Teriyaki Chicken Wings

I'm on a fast and easy kick lately can you tell? I hosted (as usual) a New Year's Eve party for a few close friends. Yes they made it through the snow! I wanted to make some chicken wings but I didn't want them doused in a heavy sauce, leaving everyone with sticky, gooey fingers, but I still wanted them to taste good. I searched and searched for a recipe and my inspiration came from Carol at Bunny's Warm Oven. Teriyaki Chicken Wings - easy and so good it's not funny. Carol got this recipe from the Boston Globe over 30 years ago. Yeah Boston!! That makes it even cooler in my book. Thanks Carol!

I could only find a 10 pound bag of plain, raw wings at my local warehouse club. So I pulled out about 6 pound of them. Let me tell you that kitchen scale comes in really handy. I tripled the recipe for the marinade and I added in some fresh grated ginger, cause I am just a nut for ginger, especially when it's paired with teriyaki.

Teriyaki Chicken Wings

6 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons applesauce (Carol recommends using sweetened)

1 clove of garlic, minced

I added in:1 tablespoon grated ginger

If your wings are frozen you need to thaw them out in the fridge a day before you want to use them. Once thawed, rinse your chicken wings and pat them dry. Put into a large zip lock bag. I ended up using 2 since I had so many wings.

Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Pour over chicken, return to the fridge and let marinate overnight. Keep your bags in a bowl, just in case they leak. You don't want leaky chicken juice all over your fridge. Not good. Turn them every once in while, making sure the marinade is getting distributed evenly.

When you are ready to bake them, line a large cookie sheet with foil and grease lightly with cooking spray. Bake at 375 for approximately 45 minutes, turning once during cooking. I stuck mine under the broiler for the last few minutes to get them all nice and brown and crunchy.

Moco-cocoa

On a wintry day hot chocolate is the ultimate comfort in a cup. It sure is wintry here today and cold. Bone chillin' COLD! Wind factor below zero kinda cold. Hat, scarf, mittens, ear warmers, double socks kinda cold. Bitter eye-watering, nose hair freezing, fingers going numb kinda cold. It's pretty darn cold.

So what do we do in my house? Make homemade hot cocoa! Doesn't everyone? I am not a fan of those little white envelopes you buy 10 servings to a box. I think they taste like a watered down bad chocolate bar. I would rather go without than to drink an inferior cup of dirty water, so I make my own hot cocoa. Not only does it taste 1,000 times better then the little envelopes, this recipe makes a lot and when stored in a mason jar, it will keep for a good long time on the shelf (at least 6 months). Not that mine will last that long during the cold winter months. You'll also save yourself a lot of money....this mix will only set you back 17 cents a cup.

Jesse named the Mocha version Moco-Cocoa, so that's what we call it now. Kinda has a ring to it.

Basic Cocoa Mix.

makes about 3 1/2 cups

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa

1 1/4 cups sugar

6 oz semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a food processor fitted with a knife blade, blend all the ingredients. I sifted all my ingredients before I put them into a mason jar, just to be sure I didn't have any lumps.

To make your own mug of deliciousiness all you do is:

Mix 1 cup of milk with 3 tablespoons of the cocoa mix and microwave on high about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Depends on your nuker. Stir and enjoy!

Homemade marshmallows are the perfect topper too!

Here are a few variations you can try. Add any of these to your basic mix. The Mocha is my favorite. It's like drinking a great chocolate bar in a cup. Once you make your own cocoa, you will never go back to the little blue box.

Mocha Variation: Add 1/3 cup instant coffee powder or granules. I don't see why you couldn't add instant espresso coffee also. That would be good!

Mexican Spice Variation: Add 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of ground red pepper (cayenne).

Vanilla Variation: Add a half of a vanilla bean, pod & seeds.

Couldn't it have waited one more day?

You know I love the snow. I truly love it. But today? I could have done without it. It's been snowing since about 8:00am. John has shoveled 3 times now. I'd say there is about 7 or 8 inches of snow on the ground. He came in from shoveling and showed me his "Antarctica mustache" as he calls it. It was frozen with snow. My two best friends and their families are supposed to be coming for New Years. We have New Years here every year and it has become a tradition to play Taboo or some kind of a similar board game each New Years. We laugh till be cry when we are playing games. It's really one of the best nights of the year for all of us.

