(not beer) battered fish

So I wanted something fast and easy, and I found the last of this crazy cheap fish in my deep freezer the other day, so I had planned on making beer battered fish.  Now, I don't usually have beer in the house but I thought for sure one of my friends or neighbors nearby would have at least one can to sell me.  And I didn't want to buy a six-pack just for this.  So I searched around for a recipe for just "battered fish".  There wasn't one in any of my five cookbooks, but I found this beauty on the internet.  The batter was not as light and fluffy as it would have been with the beer, but the only alternative would've been dragging all 3 kids into a bar  to get a six pack, or into the beer distributor to buy a case.  Not. Gonna. Happen.

 So I thawed the fish and decided to slice an onion and make battered onion rings.  All you do is mix: 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup baking powder (yes, CUP), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup water.  Mix it thoroughly, and dredge your fish and onion rings through it.  Now, the online recipe said to fry them in a pan of oil.  I just turned on my deep fryer and fried them there.  Should've done them in a pan.  Why?  Because any molecules of loose batter are now semi-permanantly stuck to my deep fryer basket.  And the edges where it initially boiled over.  By the way, only takes 3 minutes on 375 for the fish, 2 for the onion rings.

So in five minutes of cooking (and roughly 10 of prep) I had a complete meal for my kids.  Only I realized the boys might not eat the onion rings.  So I made some broccoli (about 1/3 of a bag) for the boys.  It's healthier anyway.  It turns out everyone had some of everything.  Which is fine by me.

All done, mom!  What's for dessert?

When the broccoli was cooking in the microwave (a little butter and garlic salt, nuke for 3 1/2 minutes, and voila!) I stirred up some instant butterscotch pudding:  2 cups milk and 1 packet of pudding mix, stir for 2 minutes, pour into tupperware (or in my case, dixie cups) and chill.  By the time we were done eating, the pudding was ready.

So our total for tonight was: $3.29 for 1 pound of crazy cheap fish, 2 onions (out of a 98 cent pack of 7 onions) 28 cents, 1/3 pack of frozen broccoli (1.88/pk) for 63 cents, 2 1/2 cups milk (55 cents), one pack instant pudding (50 cents), and probably another 50 cents worth of flour and baking soda, giving us a total of $5.75

And there was enough left over to give a full adult serving to my neighbors.

Even though they didn't have any beer.