Fried stuff...

First of all, happy Mother's Day to all of you mommies! I hope your day was as enjoyable as mine! Tyler and I are excited that today marked the halfway point of my pregnancy!

This weekend I was in the mood for fried food, something we never eat. I pulled out the Fry Daddy that my Grandpa gave me years ago and loaded it up with oil. The first recipe I came across was for corn dogs. (I think stumbling upon this recipe is what created the urge for fried food in the first place!) I love any kind of corn dog, and these were no exception. It was difficult getting the batter on the dog, but once I did it was fried heaven on a stick! Saturday I also made mini-quiches with bacon, red pepper and scallions. These will be awesome to have on hand for breakfast throughout the week, as they can be easily frozen and re-heated in the oven before putting them in my pocket on a plate and heading out to work.

On Sunday the Fried Food Festival continued. While searching my dear friend Allrecipes.com for the quiche recipe I found fried shrimp, and what goes well with that? Hush puppies... (For those who don't know - a hush puppy is essentially a deep-fried corn muffin.) Tyler wasn't too keen on the shrimp, and we had a raw chicken breast left over from Friday night, so I battered him up some chicken tenders to throw in the fryer. Although the battering process was a bit messy, everything cooked up super fast and all was delicious. Baby A doesn't seem to mind too much that I just gobbled down a load of fried food, so s/he must be a Southerner after all!

And what does one do with sticky fingers? Take pictures of course...

Battering up the dogs on a stick

Looks good already!

My bubbling vat of oil

Delicious!

The inside of a hush puppy

Fried chicken

Shrimp (L) and hush puppies (R)

In other news, the babies finally left the coop with a little encouragement (I threw them out) yesterday. Here are a couple pics of them exploring their new world (and not smelling up our house!):

Our friend Sky had a disaster occur early last week: her new chickens were all killed by her dog the day after building them a coop! Sky is one of the original chicken ladies who ordered her chicks with me. Nicole (the other chicken lady) and I have both agreed to give her a couple of ours so that she can start over, so I will be down to nine layers and one roo soon.(I think most of you probably heard that Mr. Roo was attacked by a fox this week... and survived! It was pretty intense and he does have a bald spot now, but what a tough dude!)

Hope you all have a happy week!