This is the first of Jason’s guest posts that he wrote for me last week! 

Hello all, Lawfully Wedded Hubby here to bring you a special post about my dinner tonight.  Perhaps you wonder, what does LWH do when LWW is working at night and I have no one to feed me?  Well, sometimes I have leftovers or LWW makes dinner before she leaves.  Other times, wifey is too tired and I cut her a break by making my own dinner.  (We would probably disagree about how often this happens.)  Especially now that she has gone vegetarian, I often have to prepare my own meat (boo!  Feed me, Seymour!!!).

Well, tonight is just such a night and I thought I would take you along on my kitchen adventure.  Tonight’s dinner was quick, easy, and – best of all – cheap.  I present to you fried catfish with string beans and Cajun rice & beans:

Ingredients:

1 lb (approx.) catfish

1 c. flour

1 T. Cajun blackened seasoning

2 t. seasoning salt

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. black pepper

1 t. cayenne pepper (optional)

1 egg, scrambled

2 t. Louisiana-style hot sauce

1/4 c. oil (approx.)

Directions:

Combine flour and seasonings for the breading and place in a shallow pan for dredging.

Whisk egg with hot sauce and place in another shallow pan for dredging.

Rinse fish and pat dry.

Dip each fish filet in the egg mixture and then dredge in the flour mixture on both sides.

Cover fish filets in pan or plate with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or two.  Refrigerating is optional but helps the breading stick to the fish better when you fry it.

(Notice how the breading has soaked into the fish filets after refrigeration.)

Preheat a cast iron or non-stick pan on stove on medium heat with at least enough oil to cover the bottom.  Remove fish from fridge.

Carefully place fish filets into hot oil.

Cook for approximately 4 minutes and then turn filets over and cook for another 4 minutes.

Remove fish from pan and place on paper towels to absorb oil.

Enjoy!

In this particular instance, I made some quick sides to go with the fish.

I cooked some frozen string beans in a pan with a little bit of beef broth (any broth or even water will do, but we already had some started beef broth in the fridge) and salt.

For the rice & beans, I used canned small red beans, rinsed, and white basmati rice (which I cooked in our rice maker).  I soon realized that I failed to season either the rice or the beans so I improvised by mixing them together in a pan with some Cajun seasoning and… beef broth.  This is inadvisable.  This is also why there are no pictures of this process.  The result was distinctly mediocre bordering on not-so-tasty.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  Nothing a little hot sauce couldn’t fix!

The fish was always the star, anyway!

Thanks for reading!

– LWH