Takeout With the Tos #19: Long John Silver's

When I was growing up, takeout wasn't atrociously priced. You could get a family meal to feed four people for around $20 and probably have some leftovers. Sadly, this isn't the case anymore. As a result, my children don't eat out in the same ways I did. This is probably for the better because I believe they eat much healthier than I did as a child. However, this means they're missing out on some of the fond memories I have of eating out of a fried chicken bucket or eating fries at our kitchen table. My cooking initially increased after my first baby was born. We were home a lot during the evenings and cooking became an outlet for me to be creative and "do something." I wrote about the various recipes I tried the year after she was born. 

One thing I've never done was fry fish. I grew up eating Long John Silver's and it was our "justified healthy food" because we were eating fish. I still live next to the same location we went to growing up. For fun, I looked up the prices and they are much higher than they used to be. 

Instead of ordering a 12 pc family meal for $43.79, we fried our own fish, French fries, and hushpuppies from scratch.

Here are the recipes I followed for each of the items.

Fried Fish Batter - The batter is the main part I needed to help with. I fried each batch of fish for about 4 minutes at 350 degree oil. We used tilapia instead of cod or pollock because that's the only white fish we had at home. We also cut our fish in half so they wouldn't fry with a little slit in the middle. 

French Fries - I hand cut my fries and followed the double fry method.

Hushpuppies - Believe it or not, I followed this recipe almost entirely.

Guys...I got too excited after making an entire meal in the style of Long John Silver's....so excited I never got a picture of everything after frying. Instead, I got the remains of the fish and fries after plating up my children's servings.

The fish and fries.

 

I never got a picture of all the hush puppies, but here are the ones on my kids' plates. 

As a child, food was sustenance. I ate because I was hungry. Sometimes I liked what I ate, sometimes I didn't. As a young adult, I ate what I could afford. Sometimes this was plain food. Sometimes this was delicious food. Now as a more established adult, I've finally begun to appreciate the power of food and the true meaning of comfort food. 

The prices below are taken from the Long John Silver's a la carte menu. Simply calculating from their family meal accurately accounts for the fish but not the proportion of hushpuppies or fries. Because of this, the price is inflated compared to the meal price, but I did not make three sides, only one. 

12 pieces of fish @ $2.89 each: $34.68

3 orders of hushpuppies (6 pc/order) at $2.79 each: $8.37

6 orders of fries at $2.79 each: $16.74

Total: $59.79

Tax:$4.93

Grand Total: $64.72 

I was able to save about half of everything I cooked in the freezer to be consumed at a later date. The leftovers from the other half will last us about 3 portions. I had fun doing a fish fry. The benefit of this fry batch was these were not coated or wet batters. This allowed the frying oil to stay much cleaner throughout the process and remain usable for longer. I will most likely continue to use bits of the oil in my cooking throughout the week before I dispose of the last remaining portion with the bits on the bottom. 

Total Prep and Fry Time: 2 hours. 

Takeout with the Tos #18: Fry Edition

We don't have any streaming services right now. We do have a nice big screen TV and an antenna to get public channels. Occasionally I miss the variety from when we had access to a streaming service. It would have been very easy for us to sign up for a subscription and pick up right where we left off. It would cost us about $20/month and we'd continue the shows we watched from before. However, with us being out of town for two weeks at the time, we decided to wait. I was never opposed to signing up for a subscription, but I knew once we started, there was no going back.

 

When we came back from our trip, there was a period of time when we didn't watch a lot of television. There was just too much to do around the house and we were still tired/jetlagged from our trip.  It wasn't until about a month after returning when we started resorting to the television again. 

 

We haven't started a subscription for anything yet, and honestly, most of the time, there's nothing overly exciting to watch on public channels, but once in a while, there will be a nice gem of a show that's on when we're watching. 

 

This happened at the end of last week. We were browsing channels at night and came across a cooking show talking about Louisiana and seafood. They introduced various restaurants in Louisiana and the food they served. These weren't fancy high-brow restaurants. Most were just basic restaurants serving simple food of the south. I loved watching them talk about oysters. It also made me hungry for some oysters myself. 

