Friday, October 21, 2011

SOLE on SNAP Day 20: Classic fried fish for dinner

 Oh, how I heart the Monroe Farm Market.

I ordered some fresh rainbow trout filets from Wilson Mill Farm. I just learned by adding that link that they are Certified Naturally Grown producer. Score! Apparently, it is the "Grassroots Alternative to the USDA's National Organic Program meant primarily for small farmers distributing through local channels..." I'd already decided after eating the fish last night that I'll be buying more of it soon, but the cerfication makes it even better.

I see why they call it rainbow trout now. These pictures don't do it justice, but it was so pretty!
I soaked it in buttermilk. The whole reason I made fried fish was because of that buttermilk and that I recently watched an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate in HD with Sunny Anderson talking about Southern fried catfish. Talk about food porn... At the beginning of the month, when I made my big grocery run, I accidently bought buttermilk instead of half and half. They have the same color cap. I didn't wanna waste it, so I've been sneaking it into things. Like polenta. It wasn't that great in polenta. Too sour. But it was heavenly with some cornmeal on this fish.

What else goes with fried fish than fries? Because I was frying the fish, I wanted to bake the fries. Minimize the calories, you know. I used this recipe from a blog I love. One caveat, though. I had to bake them about 30 minutes before they even began to get crispy though. The recipe says 10-15 minutes. I've tried oven fries with cornstarch, too. Apparently, if you dust them in it with the oil, they will dry up the water and get crispy in the oven, but I don't recall that yielding any crispier of a fry either.


BREAKFAST:
I had a cup of Cheerios with a tsp of turbinado sugar and about 1/3 cup of milk, and a hard boiled egg. Jeremy had a Kashi TLC bar and cup of coffee with creamer.
LUNCH:
My office ordered Chinese today. There's really no "safe bet" when you're trying to order healthy Chinese food. Even Eat This Not That wasn't really helpful. So, after scanning the data on my LoseIt app for PF Chang's menu, I was able to pick the least onerous lunch on the local Chinese joint's menu. I had the lunch combo, which is a smaller portion, but includes a soup. I had a hot and sour soup and broccoli with garlic sauce on steamed white rice. Although it was more calories that I would normally eat for lunch, it wasn't a diet sabotager. However, the sodium on this meal is what's going to be killer. I packed a PB&J on wheat for Jeremy with a Fage greek yogurt, a stick of string cheese, some BBQ almonds and the rest of the pepperjack Tostitos. I also packed a random bottle of water we had in the fridge (I never buy bottled water... it's basically free when it comes out of the tap.) and a Crystal Light raspberry green tea flavor packet to put in the water.
DINNER: Fried trout, oven fries and cole slaw. The fries aren't in this picture because they weren't done yet.
I mentioned the fish was from Wilson Mill Farm. The cornmeal is from Reed's Mill in Monroe County. The canola oil is from Kroger and the buttermilk was from Homestead Creamery in Wirtz, VA. Jeremy actually fried the fish, and he put some spices in the cornmeal. I bought a bag of pre-cut broccoli slaw mix because I had a coupon for it. I always use the recipe for coleslaw in my Betty Crocker Bridal Edition Cookbook. It's a good comprehensive source to have for basic recipes and techniques, because you do need those from time to time. And the slaw recipe is really good, too, BTW. It had Kroger brand natural sour cream and Kraft Light Miracle Whip (the only kind of salad dressing I'm allow to buy as per the hubs...) as the two main ingredients, with a little bit of sugar, mustard and spices. The fries were made from Private Selection organic potatoes with canola oil and a little kosher salt on them.
EXERCISE:
None (insert sad smiley face here...)

STATS:
While this dinner was fabulous, the calories were a little high. Surprisingly, the potatoes were the culprit.
Calories 2,366
Fat 99.2 g
Sat Fat 16.3 g
Cholesterol 417.1 mg
Sodium 5,744.7 mg
Carbs 242.3 g
Fiber 28 g
Sugars 57.1 g
Protein 125.8 g

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