Sesame Almond Chicken Wings

Almond Sesame Wings with sauteed zucchini
and Sichuan Peppercorn Dry Drip

This is the wing recipe I mentioned a few posts ago regarding grinding almonds for pie crust.  I saved a few tbsp for this very recipe.  You don't have to make pie crust to make these wings though ;)

The original recipe is from the Frugal Gourmet's Three Ancient Cuisines, but I gotta say that the Frug was awfully stingy on his dredging mixture.  I've doubled the marinade, the wet dredge and the dry dredge for the same number of wings.  It was scrumptious btw.  The kids didn't want any, but they had Other Issues tonight and I think I could have served them ice cream covered cheese sticks with a side of cookies, muffins and bananas and they still wouldn't have touched it.  Whatevs, more for the grownups.

Rice flour is probably not a pantry staple at your household.  I have some b/c I had a fit of DIY-osity awhile back and thought I would be making my own baby powder.  I made some, it's great, but I don't need so much as to use up an entire 2 lbs. of rice flour.  Rice flour also makes meltingly tender shortbread and is a useful gluten-free wheat flour replacer.  If you need ideas for using up 2 lbs of rice flour.  Or you can use enough all-purpose flour and cornstarch to add up to the required amount of dredging material and skip the rice flour (conversely, if you want gluten free, you can skip the AP flour and use rice flour and cornstarch...also be sure to skip the soy sauce, if you do GF).

Last thought...if you fry these in a deep-fryer, you'll probably have a lot of sesame seeds loose in the oil afterwards.  You might want to consider frying in an electric skillet or making this the last use of the oil in the deep-fryer if you want to maintain pristine frying oil.  I screw up so you don't have to.

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Lower Carb (and freezer friendly) Lemon Custard Pie

My husband adores lemon meringue pie, but I rather dislike meringue (making it as well as eating it, and it doesn't freeze well to boot).  Cool Whip is the absolute right answer to all meringue-associated problems.  Yes, it's cheating.  In case you haven't read any of my previous pie posts, I cheat at pies and do so with great celebration (I have all that extra time to celebrate, you see, since I don't spend any making homemade pastry or meringues). 

So, on request for a no-sugar version of lemon meringue pie, I give you Splenda lemon custard pie with sugar-free Cool Whip topping and nut crust.  Making the custard with splenda instead of sugar actually speeds the process up...sugar takes eons to melt and thicken properly, while the Splenda version took less than 5 minutes to achieve the proper thickness.  The flour and cornstarch still contribute carbs, but the result is much lower than what you would have with sugar.  You can, of course, use sugar, tbsp for tbsp, in place of Splenda.

Btw, for those playing at home, I saved 2 tbsp (ETA: needed 4 tbsp) of the almond grindings for a chicken wing recipe (Almond Sesame Wings) I'll make in a few days.  Put the "almond flour" in a small tupperware and stashed it in the fridge.  I like to plan ahead.

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