 

I had oysters in my freezer. With some thawing technique, I was going to give it a try. The recipe I followed loosely (and boy do I mean loosely) is this one.  

 

If you've followed along with my blog you'll know that I'm a very rustic cook. I don't like following recipes because they slow me down. I either have to memorize enough of it to be simple to execute or it's completely made up. 

 

What I followed from the recipe: a 1:1 ratio of flour and cornmeal

 

What I didn't follow from the recipe: everything else 😂 

I didn't have buttermilk for the recipe, but I also didn't have enough milk to amend into buttermilk (milk + vinegar) so I ended up just leaving that part out. I also did not add seasoning to the oyster or the batter. When using frozen oysters, I learned from a Korean cook to salt them and wash them before using. I thought this would have been enough salt to flavor, but it wasn't. 

The overall fry was great though. 

Tasty.

Proof it's an oyster and not chicken in disguise.

 

 

If I did this again in the future, there would be two things I'd make sure of:

1. Add some seasoning. Or wash them in more salt next time, haha. 

2. Fry a little longer. These weren't bad by any means but they got less crispy as they cooled. A longer fry may have helped this. **We've gone to seafood restaurants before and had dried fried seafood so I'm aware of the opposite extreme.**

 

Now if you know me, I don't waste my frying oil or my extra fry batter. I had both in this case. That same evening, I speed-prepped some shrimp balls for frying. Because there is cornmeal in the batter, it wasn't a true Asian shrimp ball. Think more of a shrimp hush puppy.  But it was improvised on the spot, quick to pull together, and tasted pretty good. 

I don't think these would ever be my main item on my frying list, but they make a good secondary fry to use up extra batter and take advantage of the oil. 

 

 

 

The following day, I continued my frying efficiency by making a batch of chicken karaage. This is the recipe I first used when making karaage, but since then, I just wing it by memory and improvisation now.  

I've breaded it in both potato starch and tapioca starch. Both get good results. 

I love fried food. We never had homemade fried food growing up, but we did fast food. My kids get the opposite. We don't do a lot of fast food, but we have fried food in my freezer on hand. A pipe dream of mine is to never buy freezer chicken nuggets again and to always have enough karaage in my freezer. My kids consume a lot of chicken nuggets, so this is a lofty goal, but maybe in the future when they can significantly help in the kitchen, this will be possible. 

As for our health, everything in moderation, right? Not all of this (except the oysters) were consumed in one sitting.

Fried Oysters x18: $20.99

Shrimp Balls x11: $15.99

Chicken Karaage (1.5 lb): $14.99  

Total: $51.97

Tax: $4.29

Grand Total:  $56.26

Summer Vegetables, Filling My Freezer, and a Compost Experiment

Earlier this year, I had mentioned my garden was running solely on recycled water. As expected, that ended in the middle of June when the rains stopped. It didn't rain for a solid two weeks or so. However, yesterday, we had a decent storm which lasted all of about 10 minutes. For these 10 minutes, I went outside and stood next to the gutter downspout and saved as much water as I could with the containers I had. It ended up being about 10 gallons worth of water. Now before you think I'm crazy for doing this, a number of factors had to align in order for me to be able to.

- I wasn't working when the storm came and my kids were happily playing together. 

- We have a downspout that's easily accessible from a covered location that drains a lot of the water from our roof. So this isn't me standing next to a trickle of water slowly catching it.

- I was enjoying my audiobook via earbuds the whole time. 

I'm all for efficiency so what's wrong with listening to a book while recycling water to reuse in my garden? Nothing! This may have been more enjoyable for me than some of you enjoy your day jobs on a really bad day. 

I get a certain amount of joy looking at the water I saved

Reusing/repurposing or getting creative with items really excites me. There's something very satisfying to me about being able to bring back to life something destined for the trash. I was able to experience this again at the grocery store this week. I just happened to go on a day when tons of vegetables were marked down for quick sale. I picked up over 6 pounds of tomatoes at roughly 50 cents per pound. It's rare to find fresh tomatoes below a dollar per pound now, even on sale. 

The grocery store had also marked down their mini sweet peppers. I was able to get 4 pounds for 63 cents per pound. Yes, there were tiny spots which were rotten and needed to be cut away. But overall, the quality of produce I was able to get heavily marked down was not bad at all. 

