Month: September 2006

September 27, 2006

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich Recipe

If you’re like us, you often make too much of a good thing. That is, your eyes are bigger then your stomach, and you cook more food then you can eat. We don’t like wasting food, so when we made the Buffalo Chicken Thighs Recipe the other day, we had a few thighs left over. Since we used boneless skinless chicken thighs, they could easily be chopped up to make a chopped chicken sandwich.

This is a really easy recipe to make using leftovers. Since the chicken was already cooked, all we needed to do to prepare this recipe was to chop up the seasoned chicken thighs into small pieces. We find cutting up chicken is easier when it’s cold, and so we chopped up the chicken right out of the refrigerator, then put it in a bowl to be reheated in the microwave. Since the Buffalo Chicken Thighs are very flavorful, this recipe doesn’t require any sauce.

Serve the chopped Buffalo Chicken Thighs on submarine rolls that have been toasted lightly in the broiler, and then spread with mayonnaise. Top with the chopped chicken, and lettuce and tomato.

This is a tasty sandwich, which could actually be prepared directly from the Buffalo Chicken Thighs as the main dish instead of as a way to use up the leftovers.

September 26, 2006

Buffalo Chicken Thighs Recipe

We have this wonderful recipe for Buffalo Chicken Wings that came from a Buffalo Wing Joint in Buffalo, NY, and last week we thought we would try out the recipe using chicken thighs instead.

We choose chicken thighs because we feel they have more flavor that chicken breasts and thought that would make a nice meal. We also used boneless-skinless chicken thighs to reduce the amount of fat in this meal. Reducing the fat was part of our thinking to using chicken thighs instead of chicken wings for this meal.

We didn’t change the recipe for the marinade for the original Buffalo Wing Recipe and placed the chicken thighs into a large ziploc bag, and poured in the marinade. The marinade will easily season 5 pounds of chicken thighs in this manner. Place the bag of chicken thighs in the refrigerator, and let the chicken marinade in the Buffalo Wing Marinade for at least three hours, turning every 30 minutes to let the marinade season the chicken thighs evenly.

To cook the chicken thighs, remove the thighs from the ziploc bag, and place in a large baking pan that has had the bottom covered with non-stick aluminum foil (this is important, use non-stick foil). Bake in a 500° F oven for 30 – 45 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken thighs. When the thighs are done, remove from oven, and serve with carrot sticks, celery sticks, and blue cheese salad dressing.

September 26, 2006

Using a charcoal chimney to light charcoal

Using a Charcoal Chimney

Up until recently, we’ve always relied on charcoal lighter fluid to light our charcoal. And we’re charcoal enthusiasts, so all we cook with is charcoal. We’ve watched a few of the Dutch Oven and Camp Cooking shows with Cee Dub which is shown on RFD-TV and noticed he always used the charcoal chimneys to light the charcoal for his dutch ovens. So we were out shopping one day last summer, and noticed a charcoal chimney section at the local store, and bought one. This was the best find for the summer barbecue. In our pictures here, we are using Cowboy Brand Hardwood Charcoal. The same method works with Kingsford or other lump charcoal brands.

Here’s how to light charcoal using a Charcoal Chimney
A Charcoal Chimney charcoal lighter is a metal tube about 12 inches long, and 6 inches in diameter. The bottom of the Charcoal Chimney has vents, and a grate sits about 2 inches above the bottom. In the bottom of the Charcoal Chimney, under the grate, you place some crumbled newspaper under and the top of the grate supports the charcoal. In our picture here, you can see we’ve placed some crumbled newspaper in the section of the charcoal lighter that’s under the grate.

Place the charcoal chimney on a fire proof surface before you light it. We use the bottom grate of our Weber grill. Light the newspaper through the vents in several places. If you are in a location where it’s really windy (15 – 20 mph), a little bit (1/2 oz) of charcoal light fluid can be poured onto the newspaper to help get it started. We use that method when we’re cooking lunch on the beach. In most cases, a simple lighting in 3 or 4 places will do. The newspaper will smoke, burn slowly, and the heat from the newspaper will be funneled up the chimney, and heat the charcoal to light it. In the picture to the right, you can see the smoke from the newspaper rising from the Charcoal Chimney as the newspaper heats the charcoal. It takes 10 – 15 minutes to start the charcoal. Perhaps a little less time if you’re using Cowboy Brand hardwood charcoal.

As the charcoal at the bottom of the chimney lights, it will add more heat to the rising column of heat going up the chimney, and will light the charcoal all the way to the top. Here’s a picture of the charcoal all ready to be dumped out onto the charcoal grate. The handle of the chimney is made of wood, and has a heat shield to protect your fingers. Even with those safety factors, please use caution when dumping the charcoal out of the chimney onto the grate of your grill as the chimney itself will be very hot. You should also have a place to set the very hot charcoal chimney on after you empty the charcoal from it as it will be very hot for many minutes.

We’ve had great success using our charcoal chimney to light our grill, and wish we had found this magic device 10 years ago.