Sunday, September 4, 2011

Hot Wings and Football


My favorite time of year is here! I enjoy all types of sports, but I LOVE football. For the next few months it will be a toss-up between watching the Food Network or the NFL Network. Yes, I know. It's a sickness.







I blame my love for the sport on three factors:
  • The first television show I ever saw in color was a football game. It was in the mid-1960s when I was 4 or 5 years old. My mom and I came home from a visit to my grandparents and discovered that Dad had purchased a color television. The Kansas City Chiefs were playing, and I will never forget the vividness of their red jerseys and the green grass.
  • My dad made sure I was one of the few girls in the neighborhood who could throw a football. Actually, I think he just enjoyed playing catch with me, since he also taught me to throw a softball and a Frisbee. Throughout elementary school, high school and college, guys were always asking me to toss a football around.
  • I inherited a football gene from my mom. Both she and my grandmother loved the sport. In fact, whenever we were all together watching a game, the women were shouting louder than the men!
Seems I was destined from birth to love football!

Football fever hit this weekend. My sweetheart, Michael’s family is holding their fantasy football drafts this weekend, which is quite the event. The fun began yesterday with a family golf tournament. Today features the family draft, and tomorrow is one additional draft. It is football all day and all night!

To feed the hungry “team owners” this afternoon, I broke out my favorite football-inspired dish—hot wings! I got this recipe years ago from my friend Kathy in New Hampshire. Not only is the flavor of the wings perfect—just the right amount of heat—but they are baked, not fried like the traditional hot wings. And they are a hit every time I serve them. Since Michael doesn’t like spicy foods, I also make BBQ wings using the same technique as the hot variety. (All this platter needs are the carrot and celery sticks and some blue cheese dressing for dipping.)

Now I’m ready for kickoff!

Kathy’s Hot Wings

20 chicken wings, split and tips discarded
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup vinegar-based red pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons tomato sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake wings 45 minutes.








Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together butter, pepper sauce, tomato sauce, chili pepper and cayenne pepper. (I do it in the pan I use to melt the butter.)
   





Remove wings from oven and dip into the sauce to coat well. Return wings to baking sheet. Reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees and bake another 15 minutes to set sauce.

For hotter wings, shake on a bit more chili powder and cayenne pepper after dipping in the sauce. Serve with celery, carrots and blue cheese dressing.
           

4 comments:

  1. I love simple and delicious and you've given me both. I live in a football crazed town and our guys - U of O Ducks - lost their first game this weekend. Much unhappiness in this community.I hope you have a great holiday weekend. Blessings...Mary

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  2. This post is great about There and Back Again.it is informative post for football.I love simple and delicious and you've given me both.it give me more information for football.i like this site very much.

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  3. We all know that football is America's favorite sport, but what about chicken wings? Americans consume more than 1.3 billion pounds of chicken wings every year! That's a lot of hot sauce and blue cheese dressing, don't you think?

    ReplyDelete