Left: the sliced peppers I had leftover and would not use immediately being prepped for saving. Right: the compost tops of peppers.

Most people see these and maybe buy a few because they know they must be used quickly or run the risk of rotting almost immediately. I don't get scared of this though because I prep them for freezing to be used at a later time. I've had to do some searching online to see how others do it, but overall, it's pretty easy. For the tomatoes, I read about freezing them from Woks of Life. Other bloggers have posted about freezing tomatoes as well, but it wasn't until I saw Woks of Life post it when it occurred to me that I could potentially freeze tomatoes. Many of their recipes are the traditional Asian stir-fry recipes so if they benefitted from freezing tomatoes to reuse later, I probably could too. It's not just for soups and stews!

For the mini peppers, I sliced them up to the size I'd use them in recipes and then spread them out on a tray for freezing. After 6+ hours, I moved the bell peppers to individual freezer zipper bags. Each bag was the amount I'd use for a recipe so it will be really easy for me to pull out later to use. I do always write the date on my bags so I know how old things are in my freezer. When I see dates that are older than 4-6 months, that's usually when I start to think about ways to use it in the near future. But with proper freezing techniques and my vacuum sealer, I've used one-year-old meats from my freezer before and not gotten sick. Not recommending everyone take the risk, but removing air is a crucial part of food preservation!

***

With the increasing temperatures this summer, I've not gone outside as much anymore. Also, the mosquitos are insane this summer. I can't stand outside without constant movement with exposed skin for longer than about 2 minutes without guaranteeing myself at least one bite. That being said, it must be a rough summer out there for other critters as well. 

A few summers ago I was really struggling with critters eating my bell peppers. We went through and put wire beneath our fence to close up gaps and keep them from getting into our yard. I hadn't had a problem with any of my vegetables being eaten until this summer.

I've had a good harvest of tomatoes this year already and none of them had been harmed by insects or critters, but one morning, I walked out and saw this destruction. These were still green tomatoes about the size of a large grape, and they were already munched on. Clearly someone was very hungry and desperate to reach whatever he could. Both of these tomatoes were completely gnawed away in the two days following this discovery. My other tomatoes are growing much higher on their stems so they've avoided the wrath of a mammal's feasting. 

***

I discovered this summer my compost bin is dying on the inside. The metal rod in the middle of the bin is severely rusted and about to break apart due to all the corrosion. It's definitely on its last leg and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to use it before it's not effective anymore. In the mean time, I've been trying an open compost method to experiment.

I had an extra large pot which wasn't being used this year for planting. It had some leftover soil in it but was only about halfway full. It's placed in full sun outside, and with the hot temperatures during the summer, I figured it might be a great location to do some quick composting. For the last week or so, I've been throwing food scraps directly into the pot. I give it a stir once a day in the morning when I go out and do my daily garden check and continue adding scraps as they come with my cooking. You can see below, the photo from the left is from the day I threw in my pepper tops. The photo on the right is from this morning's check and stir. When it gets extra dry, I do water the soil to keep things hydrated.  With yesterday's storm, I probably won't need to add water for at least a couple of days. 

I've never been a fan of open composting due to critters and pests. That's why this was an experiment. My pot is 24 inches tall and it is only half full. I make sure most of the scraps are covered in soil. I haven't physically seen any critters get to my compost pot yet. I will continue this experiment through the rest of the summer and then reassess what to do once the weather cools down and this method will not work as quickly. 

I realize not everyone enjoys these tasks of homemaking and outdoor care like I do. But if you're at all interested or intrigued, I hope you'll give it a try at least once! Once upon a time....that was me. 

Takeout with the Tos #17

This week's blog is going to talk about two dishes which are relatively "new" to my cooking rotation. The first is shrimp toast and the second is eggs and tofu. I didn't make these within the same week, but they'll be posted together.

Shrimp Toast

When Culinary Class Wars came out on Netflix, people got excited because it was a cooking show with intensity. The restaurant wars episode brought back a renewed interest in the fried shrimp balls typically ordered with dim sum. Lots of influencers were making videos of their own DIY version of the shrimp ball with air fryer recipes, shortcuts on how to make it, etc. With the rising interest in shrimp, it was around this time when I came across a recipe for shrimp toast. 

