Super Bowl XLIII

Randy and I each choose an item to prepare for our exclusive (Randy and I only) Super Bowl party. I planned to make individual chocolate cakes, made of half white/half whole-wheat flour, cooked in mini ramekins. Randy decided to make none other than, chicken wings (with Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce –thanks Court).

One of Randy’s all time favorite foods is chicken wings. Ever since he received a Hooters cookbook courtesy of my little brother 2 Christmas’s ago, he’s been on a mission to find the ultimate recipe. We’re trying to find a recipe that doesn’t require frying but still delivers in flavor. This time we decided to broil the wings….

I’m sitting on the couch while Randy is in the kitchen prepping his wings when all of a sudden he starts yelling FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!!!

I jumped up from the couch and run into the kitchen. Randy pulls down the oven door and flames come barreling out and up towards the cabinets.

Randy’s starts thinking aloud, “don’t use water…what’s that other thing we’re supposed to use?” “ Baking soda!” I shouted back. I grabbed our tiny box of baking soda out of the cupboard but when we opened the oven door again, the flames had grown even larger. We were both afraid to reach our hand in and pull the pan out of the oven in an attempt to douse it with baking soda. I tried to pour some of the baking soda down an air vent located under one of the back coils on the stovetop. Didn’t help.

Thankfully, we live in an apartment that has fire extinguishers outside of every building. I ran outside, grabbed the fire extinguisher, threw it to Randy who quickly ripped off the safety pin and blasted the flames.

 

Randy and I are both very grateful that the situation didn’t escalate into something tragic. It was very scary, very real and rattled us both. So, here’s what we learned:

ALWAYS KEEP A FIRE EXTINGUISHER IN YOUR HOME

 

Growing up, we never had a fire in our home. If this hadn't happened I don’t know if I would have thought to have one on hand. Thankfully our apartments had them. I’m not sure what we would have done if they weren’t available.

In the end, we spent the entire first half of the game, including half time, cleaning up our kitchen. Whatever is inside fire extinguishers sure creates a mess. It’s been almost a week and we’re still finding fine white powder throughout the kitchen. We laugh about it now, but it sure wasn’t funny at the time.

   

The bottom of our oven in actually black, not white!

 

Randy's attempt to vacuum up some of the mess.

Wondering what happened to the wings…luckily, the wings weren’t in the oven when the fire started. They were still sitting in the sink. Randy mustered up the courage to try and bake them again half way through the second half. We were both a little nervous about using the oven but everything was fine. Aside from the fire, I think we might be on to something with the broil technique…we’ll let you know.

  

Randy actually used drumsticks this time instead of wings. They had all the right flavors but lacked a certain wingy-ness. Next time we’ll stick with good ole wings and not what’s on sale.