What's For Dinner??

Cooking and Baking came to me at an early age, and I guess you
could say It just comes naturally to me:

On our Farm we raise Catfish, and we eat a lot of Catfish but
we all love it.

We have several rearing ponds on our farm, and a fairly big
lake; No boats are allowed with any kind of Motor, if you want
to get out on a boat we have a nice rowboat..
Fresh caught Catfish to eat, there just is nothing better.
Because we don't allow any type of motor's on our lake ( to us )
the fish just taste so much better, I could never eat fish out
of those big lakes where you've got so much pollution and what not.

After you clean your fish we always like to soak them for a little while in nice clean cold water with salt & ice on them.
Maybe an hour or less or even longer cover the fish up and put
them in your refrigerator for over night.

When ready to start frying your fish we just salt them all over
good each piece in a small bowl mix up some corn meal we use
the yellow cornmeal maybe a tsp. of flour and coat all of your
pieces of fish.

I like to use a nice sized frying pan with heated Oil, You can
use any type of oil you prefer.
Nothing wrong with good vegetable oil, Lard, shortening whatever
you prefer is fine just make sure your grease is nice and hot
and ready for the fish to be dropped into the skillet;

Some people use deep fryers which is fine, not necessary but
its fine.

pepper the fish once you've got them placed in the skillet
do not get the pieces too close to each other they kinda
need room to breathe and you don't want the coating to come off
from the pieces being so close together.

After we pepper each piece of fish we like to add red pepper
to each piece too, it just gives it a very good flavor and we've
done this for many many years, we wouldn't fry up our fish
without using the red pepper on them and when you later turn
your pieces of fish, be sure to use the black pepper again and
be sure to put more red pepper on them; Very very good!!

You want your fish to be nice and done, don't over cook them either but you can tell they are done by the way they are starting to flake.
depending on how many pieces you are frying this part won't take
long at all just keep an eye them, be sure to turn them when
needed, don't stab the fish pieces with a fork now gently turn
them over piece by piece now;

What's Catfish without Cornbread?? I just don't know myself
its always fixed for our meals..
if you never have made this its really simple to do; You can
make it right off of the box from the Cornmeal box; You have
many varieties of cornbread to choose from in your grocery store
and there are several good ones; But if I do use a packaged
variety I always add more to it; Most packaged mixes just need
some extra help to them and I'll explain what I mean later on;

OLD FASHIONED CORN BREAD

1 c. flour
3/4 c. meal
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 egg
1 c. milk
2 tbsp. shortening

Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown.

there are many recipe variations out there , experiment
be creative;

Right now I'm going to show you my finished up Corn bread
straight out of the oven;

Now it may look a little funny to you and that's ok too;
I like mine using the flat tops baking pan, its a very flat
surfaced pan I got mine from Brylane Home:

Muffin-Top Pan

Item # 1543-74515-1335

$15.99

If Tops Are Your Favorite Parts... You'll want this unique Muffin-Top Pan. Six shallow cups bake 4" Diam. crispy, crusty tops - no bottom part to throw away! Steel with non-stick finish. Dishwasher safe.½"Hx13½"Wx11½"D.

Buy 2, or more, save $1.01 on each item

My mixture for home made corn bread:

HOMEMADE CORNBREAD MUFFINS

2 c. cornmeal (yellow)
1 tbsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 c. flour
1/3 c. Sugar ( yes we like sugar in ours )
1 egg
1/2 cup or more of milk

Mix dry ingredients together in small mixing bowl. Add buttermilk, or MILK if you prefer,
until all dry ingredients are mixed together and the mixture is a thick liquid. You want the batter to be "grainy" if its not grainy add more cornmeal use your own judgment on this you don't
want the mixture to be too wet aka soupy...add more cornmeal!

Pour the mixture into muffin pan. Fill each muffin hole half full. Cook on 400 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes or until the muffins have risen and are lightly brown.

