On Beyond Bovine Trial #2, #3 & #4

I should stop for a minute and reflect on the loveliness that is my husband. He hates vegetables. HATES them. And yet, when I told him what I wanted to do, he put on his big boy pants, and said he’d be willing to go along with it. And in doing so, has tried, not just the new vegetables, but other things he had previously pish poshed. Just last weekend he tried BJ’s version of Chili’s Southwestern Eggrolls. And lo, he did like them. He is like totally expanding his horizons!

Oh, and a housekeeping note. Did you know that they have like 236 different squashes on the left end of the produce section? And if I continue on my quest to go left to right, we will be eating squash for 2 months before getting to anything else? So, scratch that. I’m going to meander. I’m going to aim for 1 new thing every other week, and some oldies but goodies during the times between.

Last night I made fried shrimp, which meant it was a perfect time to bust out with other deep fried yumminess. Our kitchen still stinks from the oil this morning, so I'm kind of glad I got all the frying out in one meal. But dang, that was a lot of fried food at once.

Trial #2 Vidalia Onions

Clinton wanted to try onion rings made with Vidalia onions.

Cast of Characters:

Just follow the directions on the box. Except the box says slice onions to ¼” thick and I went a tiny bit smaller with mine.

Deep Fry:

(That big circle in the middle is a slice of zucchini, not an onion)

And Done:


Reactions:
C – Vidalia onions are good.
K – I think we finally found our onion ring batter mix. They’re just seasoned enough, and the onion adds a hint of sweetness.
Landon liked the onion rings at first, but once the novelty was over, he just played with them.

Trial #3 & #4 Zucchini & Garlic

Clinton said his boss made a zucchini bread at work and that he didn’t care for it, so that’s out. The pioneer woman saved my day. Actually some tattooed pastor guy that she had put a recipe up did. Garlic is kind of a fringe veggie in here, so I’m knocking it off the list.

Zucchini cakes. No, not like cup cakes, but like crab cakes, but with zucchini instead of crab, not in addition to the crab, which actually doesn’t sound half bad, but I didn’t have any crab, so it’s plain zucchini cakes.

I bought these zucchini from the farmers market we went to on Sunday.

Anyway, the recipe is here.


Cast of Characters (not pictured, 3 eggs):


Everything grated, squeezed, minced, and combined:

Frying:

Done:
(See the half cake there? Yeah, Clinton ate a half of one and snuck it on to my plate.)

They are fantastic, maybe a bit much garlic - but the "recipe" didn't have real amounts for the zucchini, I mean he said his zucchini was giant or large or something, so I used 1 1/2 normal sized ones, and then followed the rest of his "about" measurements and needed 3 eggs instead of 2 to make it do what he said it should do, I thought that there wouldn't be enough garlic as a result and added a 4th clove, maybe I had too much garlic in there.

Reactions:

K – I really like them a lot, but dang that was a lot of frying.
C – No. Just no. It had kind of a funny zing.
K – For the record I may have put too much garlic in, I used like 4 cloves.
C – Still. No.
K - Did you try them with ketchup?
C - Yes. And still no.

Landon took his little piece and immediately handed it back to me. Wouldn't even taste it.

A picture of a heart attack waiting to happen:

Please ignore the falling off the shrimp breading. In an attempt to not burn the zucchini cakes and the onion rings I kept the oil a little too low, temp wise, and all my breading fell off my shrimp when I got around to frying them. And I didn't figure out the problem until after dinner.