Daily Recipe: Mitch's Wings

My husband makes good wings. They are at once crispy and spicy on the outside and juicy on the inside. A bit of a production but who am I to judge. If you are into making wings, here is a great techniquie. It involves steaming the wings first and then grilling them. The result is worth the labor. As you will read, this is not my recipe but a series of baseball metaphores and jibberish. If you can make sense of this and like wings, then godspeed my child. In any case, they are worth it on game day.

Mitch's Buffalo Wings

Ingredients:

• chicken wings


• buffalo sauce - can be bought in any store


• blue cheese dressing


• salt/pepper

Pregame:

spread wings. really. on cutting board. find your largest knife. push it through ligament connecting wing and wingette. discard wingette. don't forget to practice safe poultry. by safe I mean sanitary. assemble wingettes and drummettes piled about yay high in abu ghraib style pyramid on a steamer tray in a steamer pot (like the one you steam veggies in). Steam in pot for 10 minutes. Refrigerate the wings on a tray between paper towels for one hour. If you want to season them do so while refrigerating. you forgot to practice safe poultry, didn't you.

Gametime:

grill on low flame until skin is crispy on each side. if your grill is wieldy you may be able to brush a light coat of olive oil on there to enhance crispiness. if your grill is unwieldy the wings may catch fire, which would suck ass.

Postgame:

Throw grilled wings in a bowl with buffalo sauce and toss them around until they are shiny and red, like Jason Giambi's jumbotron photo circa 2004. Serve with bleu chee dressing and celery. Why? Celery is nature's answer to rolaids.

Daily Recipe: Semi-Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Agave Sweetened andWhole Wheat)

I'm admittedly not the best baker. They say cooking is an art and baking is a science. Well I fancy myself a semi-competent artiste but a shit scientist. Anyhoo, I do bake a decent chocolate chip cookie and have been looking for ways to cut down on the evil white sugar and flour scene. I did a little research and developed this recipe for whole wheat, agave-sweetened chocolate chip cookies. And you know what, they aren't half bad! While they aren't low-cal (I assume they are the same calories as a regular cookie), they are nutritious with the whole wheat and no sugar and all. Word of caution: don't go and eat 5 of these in one sitting like I did. I have a stomach ache.

Semi-Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies - makes 3 dozen

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 Cups Agave Nectar 


• 3 Cups Whole Wheat Flour


• 1/2 Cup Butter (1 stick) melted


• 2 Eggs


• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract


• 1/4 tsp. Salt


• 1 tsp. Baking Soda


• 1 tsp. Baking Powder 


• 1 12 oz pkg. semi-sweet Chocolate Chips


• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Dump your eggs, agave, and melted butter, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat with a hand mixer until everything is well incorporated. In a separate bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Slowly add your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until your cookie batter is formed. Add the chocolate chips and walnuts and mix well. Drop tablespoon sized balls onto an ungreased non-stick baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. Devour while still warm.

Daily Recipe: Euro Haddock

Why Euro Haddock you ask? Because the Euros seem to know just how to do fish. That is, select the freshest, most local fish, and do basically nothing to it. Let the fish stand on its own merit. Living in Cape Cod allows me to luxuriate in Euro fish all summer long. Just down the street is a fish market called The Clam Man and he gets the freshest fish, right off the boat. Today, I was bargain hunting and decided on some haddock. Haddock is a medium bodied, white flakyfish best done in an oven or on a skillet. You can do this recipe with many types of fish - sole, flounder, bass....really any of the flaky white fishes. Pair it with a dry, very cold white wine and you are in fishy heaven.

Euro Haddock

 

Ingredients:

• Any white flaky fish you like, skin off, fillets only


• whole wheat flour


• good olive oil


• parsley, finely minced


• fresh lemon juice


• kosher salt

Preparation:

Dredge fish fillets on both sides with whole wheat flour. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet on high heat. When the oil is good and hot, add the fish fillets. Don't crowd your pan and don't walk away, girlfriend. Fry on one side for about 2 minutes max, then flip. You only need to cook each side for about 2 minutes. Don't overcook! Transfer the fillets to a platter, drizzle with good olive oil, squeeze lemon over it, sprinkle parsley and kosher salt on top. So simple. So Euro.

 

Daily Recipe: Pinkberry Ripoff - Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

Any Pinkberry addicts out there? I confess I am one. I will go way out of my way to get a Pinkberry in the city. It’s usually a big pain in the ass but well worth the treat. Now that I’m living in the boonies for the summer, there is no Pinkberry in sight. Tragic! Well, it turns out Pinkberry is a total racket and you can make the stuff at home in like 2 seconds. What I love about Pinkberry is the combination of tart and sweet yogurt combined with fresh fruit and nuts. If you groove on this too, try making this at-home version using non-fat Greek yogurt and frozen berries. You can use any berries you like just make sure to use frozen as they process easier than freshies. People, sometimes I love myself. Oh yah, and the internet where I learned you can do this. Here’s the recipe:

Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

• 1 17.6 oz tub of Fage 0% yogurt


• 12 oz. of frozen blueberries


• 2 small packets of Sweet Leaf sweetener (optional) or Agave nectar to taste


• 1/2 cup of slivered almonds (optional)

Preparation:

1. Place the blueberries in your blender and blend on the “ice chop” funtion.  Basically you want to copy the berries but you don’t want to puree them.  You want the fruit to be a little chunky.


2. Dump the yogurt into a bowl.


3. Add the chopped berries.


4. Stir in your sweetener and almonds.  You can play with the sweetener according to taste. Same with the nuts.


5. When everything is well combined and all blue looking, transfer the yogurt into an airtight tupperware bowl.


6. Deposit into your freezer for about 30 minutes – and voila….frozen yogurt Pinkberry style! I would not freeze for more than 30 minutes or it will get rock hard. Kids will even eat this stuff. It’s yummy.