Rosie's Late Lunch - Roasted Chicken And Hushpuppies.

 Rosie is forever trying to clean out her freezers.

Yes.

Plural.

As in four.

Yes.  You heard me.

Four (4) freezers.

And don't get me started on the refrigerator.
Trying to get anything out of the fridge
is like playing a game of Jenga.

As I've said before, Mr. Hawthorne has issues.

One would think he grew up the youngest of 15 children

and always had to scrape and scrap for himself to find any morsel;
however, that was not the case.
So the constant stocking of the freezers
is just another endearing enduring trait of Mr. Hawthorne.

We have a side-by-side fridge freezer in the kitchen.

In the utility room, ground-level,

We have a refrigerator-freezer -

the style with the freezer on the top. 

And we have two full stand-up freezers.

All three are perched on stacks of concrete blocks,

because, occasionally, we flood down here.

The freezers are all packed.

Full.

We buy in bulk, on sale.

The chicken I cooked tonight was 25¢ a pound. 

I have chickens, a turkey, briskets,

pork tenderloins, baby back ribs, country ribs, 

shrimp, scallops, hamburger meat,

chicken carcasses, waiting to be turned into stock,

quarts of beef, chicken, and turkey consommés,  

veal bones and veal stock.

And more shrimp.

Lots of soups, stocks, and bisques.

Mr. Hawthorne even freezes soft shell crabs,

which I will not eat.

"When I want a soft shell,

I want a soft shell," he says.

To me, everything has a "season,"

and frozen is not a season.

Oh, but I do babble on, don't I?

Let's get to the food.

 Ever since NOT watching 50 Shades of Gray,

I've liked to put my chickens in bondage.

I always truss my birds.

There's a reason:

When you close up the open cavity/convection oven,

the breast meat doesn't get dry and overcooked

by the hot air swirling around inside the bird.

And the dark meat is perfectly cooked.

Before cooking the chicken,

I slathered butter between the skin and breast meat

and buttered up the skin.

 Oh yes.

My hens have breasts.

Yesterday, I had fried up some coconut shrimp.

 Doesn't that look good?

I served the shrimp with an avocado cream sauce,

a lemon sriracha aioli, 

and a roasted habanero/pineapple/mango salsa.

It was heaven.

So...  to make a short story long...

I had used oil leftover and I wanted something FRIED.

I started thinking about what fried object I wanted.

I settled on hush puppies, which is really odd,

since I've never cared for hush puppies at restaurants,

except for one restaurant years ago in Boone, North Carolina.

So I made the bestest hush puppies ever today.

Rosie's Hush Puppies
 1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup + 2 TB buttermilk 

2 TB minced scallions
Mix all dry ingredients together.
Combine egg and buttermilk
and pour into the dry mixture.
Mix until well-blended.
Drop the batter about two teaspoons at a time,
into 350° peanut oil.
Fry, turning, until golden brown.
About 2-3 minutes.
Drain on paper towels.
Serve with Avocado Cream Sauce,
Lemon Sriracha Aioli,
and Roasted Habanero Pineapple Mango Salsa.

Avocado Cream Sauce

1 avocado

juice of 1 lime

1/2 cup sour cream

pinch kosher salt

3 TB milk (Enough to thin out the sauce so it's squirtable.)

Mix well in processor.

Store in squirt bottle.

Lemon Sriracha Aioli 

juice of 2 lemons

4 TB sriracha sauce 2 TB sugar

1 cup mayonnaise

Mix well.  Store in squirt bottle.

Roasted Habanero Pineapple Mango Salsa

6 ounces peppers (I used 1 red bell, 2 Cubanelles, and 3 habaneros.)

6 ounces fresh pineapple

1 mango

1/2 cup fresh orange juice

1/4 tsp kosher salt

Blacken the skin of the peppers,

then immediately plunge them into ice water.

Rub off the blackened skin. 

 Combine roasted peppers with rest of ingredients in a processor

and pulse until you get the consistency you want.

Little fleck of green scallion in there.

Next time, I'll use 1/4 cup of sliced scallions.

I had some of these the next morning for breakfast,

sliced, buttered, and toasted.

Delish!