Weeknight Dinner: KaPOW Buffalo Chicken Wings with Gorgonzola Cilantro Dipping Sauce

I know what you're thinking. What on EARTH, Cari? Why would I make chicken wings at home when Quaker Steak and Lube is right down the street? I thought the same thing until I saw this week's episode of Worst Cooks in America with Bobby Flay (heartthrob) and Anne Burrell (I'm sure she's a heartthrob to someone…). My question for you is this, if the worst cooks (literally) in our country can do it, why can't I? Ok, if your competitive spirit isn't heating up with that, let me tell you the second benefit. These babies are SO much cheaper to make at home than they are to buy via takeout. I am talking less than 50 cents per wing, and we get 12 when we're done cookin'.

I adapted this recipe from two that I found on my awesome Food Network app – one of which was Bobby Dean's chicken wing recipe. His did not call for a dry rub, but I wanted these to be a little spicy, so I made my own. I didn't make his cheese dip, but made the gorgonzola dip from the bottom of this recipe instead (I changed it a bit to make it healthier, and added the celery salt in – it just needed a little somethin' somethin' else). 

Now, listen friends, before you start on this chicken wing journey…cooking these is not for the faint of heart. I had NO idea what cutting chicken wings would be like, and I must say that I went screaming out of the kitchen when I heard the bones crunch and saw some things that cannot be unseen. Mr. Grumpy came to the rescue (and clucked like a chicken the entire time he was cutting them up… thanks for your sensitivity, Mr. G) and cut them for me.  

Also let me tell you that when you put the chickens in the oven, they move around ON THEIR OWN. Like we're talking Night of the Living Dead Chicken, here. I was very frightened. I do not know why this happened. I was sitting in front of the oven watching them, while Mr. G was clucking in the background:

So, while this was a very traumatizing night for me, I survived and hells yeah it was worth it. These babies pack a punch. I hope you're ready.

(The bigger dip bowl is the creamy gorgonzola cilantro sauce, and the smaller is just ranch dressing. Mr. G. claims he doesn't like blue cheese, so I made him a special gorgonzola sauce, to which he reluctantly tried and… it's hard to tell if he liked it. He made a grumpy face, but dipped his celery and chicken in it a few more times…)

What You'll Need:

• Courage for cutting the chicken (or a Mr. G to assist you)
• 1-2 pounds of chicken wings (you need to cut the wing tips off and discard those. Then, separate what's left so there are two pieces of chicken – one that looks like a small drumstick and one that looks like a wing..); 12 wings total after you cut them
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1/2 cup Frank's buffalo sauce
• 1/4 cup of honey

For the gorgonzola cilantro dip:

• 1/2 cup of Hellman's light mayo
• 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt (or light sour cream)
• 4 oz gorgonzola cheese
• 1-2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 tsp celery salt

Instructions:

First make the sauce because it has to sit in the fridge for around 60 minutes. Combine the mayo, greek yogurt, gorgonzola cheese, cilantro and celery salt in a bowl. Cover, and send it away to the fridge. Let it sit in there until your chicky wings are ready. Don't worry about it if it doesn't sit the full 60 – ours sat around 50 and it was tasty, tasty good.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Prepare the chicken by cutting off the wing tips, and then separating the wing at the joint. (Here is what they will look like after you cut the wing tip off:)

And then… this is what they'll look like when you separate them into two pieces:

Once the chickies are cut, rinse them in the sink, and pat them dry by rolling 4 at a time in a paper towel.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic salt and chili powder. Toss the chicken in my super special dry rub. Then, rub it into the skin of the chicken. Line a baking pan with non-stick aluminum foil (or spray it with cooking spray, but that stuff skeeves me out, so I use the foil). Line the chickens on the pan like this:

Put them in the oven on the middle rack. Let them cook for 12 minutes, then remove them from the oven and flip them over. Put them back in the oven and cook for an additional 13 minutes. Your wingies should be 165 degrees when you're done.

While they cook, combine your buffalo sauce and honey in a bowl. Separate them into 1/4 cups.

Preheat your broiler (we have one that's got a "hi/"lo" setting. Not sure why they can't spell those words correctly when they make ovens, but alas. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit, so here I am) to … HI. Aka, this means HIGH in case you hadn't caught on. Lo stands for.. LOW. I mean it's one more letter, GE! Anyway…

When you take the chickens out of the oven, take 1/4 of our buffalo/honey mixture and brush them with the sauce. Place them in the broiler and cook for 3-4 minutes. Then, remove 'em, flip 'em, brush on 1/4 cup of sauce and do it again – 3-4 minutes in the broiler. Remove the wings from the oven and toss them in the remaining sauce.

Get your glass of milk and roll of paper towels ready. Grab your gorgonzola cilantro sauce and some celery. It's time to eat! 

Now, I have one more disclaimer. I did have more time than USUAL for a weeknight dinner to make these because Mr. G and I took a vacation day from work. I would say these take about an hour total to make, and about 5 minutes to devour. Mr. G said they were a bit spicy, and I told him that a wise man once told ME, "If you can't take the heat… get out of my kitchen." 

Weeknight Dinner: Buffalo Chicken Pizza (Oh yeah. I went there)

Ok people. Mr. G is out of town this week on a business trip MEANING that I literally have been itching all week to talk someone's ear off. It also means that I get to watch Say Yes to the Dress marathons without seeing one of these faces…

(Classic Mr. G Face)

Regardless, I was quickly reminded just what it was like to cook for one. So, I went to work and of course, came up with this recipe that saved my dinner tonight (I was going to just give up and hit the drive thru… yikes…). Feast your eyes, friends, on this just spicy enough to wake you up Buffalo Chicken Pizza. And I didn't even have to unbutton the top button on my jeans. Why? Because I made it LOW FAT*. You are welcome.

