small catfish fillet in the 3 to 4 oz range. Increase amounts for more fillets.

Ingredients:

1 fillet catfish
2 tbs Medium yellow cornmeal
1 tsp fine ground white cornmeal
Bottle oil spray
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of pepper 

Directions:

1. Thaw catfish (cut down to size if needed).
2. If desired, soak in milk or buttermilk to remove muddy taste. I don't feel a need to do this.
3. Mix the meals, salt and pepper in a flat pan or bowl.
4. Dreg the, slightly, wet fillet in the meal ensuring a good coating on both sides of the fish.
5. Lightly spray the fillet with oil, both sides. Also spray the air-fryer tray or parchment paper.
6. Air-fry at 400 degree F for 8 minutes....don't touch it!
7. Using a spatula (fish spatula is great for this) flip the fillet over.
8. Continue to air-fry for another 8 minutes...don't touch it!
9. At this point the breading should be golden on both sides and the fish done, however if you want the breading darker flip and cook longer, flipping and checking each minute.
10. Best served hot!
    
    

Note: Don't crowd the pan! I have a small air-fryer, so I can only do 1 or 2 fillets at a time.  

Note: You can substitute flour for the white, fine ground, cornmeal if you don't have access to it.

This came out really, really good! I didn't have medium ground corn meal, only fine, so the surface of the breading was not quite as craggy as I really like. However, taste, mouth feel, and appearance was on target! I'll be making this again!

Served with french fries and coleslaw. No hushpuppies, though. Maybe next time.

Homemade Oats and Honey Granola

 I'm working on a recipe for granola and this is my first attempt.

3 cups of Old Fashioned Oats
1/3 cup of Honey
3 Tbsp Oil (I used Canola)
3 Tbsp Flaxmeal
3 Tbsp Chia Seeds (~36 grams)
1 Large Egg White (rather than more oil)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Salt

1. Mixed it all together making sure the Oats, Chia and Flaxmeal all got covered in the oil, egg white and honey.

2. Spread in a thin layer on a rimmed baking sheet and pressed down firmly.

3. Baked at 300F for 20 minutes, then turned over with a spatula to make sure all the mixture got browned and pressed down flat again.

4. Baked at 300F for another 20 minutes, until the top was golden brown.

5. Removed and let cool for, at least, an hour...don't mess with it as it needs to set.

6. After it cooled I used the spatula (and my hands) to break into chunks.

Banana-Chocolate Pudding...

...with Cheerios!

Okay, I had a bunch of banana's that were getting overly ripe and it was too hot for banana bread, so banana pudding!  I didn't have a box of vanilla pudding mix, but I did have a box of the chocolate mix, and banana's go well with chocolate, so why not! I also didn't have any vanilla wafers, but I did have an open box of cheerios and I figured...why not? I decided to experiment.

I made up the chocolate pudding, per the box's directions: 2 cups of milk, box of pudding mix and whip until combined, pour into a bowl and let firm up in the refrigerator.  Then in a glass casserole dish, I layered, cheerios, pudding, and sliced bananas and put the the casserole back in the fridge. I didn't add cream whip to the top, but we sprayed whip chocolate topping on the servings we scooped into bowls to eat.

It was good! :)

The cheerios will soften, dissolve down to mush really, if the pudding sits too long. My solution when that started to happen was to add more cheerios to the bowl before scooping more pudding in each time we ate it. The crunch with the pudding/banana proved to be a real winner, too.

Cabbage, Beans & Sausage

I've got a half bag of dried beans, a head of cabbage, and kielbasa sausage so that's going to be supper. :)

I'd used the other half bag of beans to make BBQ Baked Beans. The other half of the cabbage got sauteed with chicken and onion the other night. The sausage got half used in a "breakfast for dinner" a while back.

Here's my plan:

1. I'm using the Instant Pot to cook the beans: 25 minutes at high pressure with a natural release.
2.  I'll roughly chop an onion and cut the sausage into coins.
3. In a large skillet I'll saute the onion and sausage in a little oil for a few  minutes.
4. Then I'll add the cabbage and cook, covered, until it begins to soften and get brown on the edges.
5. I'll toss in the beans and heat through, finally adding a little salt, pepper, garlic powder and ginger to taste.

Served with a small green salad that should be a good meal!