Sweet and Tangy Wings with Butter Lettuce Salad

from Real Simple magazine

1/4 cup apricot jam
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Kosher salt
3 1/2 pounds chicken wings (about 25)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the grill
2 tablespoons store-bought pesto
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 head butter lettuce, torn into pieces

Heat grill to medium-low.

In a large bowl, combine the jam, vinegar, ginger, cayenne, and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside 1/4 cup of the mixture. Add the chicken wings to the large bowl and toss to coat.

Lightly oil the grill and cook the chicken, covered, turning occasionally, until cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes. During the last 10 minutes of grilling, baste the wings with the reserved jam mixture.

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, pesto, and lemon juice.

Divide the lettuce among individual plates and drizzle with the pesto vinaigrette. Serve with the chicken wings.

Technique: If you don't have access to a grill, you can cook this dish in the broiler on a sheet pan for the same amount of time. (Most grill pans aren't large enough to hold all the wings at once.) (I baked mine at 350 degrees for probably 30-40 minutes, turning and basting them every 10 minutes or so.)

Yield: Makes 4 servings

Ricotta Eggs with Basil

from Williams-Sonoma

• 15 oz ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded Romano cheese
• 1 1/2 Tbs. thinly sliced fresh basil
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 5 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Toast for serving

In bowl, whisk together ricotta and Romano cheeses, basil, cream, eggs and salt. Set aside.

Fill egg-poaching pan with 1 inch water. Set over medium heat, cover and bring to simmer.

Set 4 egg-paching cups on plate. Pour about 1/2 cup egg mixture into each one.

Set cups in pan, cover and simmer until eggs are set, about 12 minutes. Flp eggs upside down onto plate. Repeat to make 4 more poached eggs.

Transfer eggs to individual plates; serve immediately with toast. Serves 4.

Chocolate-Orange Cookie Stacks

• 1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
• 2/3 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, partially thawed
• 40 chocolate wafer cookies (about one 9-oz package)
• Finely grated orange peel

Using electric mixer, beat cream and orange juice concentrate in medium bowl until stiff peaks form.

Place 8 cookies on rimmed backing sheet, spacing apart. Spoon about 1 level tablespoon whipped orange cream atop each cookie, then top each with second cookie and another tablespoon cream. Repeat 2 more times with cookies and cream, creating 8 stacks of 4 cookies with 4 layers of orange cream. Top each stack with fifth cookie. Transfer remaining orange cream to small bowl; cover and chill cream. Cover and chill stacks at least 6 hours or overnight (cookies will soften).

Carefully transfer 1 stack to each of 8 plates. Rewhisk reserved orange cream, if necessary, until stiff peaks form. Spoon dollop of orange cream atop each stack, sprinkle with grated orange peel, and serve.

Thin-Crust Pizzas with Fresh Mozzarella

• 1 package dry yeast
• 1 cup water, 105 - 115 degrees
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 1/2 cups flour plus more for rolling
• 1 tsp salt
• Olive oil spray
• Cornmeal
• 1 cup pizza or pasta sauce, preferably spicy
• 2 8-0z packages mozzarella cheese
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Dried red pepper flakes

Stir yeast into warm water and let stand until dissolved, about 5 minutes. Stir in olive oil.

Put flour and salt in food processor fitted with metal blade. Slowly pour yeast mixture through feed tube and process until smooth and elastic, about 40 seconds. (mixing by hand works fine too)

Transfer dough to large resealable plastic bag, squeeze out air and seal, leaving enough room for dough to expand. Place bag in bowl and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch dough down, then cut into 4 equal pieces.

Put 1 piece dough on lightly floured board and roll into 10-inch circle, flipping it occasionally and sprinkling on more flour as needed. Repeat with remaining 3 pieces of dough.

For each pizza, center 1 piece dough on pizza pan, preferably black steel, that has been sprayed with olive oil spray and sprinkled with cornmeal.

Evenly spread 1/4 cup sauce to edge of each piece dough. Cut cheese into 1/4-inch-thick crosswise slices and divide among pizzas, spacing evenly. Sprinkle 1/4 tsp. oregano, 1/8 tsp salt (I recommend less) and red pepper flakes to taste on each pizza.

Bake at 525 degrees (my oven only goes up to 500 degrees) on lowest rack of oven until sizzling and bottom of crust is brown and crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. If baking 2 pizzas at a time on 2 racks, reverse them after 2 1/2 minutes.