I hope the snow won't stop anyone from getting here....well I know it's already stopped my parents, but my friends are pretty used to driving in it.

Here's Moose trying to make it to the shed.

The snow was already up to the platform door!

Hope the weather's not hampering your plans this year. If you do have to travel.....be careful and stay safe.

Super Easy Coconut Custard Pie and a few flakes.

There are only a few desserts my Dad will eat. As I've said in previous posts, he does not have a sweet tooth. He does love coconut custard pie and he let it be known that there was none served on Christmas. Yeah, yeah I didn't make coconut custard pie....um I was a little busy making 20 other things! So with my Dad's guilt trip laying heavily on my mind I decided to make him coconut custard pie for New Year's Eve. Problem is.....we are getting a bit of a little snow storm right now. In fact the snow is rapidly piling up as I type this. My Dad, who has had a corneal transplant, can't drive in the dark, and won't let my Mom drive in the snow, so I have probably just made a coconut custard pie for someone who won't be showing up at the party. Dang. Someone will eat it.

Anyway off I went to take a photo for the blog. I had to remove the obligatory piece for the photo and I did take a tiny sliver of said piece, just so I could give my honest opinion of the flavor of course. It was rich, creamy, coconutty and custardy (just in case you were wondering). In the winter months I take most of my photos in my garage with the door open so I can take advantage of the natural light. This morning was no exception. As I pushed my table up as close as I could to the garage door without actually being outside, in my pajamas, in the snow, the snow started to drift into the garage an onto my pie. At first I was frustrated and grumbled a little, until I saw this perfect little snowflake. Then another, then another. I was squealing at this point. I had poor John taking a scarf and sticking it out into the falling snow to try and capture a few more. Problem was, they melted almost as fast as I could take the picture, but I did catch just a few. Now if I only had a macro lens.

This is my favorite one. See it off to the left? Just look at how beautiful it is. Looks like a little jewel.

This one looks just like all those snowflakes you drew as a kid. Well at least I drew them as a kid and they almost always looked like this one.


The last one I captured was this teeny tiny little baby snowflake. I cropped the hell out of the picture just to be able to see it. It's off to the left too. Really I wish you could have seen how minuscule it was.


Ok enough flakiness, back to the pie. Not only is this pie easy to make, it makes it's own crust! Honest, I'm tellin' ya, it's just unreal. Oh and another thing, you make it in the blender! Only a blender to clean. How's that for easy?


Super Easy Coconut Custard Pie
4 eggs
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 and spray a 10 inch pie plate with cooking spray and dust with flour, or just use Baker's Joy like I do.

Place everything but the coconut into a blender. Blend for about 20 seconds. Add the coconut and pulse just a few seconds. Pour into the pie plate and bake 50 - 60 minutes. I toasted up some coconut and sprinkled it on the top as soon as it came out of the oven. It will look a bit puffy when it comes out, but it will deflate as it cools.



Next time I might decrease the sugar just a tad. It was very sweet. All in all if you like coconut custard pie and want to make one in a hurry, this is the pie for you.

Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits

One of my Christmas presents was Ina Gartens new cookbook Back to Basics. I have all of Ina's cookbooks, but I think this one may become my favorite of hers. I love basic. I love easy. This book is filled with basic, easy, quick recipes that will make it look like you spent all day in the kitchen.

I already have the recipes I want to make marked with post-its. There's lots of post-its. Lots. Since I'm off this week I thought it would be a nice treat to make buttermilk cheddar biscuits for the men for breakfast. After a brief warm spell the weather here is cold and windy again. Tomorrow we are expecting some snow. I've got all my recipes in order and all my ingredients ready so I can spend all day in the kitchen with the oven crankin' away.

One other great thing about this recipe is it can be made the night before and kept in the fridge, so all you have to do in the morning is brush them with egg, throw on some sea salt and pop them in the oven....and that's just what I did. Remember to keep everything cold when your making any kind of biscuits....that's where the flaky part comes in.

