#tbt - Superbowl 2017 App Feast

The Super Bowl was a food bust for me this year - we were going to do up a big wing feast and app platter, but needed to organize and clean the apartment in order to deep fry, but then that got delayed and life happened and we ended up ordering out. That in itself was an ordeal where I ordered wings and they never came with out takeout order, and I'm still in negotiations with a complaint department and well, here were some tasty wings I made last year.

Happy National Pizza Day!

LOTW 2018 SCORE GUIDE

For years I have been developing, tweaking and revisiting my SCORE guide for the restaurants that I review.  There have been multiple versions with the point amounts getting bigger, then smaller, then bigger again.

The point of THE SCORE is to document in a quick visual chart the quality and options of a restaurants chicken wing offerings. I want to make my wing reviews 'scientific' and measurable so that anyone read it knows it's not just an opinion.

Here is that breakdown:

SECTION A
This is mostly an information section, to get an idea about the wings. There's no score because this information is more about the description than evaluation.


PRICE: how much do the wings cost and how many do you get approximately?

STYLE: what type of chicken wing are they - How are they cooked (fried, baked, smoked, breaded etc). also if there is a particular style, such as Thai-style, stuffed etc.

SAUCES: what are the different flavours available? I will highlight in bold the flavours I am reviewing.

HEAT: If these are a heat based wing, how spicy are they (relative to my heat, but trying to keep others heat levels in mind)

WETNAP FACTOR: How saucy are these wings? This traditionally referred to how much sauce is on the wings, but I'm adapting it to include seasoning for those wings that have a dry rub.


SECTION B
This is the evaluation of the wing based on qualities I look for in a wing.

SIZE: How big, because in wings, size does matter. How long are they? The tiniest wings are a 0, and Jumbo is a 3.

MEATINESS: How much meat on the bone is there? A wing could be large or small, but the meat can totally change that size. Also is the meat tender, or tough?  No meat is 0, very meaty is 3.

TEXTURE: What is the texture of the skin? Is it crispy? Mushy?  Depending on the style of the skin, an extra crispy skin is a 3 while mush is a 0.

FLAVOUR: How good is the wing. I've boosted the rating up to 5 from 3 because this is the most important part of the chicken wing and wings that were soo good in the old score was being overshadowed by size. So let's see how this re-balancing goes.


SECTION C
Section C is the recap of extras around the meal.

SIDES: What comes with the wings? Veggies & Dip? Fries?

CLEAN UP: What does the restaurant give to help you stay clean - napkins, wetnaps, a wing plate/bowl?

WING NIGHT: If the place has deals on chicken wings, this is the info you need to know. And if they do, they get a bonus point. But I don't score places like pizza joints because they would never have a wing night.

OTHER: Any other info about the restaurant experience: are there free refills on drinks? Is there good service? Unique features?

TOTAL: The recap of the wing experience.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

• Ultimately this list and this blog is for me to keep track of what I like and don't. It may not reflect things you look for in a wing, but feel free to make suggestions to improve the score.
• Score may be adapted based on style (ie Take-out joint vs dine-in restaurant) 
• The information is as up to date as of the time of the review, with the month and year is recorded on the Score.

#wingwednesday = Shame Wings from Metro

My addiction seems to know no bound. For over 10 years I have been getting these wings and every time I regret it.

The package looks so tempting, and even in their semi frozen state they look plump and tasty. These need to be baked, but the sauce turns the wings to mush. It's super salty and you can taste the fatty wings. I almost like the taste of them now. It's sick. I'm sick. 

LOTW MEME MONDAY - What the Justin Timberlake Kid Was Actually Looking At

 

Oooohh so that's what he was looking at - this blog!!!

Happiness Happened Here: A Hazy Memory

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

It's Super Bowl time!

I'll be honest, I don't care about football at all, let alone the Super Bowl, but I do love Super Bowl food. When you think about game day food, chicken wings is #1. In fact, more chicken wings are ordered on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year.

Now when you do up Super Bowl eats, you want something above and beyond. So I developed 4, NEXT LEVEL recipes for your event. These are extreme flavours that will ensure you win over your crowd whether or not your team is winning. Touchdown!

 

 

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

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SUICIDE WING CAESAR COCKTAIL

BACON BLUE CHEESE

ZINGING HOT CHEX MIX

BACON WRAPPED INJECTED WINGS

Next Level Super Bowl Recipes: SUICIDE WING CAESAR COCKTAIL

OK, so it's game time and your crew has probably been drinking a bunch of beer. But maybe you have some folks who don't want an ale. Or maybe you have someone like me who isn't a drinker, but if I do, a Caesar is my drink of choice.

What is a Caesar? You might be more familiar with a Bloody Mary - this is the Canadian edition that uses Clamato instead of straight tomato juice. What is Clamato? Clam juice in tomato juice. I know that sounds gross, but it isn't. It doesn't taste fishy or anything. In fact, I can't drink tomato juice (makes me want to puke) but I can drink Clamato. Caesars are savoury cocktails and a little spicy ... and when you make them like I do ... they become NEXT LEVEL.

