Every Friday morning during football season, my teenage son heads straight for the sports section of the newspaper to see if his favorite NFL team is being televised on network TV. His team is the Washington Redskins and with us living on the west coast and without paid television (think bunny-ear-antennae here), our chances of seeing his beloved team play during the Sunday broadcasts of professional football games are pretty slim.
What my son and husband have started doing on Sundays to catch the games is to listen to it on the radio. There’s an AM station that’s all sports (1080 “The Fan”) and they huddle up in the living room to cheer, pump their arms, and basically act like guys do when they’re watching football on TV. Only, they’re not watching it they’re listening to it. It’s actually very funny to watch – the two of them – that is!
Whenever there’s talk from our teenage son about wanting to get cable or dish or satellite (I’m sure there are other options here but I’m not aware of them) we ask him, “Well, would you like us to pay for TV or would you like us to save money so that we can help you pay for your college tuition instead?” Back to the radio it is!
When the huddling in our living room with the scratchy AM radio happened this past Sunday, it was served up with baked buffalo wings. That’s what my son wanted to cook for his weekly meal – a “supper bowl Sunday type” dinner in honor of his beloved Washington Redskins playing on TV (he’s an optimist!). The Redskins weren’t on our TV set and they lost the game in the last few minutes (to a team they outplayed the entire game) but our family won because we got to enjoy a delicious meal.
There’s always next week, Redskins fans!
Baked Buffalo Wings Recipe
I found organic chicken wings on sale at New Season’s Market recently for $.99/pound. Why I didn’t buy more is beyond this frugal grocery shopper! I froze the wings after I bought them and we waited for a big game day to eat them.
We used 3 pounds of chicken in the recipe and have also made this using shrimp as well.
- 3-pounds chicken wings
- 1/2 cup Frank’s or Crystal (tangy but not so hot) hot sauce
- 1-Tablespoon or more of Tabasco (add more for hotter wings)
- 1-2 Tablespoons of butter
- Melt butter in pan.
- Add hot sauces and stir.
- Once completely combined, remove from heat and off the heat.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees and bake chicken wings for 45 minutes, flipping them halfway through.
- After 45 minutes or when they’re done and crispy, remove chicken wings from oven and toss them in a bowl with the hot sauce butter mixture.
- Serve and enjoy!
Weekly Meal Plan
This meal plan is from Monday, October 15, 2012 to Sunday, October 21, 2012.
Monday: pinto beans (freezer) and cheese burritos with fresh salsa
Tuesday: egg salad sandwiches and carrots
Wednesday: pan seared fish, quinoa and sauteed Swiss chard
Thursday: vegetarian chili and corn bread
Friday: vegetarian chili and corn bread (leftovers)
Saturday: dinner at our friend’s house (we brought pumpkin spice cake)
Sunday: buffalo wings, green salad and quinoa
My daughter cooked dinner on Tuesday night. She had a friend over and the two of them made egg salad sandwiches together. I was expecting to come home to a huge mess in the kitchen – this soccer mom was watching a game over at the high school – and they were home giggling while peeling a dozen eggs and chopping vegetables – but not so. The kitchen was clean and dinner was made. Dreams do come true!
What’s for dinner at your house?
Go Gingham related links:
Go Ducks! Cookie decorations for a football game
Three easy grains to cook – 1, 2, 3
Spicing it up in the kitchen – spices I can’t live without!
The tangiest, yummiest BBQ sauce ever!
Egg salad sandwiches – you’ll wish you had chickens
Spicy, homemade hummus that you make from dried beans
Go Gingham 
We have no paid TV at this time, either. The reception we get with the rabbit-ears is fine most of the time, and I have no assurance that the reception would be any better with paid TV. And then there is the cost. I choose to spend elsewhere for the time being.
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Karen, it’s the same with us. Our reception is good enough for what we watch and I have no interest in spending money on TV or spending more of my time viewing more. Although, I did find a new show on PBS that I watched recently and I’d like to see more of it, “Call the Mid-Wife” is the name of it and it’s right up my alley – authentic and true without commercials.
Thanks, Karen!
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That’s exactly how we raised our kids — one TV in the most inaccessible corner of the house. With bunny ears. They’re all grown up now, and not one of them owns a TV.
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Miggie, that’s impressive that none of them own a TV now. It’s also very refreshing, too!
We do have an old TV in our basement that has a DVD player and a VHS player hooked up to it. I don’t want to get rid of the VHS tapes or the player because they all still work and are fun to watch.
Thanks, Miggie and good job 🙂
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We don’t have bunny ears. No, we have a giant antenna on the roof of our house (to proclaim to the world, yes! We are cheap and we like it that way!). My 9-year-old son came to the realization last weekend that SOME people can watch their sports teams on tv, but not him. I was interested to hear how you handle that issue in your house. Most of the time my kids just aren’t that into television, thank goodness.
I made egg salad for lunch for my daughter & me a week ago. Yum. I need to remember to make it more often.
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Kris, that made me laugh – picturing your big antenna! Well, we have an antenna in our attic that we ran a cable to for our TV so that we’d get better reception but so far the bunny-ears are the best. If I really want to tease my son, I tell him when he leaves for college, we’re getting cable TV! He’s smart enough to know that’s not really true.
So glad you made egg salad sandwiches! We forget to have them, too, other than around Easter or if for some reason we have store bought eggs in the house. I can’t get enough of a stock pile of eggs from our backyard chickens to have on hand long enough to boil them!
Thanks, Kris 🙂
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Is there a way to listen online so that reception is better? The radio stations where I live offer live streaming. Just a thought.
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Yes, I’m sure there is but my football fans have not tried it yet. I think that’s a good idea so I’ll suggest it to my guys. Thanks for the idea!!
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