******...Hobo Chef Wins 3rd Place in Chicken Wing Contest!!! (good thing too, the winner has to cook during the Super Bowl, and the Hobo Chef is from Baltimore, GO RAVENS!!!!!

Hobo Wings

A dozen or do so wings, tips cut off and wings split

8 packets of Heinz ketchup

2 to 4 packets each of the following:

duck sauce

soy sauce

Chinese hot mustard

cayenne sauce

Taco Bell’s Fire sauce

Texas Pete hot sauce

3 -4 packets of butter melted(take the butter out of the packets first!)

Mix the sauce up starting with all the Heinz ketchup then adding and tasting as you go. Add the melted butter about halfway through and then adjust packet amounts accordingly.  Any other hot sauce that you have around is fair game too . As for the wings, all the other "chefs" went on about how they brined their chicken(guess that’s why they’re “real” chefs). My wings spent the night marinating in Rogue’s Voodoo Doughnuts beer, a bit pricey but it had maple, bacon and smoke flavors and it pairs well with hobo chefs and their friends. I fried up a package of Dollar Tree turkey bacon( 2 packages might have worked better though.   The winning chef wrapped his wings in bacon, I swear, you could wrap a turd in bacon and people would eat it and like it!) and used the bacon grease to coat the wings and seasoned them with purloined salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne.  Baked them for 30 min. at 425°, and that got ‘em crispy.  Then I  turned them over and gave them about another 15 or so min. Your oven is probably more like, uh, a real oven than mine so just keep checking them. Then I just sauced them and watched as people hesitantly tried them and then liked them!  I think calling them Hobo Wings followed by the words, ”save those condiment packets” probably worked against me…

Lucky New Year Hobo Skillet Mess

Everybody knows Hoppin John is a good luck New Years Day meal, just try to find any black eyed peas to cook with on New Year's Eve...ain't gonna happen.  But here's a little known New Year's Day luck food I got from my Aunt Jo and Uncle John; lentils!  Supposedly every lentil you eat on New Year's Day equals a dollar you'll make in the New Year.  Must have been a depression era thing or something from the Old Country because these days you could eat triple your body weight in lentils and still be poor, maybe even as poor as the hobo chef!  Hopefully there was an inflation factor or cost of living allowance applied to lentils somewhere along the way...

Anyhow,  this recipe is cheap, simple and uses both lentils and black eyed peas to up the luck ante.   Feel free to throw in some old lottery tickets if you think it'll help...

Ingredients:

2 tbs vegetable oil

1 small onion chopped

2 small/regular carrots cut into coins

1 small green pepper chopped

1/2 cup lentils

1/2 cup rice

1 15 oz can of broth (whatever is on sale) or water (you're the the one that's gotta eat it!)

A generous pinch, palmful, fistful of cayenne powder

A generous pinch, palmful, fistful of garlic powder

1 15 oz can (drained) of black eyed peas

Making the Mess:

Heat oil in a regulation sized skillet.  Dump in everything but the broth and beans.  Cook/sweat over medium high heat until veggies start to soften, somewhere in the 5 minute neighborhood.  Stir it around now and then so the rice and lentils don't stick, means more work and less food if they do.  Toss in the broth and magic beans (black eyed peas, dummy; pay attention!).  Bring to a boil, cover and reduce to a rice cookin' simmer for about 25 minutes.  

Put this stuff in bowls and add hot sauce.  I like Tabasco.  Eat like it's a free meal and/or your future depends on it 

Here's hopin' ya get lucky!