who here has been surfing this week?

Quick shot of swell Friday, started entertaining around 4pm. Thought it was bout thi to waist, took out the LB, but it was more chest to shoulder. I was one of the few that read that wrong, but it didn't kill the sess. Just a quick pop up and move on the LB without knocking my sht in. Had to put the gloves on, lil drizzle, and a northerly drift. Was nice to get some rides tho, but it's so cold out there and the wknd was sht weather for the most part. Some on and off again swell around here for next couple weeks. I'm betting on tomorrow evening, should be the warmest day of the week as well

 

Fun weekend of surf. Drove north both days to avoid the crowds and find a spot that can hold longer period swell. Saturday was fun but nothing to write home about. Went back to the same spot on Sunday and was greeted with chest high, maybe bigger, and winds blowing off shore at 10-15.

Paddled out at dead low tide. I timed this on purpose because this particular spot will feather wayyy outside and let you into a wave maybe 50-75 feet before it actually breaks with long period swell on a low tide. Most waves went as follows: paddle hard for a big lump, you can only catch these at the most critical spot. Feel the wave pick you up as the spray completely blinds you. Pop up and look both ways, the wave stops breaking but is still walled up and moving. Fade left 'til you spot where the wave will start breaking again. Hard bottom turn and speed into the barrel and wither make it or get smashed. If you make it, you're rewarded with another 100 ft or so.

I love these kind of waves, where you can take your time and line up a backdoor cover up. I was riding my 9'6.

After surf we make our way home and stop by the grocery. The place is packed like there's about to be a hurricane, however this is Super Bowl Sunday so instead of running out of TP and water they are running out of chicken and ranch dressing. Fortunately I already bought 5 pounds of chicken wings earlier this week.

We get home, I crack a beer, and start on my wings where the first step is to drop them in a brine for 2 hours. I proceed to consume several beers and eventually pull the wings from the brine and rinse. Here's where s*it gets wild: first cooking step is to steam, yes steam the wings for 20 minutes. Remove from the steamer, pat dry, and spread in 1 layer on baking sheets. Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour to dry out. After an hour take them out, pat any remaining water off and put in the oven for about 30 minutes at 450 degrees. The oven is going to smoke, that's ok, just take the battery out of your smoke detector. The idea is to cause the fat inside the wings to liquify and boil and fry the wings from the inside out. Check the wings after 30 minutes and they are golden brownish, with crispy skin and meat that pulls right off the bone. Let them rest while you make the dressing, and this is the easiest part: combine 1 container refrigerated blue cheese dressing and 1 container crumbled gorgonzola cheese. Finally, toss the cooked wings in your favorite sauce (last night I used Texas Pete Wings Sauce, because NC) and eat!

You gotta have good wings to watch a s*it football game where you wish both teams could lose!

 

Jeebus cripes!!! I would never be that patient. Must be awesome to go through all of the prep

 

100% worth it. They are better than almost anything I can get at a restaurant. And my extra-super chunky gorgonzola blue cheese dressing can't be matched.

It's not that bad, most of it is 5 minutes of work, then wait, 5 minutes of work, then wait.

 

What do you use for a brine? Just salt and water?

 

I had a busy fay Saturday, no chance to get out but took this pic on my phone in between errands. Pic doesn't show it but it was busy, cars lined up all down the street.
We got slammed with snow all day yesterday, glad I had done my running around the day before. Made chili for the game, soaked the red beans overnight, added 10 chopped up plum tomatoes, 2 onions, 3 cubenela peppers, 2 jalepenos, a couple finely chopped carrots, finely chopped shaved steak, also a can of black beans, slow cooked for a few hours. Not my specialty but it came out damn good. Game was dissapointing, didn't live up to the hype, but a nice distraction.

 

This is the brine I used yesterday. This is a link to the whole recipe. I only did the brine portion of this recipe and used my take on Alton Brown's buffalo wings for the cooking.


To be completely honest, I have never really been into brines and thought that the return on investment of extra time or effort was minimal compared to just using a dry rub. My wife is in the other camp so I went thru this extra effort to try and prove her wrong. The verdict? The wings had a touch more salty and taste before the sauce. Was it worth it? Not sure. Next time I make wings I'm going to skip the brine but will tell her it's on there and gauge the placebo effect

 

Nice, I'm going to try it out, brine and all, lol. I usually mix melted butter with
Franks Red Hot for the sauce, and mix the baked wings with that, not the healthiest but pretty good. I do have a bottle of Texas Pete, but not the wing sauce, might substitute that for the Franks when I give it a go.

 

Nice! Yea the hotsauce with butter is normally my go-to. This texas pete wing sauce is basically just pre-mixed. Franks or Pete, you can't go wrong.

 

Well then I guess I'll be making a trip up to the Carolinas

 

Delaware was SO fun Saturday morning. Surfed the 5'8" mini simmons in exactly the kind of waves I made it for.....long walled up 2 foot waves where you need some speed to keep up and just kind of set the rail and glide. SO damn fun. Surfed a couple hours, then shot pics of friends.

 

OK one last comment and I'll stop de-railing the thread. I ate a couple leftover wings last night with no sauce or anything and I could def taste the baseline savory flavor of the brine. I guess it worked! I also looked at the ingredients of the wing sauce and it's just texas pete with butter flavor LOL

 

I brine.

 

Waist to stomach hi draw last night. Fish'd it out, gloves and booties on. It was glassy, pretty fun rides if you get pumping. Thought there would be something this morning, but it's all LB and a not too worthy IMO. We should have on and off again conditions for next week or so

 

also bout your guys' wings: If you're not putting brown sugar and spices on it before you throw it in the smoker, obv fry it after, then you're not doing it right. That's how the best wings turn out. Sauce if ya want, but brown sugar, spices, smoker, fry it is the way to win ppl over. I'm more of a burger guy myself - been grilling since i was 10 - but that particular order of doing wings is always the crowd fav when it comes to wing competitions and your "best wings in town" unless you live in a sht town that is

 

That sounds like how I do a pork butt, minus the frying of course. That could be it's own thread though. I have several trophy's and won some large novelty checks cooking pork butts. Brown sugar and apple juice.

 

So you like smoking meats?

 

Crisp 'em up in the air fryer.

 

We gots one of them air fryers, those things are amazeballs

 

We got one last year for Christmas. I figured it would be one of those things that gets used a couple times and then forgotten about. Not so much. I would say that ours gets used 4+ times a week. The boy uses it by himself to make his lunch. Yes, amazeballs.