Baked Ginger-Soy Chicken Wings

I made these for New Years and a couple times since! Super easy. Get the frozen Tysons wings or you can get the wingettes from the store. It is cheaper to get the wings with first, second, and third parts...but then you have to spend a lot of time cutting the third parts off. I recommend paying the extra ten cents to have it already cut!

Changes: Instead of straining the sauce I left the ginger pieces in and tossed the wings in with it. I drizzled the rest of the sauce over the wings when everything was done being cooked.

Crispy Baked Ginger-Soy Chicken Wings

adapted from Epicurious

Sauce
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 2x1 inch piece of ginger, peeled, sliced

Wings

2.5lbs chicken wings
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tbsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Sauce

• Bring all ingredients and 1/4 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring to dissolve honey.
• Reduce heat to low; simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced to 1/4 cup, 7-8 minutes. 
• Strain into a medium bowl. 
• Let sit for 15 minutes to thicken slightly. 

Note: Can be made 5 days ahead.  Cover; chill; Rewarm before using.

Wings

• Preheat oven to 400°.  
• Combine oil, salt, pepper, and wings in a large bowl; toss to coat. 
• Place wings on cookie sheet covered in tin foil or silpat mat and spread out in a single layer. 
• Bake wings until cooked through and skin is crispy, 45-50 minutes. 
• Dip wings in ginger-soy sauce and toss to evenly coat. Place wings back in a single layer on prepared rack and bake until glaze is glossy and lightly caramelized, 8-10 minutes.

Chickpea Curry

Quick and easy meatless meal for you!

Chickpea Curry

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Serves 3

2 cups Rice
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
1 whole Large Onion, Diced Fine
Salt And Pepper, to taste
2 teaspoons Curry Powder, Any Variety
2 cloves Garlic, Minced
1 cup Vegetable Stock
2 cans Chickpeas, Drained And Rinsed
1 can (13.5 Ounce) Coconut Milk

2 cups shelled edamame
1 Tablespoon Honey, More To Taste
1 Tablespoon Sriracha Or Hot Sauce (more To Taste)
Lime Wedges, For Serving (optional)
Cilantro Leaves, For Garnish

Cook rice according to the package instructions.

Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium-low heat.

Add the onions, season with salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes, until the onions are soft and starting to turn golden. 

Sprinkle in the curry powder and garlic and stir, cooking for another minute or so. 

Pour in the vegetable stock and stir to scrape up all the brown bits in the pan. 

Add the edamame, coconut milk, honey and a squirt of sriracha. 

Bring to a boil, add the chickpeas, reduce the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more salt, honey, or Sriracha (or lime juice, if using.)
Serve the curry over the rice. Garnish with the cilantro.

Pancakes

Pancakes are a weekend breakfast staple in our household. However, I really dislike that they take a long time to make and the chef doesn't get to eat with the rest of us. We also would prefer the kids to eat homemade pancakes with minimal ingredients vs Eggo Waffles - so I was looking for a way to mass produce pancakes in a quick efficient manner. 

We found this recipe because it is specific to almond milk and we normally don't have regular milk at home. The almond milk keeps the pancakes softer and the edges won't crisp up as much. 

I have a whoopie pie pan that I have never used and thought this would be the perfect excuse for it! When I make whoopie pies I use a small cookie scoop to ensure the sizes are the same. I purchased the pan when I was on a breakfast sandwich kick and thought this would be perfect to create sandwich sized egg patties. 

If you don't have one of these pans you can also use muffin tins and put enough batter in them to cover the bottom. I think they would poof up to become mini pancakes.

If the kids were willing to eat square pancakes then I would try making them in a 9x13 pan and cutting them. That would probably be the easiest way...but a girl can dream right?

I tripled the pancake batter below and created 40 silver dollar size pancakes in about 40 minutes (includes getting out the ingredients, making the batter, doing dishes, and cooling time). This did take a while but while the pancakes were baking I was able to do other things around the kitchen (like the dishes!). We stored some in the fridge and others go into the freezer. To warm we microwave them for 20-30 seconds (if not frozen) and about 45 seconds if frozen.

From a visual these are very pale pancakes but the kids liked them better that way, if you want them to be darker/more golden you can add a little butter in each hole before adding the batter. Also use the melted butter in the batter instead of the oil. 

These pancakes are pale, soft and fluffy and cakey! Enjoy!

Slightly lumpy pancake batter

2 tablespoons of batter for each hole

Let cool 3 minutes before removing from the pan

Pile of warm fluffy pancakes!