*Ok, as low fat as a buffalo chicken pizza can be… Stay with me here. 

Now, let's get cooking.

What You Need:

• 1/2 bag of whole wheat pizza dough, room temp is best! (I buy this fresh from the supermarket) – if you can't find this, just use the Pillsbury stuff. 
• One-half of a boneless chicken breast
• 1/3 cup Frank's Buffalo Hot Sauce (or just regular is cool too!), plus 1 tbsp
• 1 1/2 tbsp low fat bleu cheese dressing
• 1/2 tbsp Lite Ranch Dressing
• 1/4 cup low fat colby jack cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup low fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 4 tbsp cup gorganzola cheese
• 1/4 cup red onion, diced
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 2 green onions, sliced

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400. Poke holes in your chicken breast and place in a Ziploc bag. Then, pour in 1/3 cup of the buffalo sauce. Let that soak for 30 minutes. In the meantime, call your mom and tell her about your day and your awesome new Gel manicure that you got after work (Hello, Tiki Sunrise nails!). 

Ok, now that the chicken is all soaked and ready to go… Heat a pan on the stove over medium heat. Cook the chicken until barely done, about 5 minutes on each side. Let the chicken cool, then dice. Once it's diced, put it in a new Ziploc bag and pour in an extra tablespoon of buffalo sauce, toss and set aside.

Take the pizza dough and sprinkle it with flour to make it easy to work with. Work out the dough from a ball into a round, pizza-looking shaped piece. It should be rather thin – probably as thin as an envelope with a letter inside of it. Make sure you don't make any bubbles in the dough. Mr. G gets really grump-tastic when I make bubbles, so I was extra careful this time since he wasn't here to fix the bubble when the dough pops up in the oven. Once its thin and looking like a pizza, place it onto your pizza pan. Spread the bleu cheese dressing and ranch dressing on the pizza dough like you would normally with pizza sauce. Then, spread the cheese evenly over the dressing layer. Then, sprinkle the onions and celery salt around the pizza, and add the chicken. It should look like this (unless you put your toppings on the pizza in the shape of a smiley face. You can imagine how Mr. G feels about that). 

Bake on the bottom rack in the oven about 17-20 minutes, until the dough looks slightly brown around the edges. Take out of the oven, and let the pizza stand about 6 minutes. Then, add the green onions over the top. Cut and oh my goodness, ENJOY!!! You're going to love this. 

In other news… here are the other things I've been doing to keep busy while I'm a lonely apartment dweller this week:

1. Signed up with a personal trainer at Fitness Edge Cleveland. This is going to be great. I should start in a few weeks (since I'll be in LA next week for work) and will be doing 2-on-1 training with a buddy. I'm assuming that in a few weeks, you won't even be able to tell the difference between me and Gisele. I'll keep you updated.
2. I figured out how to make a panini without a panini maker. This was awesome. All you need is a cast-iron skillet with grill bumps (I don't know the proper term for that) and another pan of slightly smaller size. I put sun-dried tomatoes, low-fat mozzarella, basil, oregano, EVOO and diced, white onions on ciabatta bread. Placed it on the cast iron skillet and smooshed it with a pan on top. Cooked one side for 6 minutes, and the other for about the same, on medium heat. And voila! A panini. I was so "hangry" (my friend Robin's definition for that feeling when you're so hungry you get angry) I forgot to take a picture. So just use your imagination but have your imagination see a delicious sandwich.
3. I adopted a Tamagachi pet via my iPhone on an app called Bonzii. Do you guys remember Tamagachi's? Or GiGa Pets? It's like that but on your iPhone… His name is Bonjengles and he is really needy. So needy in fact he has died three times from starvation even though I kept feeding the thing steaks. I'll keep you updated… This is probably not going to stick.
4. I caught up on Jerseylicious and immediately needed an aspirin.
5. Nearly caught my neighbors' piano on fire. Listen. Don't get me wrong – I love musicians just as much as the next unrealistic girl. However, my neighbors had a piano that sat against our shared wall. It was really loud. And it was played too often. And the renditions of Ben Folds left much to the imagination. I expressed my hatred for the piano to my neighbors one evening (or should I say one early, early morning) upon my arrival home with said friend Robin after a too-successful girls night. Granted, they did ask me if I wanted a tour of their apartment, to which I said yes (duh). Now, instead of getting rid of the piano, they have started a band. Fully equipped with a bass guitar. And the bass guitar and the piano don't play the same songs. And somehow I thought the lead singer was just someone arguing loudly with their girlfriend but it turned out he (or she?) was trying to make music. You can imagine how happy I am about this… Especially because I told Mr. G about it and he laughed… and said it was funny… Mr. G. Thought something was funny. Ack.
6. I discovered I don't think I know what endive is supposed to taste like, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to have mushy black "goock" all over it. Mr. G told me I could probably eat it. And that if I ate more dirt (and apparently fungus growing on lettuce?) that I wouldn't catch the death of a flu when it goes around my office… 

I hope you are all finding a ray of sunshine in this rainy week! Stay tuned for a breakfast dessert recipe from Suzie Q (and her lesson learned from middle school students for the week).