| Football Foods |

Football season is one of my favorite times of the year. I just love having the games on all weekend- we'll be making a few trips to see our teams: the Gators (our beloved college team), Jags (where I grew up), and Bucs (where my husband grew up). Football always meant family time (minus the college years), ridiculously great food, and aaaah the weekend :)

To kick off this season, my husband and I whipped up some buffalo wings and I was craving some roasted garlic mashed potatoes.

Ingredients you'll need:

Buffalo wings: 

• 20 piece chicken wings (you'll cut these in two, so we made a total of 40)
• 1 bottle Frank's hot sauce
• 1-1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp ground cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 1/2 cup of butter

 

 

Halve the chicken wings, rinse, and pat dry with a paper towel. To prep the wing sauce: add 1/2 cup of butter and the whole bottle of Frank's hot sauce over medium heat. Stir occasionally and let simmer. 

To prep the flour mixture: add the 1-1/2 cups of flour, paprika, ground cayenne pepper, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add a few piece of chicken at a time. Mix, and coat all sides of the wings. Set the flour covered wings in the fridge for 25-30 minutes to cool. 

  Frying time! (We wish we had a lil fryer; hot vegetable or we used canola oil in a big pot works just fine!) Be super careful with hot oil! Ours started to smoke up a little bit so we turned the heat down. Fry around 10-12 pieces at a time for approximately 10 min or golden brown. Let the fried wings cool for a few minutes before tossing.

Add the wings to a large bowl and add some sauce- toss away!

These were SO delicious- perfectly golden brown, and spicy! And perfect with a Blue Moon :)

{I know this is a strange combination, but I wanted mashed potatoes, so we made some!}

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes:

• Bag of potatoes
• 1/2 cup of butter
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 bunch of garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste

Peel potatoes, chop in small piece, and boil until soft. To prep the roasted garlic: Take a whole bunch of garlic, and slice just the top of the heads off. Wrap in aluminum foil, and coat well with olive oil. Cover the top and bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes, or until soft and slightly browned.

In a small sauce pan, add butter and milk and let simmer.

We used our awesome mashing tool to get the potatoes just right!  Add the butter and milk mixture and keep on mashing. 

Check out the delicious roasted garlic just out of the oven. Mix all together and yum! So creamy with the perfect amount of garlic flavor (I use garlic in just about everything I cook.)

We're so excited to cook the wings again- especially for tailgates and football parties.

We also love using the grill: hot dogs, hamburgers, jalepeno's stuffed with cream cheese wrapped with bacon, chicken...What's your favorite football food?