Culinary experimentation.

Culinary experimentation.

One of the fun things about diving is that you find yourself in the kitchen with a box of random produce. For example I once found a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes. I didn't have any idea what they were had to look them up to find out that they were neither from Jerusalem nor were they in the artichoke family. They are in fact tubers like potatoes or yucca root. The come from the root system of a variety of sunflower plant. After searching for recipes, I cooked them up and they were delicious. I have never seen them before or since in a store. ~shrug~

SO tonight I was looking at a box of sweet Vidalia onions. Eating fairly healthy lately I wasn't going to deep fry them, but I had a hankering for onion rings. I sliced them, sprayed them with Pam and then dredged them in flour (from the survival stash I dove for a couple of weeks ago). I had seasoned the flour with seasoned salt. I baked at 350 for a while. They weren't crisping so I raised it to 400. Meanwhile I cut another up Blooming Onion style. I gave it the same treatment and baked it for a little longer.

Tasted good, not as crisp as I would have liked, and a little bit of an flour-y taste. The beauty of this is I didn't spend $2.50 a lb to find out if the recipe would work. Peeling them is easier to if you waste an extra layer or two, which costs nothing since they were free. I think next time I'm going to try a batter made with corn muffin mix. What gave me that idea is that I once found an entire case of Jiffy brand muffin mix. The case had been water damaged at one corner so I tossed those boxes and ate the rest. Unfortunately those are long gone. Thats the thing about diving. Manna aside, it isn't like shopping you don;t plan menus and take a list, you get the stuff and then adapt your meals to include what inspires you from what is on hand.