Fish Fry Fridays

It's a four-day weekend! Well, technically three, but my roommate and I don't have class on Fridays so it's nice break.  I'll be needing all the time I can get because of these crazy projects that I'm working on.  I figured that if I want to get stuff done this weekend, I can't worry myself about food.  So I cooked copious amounts of catfish and baked french fries today!

Fried catfish has to be one of the most delicious things I've eaten and I haven't had it since the last time I went to New Orleans.  It's a tradition down there to have a fish fry on Fridays because most of the population is Catholic and Catholics aren't supposed to eat meat on Fridays.

Funny story: I really started craving catfish recently because I've been watching this documentary on Netflix called River Monsters.  Apparently catfish can grow to be over ten-feet long and swallow HUMANS whole.  I couldn't believe it.  I had to show them who's boss..

First we had to prep the fries because they take the longest to cook.  I preheated the oven to 400 and asked my roommate to cut up some potatoes in a french-fry-ish shape.

Then I brushed on a mixture of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and herb seasoning, chili powder, oregano and thyme.

Then I threw them into the oven and pulled them out after about 45 minutes.

For the fish I began by cutting my catfish filets into pieces.

I dipped those pieces into a mixture of egg and milk, into a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, Old Bay Spice and chili powder, (I like to double-batter so:) into the egg and milk a second time and into the flour mixture a second time and into the pan!

I made sure the oil was hot before I threw in the fish and flipped them every few minutes to make sure they wouldn't burn.  By the time I was done frying, my fries were done and I pulled together a tasty meal!

We had lots of stuff to eat the catfish and fries with: Lemon slices, tartar sauce, malt vinegar and ketchup!  And of course a Coke to drink (:  I swear, the fish was so fresh and tender that it tasted like little chunks of fried butter.

To top it all off, my mom had a King Cake sent to me today.  If you don't know what that is, it's a Mardi Gras tradition.  Part of the fun is that you're supposed to hide a plastic baby Jesus in the cake and whoever finds it gets good luck and has to buy next year's cake.

Normally King Cakes are supposed to be pretty dry, but this one has a cream cheese filling (:

I hope y'all had a fry-tastic Friday..

..and will have a well-thought-out weekend.

This week..

..has been busy and there's only more to come!

My art history class focuses on the American Home and I have to write a 10 page paper about Hearst Castle and Citizen Kane.  As fun as that sounds..

Oh, but I have fun projects too.  Now that we've turned in our first project for animation, we are starting on our final projects which is anything we make it.  I'm thinking I need to go supply shopping for Play-Doh so I can make some claymation creatures (:

Our professor introduced us to an animator named Caroline Leaf, and the techniques she uses to make her characters move are just incredible:
Caroline Leaf- "The Street"
For this one she paints each frame with gouache mixed with glycerine so the paint never dries.  I'd love to try something like this, but it just looks way too time consuming for the month I have to finish my project.

On a musical note, I've been pretty stuck on funky love songs lately.  I think it has to do with the Pandora station I made.  It started off with John Legend and I added Marvin Gaye and Barry White.  It's has evolved into something pretty amazing.

Carl Carlton- "She's a Bad MamaJama"
Michael Jackson- "PYT"
Zapp & Roger- I Want to be Your Man

So, I've decided that I want to study abroad again.  This time it's a month-long summer art program in the French Riviera.  I entered one of my paintings in an awards show here because they are giving away a $1000 scholarship for this program.  It was my first time entering anything in a show, so I'm pretty nervous and I hope I win something!

For those of you who have been to my apartment, you know that our front door used to be a sliding-glass door.  But they recently installed brand new French doors and a screen!  The only problem is now that we have a real door, we have to rearrange our furniture to let it freely swing open.  It's like Tetris, but with real-life objects and space.