There are three parts to making this cocktail:

The Rim - seasoning mix to put on the glass
The Cocktail - what makes up the drink
The Garnish - stuff to make the drink look even more impressive.

This recipe is for making a single cocktail - there is a lot to go into the cocktail, but it is Next Level.

The first part is the rim. This is to apply seasoning and added flavour to the drink.

1. Apply the lime wedge to the rim of the glass to get the edge wet for the seasoning to stick
2.  On a plate, mix celery salt and Frank's dry powder
3. Turn glass upside down and swirl edge until rim is covered 

After its rimmed, add your ice, then all the cocktail parts of the drink. Stir together.

The last part is to add your garnish - washed and dried celery stick (maybe you already used your celery to stir the drink?) and take 2 fried and sauced chicken wings, impaled on a skewer. Add a straw. BOOM - Suicide Wing Caesar.

What does this drink taste like? Amazing. First off, you have the presentation - a forrest with giant chicken wings, a red crystal moat, and blood red lake of drinkable fire - how can you not like that?  This cocktail has a lot of heat here from the Extra Spicy Clamato, the Frank's X-tra Hot sauce, Sriracha and extreme beans. But then you have that salty kick from the rim, coupled with the tang of the Extreme Bean brine and the lime juice. Then you have tomato/clam drink. When you have a drink, you're mouth is going all over the place - it's an experience not just a beverage. Then you bite into a chicken wing and well you are just going on an adventure.

Now I don't drink (or very rarely) so I made this virgin, but add vodka. Do it, and you've got a whole new dimension t the drink. Suicide Wing Caesars are truly fit for an emperor!

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BACON BLUE CHEESE

ZINGING HOT CHEX MIX

BACON WRAPPED INJECTED WINGS

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

Next Level Super Bowl Recipes: BACON BLUE CHEESE

When you have Buffalo Wings, you have to have dip, and that dip better be blue cheese. But if you are having a Super Bowl party and you want each aspect to impress the fans, you have to take that blue cheese to the NEXT LEVEL. I do that with bacon, and a bunch of other stuff.

Yes this is a lot of ingredients for blue cheese dressing, but we aren't holding any punches. We also have to balance this dressing out.

Assembling this drip is easy. Having done it in a mason jar was not. I was thinking about the presentation, not the practicality. Mix this in a bowl folks, then transfer to a jar if you want.

The only real work is cooking the bacon and chopping it. The other part is softening the cream cheese to make it spread and mixable.After that, you just add it all and mix. Then chill.

There are a lot of layers of flavour and textures to this dressing. The cream cheese makes it thick and creamy. The lemon juice and cider vinegar give a bright zing to the sour, pungent blue cheese.  Then you have garlic and pepper seasoning. Oh and bacon, crispy chunks of salty bacon. This batch  did not last long.

This may be too thick as say a  salad dressing, but to dip stuff in, it's aces. Dip wings in there, celery and carrot sticks, add it to the Chex mix - add it to whatever you want to add some seasoned, salty, creamy goodness. Usually blue cheese is just used as relief from spicy food, but people will be finding anything to use as a vessel as an excuse to eat this dressing.

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SUICIDE WING CAESAR COCKTAIL

ZINGING HOT CHEX MIX

BACON WRAPPED INJECTED WINGS

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

Next Level Super Bowl Recipe: ZINGY HOT CHEX MIX

When you are watching the game, you need a salty snack to munch on. Yes you can do chips or pretzels, or even standard Chex Mix. But why not take that Chex Mix ... to the Next Level?

This mix is spicy, salty, zingy goodness. Trust me.

This is a dry/wet recipe.

DRY

• approx 3 cups Chex cereal
• 1 cup Peanuts
• 1 cup Jalapeno Ranch Cornnuts
• 1 cup Cheese Nibs
• 1 cup Pretzel Sticks
• 1 cup Wasabi Peas (added at end of process)

WET

• 1/2 cup butter or margerine
• 1/4 Frank's Hot Sauce (or other cayenne based hot sauce)
• 2-3 dashes of Sriracha hot sauce
• 2-3 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper

This is an easy snack to make - mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, then mix them all together. Bake, stir every 15 minutes, and boom - you have Zing Hot Chex Mix.

Make sure you use a big bowl because this is a lot of ingredients that can go flying when trying to mix. Use the biggest bowl you've got.

As you can see, my bowl just barely fit all the ingredients. That's ridiculous and trying to mix the sauce into everything is also ridiculous. I put another bowl over the top so I could shake the two together. And you need to mix thoroughly so as not to have soggy mix.

With the sauce and the baking the snack kind of takes on a monotone golden colour. Lets change that up by adding in some green peas that are covered in white wasabi.

That's better. Has there ever been this much crunch in one bowl? I hope your chompers are ready. You have the overall wing sauce flavour going on here, but you pick up the hints of  Jalapeno Ranch from the corn nuts, the cheese from the Nibs, the dry mustardy zing of the wasabi.