The perfect size for  mini sausage sandwiches!

Pancakes

Adapted from Silk Almond Milk

makes about 13 mini pancakes

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1-2 tablespoon sugar or honey
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup Almond milk, any flavor but Chocolate (or regular milk)
2 tablespoon oil or melted butter
1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk together Silk, oil and egg.
Add flour mixture to egg mixture and stir just to moisten—a few lumps are fine.

Griddle: 

Cook pancakes on a griddle over medium heat. 

Pour 1/4 cup of batter on the pre-heated pan. 

When larger bubbles start to form and the edges are turning slightly cooked, flip the pancake. It takes about 1:30-2:00 per side.  

Serve immediately or let cool and store in airtight container in the fridge.

Whoopie Pie Pan:

Pour 2 tablespoons of batter into each hole. 

Bake at 375F for 9-12 minutes. If too pale you can toss under the broiler for a 30 seconds. 

Serve immediately or let cool and store in airtight container in the fridge.

Pizza Dough

This had rave reviews from the family! There was silence while we all ate and a few thumbs up signs were flashed. I was asked to make it again too! Hurrah!

I made the dough in the morning before work and let it sit on the counter covered with plastic wrap all day. The dough rolled easily and I baked on a silpat mat.

I used canned tomato sauce that I doctored up with garlic power and Italian seasoning. The grown up pizza had brisket, pepperoni, and red onion. I used a mix of Mexican and mozzarella cheese. The kids decided to turn theirs into calzones and used mozzarella cheese and pepperoni.

Pizza Dough
Adapted from Piecrust and Pasta

Makes 4 half sheet size pizzas 

4 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (2 packets)
1 teaspoon honey
2 cups warm water, 110 to 115 degrees F
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus additional for brushing

cornmeal

In the bowl of the mixer dissolve the yeast and honey in the water. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add the flour, salt and olive oil. With the dough hook, mix on low speed for about 5 minutes. 

Place dough in a well oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Let it rise for at least one hour - two hours and up to the whole day. 

[Note: For overnight, put it into an oiled zipper freezer bag to refrigerate or freeze. Before using, let come to room temperature on the counter. It will expand so if your bag is small, you may want to transfer to a bowl for the duration.]

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Pinch off a piece of dough the size of your fist. Liberally sprinkle your counter with cornmeal and roll the dough ball with a floured rolling pin to a thin circle about 1/8 thick. Add your favorite toppings and bake 15 minutes or until browned on the edges and the cheese bubbles.

Honey and Soy Tilapia

Here is a new fish recipe from All Recipes! This was about 5 minutes of prep and 20 minutes of baking! I marinated the meat for about an hour and thirty minutes because I was finishing up some things around the house.

Would I make it again? Maybe. This has all the ingredients that I normally have laying around the house. I also think this would be a tasty marinade for grilled chicken.

As not everyone likes fish, it was convenient that I could cook chicken in the oven at the same temp and for the same time. There wasn't the feeling of cooking two meals. (I butterflied a chicken breast and marinated it in Wegman's Savory Marinade for the same amount of time as the fish. Then put the chicken in a tin foil lined pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350F) 

Honey and Soy Tilapia

serves 4

3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon minced garlic (or 1 tsp garlic powder)
1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Olive oil

4 (4 ounce) fillets tilapia

Mix the honey, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, and garlic together in a bowl. Place the tilapia fillets in the mixture; allow to marinate in refrigerator at least 30 minutes.

Preheat an oven to 350F. Prepare a glass baking dish with a layer of tin foil and a healthy drizzle of olive oil

Remove tilapia from marinade, and pour in some (or all) of the marinade. Place fillets into the prepared baking sheet, and sprinkle the black pepper over the fish.

Bake in the preheated oven until the fish flakes easily with a fork, 15 to 20 minutes.

Apple Cider Honey Vinaigrette

I make salad dressings from scratch. Super easy and not full of chemicals!

I make the dressing right in an old glass salad dressing bottle. I do a rough double or triple of the recipe to fill the salad dressing bottle to get a couple weeks worth of salad dressing. 

Apple Cider Honey Vinaigrette

makes 4 1/2 ounces (approx 3, 1.5 oz servings)

1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp Dijon style mustard

1 tsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tbsp oregano, dried

salt and pepper to taste

Combine the following ingredients and serve! 

Coconut Macaroons

Chocolate Chip, Lemon, and Regular
Coconut Macaroons

Here is a fast and easy dessert! It is naturally gluten free. You could make it dairy free with different chocolate chips or omitting them. It could be vegan if you substitute the egg whites too.  

