Garlic Parmesan Wings | Meet Me On Love Lane

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I am happy to be hosting today's TLC Book Tours stop for the newest book in the Hopeless Romantics series by Nina Bocci, Meet Me On Love Lane. I hadn't read the first book in the series, but fortunately I was offered a copy of that one, called On the Corner of Love and Hate, as well. I'm not here to review Book 1 today, but I will tell you that I devoured it from start to finish. I was sucked in to the small town of Hope Lake and its residents.

While Book 1 focused on Emma and Cooper, Book 2 introduces us to Charlotte, and brings some of On the Corner of Love and Hate's supporting characters to the front lines. While reading the first book isn't essential to enjoying the second, I highly recommend you start from the beginning to add more depth to your experience.

41 Chicken Wing Recipes to wrap-up Wing Week!

Well, it's here, and it came fast—today is officially the final day of #wingweek 2015. The fact that today also happens to be Super Bowl XLIX is no accident. Since I start craving wings come football play-off time, I figured other people might be doing the same. What better way to gear up for a day of food and football than with a virtual buffet of chicken wings recipes coming your way for a whole week? Plus, it gave me a chance to try out some new recipes and techniques, and have a few friends drop by with their contributions, as well!

I kicked things off last Sunday with a simple tutorial on how to break down whole chicken wings and how to cook them. If you're armed with the basics, you can use them to adapt any other recipe or flavor profile to suit your needs. I had such an awesome week, and believe it or not, I'm still looking forward to eating more wings during the game tonight. But after that, I'll probably be good for at least a short while.

In case you missed any of the chicken wing recipes I shared this week, here is a recap:

Monday - Slow Cooker Sweet 'n Tangy Wings
Tuesday - Crisped Ginger Soy Chicken Wings (guest post by Camilla)
Wednesday - Bloody Mary Chicken Wings
Thursday - Slow Cooker Sticky Wings (guest post by Karen)
Friday - Popcorn-crusted Chicken Wings
Saturday - Crispy Oven Baked Hot Wings (guest post by Bernadette)

Crispy Oven Baked Hot Wings, a #WingWeek guest post

Please help me welcome my third (and final) #wingweek guest poster, Bernadette of Rants From My Crazy Kitchen. She set out on a mission to make some husband-pleasing crispy hot wings from the oven instead of the fryer—and succeeded. I'm pretty sure these would please husbands all around the world!

Hi, everybody! I'm Bernadette from Rants From My Crazy Kitchen. I've been recipe blogging for almost 3 years, and I am a wife and a mother to a 5 year old girl. My husband had a heart attack on December 20th, at the age of 46, but is on his way to a full recovery. Since then we have made a lot of changes to his diet, which means mine and my daughters as well. I am cooking a lot healthier, no more red meat, no fried foods, etc.

A few weeks after he came home from the hospital he was thinking about food, and said "I guess no more chicken wings for me." I told him I could bake them, and he said "Yeah, but there not as crispy." The next day Heather asked for guest posters with the theme of chicken wings, and I just knew I could do it!

Popcorn-crusted Chicken Wings

It's Friday, and that means we're more than halfway down the #wingweek homestretch. I'm a little bit bummed out that I didn't unearth the grill from the garage and share some grilled and/or some smoked chicken wings with you this week, but that just gives me a goal for #wingweek part deux!

Today's wings aren't from the grill, they're another baked variety, but what makes them fun and a bit unique is the fact that they are breaded! Now, I've never breaded my wings before today. Well, wait a minute—I have breaded wings, but only when I've cut up a whole chicken and breaded that. So, it was "whole" wings. That doesn't count. But it's the same difference. A lightly seasoned flour coating, then into the beaten eggs, then shaken up in a bag full of ground-up cheesy popcorn mixed with chipotle chile powder.

We dipped these in chipotle ranch, but you could definitely use regular ranch, as well. Though they have chipotle in the breading, they're not spicy. Just be sure to season your flour well, so that your wings have flavor!

Slow Cooker Sticky Wings, a #WingWeek guest post

Please help me welcome my second #wingweek guest poster, Karen from Karen's Kitchen Stories. Today Karen is sharing some beautifully sticky wings that are sweet, and just a little bit spicy—plus they're made in the slow cooker (my current favorite way to make a big batch of wings...or a small one)!

