Dr. Who night, fish sticks and custard

The other day Mr. Beam and I had a friend over for a Dr.Who night. I'm still not up to date with the series but we are on the current Dr.  For those who do not watch Dr. Who you are really  going to find this recipe strange so I'll give you a little back story on this. When the Dr is close to death he can regenerate and get a new body, after this happens he gets hungry and craves different/weird things. The last time he regenerated he ended up asking for fish sticks and custard, of course in the show it was implied  that he was eating fish stick and a sweet custard for a dessert filling (gross!) but fish sticks and custard is mentioned  in several other episodes.  I've heard of bar/restaurants hosting Dr. Who nights and actually serving fish sticks and custard and our friend and I decided to give it a go.

The easy part: Fish Sticks

 I took out the Cod I had in the freezer and prepped a breading area to make the fish sticks.

In the green bowl is my brown rice flower with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. In the next bowl I have my egg wash and in the final bowl I have my gluten free bread crumbs. After the cod was thawed I cut in it into  strips and made sure there were no bones, then the dipping began!

It can make a little bit of a mess so be prepared.

 The fish sticks only needed to be cooked at this point which I did after my custard was done, that way they both would be done at the same time.

The tricky part:  The custard

Custard is really just a base of eggs and cream, most is sweetened, more pudding like and used for desserts. How was I going to make this go with fish sticks? After we looked up some savory custard recipes I  decided  to experiment.  Starting with the cream I added dijon mustard, honey, dill, garlic powder, and salt. Tasting as I added until it was just right. I added the eggs and once mixed poured it into the individual baking dishes.

 I then put them in the oven to bake. When they were about done I began cooking the fish sticks. That way everything was nice and hot to eat while we watch our Dr.Who.

 I divided out the fish sticks and each person got there own custard. I was pleasantly surprised that all three plates were completely clean after dinner. Success!

Onions

A few weeks ago I had a huge craving for onions, but not just onions, caramelized onions. Now there are not many foods that I won't or can't cook with, I let Mr. Beam have gluten in the house (He lives here too after all) and  I don't have any peppers or eggplant in the kitchen (as I can't have them) but we generally don't have any onions in the house as Mr. Beam cannot eat them. It's been hard cutting onions mostly out of my diet, they are part of the holy trinity in cooking after all. On the rare occasion we eat out I will indulge, or if I'm making soup I can use leeks or green onions, I just can't use any bulb onion or shallot without Mr. Beam having stomach problems.  I love onions but refrain from using them when Mr. Beam is home, it's like how he won't eat taco bell or chips ahoy cookies around me because I can't have them. After a couple of days my craving for caramelized onions grew stronger, thankfully Mr.Beam started working nights that day. :)

On my way home from work I picked up a yellow onion, I put on my playlist of songs and started prepping  my onion filled dinner. What better way to have caramelized onions than in onion soup? It had been grey and rainy out for days and soup sounded perfect.

I looked in my fridge and remembered I also had mushrooms (shiitake and black trumpet) that needed to be used. Caramelized Onion and Mushroom soup? Yes please. After chopping everything it was time to caramelize.  Now to caramelize you can't have the pan to crowded or the heat to high so I had to do it in several batches. 

Thankfully I was finishing a book by the Gluten Free Girl, so I sat on the counter, listened to my music and read, stopping to stir the onions or mushrooms occasionally until they were beautifully golden. It took me over an hour because of how much I was making, but I was able to finish my book, (which I highly recommend even if you yourself aren't gluten free)

It was one of the most relaxing nights I've had in a while, I always seem to forget just how much I relax when I'm in the kitchen. Life seems to just get so busy, always on the go with something to get done, in the kitchen it's like time slows down, the rush of everyday melts away in my kitchen, at least when I'm cooking, doing dishes not so much.

 I de-glazed the pot with some white wine before adding the onions and mushrooms back in.  I then added some vegetable stock, herbs and garlic and let it simmer for a bit.  It was amazingly simple to make and has few ingredients for it's depth in flavor. I simply grated up some white cheese (I think it was Gruyere) and toasted some GF bread to go with it. It was the best onion soup I have ever tasted :)

Not forgotten

 It's been over a month sense my last writing, don't worry, I haven't forgotten you. To be perfectly honest it's been on my mind whenever I even look at my kitchen " Gosh I need to post something in my blog" and once or twice I would get as far as making something, taking pictures along the way and had what I was going to write swirling around in my head and then something came up and it never made it to the computer. I have a few excuses as to why I haven't found the time to write anything, I have gutted my entire cookbook of it's recipes that weren't gluten free (which sadly, was most of them) I have sense been obsessed with finding new ones to fill up my empty binder labeled "Cookbook" but have had little time to try them out let alone take a picture and later post it on here.

I feel it's a good thing to be so busy, it means life is moving forward, onward and upward. Sometimes though, I just feel like I need to pause and catch my breath and get my head to stop spinning with everything that's going on. Cooking usually is what helps me do that, When I'm really in my cooking groove, I've got my music turned up, I'm dancing when I can and the smells are amazing.

I have a few entry's that I can share with you later this week, providing I have time to post. Until then here is a link to some amazing potato's I made a few Sundays ago, the recipe of which is going into my empty cookbook :)  http://www.wishfulchef.com/2011/09/mustard-potatoes/#more-2261