Oriental Chicken Wings in Slow Cooker Dinner

Chicken Wings have become increasingly popular. The original wings were created in Buffalo, New York, hence the name Buffalo Chicken Wings. They were made hot and served with celery and blue cheese dressing.

The story goes like this; a young man was having some friends over and asked his mother to make something for them to eat at the last minute. The only thing she had that could be cooked quickly was chicken wings. So she cooked them nice and crispy and made a hot sauce to dip them in and to off set the hot taste, she served celery with blue cheese, which was a staple in her house. They became so popular and over a short time they started making them and selling them. How true the story is, I'm not quite sure, but that is the story that goes around.

Since then they are no longer just called Buffalo Chicken Wings but just chicken wings or 'wings' because they make them many different ways.

This is one I have never heard of before I saw them in a Slow Cooker cook book that I have.

Every Saturday my daughters with their families come over for dinner and spend at least half the day and I cook something different. This last Saturday I made Oriental Chicken Wings in the Slow Cooker and instead of just celery with blue cheese, I made a big tossed salad with blue cheese dressing, fried eggplant rounds, bought cole slaw and made Texas Toast.

Also before dinner I made a strawberry marshmallow dip, which I will give the recipe. We enjoyed it, hope you do too.

If you want to keep the skin on the chicken in the slow cooker, you must brown the chicken first and crisp up the skin. The chicken skin tends to shrivel up in the slow cooker which is the reason most chicken recipes for slow cookers are skinless.

• If you don't use a lot of ginger but need it for a recipe, after using it, put it in a plastic bag and keep it in the freezer. For some reason it doesn't get freezer burn and you can have it for months to come.
• It is easier to peel the piece of the ginger you need with a spoon. Just scrape off the skin where you need it and grate it over bowl you are using.
• To peel the garlic easier, give it a light smash with the side of the knife using the palm of your hand, (See picture). It will make that skin come right off; you might have to smash it twice depending on how hard you smash it.
• If the skin is already loose on the garlic, then it is old garlic, Always check that our when buying garlic. Tight skin means fresh garlic.

I grow egg plant every year in my garden, but always the dark purple egg plant. So you can imagine my surprise when they came out to be white this year. I must have picked up the wrong plants at the nursery where I get my plants and didn't realize it till they started growing.

So, I had to go on line to see if they can still be cooked the same. It turns out the white ones are much smaller then the purple ones and they have more seeds, but on the bright side, they are creamier in texture then the purple ones. I found that hard to believe, but when we bit into the fried eggplants, they were indeed creamier then the purple egg plants.

I wouldn't use them for egg plant Parmesan because they are small in size but I will find other used for them.

Directions to fry the eggplant:

Peel and slice the egg plants. In a medium shallow bowl mix 2 eggs with a little milk and salt and pepper; in another bowl put in Italian style bread crumbs. Just dip the egg plants in the egg then in the bread crumbs then in the pan with hot oil, they will brown and cook in just a few minutes.

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 cup marshmallow creme

1 8oz. container strawberry yogurt

1/2 cup chopped strawberries

Fresh fruit to dip

1. In medium bowl, beat cream cheese, marshmallow creme, yogurt and strawberries with an electric mixer on high speed until smooth.

2. Cover; refrigerate at least 1 hour. Serve dip with fruit of your choice or sweet crackers.

It makes 16 (2 tablespoons) servings.

Recipe courtesy of the Betty Crocker website.