Chicken wings and football- what could be better ?

Opening Night of the NFL is always a big occasion for me, no matter what team is playing !! Tonight I'm cheering on the Saints (can't root for the Packers !! Noooooooo) and they're letting me down !! Anyway, since moving out to the lake football nights at the bar with a bunch of people and bar snacks is a thing of the past and we have to recreate that atmosphere for ourselves. How ?? Ice cold Bud and wings of course !!

Ok, clockwise from the top, The Chef's Buffalo Wings with ghost chile sauce, my blueberry jalapeno wings and pineapple garlic teriyaki wings.

Let's start with the buffalo style sauce- The Chef went traditional with his wing sauce- the traditional mix of real butter and Frank's Red Hot but he kicked it waaaaay up with about half a teaspoon of crushed ghost chile and some crushed dried habanero and served alongside bleu cheese dressing (no ranch in this wing-eating house !!)

My blueberry jalapeno wing sauce consisted of blueberry jam, minced/crushed jalapeno and a half teaspoon or so of crushed cayenne pepper and just a hit of lime juice to thin it out a little.

The pineapple garlic teriyaki wings started with a Pampered Chef Pineapple Rum sauce. I used about 1/4 cup of the bottled sauce, added 2 cloves of garlic super finely minced, a big dash of soy sauce and about 1/2 teaspoon of crushed Jamaican Yellow Mushroom pepper to add some fire.

We didn't fry the wings- instead baked them for about 3 hours at 215 degrees (loooow and slow) after rubbing them with our homemade meat rub mixture. Then each sauce was tossed with a pile of wings and back in the oven at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes til the sauce glazed and got all sticky and yummy.

The result........was absolutely delicious. Sweet heat in one bite and searing hot the next. Perfect football snack and I can't wait to make them again !!