Wingin' It Football Style

When the NFL playoffs start my husband craves wings...there is something about football and wings that just go together like biscuits and gravy. Well instead of purchasing the overpriced, extremely fattening and greasy wings...I chose to make them myself. How hard could it be? Turns out, it wasn't hard at all.

First you want to come up with an easy appetizer that you can entertain with before you serve up the delicious wings. Then choose which kind of wings you want to make. I decided I definitely wanted to do buffalo wings but wanted another option as well, I settled on sesame-soy sauce wings.

When you go to the grocery store you can either purchase regular wings or you can choose drumettes, which I did. I chose two packs of 30 drumettes for each flavor. Then the next most important part is your marinade and giving your wings enough time to marinate.

My easy appetizer was homemade raspberry jam and brie.

I served this on a beautiful cutting board, sliced some pieces of brie and placed a small dollop of jam on top with thin crackers...yum!

Sesame-Soy Sauce Wings
1 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 bunch of fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp of freshly crushed ginger
2 cloves of minced garlic
1/2 fresh lemon (juiced)
salt
pepper
1/2 cup agave nectar
2 Tbsp olive oil
sesame seeds for garnish

Place wings in a deep bowl and pour over soy sauce, ginger, garlic, lemon and cilantro. Use your hands to coat the marinade all over the wings. Cover with plastic wrap, refrigerate and let marinate for two hours. After the first hour re-mix to make sure the marinade is coating each wing evenly.

While those wings are marinading start the other set of wings:

Buffalo Wings
2 cups hot sauce
2 Tbsp worchestire sauce
cayenne pepper
salt
1 Tbsp olive oil

With the next batch of wings, place them in another deep bowl and pour over one cup of the hot sauce, worchestire and salt. Use your hands to make sure they have coated the wings, then cover with plastic wrap and let marinate in the fridge for two hours. Same as the first batch, after one hour re-coat the wings. Once the buffalo wings are done, place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes on 350 degrees.

Bleu Cheese Sauce
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayo
1 Tsp white wine vinegar
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1/2 minced shallot
1 clove of minced garlic
1/4 lb bleu cheese
salt
pepper
celery sticks

While your wings are marinating, make your bleu cheese dip. Mix all the ingredients together and let merry in the fridge until ready to serve. Super easy! If you think the sauce is too thick, add more sour cream/mayo to thin it out.

Once the sesame wings are done marinading, place them on a greased baking sheet  and pour agave nectar on top to create a sticky sauce while they bake. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

When the buffalo wings are done, pour the remaining hot sauce on top and coat evenly. When the sesame wings are done baking sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Once all wings are cooled place on two platters for serving.

Simple Salad
arugula
dried cranberries
roughly chopped walnuts
goat cheese

For a simple salad with your hearty wings, mix all these ingredients together. Make sure to wash your arugula and get rid of the root. Add as much of the nuts, cheese and cranberries as you like. Serve with a simple lemony-olive oil dressing and voila a meal that will please any football watchin' man as well as his better half.

Enjoy! xoxo Lo

Holiday Dinner Party

During the winter time I love to bring all my favorite things together...food, family and holiday cheer. I love dinner parties, they are a fantastic way to create delicious foods and share them with those you love. Plus they are a perfect way to spend some quality time together.

The first thing you want to do is create your menu, which should be based on the season and to include foods that every guest will feel comfortable digging in to (aka know your crowd).

My dinner menu consisted of:

• Pumpkin-Cider Cocktail
• Winter lager (for the men)
• Brie en Croute with cranberries and walnuts
• Prosciutto Stuffed Figs Stuffed with Goat Cheese
• Acorn Squash Soup with Fresh Sage and Parmesan
• Arugula Salad with Dried Cranberries, Walnuts and Goat Cheese
• Savory Pumpkin Lasagna 
• Apple Tart

My menu consisted of ingredients I knew my guests would love, full of comfort, spirit of the season and a hint of culinary flair. 


Pumpkin Cider Cocktail

1 liter of apple cider (the good stuff)
1 liter of ginger ale
1 can pumpkin (or one cup of real pumpkin puree)
1/4 cup pumpkin pie spice (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, sugar)
Add vodka, rum or bourbon to spike it up a bit

Mix all together, chill and serve with frozen cranberries as a garnish. Your guests will LOVE this cup of cheer.

Winter Lager

Our personal favorite is Shiner Cheer with hints of toasted pecans and peaches. When you set out drinks you wish to keep cold, put them in a nice bucket with ice instead of a cooler, it's much more becoming and easy for guests to see where the drinks are. 

Brie en Croute

1 medium-small wheel of brie
1 puff pastry
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 Tbsp agave nectar (or honey)
1 Tbsp brown sugar

First, pull your puff pastry out to thaw then mix your cranberries, nuts, agave nectar and brown sugar together. Make sure the filling has enough agave nectar. Cut the brie in half so you have two big flat pieces, spread 3/4 of the mixture in the middle, place one half on top. Wrap up your stuffed brie with the puff pastry, putting the wrapped side down. Put the other part of the mixture on top of the brie and bake at 350 degrees at 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with water crackers.

Proscuitto-Stuffed Figs

16 small fresh figs
1 package of proscuitto
1/4 cup goat cheese
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp agave nectar (or honey)

Clean and wash all of your figs then gouge a small hole in each fig. Then grab a piping bag (or make your own with a plastic bag), soften your goat cheese and spoon into the piping bag. Stuff each fig with a generous squirt of goat cheese, then wrap each one with proscuitto. Drizzle with agave nectar mixed with the pumpkin pie spice and back for 12 minutes on 350. These will melt in your mouth!

