Chicken Wings and Shrimp - Awesome Snacks

Over a week later, I finally got around to putting these up. Me and Tim made some pretty good chicken wings. Then we made some shrimp. They made very good snacks for hanging out and watching some TV.

Ingredients:

• Chicken Wings
• chicken wings
• buttermilk
• paprika
• Breading
• paprika
• corn flake crumbs
• paprika
• black pepper
• kosher salt
• celery salt
• garlic salt
  
• red pepper
• white pepper
• peanut oil
• onion
• bacon
• Sauce
• Valentina's Hot Sauce
  
• Ranch dressing
• black pepper
• white pepper
• red pepper
• Tabasco Sauce
  
• Shrimp
• raw shrimp, never frozen
• olive oil
• garlic
• black pepper
• paprika
• leftover sauce from my Buffalo Short Ribs

Procedure:
To start with, the chicken wings were soaked in buttermilk with some paprika for about half an hour. I threw some onion and bacon in the fryer full of peanut oil while it heated up. When the onions were getting black, they were removed and the oil was flavored and ready. While that was happening, I mixed up the breading and Tim coated the wings Shake-N-Bake style. The wings were fried in small batches until golden brown. When they were cool enough, Tim cut them up to make them easier to eat. We probably should have done that before frying, but whatever. We mixed up the sauce, and ate the wings while watching some TV. Not too shabby.

For the shrimp, I first shelled them and suckered Tim into de-veining. I pan fried them in olive oil with some garlic and seasoning, and finished by adding some of the leftover buffalo short rib sauce from the day before.

Resulting Deliciousness:
The chicken turned out great. The breading could have been more flavorful, but it was pretty good. Like I said, we should have cut them up before frying, but it was a minor detail. They did their job well.

The shrimp was a little overcooked, but tasty. A very nice midnight snack.

Shrimp Stuffed Red Peppers

Last night, I stuffed some red peppers with shrimp, quinoa, beans, and garlic. It turned out very well:

Ingredients:

• 6 red peppers
• 1 lb shrimp
• 1 can black beans
• 1 cup red quinoa
• 3 stalks celery
• 1/2 large onion
• 2 heads of garlic
• olice oil
• honey
  
• black pepper
• kosher salt
• paprika
• cream cheese
• Valentina hot sauce

Procedure:
First, I peeled and crushed the garlic and put it in a container with olive oil and pepper to soak. Then, I got the quinoa going. While that cooked, I carmalized the onions and celery with some garlic, pepper, salt, paprika, and olive oil. When that was done, I added some white wine. To that I added the black beans, honey, and salt. When the quinoa was done, that went in too. In a separate pan, I stir fried the shrimp in olive oil with some salt, pepper, and lime. The shrimp went in the big pot to finish up the stuffing.

To prepare the peppers, I cut the tops open like a pumpkin, cleaned out the seeds, and rinsed the peppers. I dropped some olive oil and Valentina's into each pepper. Then, I added the stuffing. I found that the shrimp acted as excellent plunger to shove more stuffing into a pepper. The amount of stuffing turned out perfect - each pepper was stuffed tight and none was left over. After stuffing, I coated the outsides of the peppers with some of the olive oil that the garlic had been soaking in. Then, several cloves of garlic went on top of each pepper.

The stuffed peppers were placed upright in a large baking pan and placed on the bottom rack of the oven, which was pre-heated to 250 degrees. I let that go for half an hour. Then, I decided to bump it up to 275 and let it go for almost an hour, checking every 20-30 minutes. When the peppers were wrinkled and soft, and the garlic was browning, I considered them done.

Resulting Deliciousness:
They turned out great! The only down side was that the shrimp had been frozen, and was not very high quality - I was surprised since Whole Foods stuff is usually pretty good. They were a little low on taste and the texture wasn't great. However, everything was still great. The stuffing is tasty and filling, and the pepper container added a whole level of deliciousness. While eating, I decided to add a sauce - cream cheese, honey, garlic olive oil, and Valentina's. That added a nice creamy texture and really put it over the top.

While the taste of the baked peppers was good, it wasn't nearly as good as roasted peppers. I think the next time I stuff peppers, I'll roast the peppers, peel them, then stuff them and skip or shorten the baking. That could be awesome.