I'd actually never heard of shrimp toast before, but it's apparently a southern China/Hong Kong dish. One afternoon, I decided to try it. We had extra bread and always have shrimp in our freezer. The adults loved it the first time I made it. The kids had mixed feelings. 

The second time I made it, I was driven by a surplus of green onions. Costco had introduced a new product: 2.5 pounds of green onion. When I was perusing the vegetable cooler, I saw them. Normally, I wouldn't think of buying 2.5 pounds of green onion at once, but these actually intrigued me. They were cleaned, washed, and actually looked more tender than the ones I see at the Asian grocery stores. So I bought a pack. The price was comparable to not-on-sale green onions at the Asian grocery store. I figured it would be nice to have some on hand.

I used these green onions in the following ways over the next 8-10 days:

- cut raw into noodle dishes or instant ramen

- shrimp toast

- Mongolian beef 

- cut small and put into the freezer to save for later

I follow the recipe from Woks of Life for shrimp toast. After I made it this time, the kids came around and told me they really enjoyed it.

A few notes on what I did and didn't follow in the recipe. I doubled the recipe. I added way more green onions/scallions than the recipe called for. Probably at least 4x if not more. I didn't add cilantro into this mixture because I didn't have any. I had actually bought it at the grocery store just that week, but I used it all in a different recipe and didn't have any left. So I just left out the cilantro. I used an entire egg instead of just the white. I know I could have saved the yolk and used it in something else, but the mental capacity that takes was too much for me this time so I didn't. I was also doubling the recipe so my yolk just served as volume for the second egg white. I realize this breaks a lot of cooking rules, but hey, this is how I cook at home. I know I'd never get away with this in a restaurant...which is why I'm not cooking in one. 😆 

I also didn't pull out the food processor and chopped/mixed by hand. Sometimes, I am willing to pull out the food processor to do all my work and then suck it up for the cleaning part. Other times, I'd rather chop by hand and not deal with cleaning my food processor. It just depends on how I'm feeling or what I remember. 

Overall, this recipe is a good one to keep because it's simple, relatively easy, and quite tasty. 

Eggs and Tofu

I saw this recipe right after Woks of Life posted it. I already make something similar with my teriyaki tofu so it wouldn't be that hard to follow this recipe and take it a step further with the addition of a few more ingredients. 

It wasn't bad at all. Besides the sauce measurements, I could see myself making this recipe from memory and just winging it. The green onions I used here were from my freezer stash I'd saved earlier. It really wasn't much different than making my old teriyaki tofu. I like how the egg adds extra protein to the dish. Will be adding this recipe to my collection for future weekly meals.

I'm glad to be able to add some new recipes to my rotation and expanding our weekly menu. It's amazing how different just changing some sauce flavors or textures can do to food. 

Shrimp Toast: $1.50/pc * 9 pieces = $13.50

Egg and Tofu: $16.99

Total: $30.49

Tax: $2.52

Grand Total: $33.01

Takeout with the Tos #16

There's no real takeout menu this week. I just wanted to write about one dish. My mother made a version of this growing up. The Chinese literally translates to "cold noodles." We ate it in the summers because it's eaten cold. Growing up, our sauce mix was peanut butter and oil. I remember my mother pouring the oil into the bowl of peanut butter and then my job would be to mix it together. She probably added some green onions to the mix and that was our meal. 

I've never made this dish until now. It was "too simple" and often overlooked. But after our Asia trip and two weeks of not having to cook or meal plan, I kind of forgot how to do it. I didn't actually forget, but my brain wasn't used to working so hard when it came to planning meals anymore after taking a two week vacation. I got a bit lazy. But in my laziness, I remembered simplicity.

This is a fancier version of noodles compared to the one we ate growing up. My sauce includes peanut butter, soy sauce, sesame oil, neutral oil, and some Chinese barbecue sauce. I had mentioned this sauce in my very first post this year. 