Acorn Squash Soup

I have blogged about this one before and it was so good I had to make it again for my dinner party.

3 acorn squash (one half per person)
1 bunch of fresh sage
1 carton of chicken stock
3/4 cup heavy cream (or milk)
parmesan cheese
6 shallots
1 leek
bay leaf
olive oil
salt
pepper

Slice the acorn squash in half, slice up a few leaves of sage, a bit of leek, one shallot and place inside of each half. Drizzle with olive oil and a little shake of salt and pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for one hour until soft. While the squash are softening in the oven, slice the rest of the shallots and leek and place in a generous portion of olive oil in a Dutch oven on medium heat.

Once the shallot mixture gets golden add chicken stock and bay leaf.  Once the acorn squash is soft, remove from oven and let cool. Once cooled, peel off skin and dice into inch size pieces and add to soup. Blend soup with emulsion blender until smooth, add heavy cream, more leaves of fresh sage, salt, pepper and simmer for 15 more minutes then it's ready to serve. This velvety, savory soup is so comforting your guests will beg for the recipe.

Arugula Salad

I wanted the salad to be a palate cleanser before the main course, I made it pretty simple and the peppery arugula did the trick.

1 bunch of arugula
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup halved walnuts
3 Tbsp crumbled goat cheese

Lemon-Agave Dressing

juice from two lemons
1/4 cup agave nectar
salt
pepper
olive oil

Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl, agave nectar, salt and pepper then whisk in the olive oil to taste.

For the salad simply assemble in a nice wooden bowl, layering the arugula, nuts, cranberries then top with the goat cheese. Let guests drizzle their dressing up their salad.

Pumpkin Lasagna

This lasagna is savory and fantastic for guests.

1 box of lasagna noodles (oven ready, wheat or regular)
1 can of pumpkin puree
1 package of sweet Italian sausage
1 yellow onion
1 package of fresh mozzarella
parmesan
fresh basil
1 zucchini
tomato sauce (homemade or jarred)
bechamel sauce
1 egg
salt
pepper
fresh sage

Dice up your onion and saute in a pan on medium heat, in a separate pan cook the sausage (out of the casing). Once onions and sausage are cooked, add tomato sauce and start on your bechamel. To make a bechamel sauce start with butter in a sauce pan on medium heat, when melted add a bay leaf then whisk in the milk until nice and thick. Set aside and make sure not to burn.

Mix pumpkin puree with the one egg and set aside. Slice up mozzarella into thick slices, chop up fresh basil, slice zucchini in small, thin slices and grate fresh parmesan. Choose a fancy 9x11 dish and start to layer. Start with tomato sauce at the bottom, then noodles, pumpkin sauce, bechamel, mozzarella, parmesan, basil, zucchini and sage. Then continue to layer until you've reached the top of the dish. Save enough tomato sauce, bechamel and cheeses for the very top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. This lasagna perfectly balances the zesty tomato, heaviness of the pumpkin and lusciousness of the bechamel plus the buttery cheeses. Your company will definitely be wowed!

Apple Tart

6 granny smith apples
1 pie crust
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
apricot jam

Skin the apples and slice up into thin parts, toss in a bowl with apricot jam and spices. Then pile onto the crust which has been rolled out. Overlap parts of the crust onto the edges of the apples. Brush a bit of rum on top of the tart and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Serve with a scoop of pumpkin ice cream. This is an excellent way to end your meal, it is light, crunchy and the pumpkin ice cream makes everyone go back for more.

Enjoy this fantastic menu with your loved ones this holiday season!

xoxo Lo

All-American Cuisine

I pride myself on being able to create leftovers into fabulous, healthy meals. Do you ever end up with a ton of extra bread, that you don't know what to do with? I have a savory, tasty recipe that will help use up that leftover bread!

Savory Bread Pudding

a loaf leftover bread (hamburger buns, bagels, etc)
1 cup milk
3 eggs (I didn't have eggs so I used this substitution: 1 egg= 2 Tbsp water + 2 Tbsp flour + 1/2  Tbsp butter + 1/2 tsp baking powder)
1/2 package of mushrooms
1/2 yellow onion
Italian seasoning (oregano, basil, thyme)
salt
pepper

Cut your bread into cubes, place into a bowl. Add milk, eggs (or substitute) and seasoning on top of bread. Let bread soak up wet ingredients for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, saute onions and mushrooms with 1 Tbsp of olive oil. After bread has soaked up wet ingredients, pour mushroom mixture on top. Fold ingredients together. Spoon mixture into small bowls and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Ta da! Great usage of leftover bread!

Fresh Summer Salad

Mixed greens
1/2 cucumber
cherry tomatoes
strawberries

Rinse lettuce, slice cucumbers (keep the skin on for more nutrients), slice tomatoes in half, slice strawberries. Toss salad in a bowl.


Honey-Lemon Vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp agave nectar (or honey)
1/2 lemon juiced
salt
pepper

Whisk olive oil, agave nectar, lemon juice and seasoning together until they meld together. Add more honey or lemon depending on taste.

Easy NY Strip Steak

The best way to cook a steak is with simple seasoning of salt and pepper, place on a grill or saute pan. Cook 5 minutes per side or however you like your steak cooked.