Winger's Dinner

My hubby's birthday was last week, and I surprised him with a Winger's Bar & Grill inspired menu. He'd been asking for wings for a while, and since that's one of his favourite places to eat in Utah, I wanted to make it as authentic as possible. I searched the web for some of the recipes, and just made up the rest. The recipes below are the ones I made, and are really just estimates. Here is the menu:

Chicken wings, this was a great recipe. The wings turned out really crispy just like they had been fried.

Winger's Original Amazing Sauce. I decided on this recipe as opposed to the Franks hot sauce recipes, since I didn't want it to be too hot for the boys.

Blue Cheese dipping sauce: 1/4 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup yogurt, Tbs chives, 1/4 cup crumble stilton cheese, salt and pepper to taste.

Potato Skins: Take small bakes potatoes, cut in half lengthways and scoop out the flesh, leaving just a little left in the skin. Top with crumbled bacon and grated cheese (you could spread pizza sauce on first if desired). Bake at a high temperature (about 400 F) until cheese is melted. Serve with sour cream and chives if desired.

Raspberry Lemonade. This was a bit hit.

Asphalt Pie: (It's impossible to get a good quality mint ice-cream in the UK, so I decided to make my own. I didn't measure the ingredients out. Maybe someday, I'll try it again, and measure the ingredients to make a real recipe. It was REALLY good).

Oreo crust: oreo crumbs, and enough melted butter to get oreo crumbs to just start to stick together. Press into a pie dish or round cake tin. Bake in oven, 350F for about 15 minutes.

Mint chocolate chip ice-cream: Mix 1/2 bar of grated mint flavoured chocolate (Lindt intense mint), with 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk, and about 1/4 cup milk.

Whip one container of heavy cream with about 1/4 cup milk until soft peaks form. Mix a small amount of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture until smooth, then gently fold the rest of the cream in until well combined. Pour over the cooled Oreo crust, cover and freeze until solid (a few hours at least).

Baked Sea Bream and Rice Pilaf

Although this may bore most of you, I've decided to try to make a log of every dinner I make this week. Instead of just giving the recipes that I've made up or I know are really good, I'm just going to document what I cook in a week. This anybody who's interested, which is probably really just me, can see what a typical week of food in my house might entail. Granted, this is just going to be dinners.

If you're interested in what we have for breakfast and lunch, it's not really that exciting. Most mornings we have cereal (dry for the boys), or maybe toast. For lunch, we are often on the go, and I'll pack cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks, some kind of fruit, and some type of snack (crackers or the like). If you're wondering what a cheese sandwich is, it's butter/margarine spread on bread, and slices of cheese in the middle. Very exciting, I know, but the boys like it.

Yesterday, they had Sea Bream on sale at the local supermarket. I've never had it before, but it looked good, and I wanted to try something new. I decided to keep the fish whole, and just had the fishmonger gut it for me, not knowing exactly what I was going to do with it. After looking at a couple of recipes, to see what might go well with the fish, I came up with the following recipe.

The Verdict: I'm really glad I tried something new. Sea Bream is really good. (Can you even get it in the states?) It's a smaller white fleshed fish, with a firm texture and mild flavour. It is, apparently, also high in Omega-3 fatty acids. My two-year old, who was watching me plate the fish, kept asking for "more bish please," and my three year old ate everything on his plate! So, this was a good meal, and a good fish

(Please excuse the pictures. Using a six-year old point and shoot camera with poor lighting does not always make the food look as appetizing and delicious as it actually is.)

Baked Sea Bream with Roasted Garlic and Rosemary

Clean a gutted and scaled Sea Bream fish, about 2 lbs. Season the inside with salt and pepper, place a few thin slices of lemon, 3-4 bulbs of roasted garlic (skin still on), a couple of sprigs of thyme and rosemary. Rub outside of fish with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and top with more lemon slices and a couple of sprigs of thyme and rosemary. Seal in a foil pouch, and bake in a 350* F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the eyes turn white and the flesh is firm.

Basmati Rice Pilaf

2 tsp Olive Oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

14 ounces Basmati rice

squeeze of lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil on medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add rice, and sauté for a minute or two until rice is glossy. Add 23 ounces of boiling water, season to taste, adding a squeeze of lemon juice. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, and lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer rice for about 10 minutes, until water is absorbed, then remove pan from heat, and let sit, covered for another 10-12 minutes. Fluff the rice with a fork and top with chopped fresh parsley before serving.

If you like, you can add broccoli florets to the top of the rice about 5 minutes after the rice starts it's simmer (at least half the water absorbed). Then you have steamed broccoli and rice all in one pot, but easy to separate.

Another Take on tuna

I wrote this recipe up a while ago on my other blog, but wanted it to be in here:

When I was younger, we would have open faced tuna sandwiches quite often for dinner or lunch. Very cheap, and very easy. Paul never really liked them, and said it was not fit for dinner food. Well, yesterday I tweaked the recipe, and Paul's opinion changed. We had it for lunch, and he wanted it again for dinner, and then again for lunch today.

He is not usually a fan of the common tuna and pickles. Another complaint was that the bread would get soggy. We didn't have any pickles or sweetcorn (a very British thing), so I used canned pineapple instead.

Here's my recipe:

Tropical tuna sandwiches
Mix together:
1 can tuna in water, drained
3 pineapple rings, chopped into small pieces
about 3 Tbs mayo (or to desired consistency)
pinch cayenne pepper
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Toast 4 slices of bread in toaster till lightly browned. Spread tuna mix evenly on bread, top with grated Cheddar cheese. Place sandwiches in broiler/grill on Medium heat until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

It may sound a little strange, but it's actually really good. By toasting the bread before hand, it stays crisp under the moist tuna mixture. The pineapple and cayenne really complement the tuna well. Give it a try and let me know what you think.