I’m not the biggest fan of buffalo wings. Too much vinegar … one note spiciness. Just not my thing. If we’re out and someone orders a plate, I’ll have one, but I don’t order them for myself. They are also incredibly greasy and messy — I get the stuff all over face and up my arms. Or maybe I’m just a slob.

But throw some wings on our Big Green Egg– well — that’s a different story altogether. First of all, a slow moderate roast in the BGE renders off all the fat, leaving the meat moist but not flabby. Secondly, I can toss the hot wings in my own sauce — whether that’s a sweet and spicy tomato-based barbecue sauce (like Sweet Baby Ray’s!), or a mustard-based barbecue sauce, or even a Thai sweet chili sauce! And I don’t have to drown them — a little goes a long way (and keeps my arms clean, right?).

Smoked Chicken Wings
Serves a crowd

Enough “party wings” to cover your grill grate without crowding [*]
Barbecue rub [**]
Barbecue sauce

Lay your wings out on a cookie sheet or two. Pat them dry if they are super wet. Liberally dust both sides with barbecue rub of your choice. Let them set out for the 30 to 45 minutes it will take to set up your grill and get the fire going. This rest period is important for seasoning — the salt will draw moisture out of the meat and then the salt gets drawn back INTO the meat.

Set up your grill for indirect grilling — on the BGE, we set up for indirect grilling with a plate setter. Aim for about 350F.

Once the grill has reached temp, lay out the wings out on the grate. Shut the lid and let it go about 45 minutes. No peeking!

At the 45 minute mark, flip the wings, rearranging if you are seeing hot spots. Shut the lid and let it go another 30 to 45 minutes. You may peek at the 30 minute mark to see if they are done. They should be evenly browned/charred and pulling away from the bone a bit. Poke one with your finger — should be fairly firm.

Pull them from the grill and immediately put in a large bowl and pour your favorite sauce over them. Toss gently, adding more sauce sparingly. It’s important to do it the moment they come off the grill — so the oh-so-crisp skin will soak up the sauce. But not drown in it!

Eat immediately!

[*]  “Party wings” means the first two joints of the wing, separated, and the wing tip discarded. Feel free to buy full wings and separate yourself. For me, it was more efficient to buy them ready to go. Our BGE holds about 40 pieces — I think that was 5 or 6 pounds worth.

[**]  We usually make our own rub. Salt, fresh ground black pepper, smoked paprika, ground cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, ground coriander, ground chipotle, I’d skip the brown sugar for these wings. But a purchased barbecue rub will work just fine.

So the following post is edited (slightly) from a comment I made on my friend Beverly’s blog, OneWeekCloser. Bev has been posting weekly about what she’s doing with her CSA box. Unlike wimpy me, Bev subscribes to a full-share in a more traditional CSA — The Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative. So she has a bounty of vegetables to deal with every week — whether eating, freezing, or giving away. I’m quite impressed with her industriousness! I’m reposting here because after I read the whole thing, I realized I had gotten carried away and it was standalone post on its own!

*****

Growing up in a Southern home (not always physically located in the South, but always there from a culinary perspective), fried okra was my absolute favorite vegetable. Ever. I still love it. When I visit my folks in the Ozarks of Mo, I try to get my fill and request Mom to cook hers and if we’re eating out, I noodge us towards restaurants that might serve it. No Shame.

I can find fresh okra occasionally in the grocer’s produce bin, but the quality can be a bit iffy (oversized and tough or dried out). I can find it reliably in the frozen section – which is fine for gumbo … not so good for the fried stuff of my childhood. So Bev’s offer of some fresh organic red okra got me drooling.

So what did I do with it? My own crazy delicious riff on bhindi masala, which is India’s take on fried okra. It had the texture of my childhood okra — some crisp some tender some slippery — but the flavors were Indian.  Here’s what I did:

• Wash the okra. Watch out for the hairs that can be rather prickly!
• Trim and discard the stem. Slice thru vertically from the pointy end, leaving the stem end attached. Kinda like a V shape. If you cut a couple all the way thru — no worries — just cook ‘em anyway.
• Heat a wide skillet (mine is 10″) over medium heat and add a glug or two (2 – 3 tablespoons?) of oil. I used a blended vegetable oil.
• Add the okra. Let it cook down, stirring occasionally. You will NOT get super crisp okra with this method (you have to deep fry it), but you will have some crispiness. When it is cooked to your desired tenderness, remove it to a heatproof plate or bowl.

• Finely slice a large shallot into rounds. Add it to the remaining oil in the skillet — you may need to add a teaspoon or two more oil. Fry it until it starts to brown a bit.
• Add a pinch of salt, some freshly ground black pepper, ground chipotle powder (or other chile-only powder) to taste, and a couple tablespoons of your favorite curry. I used a madras curry powder that had cumin, coriander, garlic, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, and about 10 other things. Use a curry blend that you like! Cook the onions a couple more minutes with spices — they need the oil and the heat to fully bloom.

• Put the okra and any accumulated oil back in the skillet. Turn off the heat and stir everything together gently — just until the okra is warmed back up. Serve as a side to just about anything!

*****

As it was date night, I served it with a panko-crusted plaice (skinny white fish labelled origin SE Asia) and some prosecco. And Top Chef. I also bought more okra the next day so I can make it again RSN!

So even though the blog was on hiatus for over a month (a month ?!?), I was still hobbling around the kitchen. Sourcing ingredients (shopping) is still a challenge — I just don’t have it in me to walk up and down every aisle in the store, or to visit multiple stores in a day (I have to pace myself). The CGP has done most of the marketing, but I’ve been trying to keep it pretty basic for his sake. But there was ONE thing that kept me from regularly ordering take-out or subsisting on Pop-Tarts: Fresh produce every Wednesday from Backyard Produce. I talked about this several months ago in a previous post, and it really did come in handy. It’s all familiar produce — things like kale and summer squash that are always welcome in our house. Knowing a few days ahead of time what was coming helped me plan upcoming meals and direct the CGP’s unsupervised trips to the grocer.

It also let him help out in a major way by cooking entire meals on the grill. Yes, grilling the meat is a no-brainer. But we made an effort to cook ALL the sides on there as well. I would do the prep work inside and just hand it all over to him for execution. We put diced new potatoes with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary in a foil packet and cooked it alongside the meat. We did something similar with beets (no rosemary). Try eggplant, thinly sliced length-wise (I use a mandoline at 1/4″ or 5/16″) and brushed with olive oil. Corn in the husk. Baby tapas peppers on a rosemary skewer. Zucchini sliced length-wise into quarters (less likely to fall into the fire!).

So, a friend-of-a-friend is an established chef and cookbook author (as well as a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier). I had the honor of testing five recipes for her upcoming cookbook. So there were a couple of weekends in there that I was working on those. This cookbook will be geared to a specific dietary/health concern, so my testing was very analytical. I had to weigh my vegetables beforehand (just how much DOES a medium zucchini weigh?) as well as measure volumes (cups/tablespoons) of the finished product, so they can do nutritional analyses and describe serving/portion sizes. It was a blast and a very different style of cooking for me, because I had to follow the recipes to a “T”. I’ll keep you posted when the cookbook comes out — for now — I have to keep it all Top Secret :).

I also managed to put up a couple more small batches of jam. The blueberries and blackberries are really awesome this year. Shout-out to Twin Springs Fruit Farm and Westmoreland Berry Farm for my berries!