T Stands for Fried Catfish

  Wow How about that we have arrived to March 1st. February here has been all winter with two ice storms and quite a bit of snow too-we get spoiled as some winters are very mild here in SW Missouri. The lake house is an hour further north than our woods home so that may give us a bit more winter here.

   It's also T Stands for Tuesday with Bleubeard and Elizabeth. where we share a drink related photo. 

   I have a new outlook on blogging, which includes visiting bloggers that I enjoy so have decided to share posts again. I was also quite stressed out with all this ice removal on our steps and hill. Here is a photo of our steps going into the house. To the left is the area I will be working in first to plant lots of flowers and herbs. To the right of the steps-that area needs allot of work too-moving more rock, getting rid of some bushes, and turning this into flowers and herbs as well. a work in progress for sure.

Where this levels off up on top is a steep concrete driveway.  I don't mind the exercise this gives me to get my mail, but this is the first winter in this home that we had to deal with so much thick ice.  As one gets older these winters are more of a stress situation too.

  I am not one that fries foods much, my Mom never fried much. She would bake chicken instead of frying, and I don't remember her ever serving us french fries at home. Those were a treat growing up when Dad took us to the A&W restaurant. Husband and I do love fried catfish, so over the weekend I searched for a new batter recipe and fried us up a meal for Sunday. I served it with the last of the potato soup I had made earlier,

  This was the perfect recipe-moist fish inside and crispy batter on the outside really perfection, and not greasy either.  I fry with grapeseed oil when I do fry, and I read about straining it to use again. The site I read said to strain with cheesecloth and refrigerate. Can reuse for fish 4 times, and if not fish then 8 times-that was all new to me. I felt better knowing I can reuse this more expensive oil. It is a healthier oil and is why I like to use it.

   These are the ingredients: corn flour, I used gluten free flour instead of regular flour, and this is a gluten free sorghum beer-my last bottle from about 6 years ago. I also added a little onion powder, a good amount of fresh ground pepper.  I don't use salt in my cooking but this did need just a bit of salt.

    Maybe you that fry fish know this already, but what made this recipe so good I think was the method. You mix 1/2 cup of each flour together-then take half of it and put in the dish to coat the fish first. The other half you gradually add the beer til it is the right consistency and then dip the floured fish in that-and into the fryer.

   I forgot to take a photo of the bowl with flours and beer-but the ones on top in the dish to the right has been battered.

  My ticket to the T party is this bottle of Bard's gluten free beer made with sorghum, which I had a few swallows of while frying the fish.😀

I fried at 360 degrees in one of my favorite vintage cast iron pots. This one is a  Griswold and also has a lid with it-the perfect size for many things.

  My husband raved about this fish so the recipe is a keeper 

One of our pretty sunrises over the lake-loving the reflections on the water

Happy March and Happy T Everyone and thank you to Bleubeard and Elizabeth for hosting

and thank you to Iris for letting me know that Sunflowers are Ukraine's national flower-sharing sunflowers for support