Chinese Hot and Sour Soup

1/4 lb. mushrooms
1/4 lb. spinach
2 green onions
3 T light soy sauce
3 T vinegar
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 T sesame oil.
1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce
6 cups chicken broth
3 T cornstarch
5 T water
3/4 pound (12 oz.) tofu, drained and cut into 3/4 inch chunks

• Wipe mushrooms clean with damp paper towel. Break stem off each and set aside. Thinly slice caps, then stack them into a pile and cult in half. Rinse spinach in cold water and dry well. Trim roots and most of green tops from onions and thinly slice. Set aside.
• Mix soy sauce, vinegar, pepper, sesame oil and hot pepper sauce. Set aside.
• Combine broth, mushrooms and spinach in large pot. Simmer over medium heat 4 minutes.
• Stir soy sauce mixture into broth. Taste and add more soy sauce or hot sauce--whatever you feel would improve and balance flavor (I ended up using probably 3 times the recipe amount of soy sauce and hot sauce, plus a little additional vinegar).
• Mix cornstarch and water and add to broth. Stir a couple of minutes to blend. Add tofu and continue to stir; cornstarch mixture will give a slight thickness to broth. Serve hot (or cold) with a sprinkle of chopped green onions on top.

Chicken alla Diavola

From Food and Wine magazine -- Delicious!

Chicken alla Diavola

ACTIVE TIME: 30 MIN TOTAL TIME: 3 HRS 2 days infusing
SERVES: 4

Denaro’s pollo alla diavola ("devil’s-style chicken”) is intensely seasoned. Two days prior to cooking, Denaro infuses white wine vinegar with a big bunch of dried Sicilian oregano for a marinade. Then he seasons the marinated chicken with an exotic herb mixture, or condimento, that includes Turkish bay laurel (“the only kind to use,” Denaro says) and myrtle leaves. Feel free to experiment with a variety of herbs for the condimento. Pollo alla diavola is traditionally grilled over wood embers, but the chicken may also be grilled over a charcoal or gas fire, or broiled in an oven.

ingredients

1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoons dried oregano
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Two 3- to 3 1/4-pound chickens
2 teaspoons dried sage
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon piment d’ Espelette or Aleppo pepper, or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

directions

In a small jar, combine the white wine vinegar with the dried oregano. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 2 days. Strain the oregano-infused vinegar into a small bowl and stir in the olive oil.
Using kitchen shears, remove the wing tips and the backbones from the chickens. Set the chickens on a large rimmed baking sheet, skin side up, and press down firmly on the breastbones to flatten them so that the legs face the breasts. Score each breast, drumstick, thigh and wing halfway to the bone in two places per part. Drizzle all but 2 tablespoons of the vinegar-oil mixture over both sides of the chickens and rub the mixture into the meat. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
In a small bowl, combine the dried sage with the kosher salt, piment d’ Espelette, dried rosemary and ground black pepper. Rub the seasoning all over the chickens. Let the seasoned chickens stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 425°. Roast the chickens in the upper third of the oven, skin side up, basting both chickens with the remaining vinegar-oil mixture half way through, until the chicken is just cooked, and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh registers 165°, about 45 minutes.
Preheat the broiler. Pour the pan juices into a small saucepan. Broil the chickens about 4 inches from the heat, rotating the pan, until browned and crisp, about 3 minutes. Carve the chickens. Reheat the pan juices and serve with the chicken.

MAKE AHEAD The oregano vinegar can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

WINE This variation on pollo alla diavola is less fiery than the classic version, and definitely more exotic. Yet at its heart it’s still a luscious roast chicken, making it an ideal match for a medium-bodied red wine—especially one with a touch of exoticism itself, such as Paolo Bea’s organically farmed, peppery 2001 Montefalco Rosso, an idiosyncratic blend of Sagrantino, Montepulciano and Sangiovese.

Leo and Space Go to the Rocket Wash

Editor's note: This is the second installment of Riley's potboiler about Leo and rodent friend, Space.

One day Leo and Space noticed a lot of moon, space, and star dust on the spaceship and the rocket. They decided to take them to the rocket wash to get clean.

Before they landed at the rocket wash, the wheels came out of the bottom of the rocket and the spaceship. They lined up to drive through the rocket wash; Leo went first in the rocket and Space followed him in the spaceship.

As Leo drove the rocket through the rocket wash, jets sprayed the rocket all over with water. Just before he drove the rocket out, mechanical arms waved back and forth all around the rocket and sprayed it with wax. Now it was all shiny and clean. No more space dust!

Leo waited for Space outside the rocket wash, and then they flew together back to Mars.