I looked at many recipes trying to see what the best recipe would be. Some recipes called for 1 cup of sugar, but others said 1/4 cup of honey. I opted to try the honey version. These were sticky sweet just as expected! I'll make them with honey again in the future.

I made them in the mini muffin pan because I thought they would look cute. They do stick so next time I would line the muffin tins with the papers. If you don't read this and they do stick, I used a plastic spoon to scoop around each. You can also make them with rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake them as usual however, the cooking time may need to be adjusted by a few minutes.

This was a tasty basic recipe which can be easily adapted. I made some with lemon zest and a couple with chocolate chips to try it out. I think adding in sliced almonds on top or swapping in different citrus zests would be good too.

Enjoy!

Coconut Macaroons

Makes 15-20 cookies (in a mini muffin pan)

2 cups (un)sweetened shredded organic coconut

1/4 cup local organic honey* or organic Grade B maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or almond extract)

1/3 cup chocolate chips or 1 tbsp lemon / lime / orange zest (optional)

2 large local egg whites

Pinch of salt

Sliced almonds for sprinkling on the top (optional)

Preheat oven to 350º F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or line muffin tin with liners or spray muffin tin with non stick spray (these will stick!)

In a medium bowl mix together everything except the egg whites and salt, making sure the coconut is evenly coated with the honey (or maple syrup).

Using the mixer beat the egg whites with a small pinch of salt approx 2-3 minutes until stiff peaks form when you lift the mixer out.

Gently fold the coconut mixture into the eggs, being careful not to totally destroy the lovely beaten eggs. Let sit in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Drop batter onto the lined baking sheet, one rounded tablespoonful at a time.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until the tops are turning a light golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to wire rack to continue cooling completely.

No Bake Peanut Butter Granola Bites

Here are some easy no bake bite sized snacks! I looked at many different recipes for no bake granola bars including the recipes from How Sweet Eats, Smashed Peas and Carrots, and GranolaNola in order to come up with a combination that I would enjoy.  

I love granola and granola bars. I don't really like protein bars. They have this funny after taste. So here are some relatively healthy snacks to munch on while filling you up.

Some ideas: you can change the nuts in the recipe, change the peanut butter to almond butter or walnut butter or soy nut butter, add in raisins or dates or dried apricots, and any other fixin's until you would enjoy! 

Using the stand mixer combines the ingredients better than stirring with a spoon. It was hard to roll into balls by hand because it was sticky but it wasn't sticky enough to use the cookie scoop so I pushed the mixture into a mini muffin tin and let it chill overnight.
 
I put the ingredients in Recipes.Sparkpeople Calculator to see what the approximate nutrition of each bite. The findings were 127 Calories, 8 g Fat, 1.6 g Sat fat, 11.2 g Carbohydrates, 4.5 g Protein

I had to add in a lot of peanut butter this time because I added in extra oats.  The nutrition info above is based off of 1 cup of peanut butter.

Next time I will use less oats, I adjusted the recipe below from 1 1/2 cups of oats (which I had used) to 1 cup below. I think adding more honey will help the ingredients stay together better as well. I used less than the recommended 1/4 cup of honey, next time I would use the full 1/4 cup. I also want to try to add in a couple tbsp of protein powder, perhaps vanilla flavored? To maintain the correct consistency with adding in the protein powder I would in less dry ingredients (maybe even less oats?) and gradually add in the peanut butter/nut butter until it looks about right.

Update (4/7/2013) 
2 cups toppings*
+ 1 cup oats
+ 3/4 cup PB (or other nut butter)
+ 1/4 c honey (plus an addition tbsp or two if the texture isn't right)
= approx 24 mini muffin bites and 3 reg muffin bites

*toppings = chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts, peanuts) / seeds (sunflower, chia, ground flax) / dried fruit (apricots, raisins, craisins, etc) / dark chocolate / etc

All the stuff minus the pb, honey, and vanilla

Fill the mini muffin tins and then pop in the fridge

Yum!!

No Bake Peanut Butter Granola Bites
Makes 24 bites
 
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

½ cup ground flaxseed

2 tablespoons chia seeds

¼ cup of sunflower seeds

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ cup raisins

2 tablespoons chopped dark chocolate 

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract 

½ to 1 cup creamy peanut butter, melted and slightly cooled (microwave about 30 seconds) 

¼ cup honey

Combine all the ingredients. Push the mixture into mini muffin tins and then put the tray in the fridge. Keep in a air tight container in the fridge to maintain freshness.

Enjoy!