Oven Baked Fish Sticks, Macaroni & Cheese and Baked Beans...all from scratch!

As long as I can remember, I have always been a self proclaimed seafood hater of almost anything that is caught in the water (with the exceptions being canned tuna  and fish sticks).  This is pretty sad saying as how I was born in Florida and grew up in San Diego.  You would think being exposed to a coastal area with fish about as fresh as you can possibly get that one would enjoy eating fish.  I just can't stand that "fishy" flavor!!  It makes me want to vomit...literally!  Over the years I have slowly added a few things to the list of edible seafood: shrimp cooked pretty much any way, lobster tail ONLY if it is at a Japanese Steakhouse cooked hibachi style and salmon if it's cooked the right way.  I tried tilapia once and had a mild allergic reaction shortly after eating it.  My face got all itchy for about an hour so I pretty quickly decided that tilapia would never be on the menu again. 

I love knowing that when I serve fish sticks for dinner I will end up with 3 clean plates and 3 happy children.  What I hate is knowing exactly what I am serving them.  The ""fish" sticks (if you can even call them that) I guess are technically fish.  Little itty bitty pieces of minced fish pressed together to get a nice uniform shape and size.  Then they are coated in a huge layer of crunchy breading with a whole lot of preservatives.  Sounds good doesn't it?  I am always amazed at the "fish" to breading layer also.  Tyler usually picks the crust off first leaving this pathetically sad thin layer of pressed fish particles.  Nice!  Have you also ever looked at the back of a box of frozen fish sticks?  The ones in my freezer show a serving of fish sticks to have 10 grams of total fat, 2.5 of those grams being saturated fats.  They also take 22 to 24 minutes to bake.  I thought to myself, I can probably make real preservative free, lower fat fish sticks in less time.  My mission should I choose to accept it (which  I did): Make my own fish sticks!!

So with the challenge thrown down I decided the first course of action would be to decide which fish to make my fish sticks out of.  I did some quick research online, consulted with my panel of cooking experts (aka Facebook friends) and decided on cod.  I seemed to recall this being the fish that was used when I worked at a local fast food restaurant in high school that made a whole lot of fish n' chips.  Just for laughs sake it was called Beef N Bun...go ahead and try to make a joke I haven't already heard (crude or not).  That would be a much bigger challenge than homemade fish sticks!!  I worked drive thru and after saying it about a million times it really kind of lost the humor factor, but I can totally appreciate the fact that others usually get a good chuckle out of the name. 

Back to the challenge at hand.  Now that the type of fish I was using had been decided, I started looking up some recipes and kind of decided on a hybrid of a few recipes.  I also chose my method of cooking to be baking vs. frying for the health factor.  I do love me some deep fried, beer battered food, but I really wanted to get a nice crunch on the fish sticks that I knew would be best obtained through baking.  I was also thrilled to finally be using panko breadcrumbs...probably not something most consider to be "thrilling", I get it!  I've always wanted to try out the Japanese style breadcrumbs known for giving food a really nice crispy texture, I just have never gotten around to it or have forgotten to put it on the grocery list and end up resorting to just using regular bread crumbs.  For the record there is nothing I find thrilling about regular breadcrumbs!

Okay.  Fish: Check.  Method of cooking: Check.  Recipe: Check.  Side dishes:  No check....yet.  I figured if I was making the fish sticks from scratch, why not just re-challenge myself to make everything from scratch?  Revised challenge accepted!

First side dish I decided on was baked beans.  I've never made baked beans from scratch, but I've always wanted to...and when I say scratch I mean from dry bean to finished product.  This was as good of time as any to try my hand at bean making!!  Found a recipe that looked good with the added bonus of molasses as one of the ingredients.  I have had a jar of molasses just sadly sitting in my cupboard for as long as I can remember...so long in fact I had to think really hard about why I bought it in the first place.  For those of you wondering it was a pecan pie made 2 Thanksgivings ago...don't worry, it doesn't expire until 2012.  Every time I open my cupboard door I see the cute little old Grandma on the label sadly starring at me silently begging to be used in SOMETHING, but just have no other recipes that call for molasses (maybe I should get my high school best friend's recipe for molasses cookies!!).  The recipe would take a long time to make, requiring me to soak the beans overnight, but they did cook all day in the crockpot virtually requiring no manual labor other than throwing stuff together in the morning.  Plus as an added bonus, it would make quite a large quantity so whatever didn't get eaten could be frozen for another meal.  So it was decided...side dish number 1: Baked Beans!

One of the things I have been in search of for quite some time has been the perfect macaroni & cheese recipe.  I want that one Mac N Cheese recipe that I can finally lay to rest in my recipe box and know without a doubt, no questions asked that it is THE best.  Finding the perfect Mac N Cheese recipe is harder than finding the right husband.  I only had to go through 1 bad one of those before I found the second one!!  I have tried probably 10 - 15 Mac N Cheese recipes to date without any success.  I guess I should just be grateful it wasn't the other way around with 2 recipes and 10 - 15 husbands!!  One of my friends posted a recipe on Facebook that got rave reviews from some other moms I know so I figured I'd just try this one out rather than searching for yet another one online.  Side Dish Number 2: Macaroni and Cheese!!    

Baked Beans: I am happy to report the baked beans turned out quite delicious after all the work they took to make.  They were still a little on the "firm" side even after soaking them overnight, doing the quick cook method on the back of the dry bean bag AND after 8 hours of cooking in the corckpot.  I kept tasting them throughout the day...by hour 6 I was a little scared they wouldn't be soft enough by dinner, but they softened quite a bit in the last 2 hours of cooking.  I think it would have been perfect texture had I started them earlier and let them cook the full 10 hours or possibly boiling them longer before starting to cook them in the crock pot.  I was still very happy with the results.  They smelled awesome cooking all day.  They were thick, sweet and had a nice hickory flavor thanks to the bacon.  It did make quite a lot so we were able to eat them for dinner plus leftovers for the next few days lunches PLUS a container to freeze for the next time I make fish sticks!

