Bama Baked Wings recipe offers healthy option to football favorite

Wings and football are a classic combination, but healthful game-day food often doesn't make the cut. Here's a recipe for hot wings that will satisfy hungry fans and take a little bit of the calorie and fat sting out of enjoying deep fried wings. Named "Bama Baked Wings" for the University of Alabama football team, these wings are good enough for SEC fans — who boast being the most passionate college football followers in the nation. That means fans here in Illinois will also be impressed, no matter what college or pro tem they root for.

Instead of using Frank's brand hot sauce for northern-style Buffalo wings, this recipe calls for Louisiana brand hot sauce ... even though The Crimson Tide and LSU don't play nice together on the field! Louisiana brand is easy to find in Aurora-area grocery stores. Also listed is a recipe for blue cheese dressing that won't be as bad for your diet as store-bought stuff in a jar.

Bama Baked Wings Recipe

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

• 6 pounds of fresh chicken wings, cut into drum and wing parts
• 1 c flour
• 1 egg beaten with 2/3 cup of water
• 2 T. Seasoned Salt or Creole Seasoning
• canola cooking spray
• 2 sticks of butter (can substitute light butter)
• 3 T. red wine vinegar
• 3/4 c. Louisiana brand hot sauce (can use less for milder wings)

For the blue cheese dressing, mix together everything but the veggies. Refrigerate until the wings are ready to serve.

• 1 cup Light Sour Cream
• 1 cup Olive Oil Mayo
• 1 tub of blue cheese crumbles (can also use light blue cheese crumbles)
• garlic salt and pepper to taste
• 2 T. milk
• dash of red wine vinegar
• cut celery and carrot into sticks for snacking

Directions: Cut the wings so they are separated into drum and wing sections. If using frozen wings, make sure they are defrosted overnight before baking. Cover 2 hotel pans or baking sheets with foil — you may need three pans depending on how large they are. Spray the foil with canola cooking spray. Mix the flour and seasoned salt in a bowl. Dip the wings in the egg wash and then bread them in the flour mixture. Spread the wings out evenly on the baking sheets. Lightly spray the top of the wings with canola spray. Bake in a 425-degree oven for 20 minutes. Turn the wings after the 20 minutes and set timer for another 10. In a saucepan, melt the two sticks of butter. Add the hot sauce and 3 T. of vinegar. Stir until blended. Take the wings out of the oven and brush them on one side with the hot sauce mixture using a pastry or grilling brush. Return to the oven again for 10-15 minutes or until they seem done.

Brush on extra sauce if desired before serving. Set out blue cheese dressing, carrot and veggie stick alongside the wings.

Tarte de Pommes-tini

Inspired by one of Chicago's hot new restaurants, Girl & The Goat, this cocktail recipes uses the French apple brandy Calvados and rum to provide smooth fall flavor. Phil Vettel of the Chicago Tribune gave Girl & The Goat a great first review, but you don't have to drive all the way downtown to enjoy this sophisticated sipper.

The cocktail on the menu at the Girl & The Goat is named "The Pirate Norman." Chef Stephanie Izard of Top Chef fame and her staff likely named the drink after its two main ingredients, aged rum (pirate) and the Normandy import of Calvados (Norman). This interpreted recipe of the Girl & The Goat cocktail is called "Tarte de Pommes-tini" or roughly "apple tart-tini" in French. While it may not be the exact Pirate Norman from Girl & The Goat, the taste may be just perfect for those martini lovers who never truly embraced the overly sweet "apple-tini" craze. And the flavor comparision to the original is pretty close. The ingredients are easy to find in the western suburbs of Chicago. Calvados is easy to find and is often used for cooking. Make sure the rum you choose is a dark aged rum.

Tarte de Pommes-tini

(enough for two cocktails with some extra left for refills)

Combine in a martini shaker with crushed ice:

• 2 shots Calvados
• 4 shots aged rum
• juice of 1 lemon (strained of pulp)
• 3 tsp. of sugar

Shake and strain the cocktail, serving in martini glasses.

