faux Wing Stop

One of our favorite meal nights is "Faux Wing Stop" night!  We love Wing Stops french fries, they are completely addictive and when I was pregnant with my youngest, I had to have them all the time!  Luckily, we have a Wing Stop just a few miles away from our house.  However the craving for wings and fries sometimes hit at bad times, as it did one night while we were out at the farm in East Texas.   Approximately 100 miles from the closest W.S., it's a little too far for carry out!  That was how our Faux Wing Stop nights began. 

It's all a pretty simple meal to make.  I handle all the hot frying of the chicken and fries, but there is plenty of other things for the kids to do! 

Wings   My husband loves them hot!  Me.... not so much, so I make two sauces. 

Ingredients:

• 24 Chicken flappers and drumettes. 
• vegetable or canola oil
• Sauce: 
• bottle of hot sauce
• 4 tbsp butter
• minced clove of garlic  (I'm not 100% sure if garlic is used in the WingStop recipe, but garlic is so good for you, you have to use it every chance you get. I add it to everything.  I even tried to sneak it in our oatmeal once.... but that's a different story....) 

Melt butter in a saucepan, add garlic and hot sauce and stir until warm, temperature wise.  Now, if you are a bit of a spice sissy like me, stop here.  Put down the spoon, you are done.  HOwEver, if you are making it HOT, add a few splashes of tabasco sauce.  As I said, I make both. 

Fill a deep frying pan about 1/4 full of oil, vegetable or canola.   
Fry the wings on medium heat until a nice golden brown.  Remove them from the oil and place them on a plate lined with a couple of paper towels to drain the excess oil.  Salt to taste.  Let the kids place the wings in a casserole dish and cover in sauce.  Use two casserole dishes if you are making a mild and a hot wing.  Slide on in the oven, set on 200, to keep them safe and warm. 


Garlic Parmesan Boneless Wings

 Ingredients:

• chicken tenderloins
• flour
• 2 gallon size ziplock bags
• eggs
• sauce
• 4 tbsp butter
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• grated parmesan cheese

These are my kids favorites!  Wash and pat dry the tenderloins, and cut away the annoying tendon that is found on most tenderloins, cause it's not tender!  Let the kids add a cup of flour, and a pinch of salt and pepper, to a ziplock bag.  Then add the chicken and let them shake it up!  Then transfer to another ziplock bag filled with 4 eggs, and let them shake until all the chicken is evenly coated.  Now put the chicken back in the flour (maybe add a little more flour, depending on how much they spilled.)  and shake a last time until well coated!  Now let the chicken set for about 10-20 minutes before you fry it in the same skillet you used for the wings, also on medium heat, until golden brown.  Remove them from the oil and place them on a paper towel to drain the oil.  Salt and pepper to taste.   

Garlic Parmesan Sauce  Melt the butter with the garlic in a saucepan, or in a small microwave safe bowl in the microwave. 

Place the chicken in a casserole dish, cover in sauce and sprinkle with the parmesan cheese.  Place in the same oven with the wings, cause these guys will just disappear if you leave them sitting out! 


French Fries

Farmhouse pantries aren't like their city pantry cousins.  They are big and filled with plenty of space for mason jars full of preserves, dark baskets for storing root vegetables, huge stock pots and plenty of kitchen gadgets like meat grinders.  Our neighbor at the farm has a french fry cutter bolted onto his pantry wall.  It makes cutting the fries so easy!  You just place the washed potatoes in the cutter, pull down the lever and out comes beautiful fries!  Sure, you can cut potatoes with a knife, but this is so much more fun!  Also, since it's a farm, our neighbor isn't really very close, so it means a ride on the four wheeler to go visit and cut the fries! 

 The kids enjoy using the fry cutter so much, and they fries they produce, that they gave ME one for Christmas a few years ago.  Thoughtful, right?  But I do LOVE it!!

 
Ingredients:

• Russet potatoes
• vegetable or canola oil
• kosher salt
• sugar

You can continue to use the same oil you used to fry the wings and tenderloins.  Keep the temperature at medium and add about a handful of  fries.  If you add too many, they will stick together.  Cook until they are a pinch beyond golden brown.  Remove from the heat and place on several paper towels to absorb the oil.  Liberally sprinkle with the kosher salt and sugar.  Continue until you have cooked them all.  You may have to stash these in the oven too, just for safe keeping. 

Don't forget the celery, carrots and blue cheese dressing for dipping!

We found the final touch, the little baskets, at Party City.