One thing is that this snack is SALTY. All these salty snacks mixed in, it can be a lot. I actually took some of the Blue Cheese dip and mixed it in. Actually, I took a chicken wing, dipped it in blue cheese, then rolled that in the mix. Whole new world my friends, whole new world.

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SUICIDE WING CAESAR COCKTAIL

BACON BLUE CHEESE

BACON WRAPPED INJECTED WINGS

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

Next Level Super Bowl Recipes: BACON WRAPPED INJECTED WINGS

Are you ready for an outside-the-box chicken wing that will impress anyone and is truly next level? What if we had fried wings, wrapped in bacon, deep fried again, tossed in Buffalo seasoning, then INJECTED with hot sauce . . . on the INSIDE of the wing?!?

There are no measurements on this recipe - I did small batch but you can make as many wings as you want . . . you just have to put in the time. It's simple:

• Chicken Wings (split)
• Bacon
• Buffalo Popcorn Seasoning
• Buffalo Wing Sauce

These are relatively easy wings to make, but the several stages ensure there is flavour every step of the way as you eat these wings:

1. Deep fry chicken wings for approx 10 minutes or until golden
2. Wrap a slice of bacon around each wing, tucking in the ends so it doesn't unwravel
3. Deep fry bacon wrapped wing until bacon is crispy
4. Transfer wings to a bowl and generously season with Buffalo Popcorn Seasoning.
5. Prepare Buffalo sauce (whether you make your own or use store bought) served either warm or room temperature, fill marinade injector. Carefully inject into each wing, being careful to not hit the bone. Slowly inject and don't put in too much - wing will slightly swell. Some will spill out as you remove the injector, that is ok
6. Enjoy!   CAUTION - when you go to serve, the sauce will heat up and will squirt if not careful.

Look at this deep fried, bacon wrapped chicken wing. It's glorious even before you put in the sauce.

I don't get to use a marinade injector very often, but this is the best use I've found. Make sure your Buffalo sauce is thin - if it's too thick it won't pass through the needle.

I just can't stop admiring these wings. Look at them, they are beautiful. You may be asking, why inject the wing with sauce instead of tossing them in sauce? You've got a crispy skin chicken wing, but outside of that is the meat, the crispy bacon. Outside of that you have that Buffalo seasoning giving another layer of flavour. You toss that in sauce and you lose the crispiness and seasoning. Put it inside with the most boring part of the wing (the meat) and you get to have EVERYTHING you want in the wing.

You really do have to warn your guests about these wings because when you bite into them, that hot sauce is going to burst out, and it can be hot, and extra messing. But it's like this hidden jewel, or like the inside of Cream Egg. It's a flavour bomb, literally. That's the analogy I want here. Flavour bomb!

I added some of my Bacon Blue Cheese and it paired super well with it, adding that creaming tangy dressing. If adding bacon and injected hot sauce into a chicken wing isn't next level, I don't know what is.

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SUICIDE WING CAESAR COCKTAIL

BACON BLUE CHEESE

ZINGING HOT CHEX MIX

NEXT LEVEL SUPER BOWL RECIPES

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY from Lord of the WIngs

Do groundhog's eat chicken wings? Asking for a friend . . .

#TBT - Tillsonburg Frozen Wings

I can't do math - is $44.97 good for 4.54kg a good price for wings?

1st Wings of 2018 - Pizza Pizza

On January 1st my wife, father-in-law, and myself woke up to our last day at our resort in Cuba. After having not slept (New Years celebrations were MEGA LOUD) and went on until 2:30am outside our room. We woke up early, had breakfast, finished packing and went to wait for our bus to the airport at 9am. The bus was almost an hour late, and the security line at the airport took forever. The airport did not have any food options we wanted (aside from overpriced Pringles), so we decided to eat on the airplane.

The plane took off, and we were in the air. Our flight did not include food, but they did sell overpriced meals if we so chose. We decided to get something because we wouldn't be in Toronto until after 5pm. We chose our seats to an area that would have better selection of items because on the flight TO Cuba, we only had the option of cheese and meat sandwich. I listened to the cart and we planned our options: chicken fingers? Burger? Cheese Pizza? Turkey Bacon sandwich? After the terrible food we had in Cuba, anything would be tasty. I listened as the stewardess approached our seats. Then, she stopped asking the folks behind us, and she moved the cart to the fourth row from the front, skipping us, and continuing to the front. What? Then I heard as less and less options were available. They were now out of this, now out of that. All I could hear was the cheese pizza. Sigh, ok. Eventually she made her way to the very front, then came back to the row behind us. I had heard wrong - they weren't out of everything but cheese pizza, they were out of every meal. All they had left was an expensive cheese platter.We each got that and scarffed it down in seconds.

We arrived at Pearson airport over 30 mins early. That was good. Our luggage waa not released from the plane for almost an hour. That was bad. Got our car, and drove back to my father-in-law's and arrived home after 8pm starving and no food in the fridge. We took the quickest and easiest option - Pizza Pizza down the street. We got a pizza with pepperoni & bacon & Italian Sausage and an order of breaded wings, medium sauce on the side.

 It was the best meal ever.