Hi!! Karen from Karen’s Kitchen Stories here! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be contributing this post to All Roads Lead to the Kitchen. Heather is one of the most creative cooks and prolific bloggers out there, and you can always find something delicious here. Heather is one talented woman and she writes from her heart.

These slow cooker sticky wings are sweet, slightly spicy, and, of course sticky. Plus, they are super easy to make. They are cooked on low in a slow cooker for 4 hours, brushed with a sticky sauce, and then broiled on both sides to give them a wonderful char. You get the best of both worlds; fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth tenderness from the slow cooker, and a crispy charred skin from the broiler.

Bloody Mary Chicken Wings

When January rolls around, so many people are focused on finding recipes to back up their resolutions; this usually means lighter fare. Words like healthy, skinny, and lightened-up take over the search bar. I totally get that. The holidays kick my butt, too. For me though, January triggers something entirely different—a craving for chicken wings!

I think wings are a natural accompaniment to January. Or maybe I should say they're a natural accompaniment to football and the art of gathering around the television eating things with your fingers. Now, I realize that this is actually the tail end of the season, but for one reason or another, it's bowl games and play-offs that trigger my desire for wings.

I'm pretty sure I look like a madwoman, preparing for the chicken apocalypse, as I stack every last package of chicken wings and chicken drumettes from the cooler into my shopping cart. Should I even mention what happens once I get all that chicken home? Let's just say that if a fridge was a pair of jeans, I'd need a pair of pliers to zip them up.

Crisped Ginger-Soy Chicken Wings + Beer Pairing, a #WingWeek guest post

Please help me welcome my first #wingweek guest poster, Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla. I'm pretty thrilled that I inspired her to make chicken wings in her own kitchen for the very first time! Her Crispy Ginger-Soy Wings sound like they are bursting with flavor, plus, she's offered up a beer pairing to go along with her wings. No wonder I like this girl.

When Heather posted that she was looking for some chicken wing guest posts this month, I almost skipped reading the rest of the request. Chicken wings?!? I thought. I don't fry.  I remember watching a cooking show about chicken wings and there seemed to be a complicated dance between the fryer and the oven. And, remember: I don't fry.

But as I finished reading her post, I decided that this would be a good culinary challenge, one that I definitely wanted to complete: make tasty, crispy wings without frying. Challenge accepted.

Good chicken wings are about great flavor and great texture. I did it! This has both.

Slow Cooker Sweet 'n Tangy Glazed Chicken Wings

Until recently, I'd never really thought about making chicken wings in the slow cooker. It was either baked, fried, or if I happened to think about it while the grill was fired up, I'd throw some on there. I don't know if I just didn't pay attention before, but as soon as I saw one recipe for crockpot wings, I've been seeing them around every corner. It's like the buying a new car syndrome (see a beautiful car, buy it, then suddenly everybody and their mother is driving the exact same car).

I figured it was finally time to throw some wings in the slow cooker and see what came out. I bet you can guess. Tender deliciousness, of course. I mean, they were cooked in a slow cooker! The result was a batch of wings just threatening to fall off the bone. But boy, were they ugly. Half the fun of eating wings is a crispy skin, and obviously you can't achieve that in a wet environment.

The trick is lifting them carefully from the crock, setting them onto a rack, and then saucing them up and sliding them under a hot broiler. That skin will crisp up in no time, and all you have to do is give it a couple of sauces and a couple of turns. Minimal finishing work for such amazing results.

Chicken Wings: how to break them down + how to cook them

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating a whole chicken wing, I prefer cutting up my wings into smaller sections before preparing them for game day or appetizers. It really is as easy as one, two, three! Today I'm kicking off #wingweek with a simple tutorial on how to break down chicken wings into easy-to-nibble portions, and also sharing five different cooking methods to prepare those wings with.

