Fishy Fishy Fishy!

*No computers were harmed in the making of this blog entry...despite my temptation...sorry for the delay...again...*

This week was a week for learning and acceptance. Learning and accepting that I cannot make up a recipe without some kind of guide, especially when dealing with sardines. Let me explain about the sardines first.

Okay, so I don’t know if you know, but sardines are really, really good for you. They have a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids in them and, since they’re small, they don’t have the same mercury levels as other fish. They’re also really cheap and very filling. All of this made them sound really appealing to me, so I tried them once on toast. They were okay, but, see, sardines are packaged whole, and their bones are edible. While I was eating my sardine-toast, I pulled one of the little filets off and saw a tiny spine lying there. That kind of freaked me out and made me feel weird, so I decided not to do sardine-toast again.



This time I decided to do something like tuna melts or crab cakes, but with the sardines. Here’s the thing: I have never made either and I didn’t look up a recipe for reference. This is the recipe I made up on the spot…

Sardine Melts
2 tins sardines in olive oil
2 tbsp bread crumbs (I used Italian style)
Sandwich thins
Cheese

Open the tins and reserve the oil from both in a little bowl. Empty sardines into a large bowl and pour bread crumbs over them. Mix everything together. Then form into patties (I used a big spoon first then just resorted to my hands). Pour the reserved oil into a pan and heat over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, carefully place the patties down and fry on one side. Flip and fry the other side. Put the completed patties on the sandwich thins and immediately top with cheese so it melts.








Hot sardine oil... + Sardine patties... = Sardine patty melts...kind of...


As I’m sure you can guess, there were lots of things that went wrong here, despite my good and healthy intentions. My two fur-babies started complaining that they were hungry after I had started the oil, so it got too hot while I was busy trying to get puppies to sit for their food. The patties I made were too small for the sandwich thins, so I had to double and triple them up. The two, little curs I had just fed stole one of the completed sandwiches later when I accidentally left them unattended on the coffee table. Later on, after telling Jennifer at work about this new dish, I realized I probably should have mixed in some eggs as a binder. Finally, and this is a little gross, my burps tasted like sardines for hours after I ate.

Like I said, a week for learning and acceptance. I can only hope that you might have better luck with this if you give it a try.

PS: Next week will be exciting, as I will have {guinea pigs} houseguests. I also have a new immersion blender thanks to Mike’s grandma, Bess, who sent it to me for my birthday. I can’t wait to see what I make!