Best place to shop for sausage in Aurora is the century-old Wurst Kitchen

If you love grilling brats, sausages and just about any other kind of encased or smoked meats, your best bet is to visit the Wurst Kitchen Sausage Co. in Aurora. In business in the Fox Valley for more than 115 years, the Wurst Kitchen started out making handmade and all-natural smoked and processed meats, largely serving the area's German community. Today the shop carries on the tradition of producing handmade sausages and meats, creating more than 80 different varieties throughout the year.
Polish sausage, bratwurst and veal bratwurst are just a few of the great choices for shoppers visiting Wurst Kitchen. More unusual flavors include Pizza, Taco, Tequila & Lime and Cherry Bomb bratwurst. At any given time the shop carries 40 varieties. A package of four large size brats or sausages are priced around $8. A list of offerings can be found here.

Located at the corner of Union and 2nd Street on Aurora's east side, the shop shows that it has strong roots. This location happens to be the original. For those who live further west of Aurora, Wurst Kitchen also operates an outlet and restaurant in downtown Plano (12 W. Main St.). A recent Saturday afternoon the Plano restaurant boasted a pig roast on premises. Catering options are available, and hunters will also find that Wurst Kitchen can process game like venison or foul. Contact the store for more details.

Shopping for South Asian Specialties in Illinois' Fox Valley

Located near the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora (3577 E New York St.), Namaste Bazar offers a wide variety of fresh, frozen and packaged foods focused on Indian and South Asian specialties. The store, which opened in May, is easy to shop and also offers chaat — savory snacks — with a menu of items like panipuri, bhelpuri, masala puri, sevpuri, and more in addition to masala tea and coffee.

The friendly owners seem to take great pride in the 1,200-plus items they stock, making it a welcoming place for shoppers of all backgrounds. The quaint outdoor seating area is very inviting for sitting and enjoying chaat or coffee during good weather. Free wi-fi is available in the store.

Even shoppers who may not be familiar with the ins and outs of Indian cooking will find a great deal to purchase at the store. There is a plentiful selection of frozen meals and treats available that will greatly expand the variety of convenience meals you keep on hand in your kitchen. There are also many ready-to-eat South Asian snack mixes and convenient spice blends that will help a cook who is intimidated by mastering a new cuisine. The spice selection is extensive and prices are very reasonable. Namaste Bazar even offers a savings club for frequent shoppers that provides discount prices, coupons, rewards gifts and more.

Pasta with White Wine, Sausage & Tomato Sauce

Skip the jarred pasta sauce and hamburger combo. This recipe for spaghetti rigati with a tomato-sausage and white wine sauce bursts with flavor that's much better than the old grocery store standard.

The key is using good Italian sausage such as the freshly made offerings you find at Aurora's Prisco's Fine Foods. The best type for this recipe is the bulk Italian sausage made without fennel. Many specialty stores like Prisco's offer the option to buy the sausage with or without fennel.

Another essential ingredient to this recipe is using high-quality tomatoes, even though it calls for jarred or canned varieties. San Marzano tomatoes are readily available at the grocery store, even though you may have to look past many domestic offerings to find them. They are imported from Italy and have the most flavor of the canned tomatoes you will find. Spaghetti Rigati is the best for this recipe because the sauce clings to the tiny ridges on each strand. Barilla offers a version that is easy to find at most stores.

