Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Down Home with the Agbais

We love, love, love to cook and eat! We're from the school of thought that says, "If you eat, you should know how to cook" and we don't waste any time learning how to make anything we have a craving for.

Down Home with the Neelys is one of our favorite shows. At first, I, Quiana, wasn't too keen on it because of the joking and love taps and alla that. I usually prefer a more practical, nerdy approach like America's Test Kitchen, but then again I'm the same kid whose favorite book was "The Big Book of Why" so I guess that's not too surprising!

Anyway, we made Pat Neely's famous wings recipe and it sure is addictive! Just the right amount of sweet and spice.



Here's the recipe:

•2 teaspoons Neely's Dry Rub

•2 teaspoons kosher salt

•1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

•Peanut oil, for frying

•3 pounds chicken wings, cut at joint, washed and dried

•1 to 2 tablespoons lemon-pepper seasoning

•4 tablespoons salted butter

•1 clove minced garlic

•1/2 cup hot sauce (recommend: Texas Pete's)

•2 tablespoons brown sugar

•1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

•1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce


Directions for the seasoning:


Neely’s Dry Rub: 1 1/2 cups paprika 3/4 cup sugar 3 3/4 tablespoons onion powder mix and store
Mix the dry rub, salt, and cayenne together in a small bowl.

Preheat deep-fryer with peanut oil to 350 degrees F.

For the wings:


Add the wings to a large mixing bowl and season with the lemon-pepper seasoning and toss to coat. Allow to sit for a few minutes, so flavors can permeate into the chicken.

Add the wings to the deep-fryer and fry until cooked through and golden and crisp, 12 to 15 minutes. You may need to do this in batches.

Meanwhile, while wings are frying, melt butter in small saucepan over medium-low heat with the garlic. Transfer to a large bowl and whisk in the hot sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce until combined.

Remove wings from fryer and drain on a paper towel lined sheet tray. Immediately sprinkle with the seasoning.

Add fried wings to the large bowl of sauce and toss until well combined and wings are well coated. Serve immediately after tossing the wings with the sauce. 

Monday, January 11, 2010

Official Apt. Tour

I promised to include an official tour so here it is!

A few specs:
  • Bedrooms: 1
  • Bathrooms: 1
  • Sq Ft: 930
  • Bonuses: heated bathroom floor, 2 outdoor spaces and an office
We hope to decorate the long hallway, living/dining room walls with art, and we're debating if we should paint, but it'll be such a pain to paint back to builder's white when we move. . . but we could always hire someone, I guess!

Oh! You'll notice lots of IKEA too =)


Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Happy New Year!

We had a very quiet Christmas and New Years at home playing Wii and just hanging out. It was a good way to spend our first one together! We did a lot of cooking and of course put on no extra pounds ;-) Here was our Christmas menu:

  • Brown sugar brined turkey (recipe from Williams Sonoma)
  • Glory greens - maybe next year I'll make them from scratch,  but this year it was all about canned!
  • Candied yams
  • Mac & cheese (recipe from America's Test Kitchen - the key is using chicken broth)
  • Stouffer's cornbread stuffing
  • Homemade rolls
  • Pecan pie



We had a wreath instead of a tree, which provided the wonderful pine scent without all the messy clean-up. Uka did a really good job of carving up the turkey, following the directions in America's Test Kitchen's Family Cookbook. It's the one cookbook we use the most and we really like it because, like the show, it explains the methodology on why certain steps/ingredients are needed. This isn't to say we follow it to a t but it provides good guidelines for our cooking experiments. We highly recommend it!