"American" Night

This past week we decided to make cauliflower mac n cheese (as our main, for the vegetarians), honey-soy chicken wings, and wedge salad.  This past week we also decided that we will no longer be going to Pathmark.  We aren't sure when exactly this happened or if it's a temporary change but we couldn't find half of the things that we needed and the other half were "organic" (We aren't sure how organic anything from Pathmark could actually be).  So after walking around and cursing for what felt like two hours, we left.  The Sun has a personal problem with the Stop and Shop in our town so we ended up at H-Mart: our home away from home.

Honey-Soy Chicken Wings

Inspired by Tyler Florence's "Sticky Honey-Soy Chicken Wings"

Served roughly 12

Ingredients

3 pounds chicken wings
2 cups soy sauce
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 lemons, juiced
salt and pepper to taste
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup honey

Rinse chicken wings and pat dry. Remove tip and discard; separate each wing at the joint into 2 pieces. Place wings in a shallow dish and pour over the soy sauce, ginger, cilantro garlic, and lemon juice. Toss well to coat; marinate, refrigerated, for at least 30 minutes to one hour (if you are like us and don't have time to marinate for 2 hours). 

Remove wings; season with salt and pepper. Heat oven to 375 (we did 400 because we were making the mac n cheese at the same time) and cook for 30 minutes.  Flip over and cook another 30 (checking for doneness first).

                                                                       Ready to serve

Cauliflower Mac n Cheese

Inspired by Rachel Ray.

Could have fed probably 18 people (sent guests home with leftovers)

2.5 pounds macaroni
2 large heads cauliflower
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups vegetable stock (on a side note, why is this so difficult to find these days?)
6 tablespoons butter
2 onions, finely chopped
6 tablespoons flour
5 cups whole milk
freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons ground sage (crushed and with hard stems removed)
4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 cups sharp Cheddar cheese
2 cups Parmigiano cheese
2 cups Pepper Jack cheese
1 small bundle of watercress (for garnish if desired)

Bring water to a boil for pasta. Salt the water and undercook the pasta by 2 minutes, about 5 to 6 minutes.

While the water comes to a boil, in a covered large pot heat olive oil over medium to medium-high heat.  Rougly cut up cauliflower (core cut away) and set in pot with 3 cups stock, cover and steam 12 to 15 minutes until tender. Discard water from pot.

Over medium heat in the same pot, melt the butter, then add onions and garlic. Saute for 3 to 4 minutes, until tender. Add in the flour and whisk for 1 minute. Whisk in the whole milk and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sage. When thickened, stir in the Dijon mustard and 2/3 of the combined cheeses.

Drain the pasta, add to the cauliflower, stir in the cheese sauce, transfer to baking dish, top with remaining cheese. Preheat the oven to 400. Bake until brown on a baking sheet to catch the bubble-over. The casserole will take 40 to 45 minutes to heat through.

Garnish bowls of cauli-mac-n-cheese with chopped spicy watercress if desired.
 *Note:  This is not the runny Kraft style mac n cheese that everyone grew up with.  For extra cheesiness we suggest replacing the Parmigiano with 2 cups Velveeta.

                                                                       Monster Tray


Wedge Salad

For this, we bought 3 large heads of iceberg lettuce and quartered them.  Typically, this salad comes with blue cheese, chives, and crumbled up bacon.  Given the massive amounts of cheese and calories that we were feeding our guests, we decided to make our own dressing.  Thank you, Bambi, for your return to the kitchen.  Our first time making dressing turned out to be a hit.

Ingredients for Dressing (measurements are estimated)

2 cups olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons liquid honey
1 tablespoon Sriracha
2 garlic cloves, crushed
salt and pepper to taste

Blend.

                                                          Finished product (thanks, Bean!)

And, as usual, the aftermath:

                                                           Ramer enjoying himself

                                                     Joshua Bates, post dinner

                                                 Sending the Wolf home with leftovers

                                                       Joshua Bates and Joshua Bates

                                Some sort of finishing school style balancing cup game (mid fall)

                                                                     I don't know

                                                               Bean and Bo, cousins

                                                                        Prom ready.