Tag: party food

February 5, 2025 – Are You Ready… To Rumble?

February 5, 2025 /

Super Bowl is this weekend. Are you ready? Below were some wings I made for division championship weekend and I was so happy despite the fact that it is hard to enjoy with a Taiwanese exchange student and two boys that couldn’t give a rip about sports. In fact, when I was asking the exchange student about football he went on and on how he watched it with his last host family watching the Sponge Bob simulcast. I was silently praying that he wouldn’t ask it today as I wanted to watch the games.

The last time I did wings, I made them in the oven. I tried something that I had never done before and that was coat them in baking soda. They were fabulously terrible. I am sure I didn’t do a good job rinsing off the baking soda and it was just a bad aftertaste. In addition, I didn’t think it really lent anything to the crispiness of the wing either. I would say that it definitely turned me off to making wings for at least a year.

I’ll be honest, I don’t love wings. Making them at home never seems as good. But even eating out, I don’t pan longingly for them. I would much rather have fried chicken and proper dinner sides. But, I thought that I would pull out the stops for the exchange student since Super Bowl is my son’s birthday this year. On the menu is hot pot :(.

This time, I thought that I would actually break out the deep fryer. We bought this thing when we move to South Carolina thinking it was was going to endear us with the natives. What we quickly found out was that it takes a lot of oil and cleaning is a pain, read messy and expensive. When I broke it out to make wings it was probably the first time in 15 years. In fact it was so long ago, I cant even ever remember using it in this house and that has been over twenty years.

This time I really focused on the details. I defrosted the wings to room temperature. I aggressively seasoned them, dried the moisture and I lightly rolled them in flower. Holding my breath, 10 minutes later they looked like the picture. That was the look but how did they taste? They were perfect.

My wife and I have a debate about wings, dry or wet? I like my dry, meaning not overly sauced. The light flour dusting soaked up the sauce but the frying meant that they were impervious enough to not get soggy. This is exactly how I like my wings.

This is what I learned. Baking wings is fine but will never get the right texture. For that, they must be fried. As a result, this process is a lot of work and not cheap. Honestly, if you have a wing place that you like then you would be time and money ahead to buy wings rather than make them. The only real justification that I could see to make your own is if you have some sort of dietary restriction. A distant second to that would be a particular sauce combination that is not commercially available.

While I believe that my wings were superior to any that I could buy, they were not four to five times better based on my effort/cost versus ordering. Also, as suspicious as I am of the food industry I don’t think what I made were any healthier than commercially available options. To each his own. If you want to have the best wings at the Super Bowl party, fry them.

Since the fryer was already going, I went ahead and threw some french fries in as well. I didn’t realize that it only took two minutes rather that the twenty in the oven. Once again, they were the consistency that you would expect from a drive through, not at home. I decided that the fryer still has a limited role in the kitchen and now dreaming of some fish tacos.

End Your Programming Routine: What drove me today was getting ready for Super Bowl. Look at your recipes so you can shop tomorrow, not Sunday. Some things need time to defrost or marinade and it is a bad time to find out two hours before it needs to be on the table. Mise en place is not just for the kitchen but also getting ready for the event. As much as I dislike the home kitchen fryer, sometimes there is no substitute for doing it right.

February 6, 2024 – What is Wrong With My Chex Mix?

February 6, 2024 /

We are getting very close to Super Bowl time. My mind is wandering to snack food. But then again, food is always in the background. This one has been simmering a little because I have attempted Chex Mix multiple times since the holidays.

My wife said that she had a hankering for Chex Mix before New Years. On one of my trips to the grocery store, I picked up three different varieties of Chex cereal. If you haven’t made this before, the recipe calls for the corn, rice and wheat varieties.

The official recipe is melt three quarters of a stick of butter. Add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt, 1/2 a teaspoon of both onion and garlic powder to 3 cups of each variety of Chex, and a cup each of nuts, pretzels and rye chips. You pour the butter over and the mixture and microwave for five minutes.

I should have known that any recipe that involves microwaving is already suspect. This mixture has been around for a long time and I don’t ever remember microwaving it. More so than that, I have made it twice and it is well under seasoned. I even left out the rye chips because I couldn’t find them so there should have been more seasoning per volume.

Over the years many of us have bought the bag of Chex mix. In my opinion it is OK, it doesn’t hold a candle to the home made version. I think it has to do with the butter and the Worcestershire sauce. Plus, I don’t remember nuts in the bag. The commercial version has all dry ingredients plus a soup of preservatives which is a poor substitute to the real tang.

Chex mix is one of my aunt’s staple snack dishes. Every time I have it, I think how I should make it more often. In reality, I should probably ask her for tips instead of complaining online about why mine is not living up to my expectations. Nevertheless, I repeated the recipe twice to verify that the published recipe is not right or at least not what I think it should be.

Honestly, I don’t really know what is wrong. Should I use margarine instead of butter? My gut says to double the seasoning and maybe even triple or quadruple the Worcestershire. I pop popcorn using an air popper all the time and a little butter and salt is plenty for the whole batch. But, that is a simple seasoning, not the tangy and fragrant snack.

What a first world problem; this could have been an episode of Seinfeld. The reason I bring this topic up is that now is the time to perfect your Super Bowl party recipes. I know that I am a risk taker and I often make dishes for the first time at big occasions. But, if you are not a confident as I am or maybe not as skilled, you might want to practice before the big show.

End Your Programming Routine: What I can say is that I wouldn’t serve this recipe at a party. It lacks a lot of pizazz. I will be trying this again with some variation and if I find the secret I will report back. There is an alternate preparation that uses the oven at 250 degrees that I think helps bake in the flavor rather than the microwave. I am looking forward to the testing process.

February 6, 2023 – On The Road Again

February 6, 2023 /

You don’t have to be an Eagles fan or a Chiefs fan or even a football fan to enjoy the Super Bowl. To have a really great experience, I think that you have involve a game time menu. This is really where the rubber meets the road in today’s podcast.

Aside from the main attraction, the sideshow act is all about what I am going to do for the next couple of weeks. Of course, we will all know more as we get there. So let’s see if I stick to my game plan or not.

End Your Programming Routine: If Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of cooking, then Super Bowl is the Christmas of cooking. It is loud, informal and fun. Don’t be caught ordering crappy pizza or store bought vegetable platters with gelatinous dip. A little more prep and many of these things can be made with little effort and are certainly way more healthy and almost likely taste better. Have fun and enjoy the entire experience.