Just fair warning, 3/4 of this post will not go any farther than this. Right here. You and me.

I can admit defeat. I am not a prideful person. I know when I’ve messed up.

So I feel perfectly comfortable telling everyone that I lit my stove on fire this evening, losing the good fight and half of a fingerprint on my right hand middle finger in the process.

I am posting this just so everyone knows- Its ok to mess up, and its ok to admit it. Just don’t do it again. And that is the exact reason I will not be deep frying on my stove top for a long time.

I want to blame my stove for this. Its been weird lately, heating up faster and hotter than normal, boiling water on low heat and not even melting butter on medium. I cant blame the stove for this. This was an act of God, or “cod” as it were.

You see, today was the end of Operation Leftovers, and I purged my refrigerator of all the unused, unusual, little bits and odds and ends that have been keeping it full for tneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comhe past 3-6 months. This morning whilst extricating a freezer burnt package of ground turkey that has held court over the freezer since one week to the day after we moved into this apartment, I discovered a strange and beautiful thing. A box filled with catfish my husband caught while visiting his family up north about 4 months ago. Beautiful filets of tasty tasty catfish. I decided I would fry it up along with the potato I found in the pantry while cleaning it out too. Catfish and fries, Cajun style. Good plan.

So I let it thaw in the fridge until around 3pm, when I took it out and rinsed it off, putting it in a new ziplock and putting the entire packet into a bowl of cold water to let it thaw in the sink while I went out for a bit.

I came back and just as I had hoped, it was completely thawed.

My husband came home from work, and I had just started slicing the potato into thin shoestring sliced pieces. I put them off to the side and broke down the fish into smaller more nuggety chunks.

I took my medium sized heavy bottomed sauce pan that I use EVERY TIME that I deep fry anything, filled it with fresh vegetable oil and turned the heat up to the low end of the medium range. I waited in the living room while it heated and I came back, checked the temperature and started frying up the fish.

I decided I would only par fry the fish, setting it on a cookie sheet and baking it for a little while to make sure the inside was fully cooked. They were pretty thick pieces of fish so I figure better safe than sorry.
I had just put the pan in the oven and re-checked the temperature on the oil. All was well.

I grabbed a small amount of the potatoes with my tongs and dropped them into the oil. I do this all the time. No problem. I used the same amount of oil as I usually do. No problem.

But this time there was a problem.

The moment the potatoes hit the oil, the oil boiled over the edges of the pan and ignited.

Not being one to panic, I reached through the flames, grabbing the sauce pot by the handle and moved it to a back burner that was not in use. Again, I reached through the flames to turn off the burner.

The flames died down considerably and boy was I glad. I couldn’t remember how to put out an oil fire without an ansul pull system or a specially graded kitchen fire extinguisher. Neither of which are something my kitchen possesses.

My husband came to my rescue, grabbed a towel and batted down the flames until they were completely gone. I didn’t even freak out about him using one of the good bath towels either.

I took the flame scorched potatoes out of the remaining oil and put them on the paper towels. Barely any potatoes at all caused that. And they didn’t even have that much moisture on them either.

Dinner was salvageable. I had managed to finish the fish which was safely in the oven at that time, and the remaining fries were put on a pan in the oven with some olive oil and roasted until the majority of them were cooked through.

This was what dinner looked like tonight-

Normally I wouldn’t take photos of such unappealing food. I like food photos, but if its not aesthetically pleasing, why take a picture, right?

Well I had to show off my newly liberated fast food restaurant issue fish and chips basket, THAT’S WHY!

I didn’t steal it. I liberated it. There is a difference. At least that’s what my sister says, she was there when it happened.

Anyways, that was the 3/4 of the post that will not go any farther than this blog.

What I had planned on posting in the first place is what we had to drink tonight. Yes, that’s right folks, A NEW LIBATION! I’m pretty sure I made it up too. Hehe..

I like to call it “Blood in the water” AKA- The Jesus cocktail-

Its a little piece of easily attainable kitchen alchemy that anyone can do with a steady hand and the right ingredients.

This drink right here I like to call “Blood in the water” or “The Jesus Cocktail” (water into wine, blood of my blood, you get it, right?)

Its fruity, its tasty, Its delicious, its full of alcohol but you cant taste it at all, which is awesome.

And here is my recipe-

You’ll need-

2 clear balloon wine glasses (No patterns or designs or etching or the effect is lost)
1 ziplock bag

Clear soda
Blue Curacao
Raspberries or Raspberry juice

First, you’ll need to smash your raspberries. The plan is to extract a thick bright red juice from them. You could smash the berries and heat them up, you could blenderize them, you could mash them with a fork. It doesnt matter. Just free the beautiful juice from the berry some way or another.

Strain the raspberry juice so there are no seeds. Pour raspberry juice into a ziplock bag and put it aside.

Add one shot of Blue Curacao to the clear soda. You want the soda to have a colour simular to that of windex. If its too dark, add more soda, if its too light, add more Curacao. Let it sit a minute and get the ziplock with the berry juice.

Snip off one corner of the bag and very gently drizzle the juice into the CENTER of the glass. Do not squeeze it. You want the juice to land softly and float on top of the syrupy curacao.

Keep dripping until you feel you’ve got enough in there. You’ll be able to tell. I say about a tablespoon or so is good.

If you did it right, the effect will last about 10 minutes with as little fuss as possible. I grabbed my glass and put it on a tray and walked around for about 2 minutes, alternating between holding the glass and putting it back on the tray, before the juice started to mix in with the drink. (I had to test the useablity of the drink in a party type situation)

It was very pretty and very good. The simplicity of the drink is garnish enough, so I dont really think this drink is one you’d want to frilly up at all with a sugared rim or any fruit bobbins on the side of the glass.

So, there you have it. I’m sharing my alcohol secrets! GASP!

-A.

P.S. this would make a totally awesome drink for a pirate themed party, btw.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 11:16 pm and is filed under January 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.