As you guys probably know by now: I love food, I love cooking, I love eating, I love feeding.  And I'm still craving my New Orleans-style food, so I took it upon myself to make red beans n' rice.  The thing I love most about this meal is that you just leave it in your crockpot all day while you run errands or go to work/school and by dinnertime you've got a taaaasty meal!
I started mine off by cutting up an onion, some ham steak and a pack of andouille sausages and browning all of it in a pan with some butter.  I put the beans in my crockpot and stirred in the stuff from the pan.

Andouille sausage is delicious and spicy. It's used a lot in cajun cuisine.

That'll be sitting in my kitchen all day and making my house smell nice (till it's time to eat it yum yum).  I like to eat my red beans with some cut up little peppers, tabasco and ketchup.  I can't wait till dinnertime.

I was kind of hungry when I was cooking, so I set aside some of the browned ham and onion and slapped on a slice of provolone to melt on top of it.  I toasted some bread, put some dressing and fixings on it and put the melty-cheesy-oniony ham in the middle.

Who needs hamburgers, when you got ham sandwiches like this.

I definitely enjoyed this sandwich while typing this post and now it's time to eat some ganache-covered cheesecake with raspberries on top for dessert.  I bought it at The Nugget's bakery and I don't regret a thing.

I hope y'all are having a snackin' Saturday like me (:

I'm Baaaaaack

Alrighty! So it's been a while since I've been on here, and I have tons of new things to share!

Winter Quarter has been pretty interesting thus far and the weather has been getting less and less wintery.

I'm taking animation, painting, educational psychology and an art history class about American homes.

For our first assignment we were using this ridiculous program in animation called DanceForms.  It has to be the most annoying program I've ever used in the history of using programs.  I felt like I had no control over the characters that I created.  I made them, they should do what I want. Not what they want.. Anyway, just made my characters do some dance moves and got some weird camera angles and threw something together that was close to 3 minutes.  Haha, the first critique we had of our characters my professor literally said "Very disturbing (in a good way).." 

Painting has been pretty difficult lately because it's supposed to be an 'abstract' class, but I guess I think too much and too literally.  I think the things I make are cool, but they're not necessarily meant for this class.

Plane stencil

Lawn chair stencil

ON ANOTHER NOTE....

I've been feeling pretty distant from people lately, and that always brings me closer to my roots.  Makes me think a lot about family and the close friends that I do have.  What better way to bring these things together than with food?  For those of you who don't know, my mother and her side of the family all hail from the sweet city of New Orleans.  I'm thinking these next few weeks will be full of southern eats (:

I haven't been up on my cooking lately and I figured I'd go all out and make fried chicken, collard greens, baked beans and corn bread.

Yummm......

mmmmmm....

I knew the collard greens would take the longest so I started those first by browning an onion and some ham steak in a pot with some butter.

After that started getting all steamy and good-smelling, I added the greens and chicken broth almost enough to cover them.

I let that stay on medium-high heat for a bit and added brown sugar to taste, a splash of vinegar and few shakes of chili powder.

Reduce heat, put a lid on it and stir every once in a while. The longer they sit, the more the'll cook down. I like them after about 45 minutes on the stove.

I threw a can of baked beans into a pot to warm up while my roommate made some instant mix cornbread.

Once that was in the oven, I started on the chicken.  I made a kind of battering station.  Beat eggs in one bowl and made a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, chili powder and oregano in the other.

Okay, so making fried chicken is a little messy.  I like to double batter them so I dip the chicken into the egg, into the flour, into the egg again, into the flour again and finally into a pan of lots of HOT oil.  The way I check to see if my oil is hot enough is by throwing a little piece of batter into the pan.  If it immediately starts sizzling and floating, you're in business.

The chicken should be fully cooked after 10 to 15 minutes on each side, but flip constantly or else your bird will burn.

I have to say, my house smells comparable to KFC.  Which I'm happy about because I've been craving chicken for a while and I'm scared of the KFC up here.

Well, I hope y'all had a slammin' Saturday (: