Most of the time, I feel really inspired to cook. I get excited to come home after work and fire up the stove. I love choosing our produce for the week from our farm box and figuring out what magic I can make from it.
And then there are times where I don’t want to cook. Where I just want to make spicy peanut noodles or ask Ben to make some miso soup and we call it a day. It’s times like these that I recognize why my mother and grandmothers had go-to recipes that we ate over and over and over again. There is joy in cooking, sure. But it’s also really fucking annoying and hard to do sometimes.
Take this week’s recipe, for example. I have had the chicken wings sitting in my freezer since, I shit you not, February. I was going to make these wings for the Super Bowl, but it turned out that our host was making wings himself, and I’m nothing if not polite. So I made a couple of dips and left the wings in my freezer instead of defrosting them.
This kicked off a typical pattern: every week, when I’d be considering what to make for the following weekend’s newsletter, Ben would always suggest these parmesan chicken wings—and I would shrug. Not because there was anything particularly wrong with the recipe. In fact, it’s SO easy that you probably have everything in your fridge to make them right now. (Save for the wings.)
But they weren’t striking the note I wanted them to. They weren’t tickling my fancy. They weren’t wow-ing me, you know? There’s something sexy about vodka sauce. But parmesan chicken wings? Meh.
Finally, this week, I forced myself to make them—mainly because we were running around this weekend and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to cook at my typical time. So on Friday, I made them…and they rule. I’ve got to say, grandma knocked it out of the park with these. They’re tangy, and sweet, and almost infuriatingly easy to make.
But that’s the case with most things we all procrastinate on, isn’t it? It’s the things on our to-do lists that we keep putting off that are the easiest to complete. So the next time you’re stumped on what to cook, give these parmesan wings a whirl. I’d serve them with (what else?) a big salad and maybe a little bit of rice. Delicious.
INGREDIENTS
2 lbs chicken wings
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp oregano
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter or margarine. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Cut tips from wings, and then cut the wings to separate the wing from the drumstick.
Combine cheese, oregano, pepper, and paprika in a large, shallow bowl.
Dip each wing into the butter until its well-coated, letting the excess drip off. Then dredge through the cheese mixture and place on your foil-lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining wing pieces.
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes until crispy.
i am a cereal procrastinator. i procrastinate on cooking and then have to make cereal