Fish Sticks and Custard - er, Mango Sherbet

I finally got into the kitchen.  School is nearing the end of the quarter, work is - well, work - and life... it's all just a juggling act and I only ever learned to juggle two balls at once, so it's been a show for sure.

So happy kitchen time this night consisted of "fancy" fish sticks - they're fancy for a couple reasons, we'll get to that later - and mango-coconut sherbet.  I was excited for this!  Not only because both sounded über tasty from the recipes, but because it'd been a while since I'd had the time to play in the kitchen (last week's chipotlé flank steak with Gorgonzola sauce doesn't count, I was hurried).

Fancy Fish Sticks & Sauce...and beer.

The fish sticks I cut from a fillet of cod mum had picked up late last week.  Yep, that's right, cut them myself - see, fancy.  Then they were dredged first in a flour and black pepper mix, then into an wet mixture (best ingredient of which was lager) and then coated in a mix of Panko bread crumbs, pumpkin kernels and spices.  See, fancy!  Then I faux-fried them - aka put 'em on a heated, oiled sheet in the oven - and voila! Delicious, better-for-you-than-the-originals, "fancy" fish sticks!  Served those babies up with a dip concocted from low-fat mayo and sour cream, spicy brown mustard, fresh lime juice and a Cajun seasoning mix I'd already made myself and I had a great, proud-of-myself dinner.


But what is dinner without dessert? Blasphemy I say!  So I through the whopping 4 ingredients for mango-coconut sherbet into the blender and hit "liquify".  After all was happily blended I flipped the "on" switch on my Cuisinart Pure and poured all that sweet orange goo into the awaiting, frozen tub that was rotating almost as much giddy fervor as I was feeling. 30 or so minutes later the deliciousness was done. Well, sort of; you see it has to be put into a container and then in the freezer to solidify more, so I did that.  While I waited, I toasted up some shredded coconut I had.  Even though it wasn't solid yet, I could wait no longer; so I dished it up, topped it with the now golden  and nutty coconut sprinkles that I'd freed from the oven and spooned my taste buds up some tropical tastiness.

Mango-coconut awesome! I mean sherbet.

Note: I don't have the best camera for this sorta thing, but I do what I can with what I have :)