The Mom Life: Homemade Fish Sticks for dinner!

On the menu for Tuesday was Homemade Fish Sticks. Now, I’m really not a fish-sticks-kind of person. My husband is actually the fish-stick-lover of the house. But seeing as how I really can’t remember the last time we had fish sticks (and I’m pretty sure they weren’t homemade…) and I had come across this homemade recipe before planning out meals, I figured it was a good time to do it for my husband again.

I found this recipe at PenniesAndPancakes.blogspot.com. I found this blog thru a pin on Pinterest for homemade white bread. (I’ve just pulled my third batch of this bread out of the oven. It is absolutely wonderful!) So after my first success, I started reading through the blog and found the Homemade Fish Sticks. And it uses the homemade bread for breadcrumbs. Cool. J

I had planned on making mashed potatoes to go with this, but the timing didn't work out so we had a salad with our fish sticks. (I went ahead with the potatoes to freeze them to be a side with another dinner. I added that in after the fish sticks.)

Homemade Fish Sticks

1 lb frozen white fish fillets, such as cod

1 c. all-purpose flour

3 eggs, beaten

1 c. homemade bread crumbs*

¾ tsp salt

¾ tsp paprika

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Go ahead and set up your assembly line of components: flour in the first bowl, the beaten eggs with the lemon juice in the second bowl (use a fork to beat them and keep the fork in the bowl), and the salt and paprika with the bread crumbs in the last bowl (use a fork to combine these ingredients and again, leave the fork in bowl).

Cut the fish fillets into strips. It really is best to do this when your fillets are still partially frozen. Believe me when I saw that this makes the cutting a lot easier – seriously, I speak from experience.

Okay, I found a really easy way to coat the fish sticks without my fingers getting coated in everything and looking like fish sticks themselves. Use one hand to pick each fish strip up and dump it in the flour bowl.

Then use your other hand to coat the strip in flour and tap off the excess. Still using the “flour hand”, place the flour-coated fish strip in the bowl of egg mix.

Remember the fork I said to leave in the bowl? Now use that to roll the fish strip around in the egg and lemon juice until it is completely coated. Use the fork to scoop up the strip and give it a second for excess egg to drip off. Now place the strip in the bowl of bread crumbs. And return the egg fork to the egg bowl.

Remember the fork used to mix up the bread crumbs with the salt and paprika? Now use that to coat the fish strip in crumbs. Still using the fork, scoop up the fish stick and place it on the already-ready baking sheet. And return the fork to the bread crumb bowl.

And voila! No super-messy hands! J I’m easily impressed and was very proud of myself for this. What can I say? I’m a simple girl. J

After you have repeated the process and filled up the baking sheet, pop it in the oven and bake it at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, flip the fish sticks over and bake an additional 6-8 minutes.

Pull them out and give them a couple minutes to cool off. Then serve ‘em up!

My can-be-super-picky-kids LOVED them! And so did my husband. J I did too for that matter. And my oldest loved them so much, she called dibs on any leftovers and asked for them to be put in her lunch the next day.

Score one for mom! J (Thank you Pennies & Pancakes!!!)

*Okay, so you want to make the homemade bread crumbs. This should help: (Again, thanks to Pennies and Pancakes.)

3 slices homemade bread

OR 4 slices of store-bought bread

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Cut the bread into strips and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes or until the bread is dried out. Cool the strips on a cooling rack to prevent any remaining moisture from the bread to condense between the bottom of the bread and the hot pan.

Process the bread in a food processor or blender until bread crumbs are achieved.

Okay, as I was typing this out, I realized that I didn’t fully read the directions when making my bread crumbs the other night. But I think I didn’t realize it because I was so happy with how mine turned out. I didn’t cut the ends of my homemade loaves before baking them. They weren’t completely dried out, but held on to some moisture. I found that this bit of moisture in the bread crumbs helped them hold on to the salt and paprika soooo much better – so that when I got to the bottom of the bowl, there wasn’t a pile of salt and paprika but a nice mixture. J

While my bread slices were drying out, I washed and peeled 4lbs of white potatoes. (Not the russet potatoes, but the smaller lighter-colored potatoes.) I cubed them up and put them in my large stockpot. Once they were all cut up, I added enough cold water to cover the potatoes and put it over high heat. I boiled them until they were tender. They were done cooking around the time that the second batch of fish sticks were cooking up. I drained the potatoes and let them cool. Then I divided them into two small (8x5s maybe) tin pans. Cover them with foil and label "Cooked Cubed Potatoes - Thaw and top with pats of butter, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and shredded cheese. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes". This will be a side for two dinners later.