We each had one biscuit (with butter of course) this morning and it filled us right up. These would be great as a main course with a nice salad or a big bowl of soup or chili. Delicious hearty biscuits for a cold and blustery day.

Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits
Printable recipe
All purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
12 tablespoon (1 1 /2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup cold buttermilk, shaken
1 cold extra large egg
1 cup grated Cheddar
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of water or milk


Preheat the oven to 425. Place 2 cups of flour, the baking powder and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, add the butter and mix until the butter is the size of peas.

Combine the buttermilk and egg in a small glass measuring cup and beat lightly with a fork. With the mixer still on low, quickly add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and mix only until moistened. In a small bowl, mix the cheddar with a small handful of flour and, with the mixer still on low, add the cheese to the dough. Mix only until roughly combined.

Dump onto a well floured board and knead lightly about six times. Roll the dough out into a rectangle 5 x 10 inches. With a sharp floured knife, cut the dough lengthwise in half and then across in quarters, making 8 rough rectangles. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops with the egg wash, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve hot or warm.

Cappuccino Muffins

Every year the few days after Christmas become clean up and organize days for me. I'm ready for the tree to come down and have my house back to normal again. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and all the decorations that come along with it, but after a month of it, my obsessive compulsive side starts to creep back in and I need to clean it all up.

I am resisting taking the tree down cause my friend Tati always yells and me and tell me I have to leave it up until after New Years, which kills me, but I'm trying to leave it up for her sake. We'll see.

Part of my clean up project yesterday was re-arranging my computer room. I'm on the hunt for a new desk (in black) and wanted to move all the furniture around and really give the room a good cleaning. Unfortunately for John this meant spending over an hour behind the computer desk unplugging wires. I got a nifty label maker for Christmas so I was happily spitting out labels for each little wire he brought to me. Now everything is neat and organized and labeled. Makes me so happy.

Later that night I scoured through my cookbooks for ideas for my New Years Eve party. We are doing mostly appetizers and picky foods, but a party at my house always includes dessert. In my search I came across a recipe I had clipped out for Cappuccino Muffins. Although it wasn't a New Years Eve food I decided I needed to give these a try. So this morning I whipped up a batch. My house smelled like a Starbucks. The cappuccino smell that was coming from the kitchen was so yummy. Evan's friend had slept over. The boys stumbled down the stairs, popped a few into their mouths and declared them delicious!

These are a snap to make, are loaded with little explosions of chocolate and have a rich cappuccino taste. If I drank coffee I'm sure I'd say they go great with coffee, but I'm not a coffee drinker so I have to say they go great with milk!

Cappuccino Muffins - makes about 16

Printable recipe
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), melted
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

In a bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl combine the milk and instant coffee and stir until dissolved. Melt the butter and let it cool for a few minutes. Add the egg and vanilla to the butter and mix lightly. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until moistened. Please don't over mix your muffins....terrible things will happen!

Fold in the mini chips. Fill a paper lined muffin cup 2/3 full. Bake at 375 for 17 - 20 minutes, or until muffin tests done. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool.

One year.

It's hard to believe that one year has passed since I started this blog. I remember being ecstatic when I saw that ten people a day checked in to see what I was up to. Ten! Imagine that? For those of you who weren't around then, here's a look back at my very first post.

December 26, 2007

I have been saying that I was going to start my own blog for almost a year now. Well the year is almost over so I decided I better get my butt in gear and start one. Here is it.

I have had some friends tell me they wish I would post my recipes, pictures, even my thoughts and ideas. I never really thought that I was interesting enough for anyone to want to read any of it. We shall see. I named it The Cutting Edge of Ordinary. Please don't think that ordinary is a bad thing. I am ordinary. My life, my job, my skills, all ordinary. I think it's the ordinary in the world that connects us all. What is extraordinary is the family and friends I surround myself with. Most of which I am sure you will meet in upcoming posts. You will not be disappointed. So here is my first post on my brand spankin' new blog. Pretty ordinary so far.

Here's hoping 2009 brings even bigger and better things to The Cutting Edge of Ordinary. Thanks for sticking around.