Our Independence Day Weekend - Blueberries, Burgers, And Fish

We had two July 4^th weekend parties at the dock, one on the third and one on the fifth.  Our blueberry crop is coming in and the bushes are covered with bird netting, the berries are getting blue and plump, and this is Bev’s picking for the day – around a quart.

Thus far, we’d been just eating them but since the haul has increased, Bev decided to turn them into a dessert for our July 3^rd get-together to go with the home-made ice cream the neighbors brought.  She used a recipe from Taste Of Home for Crumb Topped Blueberry Coffee Cake and it made for a delicious ending to a meal of burgers, dawgs, tater salad, and corn on the cob.

For our actual Independence Day, we took the day off to rest and clean up between parties and just grilled some burgers with the meat left from the previous day.  I shaped mine to fit the slice of French bread I used to soak up the meat juices, seasoned with Weber Chicago Steak Seasoning, grilled, and topped it with pepper jack cheese and sautéed onion/mushrooms/green peppers.

It made for an absolutely delicious burger - maybe as good as I've eaten.

On July 5^th our friends David (Big Daddy Dave) and Laurie came over to the dock with family visiting from St. Louis and they had requested fried crappie for supper.  In an effort to reduce the effort that goes into entertaining, which is more fun for us, we decided on a simple menu thereby enhancing the stomach room for the main event - the fish.

We had a appetizer of sweet hush puppies with honey, and sides of green beans from the neighbors garden, slaw using the bagged veggies and Bev's dressing, and hushpuppies from our favorite recipe (unsweetened).   The beans and slaw were made well ahead of time requiring only fish and hush puppies be cooked on the dock.

While on our Charleston area RV trip, we ate at Seawee's Seafood Restaurant and asked them about their breading recipe receiving the surprise answer of House Autry, which is available from most stores.  I used the Hushpuppy Mix for the appetizer and the Medium Hot Seafood Breader for the fish.  This is the recipe for the hushpuppies served with the main course:

Hushpuppies

2 cups Self-rising corn meal mix (see note)

1 beaten egg

1 medium onion – not real sweet, fine dice

Sweet milk to make a stiff batter

Mix and deep fry in 365* oil, flipping once

Note: Can also use 2 cups of self-rising corn meal plus 2 Tbsp. of flour.

This is my plate but of course I had more fish after I deep fried round two.

I mixed the appetizer hushpuppies per the directions on the bag and added a little more water, but after cooking and seeing how dense they were I realized even more liquid was in order - I still have plenty in the bag to practice with.  The fish turned out crispy with a light breading coat and it was a big hit - I may never mix my own breading again.  Our favorite tartar sauce was made using Cathy's recipe from Wives With Knives.

We finished off the meal with blueberry peach cobbler ala mode, provided by the guests and it was delicious way to wrap up.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/3/ & 7/5/14 event dates