The theme for tonight is "finger foods"
These "chicken wings" are not actually wings; they're drumsticks from the Crazy Cheap Chicken purchased for $1.18/lb. And they're huge. This pack of 12 drumsticks was purchased for $4.24. If you can't tell the size from this photo, 2 drumsticks would be an adult serving.
Before I even began to cook the wings, I made dessert: I've been saying that I couldn't find any more 99 cent brownie mixes; they're all $1.50 now. But THIS was $1 a few weeks ago (I bought several).
Unfortunately, this is a "snack size" mix, so even though the package says "makes 12" the batter was spread really thin. Even after baking, it was only about 1/4 inch thick. To thicken it up, I had a little fun...
I made a peanut butter layer by mixing 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup sugar, and one egg, and spreading it over the cooked brownies. Then I put it back in the oven for about 5 minutes more. (When the peanut butter layer cooked, its color lightened a little). Then, I sprinkled most (probably 80%) of a bag of chocolate chips on top, and put it back in the oven to melt.
While the brownies were cooking the first time, I sliced three potatoes (out of 14 in a $1.99 bag) into thin strips and set them in a glass bowl to soak up some vinegar and salt (to make salt & vinegar chips, of course). It didn't work -- they should be marinated in the fridge overnight for that -- they just came out tasting like regular homemade chips.
I turned on my deep fryer and put in the drumsticks, setting the timer for 15 minutes. Drumsticks should be fried a minimum of 12 to make sure they are completely cooked. Even when the timer went off, I thought they looked a little pale, so I did them for an extra 5 minutes to be safe.
Now, I had looked up a recipe for "asian hot wings" (kind of like a general tso's flavor, with honey, ginger, hot sauce, and a bunch of other stuff). I didn't have 3 of the more exotic ingredients so I made several substitutions. They didn't come out bad, but my storebought BBQ sauce was better and less time consuming, so I'm not going to repeat the recipe here. Trust me, it wasn't worth the effort. 
I made 12 drumsticks in 3 flavors tonight: 4 in my homemade asian sauce, 4 in storebought BBQ, and 4 in a "spicy ranch" (3 parts ranch dressing to 1 part hot sauce). Out of the 12 (very large) drumsticks, we ate 5: 2 for me, 1 for each kid.
The wings were a hit!
My daughter and I had the chips. My boys didn't like them so much...
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| The face he made after tasting a chip. Seriously. |
Tonight's total: $1.77 worth of wings (5/12 of the pack which cost $4.24) + $1.50 worth of sauce (no real way of judging the cost of the homemade sauce but the more expensive between the ranch and the BBQ was the BBQ, and that was $2. I only used 1/4 of the bottle on the 4 drumsticks, so if you figure I would have used 3/4 of a bottle on all 12, and that the BBQ was the most expensive, then I spent about $1.50 on sauce) The potatoes used to make the chips were 3/14 of a $1.99 bag, or 43 cents, and the vinegar and salt were probably another 10 or 20 cents. Heck, let's call it a quarter. The brownie mix was $1, the peanut butter, egg, and sugar probably 50 cents, and the chocolate chips were $2 a bag, and I used an estimated 80%, or $1.60's worth. There were 12 brownies, of which we ate 6 when all was said and done, so that's half of $3.10, or $1.55, making tonight's total: $1.77 wings + $1.50 sauce + 68 cents chips + $1.55 brownies = $5.50
Crazy cheap AND delicious! This calls for another brownie!
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