Pretty Easy Baked Chicken Wings

If you don't happen to be in an area experiencing chicken wing shortages this week, try this recipe on for size:

Start with 3-4 pounds of THAWED wings. This was a bag of all drumettes from my local Super Walmart. Yes, I do sometimes I go all out with gourmet food sources.

Add some garlic powder and hot sauce, and marinade overnight.

Then preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Put a few pats of butter in a large pan, and melt them in the oven:

Drain off the marinade.

In a one gallon ziplock bag, make a breading mixture of 2 cups Bisquick, paprika, fresh pepper, garlic salt, and onion salt. Then, add the drummettes about five at a time and SHAKE IT UP BABY!

Bake for about twenty minutes, then turn and bake for another fifteen-twenty:

If you like, toss the baked wings with buffallo sauce. But in all honesty, next time I would probably just increase the heat in the breading, instead DRIZZLE the wings with hot sauce. Either way, pretty tasty. Either way, pretty messy as well.

As is tradition, serve with celery, carrot sticks and blue cheese dressing.

Eagles Green: Pantry Raid Pea Soup

So after baking almost a thousand cookies, fighting a cold, attending Christmas parties, celebrating Christmas with services and family, enjoying trips to NYC and DC in between surprisingly busy work weeks, and trying to catch up on sleep ... I'm finally back!

In the spirit of the Philadelphia region right now, I offer green foods this week. This one fits the bill.


As I came back to my kitchen last week, wanting to make something frugal and at least somewhat healthy, this is what I scrounged up:



A few ham hocks from the freezer. Ham hocks are fairly inexpensive, and wonderful when you want that ham bone flavor in a soup, but don't happen to have a ham bone.



This LOVERLY looking bunch of vegetables. Note the green stuff growing out of the top of the onion. Onion are not dangerous when they have growths like this - just cut out the green parts on the top and on the inside. (on the other hand, I would never BUY one that looked like this ...)

So I chopped the onion, and carrot and celery and shallots and a bit of garlic, the split peas, and threw it in the crockpot along with the ham hocks and this:

a bit of flat champagne. Fill the rest of th way with water. Add salt and pepper, stir it all together, and then cook for about 8 hours on low. If necessary, add some more water and cook longer.

E - A - G -L - E - S!

"Orange" Soup

Preheat oven to about 375. Place in a roasting pan:

3 squash, cut in half with seeds removed (I used two butternet and 1 acorn squash), cloves from 1 head of garlic, peeled

Roast until the squash flesh is tender - test by stabbing with the tines of a fork. To avoid shreiks of burning flesh (YOUR burning flesh), allow to cool about an hour before peeling. Set aside cooked, peeled squash.

Chop 1 large onion or a handful of shallots. (onions will suffice if you didn't get shallots from a CSA share) Sautee in a large soup pot with a few tablespoons of butter. Add about 1/2 pound of shredded carrot, and a few stalks of chopped celery. If you did NOT add garlic to the roasting squash, add some minced garlic now.

Add chicken broth or stock - about 4 cans/8 cups. (tip: for a "hurry up" version of this soup, you could also add canned pumpkin - obviously the unsweetened variety - instead of roasting whole squash)

Grate 1 large piece of fresh ginger (2 or 3 inches square). Retain as much of the ginger juice for the soup as possible. Add the squash and ginger to the pot.

Cook for twenty minutes or so, and then blend with your immersion blender. (if you don't have an immersion blender you'll have to allow the mixture to cool enough so you can put it in a regular blender). Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

I always serve with a splash of cream or half and half.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

One of the blogs I read frequently, Rocks in My Dryer, is hosting a "five ingredients or less" carnival today as part of her weekly "Works for Me Wednesday".

This recipe is one that always results in requests for my recipe - which is great because it is SOOO simple!

ingredients:

1 8oz block cream cheese

1 cup ranch dressing

hot sauce

2 cups shredded cheddar, divided

1 can chicken, drained

Mix together cream cheese, ranch dressing and hot sauce (to taste). Mix in chicken and half of the cheddar cheese. Spread in an oven proof dish and top with remainder of cheddar cheese. (Sometimes I put blue cheese on top instead, but that would be six ingredients, so not this time!). Bake at 375 until bubbly - about 25 minutes. Serve with corn chips or celery sticks.