Facts about Food Friday – Chicken stock ice cubes

Chicken stock ice cubes

FaFF

Mmm, appetizing, right?

That large roaster I love so much is also great for cooking big turkeys or multiple chickens at once. And that much poultry, uh, goodness, means a whole lot of stock can be made at once, too.

You never usually don’t know which recipes you’re going to use in 3 months and how much stock/broth they’ll call for, so a really easy way to store it is to freeze in ice cube trays.

Cool it in the fridge like you normally would, pour into trays, freeze until solid, and then toss them all into gallon sized bags so your trays aren’t monopolized with soup base.They don’t stick together, so later, you can simply pull out a couple for a quick sauce or a couple handfuls for a soup.

Flaming Deathwings – World of Warcraft hot wings

World of Warcraft - Madnes of Deathwing

Like my post of Yor’sahj oozes, this is another boss from World of Warcraft. This is -the- boss. The Bowser or Mario games, but bigger, badder, and a whole lot hotter.

No, literally, check out that fire…

The wings were originally inspired by this t-shirt, which I think khorre sent me first, but I could be wrong. It’s been a while and I save lots of bookmarks. :P

Flaming hot deathwings - Get caught in the fire - Tshirt of World of Warcraft WoW boss

But why stop at little puny chicken wings when Deathwing is HUGE? For the non-gamers, huge as in, one of the fights fits 25+ people on a tiny section of his back.

And since I can’t buy my own dragon to replicate this or even an ostrich, I had to go with the next best thing. Turkey wings!

I know nobody wants to see raw meat and I’m sure it’s listed in some rulebook of what you can and can’t put on food blogs, but you’re going to get the pictures anyway.

Pack of four raw turkey wings for $7.66How to flour turkey wings for hotwings

And on a note that I’m sure some of you could’ve lived without knowing/seeing (I’m looking at you, Mom), I did discover something about Canadian poultry. They do -not- tend to pluck and de-feather them nearly as well as I’m used to.

Even after cleaning and removing what I could see, once I floured the wings, I found even more. I’m thinking I should’ve sent them to the salon first.

Floured turkey chicken wings with little feathers still stuck in it

Big wings meant I needed something a bit bigger than Clifford to stand in for boss. Fortunately, I had a screeching superhero monkey who was willing to take on the role. He even let me remove his pink cape before posing with the dead bird.

Floured poultry wings for hot sauce

And if you’re just here for the wings, this is the gorgeous color they end up before going into the oven.

Basting hot sauce and butter on orange hotwings
Yes, very orange. The bowl after reminded me of the orange cheese that comes out of Kraft dinner.

Bowl of orange sauce with butter and hot sauce that looks like fake cheese sauce

The cooked variety, of course, is a bit less orange…..

Turkey deathwings - Baked hot wings

Baked hot chicken wings with frank's sauce

But still just as Deathwing Monkey worthy.

Turkey wings posed with stuffed monkey toy to look like Deathwing

T-mobile noisy superhero monkey toy with Warcraft food

Don’t think I left out my handy dandy guildie stand-ins either:

Clifford, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch chowing down on a turkey wing 

Nom, nom, nom!

Cookie Monster eating a turkey wing covered in sriaracha sauce

Clifford, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch chowing down on a turkey wing

Yes, I washed them after….

Here’s the recipe I used for the wings, too, although on a smaller scale and obviously with two large wings instead of 20 mini-chicken ones:

Baked Buffalo Wings

Ingredients
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 20 chicken wings
  • 1/2 cup melted butter
  • 1/2 cup hot pepper sauce
  • Directions
    1. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and lightly grease with cooking spray. Place the flour, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and salt into a resealable plastic bag, and shake to mix. Add the chicken wings, seal, and toss until well coated with the flour mixture. Place the wings onto the prepared baking sheet, and place into the refrigerator. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.
    2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
    3. Whisk together the melted butter and hot sauce in a small bowl. Dip the wings into the butter mixture, and place back on the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven until the chicken is no longer pink in the center, and crispy on the outside, about 45 minutes. Turn the wings over halfway during cooking so they cook evenly.

It’s worth nothing that I used about twice as much hot sauce as called for, and I basted them twice with it so they were coated more. They still weren’t quite as hot as I wanted, but delicious, no doubt. I served them with mashed potatoes instead of a standard bleu cheese or ranch dip, too. Insert some pun here about “smashing” the boss. ;)

Colored hens for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving?

Gozzi Turkeys in orange, pink, green, blue, purple, turquoise, teal and white. Vegan friendly dye is used to make color their feathers before they molt.

I’m sure your girlfriend would love a pink bird for Valentine’s Day, right? Who wouldn’t!?

Now before the vegetarians get their feathers all ruffled (oh yeah, I went there….the pun couldn’t be avoided), check out what the farm has to say about the dyes:

From Gozzi’s Turkey Farm in Guilford, Connecticut, these turkeys are Gozzi Whites. Their feathers are known for being white and their meat is renowned throughout the region, to whom the Gozzis supply over 18,000 turkeys per year. Non-toxic, vegetable-based food dye is applied to their "blank canvases" to create these bright colors: it’s all topical and harmless.

Sitting down like in the picture above, they look pretty innocent, but you should really check them out, walking around, all fluffed up:

I suddenly really, really want a turkey.

And before it eventually ends up served with potatoes and gravy on my plate, I’ll take the one in turquoise!