Now this may sound a bit odd to some of you out there, and
it may seem perfectly normal to the rest of you;
But you can fry your potatoes right in the fish grease, not
only do they taste great, but it helps clean up/clear up
the fish grease so that you can strain, & drain it and re use
the cleaned up grease on your next fish fry;

Just check out these great looking potatoes frying here, when
my fish is almost all the way done I just drop those potatoes
right in there with the fish as it finishes up; It does not
change the taste of your fish one bit ( trust me ) we've done
this a thousand times and then some (G)!

Well I hope I've made you a little bit hungry by now (G)!
I know I am!! LOL!

Here's my plate of Cornbread,

LET'S EAT!!!

So are you Hungry yet?? I am (G)!!!

ENJOY!!!

And for Dessert, we have our HOME MADE APPLE PIE!!

MORGANNA'S HOME MADE APPLE PIE!

Things You'll Need:

* 6-8 med-large apples about ( 2 lbs )
* 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
* 3/4 to 1 cup sugar
* 2 Tablespoons flour
* 1/2 - 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
* dash ground nutmeg
* 2 tablespoons butter

Pastry for a double crust pie:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup lard or shortening
6 to 7 Tablespoons cold water

If you don't want to make and prepare your own pie crusts
just buy a Pillsbury Deep dish pie crusts will work just as good
and ( lots quicker) (G)!

Ready to make that pie now?
Peel, core and thinly slice apples ( my family likes a tart apple)
we grow our own on our farm and for the life of me We can't remember
what the tree is, but its a very tart tasting apple, ( red) a lot
more than Johnathon which is fine but I don't use them anymore;
We just use these that are grown on our farm...but experiment that's
what its all about I do like FUJI too for baking;
ok back to our pie after slicing up your apples thinly as you do each
one put them in a LARGE BOWL with the lemon juice in the bottom
gently stir up the apples so that they all get coated with the lemon
juice this keeps them from turning brown on you while you prepare
all the apples; You can add more lemon juice too as you go along
I do and it just makes that pie all the better ( taste wise);

once you get all your apples peeled and ready to fill your pie crust
now add all the other ingredients as mentioned up above; gently stir
your apples and mix to make sure all the apples get a nice coating;
just keep giving them a few stirs , let it set a minute give it time
for those juices of the apples and lemon juice to kinda get the sugar
and stuff mixed up good;
now you are ready to fill your pie crust up mound your mixture and kinda make the center a bit fuller/bigger and dot the pie with the butter, put your top layer crust on , do the fancy edges to make the pie crusts seal up nicely be sure to insert your knife about 4-5 places
so that the pie has steam vents/hopefully your pie will not bubble over but don't bet on it most all fruit pies make this mess (G)!
I like to brush a bit of milk on my top pie crust, and sprinkle a little sugar all over the pie;
you can also brush your pie crusts
with egg whites either way helps to really darken up your crust;

bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes I also put one of those
pie rim covers around the edge of my pie for this first round of baking that way my edges don't get too dark, if you don't have a rim use some foil and gently place it all around the pie crusts ends..
after this first round of baking you can remove the foil or the rim lid;
I next finish baking my pie at about 350 degrees for maybe another 30 minutes to an hour, keep an eye on your pie, make sure its not getting
too brown on the crust before the apples get done; you can do a simple
fork test in through one of the slits to see if the apples are getting
tender all in all expect the pie to bake at least an hour if not longer;
just keep an eye on it ok? enjoy the heavenly smell as it bakes too!

Tips & Warnings

* Helpful tip place your pie onto a baking pan, or any old pan or something
* that when it bubbles over its not gonna be on the bottom of your stove;
* so get a good size pan and place your pie on it ok? Its one more dish
* to clean up but its well worth it in the long run;
* be sure to always use good potholders when removing items from the hot
* stove;

I will put up my recipe here for this, but I do have it posted
here as well, HOW TO BAKE AN APPLE PIE