Here is the recipe for Spaghetti Rigati with Sausage Red Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 pound bulk Italian sausage (preferably without fennel)
• 1 jar of pureed San Marzano Tomatoes 700 g (or equivalent canned crushed tomatoes)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup white wine
• salt and pepper to taste
• 5 leaves of fresh basil (or dried basil to taste)
• 1 pound box of Barilla Spaghetti Rigati
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Combine white wine with the sausage in a medium size bowl and work the wine into the sausage with your hands. This helps break up the sausage and give it a nice texture for the sauce, as well as add flavor. Add it to a hot pan and cook the sausage until nearly browned. Use a paper towel to dab up any extra grease from the sausage that you may not want in the sauce. Leaving some fat in the pan is good for the flavor. Add the olive oil and chopped garlic and cook just a couple of minutes more until the garlic is golden. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Add the 700g jar of pureed tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and continue to simmer for 15 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking, prepare the pasta and make sure it a nice al dente texture. Rinse all the tomatoes out of the jar with a little bit of the cooking pasta water and add to the sauce. Near the end of the simmering process, add the chopped basil leaves. More or less can be used to taste. When the pasta is cooked, add part of the sauce to the pasta in the pan. Stir over medium heat to coat the pasta and influse flavor. Serve with dollops of extra sauce and grated cheese.

Pleasant Ridge Reserve named America's best cheese by ACS

Last weekend in Seattle, The American Cheese Society held its annual conference and competition to announce the best artisan cheeses in the land. For cheese lovers, the event was appropriately titled "Cheese-a-topia," with a bounty of fine cheese producers gathering to showcase their best work. The winner of "Best in Show" from Saturday's competition just happened to be nearby cheese producer Uplands Cheese of Dodgeville, WI, just three hours north of Aurora.

The winning cheese is the Extra Aged Pleasant Ridge Reserve, a hard cheese in the style of a Gruyere that is full of flavor that can only be found in the unique milk of the cows on this Wisconsin farm. "We make Pleasant Ridge Reserve only during the summer months, while our cows are grazing on fresh pasture," according to the Uplands Cheese website. "This milk is full of flavor — and nutritional qualities -— not found in the milk of cows kept inside and fed stored feed. We use only fresh milk that is never pasteurized, and age the cheese in ripening rooms on our farm to ensure that our cheese expresses all of the flavor complexity possible in a grass-fed, raw-milk cheese."

Pleasant Ridge reserve is not new to awards. Most notably, it was named Best of Show at both the 2001 and the 2005 American Cheese Society competitions, making it the only cheese in that competition's history to win the top honor twice. It was also named the US Champion Cheese in the 2003 and is the only cheese ever to win both national competitions, according to the producers.

Uplands Cheese Company is owned and operated by two families: Mike and Carol Gingrich and Dan and Jeanne Patenaude. After years of farming separately as neighbors, in 1994 they bought the farm together. The cheese is made only from milk on the farm, which makes it a farmstead cheese.

This prestigious cheese will excite Fox Valley foodies who want to try the very best. You can order it online or find it in Chicago at Pastoral, a specialty food store that carries a wide variety of artisan cheese. Another way to get the cheese is tell the manager of your favorite store that you would like to see it in stock. For fine dining options, Vie in Western Springs currently features the cheese on its menu as part of a dessert cheese plate. Call ahead to make sure it is still available.

Namaste Bazar offers great South Asian Specialties in Aurora

Located near the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora (3577 E New York St.), Namaste Bazar offers a wide variety of fresh, frozen and packaged foods focused on Indian and South Asian specialties. The store, which opened in May, is easy to shop and also offers chaat — savory snacks — with a menu of items like panipuri, bhelpuri, masala puri, sevpuri, and more in addition to masala tea and coffee.

The friendly owners seem to take great pride in the 1,200-plus items they stock, making it a welcoming place for shoppers of all backgrounds. The quaint outdoor seating area is very inviting for sitting and enjoying chaat or coffee during good weather. Free wi-fi is available in the store.

Even shoppers who may not be familiar with the ins and outs of Indian cooking will find a great deal to purchase at the store. There is a plentiful selection of frozen meals and treats available that will greatly expand the variety of convenience meals you keep on hand in your kitchen. There are also many ready-to-eat South Asian snack mixes and convenient spice blends that will help a cook who is intimidated by mastering a new cuisine. The spice selection is extensive and prices are very reasonable. Namaste Bazar even offers a savings club for frequent shoppers that provides discount prices, coupons, rewards gifts and more.