Girls' Day Out

A few weeks ago the Foodie Daughter approached me

with an idea for a mother-daughter outing.

A couple of years ago we attended a live performance of

Riverdance and enjoyed it immensely,

despite the fact that I had a human bobble-head

sitting in the seat in front of me.

This time around,

Lord of the Dance

had come to town.

Sounds like a plan, dear daughter.

But first, the two Foodie girls felt the need for

sustenance.

After reviewing several options

(this town is a foodie's paradise, after all),

we decided to go to our favorite downtown restaurant,

Scotty's Brewhouse.

Upon arrival, we were informed that there would

be a 20 to 25 minute wait.

But wait - the Foodie Daughter is now 21,

so we could sit at the bar.

And there was no wait for that.

Score!

I warned my daughter that she would have to

get her driver's license ready.

I just didn't realize that I also would have to show my ID.

Squee! I got carded!

While eating out with my 21 year-old daughter.

What a nice bartender.

Of course we had to order the Dill Chips as a starter.

The dish is described thusly:

dill chips (SBH Hot)
thick sliced pickles, brewhomemade batter,

horseradish sauce or ranch dressing. $7.75

I decided to order that Hoosier classic

- a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich.

I also chose to have seasoned waffle fries with my meal.

This was a breaded pork center-cut tenderloin,
fried golden brown on a toasted kaiser bun. $10.25

The sandwich was hearty, meaty

and not even remotely greasy.

Not necessarily an easy feat to achieve.

The waffle fries were crispy on the outside

and light and fluffy on the inside.

Just how I like my fries.

The service was terrific,

the staff was friendly

and the food was delicious.

And now you know why this is one of our favorite

restaurants in town.

After we had feasted,

we headed to campus and spent some time

wandering the Indiana Memorial Union (the IMU)*

until it was time to head to the Auditorium for the show.

All in all, we had an enjoyable time

and welcomed the chance to bond once again.

*Expect to see a post on that soon.

Bonus:

As I was driving to a luncheon in town the other day,

I spotted this amusing sight.

I thought you would enjoy seeing it also.

Admit it:

it's not every day that you see

a rubber chicken hanging out of the

back of a vehicle, now is it?

In Hot Oil

I decided to make something very different last evening, using a cooking method that we rarely use. That's right folks, it was a fried-foods-palooza!

I have boneless tilapia fillets in the freezer and potatoes in the pantry. Fish and chips, anyone? Except... let's make pommes frites instead of regular french fries (English chips).

I have three russet potatoes for three people. While peel-on french fries are delicious, my husband prefers his peeled, so the good wife peels the potatoes.

Now, this is one of my tricks to stress-free cooking: I go into the kitchen in the afternoon and do a lot of the prep work then, so that come dinner time all that is left is the actual cooking.

Since these potatoes will be sitting a while before they cook, I submerge them in water so that they don't turn brown.

More prep work: here we have the ingredients for the fish. Cornstarch will coat the cut fish so that the wet batter will stick to the wet fish.

Beer, Old Bay seasoning and Beer Batter Mix combine for the batter.

I took three tilapia fillets out of the freezer.

Slice each fillet crosswise into 1 to 1-1/2 inch strips. Notice that I used my fish cutting mat in order to eliminate cross-contamination.

Coat the tilapia strips with corn starch and store in the refrigerator until needed.

Mix together the batter according to package directions. I also added a bit of Old Bay seasoning for additional flavor.

Hmm, daughter Kelley has been craving fried pickles. I think I'll have to add this to the menu.

Inspired by Rosie Hawthorne and some recipes online, I decide to make a blue cheese dip for the pommes frites and the fried pickles.

I mixed together equal parts mayonnaise and light sour cream and added in a pinch of ground cayenne pepper, a dash of Frank's Hot Sauce, 1/3 finely diced celery, a couple of tablespoons of minced red onion, minced celery and parsley leaves. Lastly, I stirred in enough crumbled blue cheese to suit.

Into the refrigerator this goes. Heh, I sound like Sandra Lee.

And finally we get to the cooking. First, I heated the oil to 300 degrees and cooked the potatoes for 3 minutes.

Take out of the oil and drain. This is the first step to making pommes frites, which are twice-fried french fries.

After the oil has been heated to 350 to 375 degrees, it's time to start cooking the rest of the food.

First, daughter Kelley coats the drained and dried pickles in the batter and adds them to the oil.

Set aside to drain.

Next comes the fish. Remember to not crowd the pan and don't over-cook the fish.

You know, the cook needs a snack to sustain her through the tedious cooking process. Don't mind me as I snack on these lovely fried dill pickles.

After the fish was finished cooking, I began frying the pommes frites a second time. Unfortunately, this is also about the time my old electric skillet decided that it was tired.

The first clue was that despite giving the oil plenty of time to come back up to temperature, the french fries just wouldn't brown. Indeed, they ended up a bit greasy, which is a sign that your oil is not hot enough.

The second clue was when my daughter went to pull the plug out of the outlet only to find that the plug was almost too hot to handle and sparks flew as she disconnected the plug from the outlet. In addition, there is now a scorch mark on the face of the outlet.

I don't need to tell you that the skillet went into the trash after it had cooled.

Now, I need to figure out how I am going to replace it. Do I get a dedicated deep fryer? Hmm, but we only deep fry foods a very few times a year. Do I get another (this was my second) electric skillet? Or do I lay out a nice wad of money for a heavy dutch oven? Decisions, decisions...

And by the way, this was delicious, even with the drama. A nice pea salad rounded out the dinner. But I do think that I will stick to just frying my french fries once from now on.