3 cups dry navy beans, rinsed and sorted for rocks

1 1/2 c water

1 1/2 c ketchup

1/4 c molasses

1 lg onion, diced

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp yellow mustard

1 tsp salt

6 slices thick cut bacon, cut into pieces

1 c brown sugar

Soak beans overnight according to package directions.  I used 12 cups of water for my 3 cups of dried beans.

The next morning, drain and rinse the beans.  Cook them again using the Quick Soak method on the dry bean package.  I used another 12 cups of water, brought to a boil for 2 minutes, turned off the heat, covered the beans and let them continue to soak for an hour.  I did skim off the nasty white stuff as it was cooking just because that stuff grosses me out.  I don't think it necessarily changes the taste of anything if you're not grossed out by the white scum.

Drain the beans and place them in a crockpot.  I used a crockpot liner for easy clean up.  I'm very glad I made this decision after seeing the final results!

The other ingredients ready to go in the crock pot.  You really just dump everything in and stir.  Doesn't matter what order you throw the stuff in....tastes the same either way once it's all mixed up.

Assistant chef pouring in the onions.

Assistant Chef ready to pour in the ketchup.

Assistant Chef pouring in the ketchup.

Assistant Chef pouring in the brown sugar.

Assistant Chef mixing up all the ingredients in the crock pot.

Baked Beans ready to cook all day long!

The finished baked beans.  They got even thicker as they cooled!  They tasted amazing!

Macaroni & Cheese: Although my kids really liked it, I wasn't a big fan of the final results.  It was just "okay".  I was initially a bit skeptical in the first place because the recipe didn't call for any butter other than the 1/4 cup used to mix with the crackers in the topping, but since it got such rave reviews I figured it was worth a try.  I'm also not usually a personal fan of crumb topping on my mac n cheese, but thought  I'd give it a try.  I did use 3/4 whole wheat pasta and 1/4 regular pasta (just to use up the last of a box) so maybe that added to how dry it ended up.  I suppose using sharp cheddar rather than the mild I used might have helped also.  It looked really good and cheesey and gooey, but after it cooled it just kind of clumped together and was really hard to eat.  This recipe is not THE one.  Guess I'll have to keep searching!  No offense to my wonderful friend for providing the recipe!! =)

16 oz elbow macaroni

8 oz shredded mozzarella

8 oz shredded cheddar

1/2 c milk

Salt and pepper to taste

1 sleeve Ritz crackers

1/4 c. butter

16 oz. macaroni...if you are attempting this recipe, I would probably use regular, not whole wheat.

The shredded cheese.

In a large pan, cook macaroni according to package directions.  Drain well and return cooked pasta to pan.  Add milk.

Add the shredded cheese.

Stir well until cheese is melted throughout.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

The Mac N Cheese!

Pour pasta into a greased 13 x 9" pan and spread evenly.

Crush Ritz crackers into fine crumbs.

Melt butter and mix with cracker crumbs to make the topping.

Sprinkle topping evenly over the pasta.

Bake in a 350 degree oven covered for 15 mins.  Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes until topping is golden brown.

Fish Sticks: I saved the best for last...the fish sticks were definitely the star of dinner.  Everyone thought they turned out great.  Tyler bit into the first one and said, "Mom, these fish sticks taste like real fish!!"  Go figure...I think that one comment alone sells me on making my own from now on!!  I still need to work on cutting the fish more uniformly because more of them looked like fish nuggets rather than fish sticks.  I was very happy with the coating.  Panko bread crumbs are currently my new favorite discovery and am looking forward to trying them on chicken nuggets in the future.  If you've never used them to coat anything you should give it a try.  As promised, they do add a really nice crunchy coating to your food!  These fish sticks were very quick to make and did in fact take about as long as the pre-packaged frozen ones would have...probably less after you gained a higher comfort level.  With a little more work I think I can get them perfect.  Next time I will try baking them at a higher temperature because they didn't quite get the golden brown color I was looking for and not coating them so heavily with breadcrumb.

1 lb white fish (I used cod)

1 c whole wheat flour

1 tsp paprika

3 eggs beaten lightly

3 c panko breadcrumbs (might need less if you don't coat them so heavily)

Salt and pepper 

Prepare your fish stick making station!  In one shallow bowl, combine the flour and paprika.  In a second bowl, combine the eggs and beat lightly.  In the third bowl place the panko breadcrumbs.



This is the order you will dip your fish.  1) Dredge fish in flour mix. 2) Dip fish in egg. 3) Roll in the panko, pressing to make the breadcrumb stick.

Season the fish pieces with salt and pepper to taste and coat them using the 3 steps above.

Place on a lightly greased baking sheet.  The recipe stated to bake at 400 degrees for 10 - 12 mins but I had to cook mine for easily almost 20 because the coating was so thick.  Next time I'll cook at 450 degrees for around 15 mins.

While cooking I made a simple tartar sauce using 1/2 c Miracle Whip, 2 tbsp sweet pickle relish and 1 tsp dried dill.  Refrigerate until dinner is ready.

Assistant Chef mixing the tartar sauce.

Homemade tartar sauce.

Challenge completed....a whole dinner made from scratch!  Please note this was actually last Tuesday nights dinner.  I'm a little late posting.

Homemade fish sticks...nice and crunchy.  The leftovers reheated very nicely after a few minutes in the oven.

Dinner was a success!