This photo is from the second time I made it for my family. I had shredded carrots, sliced spam, and julienned cucumber. This would be what I call a "fancier" version of this dish. Everyone in my family loves it when I make this so it will probably be a rotational staple in some form or another, especially in the warmer months. 

Other potential vegetables to mix in or rotate for variety: broccoli, spinach, spiraled vegetables, kale

Other potential proteins to mix in: scrambled eggs, grilled chicken/pork/beef, ground chicken/pork/beef, shrimp, grilled fish

I'm listing these out both as a way to share ideas for others but to catalog them for myself so if I need recipe inspirations, I can look up this post. Also, I meant for this to be a simple, fast meal to pull together, hence the spam. Other mix-in options may not be as fast or easily prepared, but could still work well for a tasty dish. 

I love the versatility of Asian flavors because I can sub so many things. I think this sauce would work for almost all combinations of the above mentioned ingredients. It's true that certain spices or sauce flavors would be better for certain ingredients, but I don't think any combination of the above would taste "bad" together. 

Cold Noodles: $8.99/serving at 6 servings: $53.94

Tax: $4.45

Grand Total: $58.39

Takeout with the Tos #15

Officially, this is the second takeout post for this summer. We've survived our jet lag and are back on a normal schedule. I'm excited to bring some new dishes this week from our takeout menu.  If you're new joining in, don't forget to check out the first post which explains where this series came from. We're not actually order takeout....

1. Pressed Tofu, Snow Pea, Fried Dace Stir-Fry: $21.99

2. Chinese Broccoli: $16.99

3. Pork with Garlic Sauce: $20.99

4. Pan Fried Pork: $9.99

5. Beef Noodle Soup (calculated from 6+ adult-sized portions): $59.99

Take Out Total: $129.95

Tax: $10.72

Grand Total: $140.67

1. Pressed Tofu, Snow Pea, Fried Dace Stir-Fry

I was inspired to cook with fried dace because Woks of Life posted a recipe earlier this year. I always thought I grew up eating sardines. This statement is true. However, we also grew up eating this canned fish and black beans. I incorrectly associated this fish as sardines as well. Now, I know what it was. It's deliciously salty straight from the can. I'd eat it with plain rice if I could, but being a reasonable and healthy person, I can't let myself do that. I haven't read the nutrition on the can. I probably won't to save myself some sanity because I want to keep eating it. 

I didn't use their recipe but I wanted to try stir-frying this canned fish and black beans. I decided to mix tofu and snow peas instead. I've done stir fry with these two ingredients before, but it was my first time adding this fried fish and black beans to the mix. I was cautious not to over-season the dish because I knew the fish was salty. At the end of cooking I tasted one tofu and one snow pea. They still needed a little more umami in my opinion so I did add some sugar and salt to bring out the flavor. I think it was a very successful dish. 

2. Chinese Broccoli (bottom left) 

It was nice to cook my own vegetables again. We didn't order a lot of side dishes which is where the majority of vegetables come from overseas. It would have been too much food so whatever vegetables came inside the dishes we ate were what we got for two weeks. This was nice. I boil them quickly in salted water and then pull them out. I include the stems but peel the outside off to make it more tender. 

3. Pork with Garlic Sauce 鱼香肉丝 (top right) 

I've always loved this dish at the restaurants. It's saucy with this mix of savory and sour. I've made it many times before, but it has never been the same or even close to what I've tasted in restaurants. In my recipe binder, I had two different recipes. There was one I ended up throwing out because every time I made it, I didn't like it. I printed it five years ago and I've never enjoyed the result. This time, I followed the recipe from Woks of Life.  I will say my ingredient proportions are probably double their recipe which is why I personally doubled the sauce portion of the recipe. Mine never looks like their photo on the recipe because somehow I always end up short on the sauce. One of these days...I'll try to get it right.

Honestly, I haven't tasted it yet because since I've made this dish, we've been eating other things or leftovers from the previous week. So, ironically, I can't tell you if this version of the recipe is any more authentic in my opinion. You'll have to ask me personally about this one. It looks nice from the photo? I liked the smell of it when I finished cooking....

