Day 1: Chicken Wings from Alton Brown

I love chicken wings and I love Alton Brown. So when I saw the episode of Good Eats, "The Wing and I," a few weeks ago, and then found frozen chicken wings at Costco, I knew I would be making them soon.

I decided that this would be a good dish for my first day of pantry shopping. In looking at the recipes for Buffalo wings and Orange Glazed Wings, I saw that I had just about everything I needed. I bought a can of frozen orange juice concentrate, of which I used half. I'm allowed to buy fresh fruits and vegetables as needed in this experiment and celery seemed like a good accompaniment. Of course this meant I had to buy blue cheese dressing. Since salad dressing is a "staple," it is an allowable purchase. A loaf of La Brea Bakery French bread rounded out the meal.

Chicken wings are usually deep fried which really adds to their already high fat content. I like AB's recipes because the wings are steamed (which allows much of the fat to drip off) and then roasted in a 425F oven so that the skin gets crispy. But the caveat is that these recipes, while easy to make, require two hours to prepare if you follow the recipes as written.

Busy Mom Modifications

• I forgot to take the wings out of the freezer to thaw (as frequently happens!) and so I steamed the wings for 20 minutes instead of the 10 minutes in the recipe.
• I didn't refrigerate after steaming because I didn't have time. Refrigeration dries out the skin so that it will crisp up more readily in the oven. I dried the wings thoroughly with paper towels before sticking them in and they turned out just fine.

The Results
Both kids devoured the wings. My son, who has very low tolerance for spicy foods, pointed out that the buffalo wings were not spicy at all. The buffalo glaze was quite thin and just ran off the wings. We found that if you let them sit, the butter would thicken a bit as it cooled and that helped it stick. But maximum flavor was achieved by rolling the wing around in the buffalo sauce just before eating.

Ratings

• FKP*: Delicious!
• Easy to make
• Time to prepare: 70 min., if you do not refrigerate the wings after steaming
• Prognosis: This one's a keeper!

My Shopping List

• Orange juice concentrate: $2.29
• Celery $0.99
• Bleu Cheese Dressing $2.50
• La Brea Bakery French bread $1.99

The Tally

The day's tally: $7.77
Total this week so far: $7.77

*FKP: Finicky Kid Pronouncement, which would be utterances from my teenage son.