Fried Food Friday

It's Fryday! That's right, I went against my normal inclination and had a day of frying things. And since it's on a Friday it's even better right ;)? I actually really dislike frying food, it seems like a waste of oil, it's unhealthy, and it's messy. Those are all things I dislike, however, fried food is inarguably delicious.  These recipes were no exception.  Our first recipe was Puffed French Toast, and it was a perfect 10!  Hooray!  Wait until you hear the calorie count.  For one slice of toast, the calories are 312.  Gulp!  They  were crunchy, delicious, and flavorful, and you don't need any syrup or butter on them, so that helps with the calories I guess :)  We had these with fresh berries for lunch and every one loved them.

Next we had popcorn shrimp from Cook's Illustrated. This is a simple recipe, fast and delicious, but again, it's deep fried.

The calories for 2.5 oz of shrimp are 370, and the calories for homemade cocktail sauce for 1/6 of a cup are 49.  Aaron and I gave the shrimp and cocktail sauce a 10 and Owen gave it an 8 and Noah a 9.  The popcorn shrimp is just spices with bread crumbs, but I used Panko bread crumbs rather than regular dry bread crumbs this time, and  I think the regular dry bread crumbs work better.  Anyway, take the shrimp, season it, dip it in egg, then cover it in bread crumbs, then fry away!  The cocktail sauce is ketchup, prepared horseradish, lemon, tobasco, salt and pepper.  Mix it all up and serve.  So easy, so great.  We've had this meal before and we'll have it again because it just is so good.  It'll probably be another 6 months though because I hate frying :).  Tomorrow we're having some pasta from the Pioneer Woman and a little bit of steak with it.