Simple Steps to quickly Breaking Down Whole Chicken Wings:

1. Locate the two joints by using your fingers. You should be able to feel where they connect.
2. Use a pair of kitchen shears to snip through the center of each joint, leaving you with three parts: the Drumette, the Wingette (often called a Flat), and the tip.
3. Use the Drumettes and Wingettes in your recipe. I like to store all my wing tips in a large freezer bag (just adding them as I get them) to add to a batch of chicken or poultry stock, but you can discard them if you don't think you'll use them.

Seriously, it doesn't get much simpler than that. Okay, it kind of does—most markets carry packages of drumettes in their chicken sections. I admit to buying them like this from time to time, but it's nice to know that you don't have to, isn't it? Plus, I like having both of the wing sections to choose from.

Spiced Fig and Garlic Chicken Wings

Whether you're enjoying them outside the stadium, plucking them one by one from a huge foil pan, or getting messy inside during the game, wings are one of those ubiquitous game day foods. Some like them spicy (hand raised), some like them sweet (okay, I'll raise a hand here, too), some like them bathed in garlic (both hands and both feet raised), but you're hard-pressed to find somebody who doesn't enjoy a good chicken wing. Vegetarians—sssshhhhh. You can have cauliflower "wings" instead; I won't deny you.

So, since today is the official start of the #10DaysofTailgate, what better thing to share than a finger-lickin' batch of wings? These particular wings are simple. Beyond simple. With only three other ingredients (one of which is optional), I should probably say embarrassingly simple. But hey, they're too good not to share. Plus, they feature one of our awesome #10DaysofTailgate sponsors, Not Ketchup!

Spiced Fig = Instantly Smitten. This fruit ketchup is slightly tangy and slightly sweet, and my bottle is entirely empty. I rinsed it out and put it back on the shelf, but as of yet, it's not automatically regenerating. And for some reason, I couldn't get the idea of combining it with garlic and slathering on wings out of my head. So, that was exactly what I did.

Black Pepper and Garlic Chicken Wings

Doesn't it just drive you crazy when you see an amazing photo in a cookbook? It drives me crazy. I have to have a large, rip-able bookmark with me when I'm looking through a cookbook. I see a picture or read an amazing recipe and riiiip, off comes a strip of said paper to insert as a placeholder. And I'm mad for cookbooks. The librarians must know by now not to put new cookbooks up for display, with no other books as fillers...because I usually just walk down the row and snatch 'em all up (then they have to go and choose something else to stand up)...you get the picture. I can pretty much find at least (at least!) one thing in any given cookbook that I want to make or try.

One of the newer ones I found, Big Small Plates by Cindy Pawlcyn had me drooling plenty, but there was this recipe...this photo...called Black Pepper and Garlic Chicken Wings (YUM)! Suddenly, I was craving wings in a bad way.

Black Pepper and Garlic Chicken Wings (with Ginger)
yield: 2 pounds

2 pounds chicken wings

+for the marinade:+
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 dried shiitake mushrooms

2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon honey

Combine soy sauce and shiitake mushrooms in a small pot and bring to a boil for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Whisk all of the other ingredients into the pot once cooled to room temperature.If using whole wings, cut off tip, then cut wing at joint to separate into drummies & "flat" sections. Place chicken in a large (gallon) resealable bag. Pour marinade over and seal well. Make sure chicken is well-covered with sauce.
Marinate for 12-24 hours in refrigerator, turning frequently.
Preheat oven to 450 F. Line a pan with foil, then arrange wings on a rack set over a shallow pan. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until skin is browned and crispy and meat has begun to pull away from bone at end.

-adapted from Big Small Plates by Cindy Pawlcyn

This is the point where I will say it again...doesn't it just drive you crazy when you see an amazing photo in a cookbook? Crazy in a great, must-have...hungry crazy way. But, also crazy when you make the same recipe and end up with a different result? A different "photo", if you will? Yeah, they still look pretty good. But, the picture in the book- oh man! They were molasses-colored and sticky and finger-lickin' good! Mine didn't exactly turn out that way :( Oh well, they were okay.

I really like the flavor combination in the marinade, but I'm definitely adding something sticky and messy next time. I want the napkins to stick to my finger tips! I want messy fingerprints all over my beer bottle! I want to pick sticky bits of goo from between my teeth! So, good in theory...but I think it could have been better...and will be next time.