Well, I lied… I didn’t actually eat the leftover beef stew for lunch (or breakfast) today, because I ended up making fish.  With my  hubby home today, I ended up doing a big lunch, and we’ll eat leftovers for dinner. 🙂  I will now have to fight him for the leftover stew though!  Since I wanted to blog about fish, and had some leftover in the freezer to use, I figured it was a win-win.

I am very super fortunate to have parents who own a restaurant, and offer for me to order food at wholesale prices through their suppliers.  We divide up 30 pound boxes of boneless skinless chicken breast, or frozen haddock, amongst the family.

Now, I don’t actually eat fish.  This is truly the only way the kids and I eat fish.  But it’s tasty, and a nice change of pace from chicken (we don’t do very much red meat).  (I also follow this same recipe with chicken though!)  It’s healthier and cheaper than buying frozen fish sticks that are allergy free.  And of course WAY healthier than the other fish sticks you can buy, although not as cheap.  It’s the bread crumbs that push up the price.

When I was baking bread all the time, I made my own bread crumbs from stale bread pieces, heels, etc.  But they were NEVER as good as these bread crumbs*.

I start by cutting up the fish or chicken while it’s still partly frozen.  (Easier to work with that way.)

I then dip the pieces into either egg, or a ground flax/water mixture.  (I use the ground flax most often.  Today was actually a combination of both).

I then bake them on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 375 until crispy on the outside and cooked through.  (The time depends on how frozen they still are.. but I think the average is around 20 minutes).  I do flip them after about 12 minutes or so, to help the other side brown.

We are especially fond of these with mashed potatoes and green beans.  🙂

When I was the only one eating gluten free, I used to make to separate kinds of fish sticks (or chicken) in an effort to be frugal.  I continued for a while after Little M also started eating gluten-free, but the stress and mess just wasn’t worth it. It’s not something we eat every week.  So I choose healthy and happy, and a little less frugal with this meal.  (If we had to BUY allergy free ones, we would almost never eat them at all!)

*I have used another kind of GF bread crumb that was cheaper, and had a little heat to it, which I would mix in, especially before I found a ketchup I could use.  Oh. That’s right.  If we dip it in ketchup does it still count as eating fish? 😀

* I just realized how funny it might sound, that I grew up in the restaurant business, and am admittedly quit dangerous and slow-to-learn in the kitchen.  (Seriously, that post is a good read… I still have the print of the sole of  my shoe on the kitchen floor 5 years later to prove it).  They only serve breakfast and lunch, however, so I DO make a killer omelet, per my dad’s teaching, and he is who I learned to bread fish from. 🙂

This is part of a 31 Days series on Less Stress in Allergy-Free Eating.  To view a list of all the posts in the series you can go here. To subscribe to my posts via email, you can go to my homepage, and type in your email address in the box on the right-hand margin.  To view the list of over 700 bloggers participating in this 31 Days blogging challenge go here!