To Eric Ackerson

I used your trick a couple times now....it's great. You told us how you use sriracha as a marinade and I loved the chicken. We went to a superbowl party with my family, and I bought smart chicken wings...they have a good amount of flavor and a balance of meat and skin/fat. I also bought some legs. The wings I soaked in texas pete...I was out of sriracha. I also added garlic cloves crushed, onion powder, pepper and celery salt. I put all that in a freezer bag for a few hours and grilled them over a gas grill pumping out a lot of hickory smoke.....damn. They were perfect. I've never made better wings, and I've been making wings for over 15 years.
I know that the best wings....the ones that hit that wing spot, are those ones breaded and fried and covered in buffalo sauce (texas pete and magarine), but these were WAY healthier, dripping the grease instead of soaking it up, and they had a little smoky flavor too. All without the margarine.
The legs I put in a bag with fresh thyme, lots of cloves of garlic, salt, pepper nice olive oil and a mix of other spices....they turned out, but not as good as the wings.
Last night I bought leg quarters and soaked them in that same texas pete marinade as the wings, and I pan fried them and finished in the oven.
Great!
I just wanted to thank you for the inspiration to use hot sauce as marinade, and pass on that wing trick.

A

Roasted Cream of Tomato Soup

10 nice tomatoes cut in half horizontally. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbs de provence and then some nice olive oil. Throw in 10 small to medium cloves of garlic. In the oven at 450 for 30 mins or so. When cooled blend with a 32oz chicken stock and another 1/4 cup of olive oil. Simmer to concentrate a bit...up to half an hour.

Bake 1 in. sq. croutons salted and brushed with olive oil.

Make Mornay sauce....basically mix even parts butter and flour in a warm pan until thick. Add 2x that volume in whole milk and stir until thick. grate in some nice parmesan and young emmentaler. Bechamel add cheese.

Plate it croutons then mornay then soup.