4. Pan Fried Pork

This turned out amazing. I wish I had more actually. The irony is I can't even actually tell you how I made it. I thawed a frozen pack of 18 oz of pork. Half of it I used in the previous recipe above. The other half I cut into boneless chops and marinaded before throwing it on a nonstick and pan-frying. I added a mixture of corn starch, rice wine, soy sauce, and sugar. It sat in the bowl for about a half hour on the counter and then I threw it in the pan. 

It's really delicious. I will need to attempt to recreate this another time. I wish I had more descriptive instructions to share with you but I really don't. This was one of those cooking improvisations which resulted in very tasty food. 

5. Beef Noodle Soup

We came back from Taiwan and were missing the food there. On one of my grocery trips, I saw stew beef on sale and decided to buy a pack with the intention of making beef noodle soup. It's not the most ideal cut of beef but it was quick and easy. (In all honesty, it was too lean. You need a fattier cut of beef for this to be at its richest flavor.) I did an overnight broth in the Instant Pot. My recipe inspiration was from Woks of Life again. I don't actually have all the ingredients so I didn't follow it to a tee, but what I made wasn't half bad. 

The next day, I threw in the beef and the carrots and slow cooked everything in the broth on low for about 6 hours. We boiled some noodles on the stove and the dish came together pretty easily. The amount of soup I made ended up lasting 6+ adult-sized portions of soup.  

The original batch I made did not include the quintessential bok choy. We used boiled carrots instead. I'm a little surprised I've never tried to make this before in the past. It's such a warming meal, perfect for a cold winter night. 

I'm surprising myself right now with what I'm cooking. Hoping to include some new recipes soon. Will need to brainstorm with my family what everyone wants to eat/try this summer. 

Saving Seeds

My son loves to help. But, he's a little too helpful for his own good sometimes. One afternoon about a month ago, our doorbell rang. Immediately, he was at the front door opening it faster than I could open the doorbell camera to see who it was. I was asking myself in my head what kind of white lies am I going to have to tell to get rid of this door to door salesman. 

Fortunately for both of us, it was our neighbor from down the street. She was holding a big box which turned out to be bluebonnet seeds. She had asked if we wanted some and I elatedly accepted. We had seen this neighbor grow bluebonnets before and she had told me about one of the houses across from our side of the street which used to have bluebonnets blooming in the spring. She was inspired to buy bluebonnet seeds and plant them. Since the transferring of ownership multiple times, that house no longer has bluebonnets, but hers does! 

She scooped up a bunch of seed pods, gave them to me, and told me how to grow them from her experience. The first step needed was to dry them. I was thinking, "Great, we're going to be gone for two weeks. Let's let them sit outside under the patio to dry and when we get back, I will deal with them."

I set them outside to dry and our trip came and went. When we got back, I had seen some of the seed pods outside burst open by themselves to release seeds. For the rest of them, we manually opened them and removed the seeds. 

These are what bluebonnet seed pods look like. My children and I sat outside on the patio one morning and opened a lot of them. These were the pods we couldn't finish before we got tired of the chore. I'll finish them another day. My neighbor said to scatter them in the summer, let them grow and die away in the winter, and then they will come back naturally in the spring after the rains. 

This is actually the second time my children and I have removed seeds for a plant. The first time was when we plucked coriander seeds off my plant. I realize they naturally dry and fall off when they're ready. However, we were going on a trip and it was going to coincide with when most of them would naturally dry and fall. As a result, I manually removed the majority of them before our trip so I could save them instead of having them fall all over our patio or blow away and start growing in random locations around our yard. 

Coriander seed is on the left and bluebonnet seed is on the right.

I'm not sure how much of my outdoor hobbies my children will pick up on, but they've sure experienced a glimpse of what it's like to be a farmer/grower. If anyone local wants coriander or bluebonnet seeds, let me know and I'd be happy to share some with you! I can't guarantee the efficacy of growth, but nature hasn't disappointed me too badly with all my growing experiments. I don't recommend this coriander for eating because I've handled it with outside/dirt-ridden hands, but if you'd like to use it for cooking purposes, you're on your own 😅. 

Please note coriander is a cool weather plant so please don't plop it in the soil and expect it to grow well right now. I don't think I planted mine last season until September or October.