You may not make a single snack all season for football, slogging through bags of Bugles and Pirate Booty, but you’re probably going to make a dip for the Super Bowl. You may order pizza every week, go to Taco Bell and buy box of Dos Locos Mocos Frocos Supreme Tacos, but you will probably make a dip next weekend. You may only eat microgreens salads and lemon vinaigrette every day of the week to stay healthy, but if you see a dip at a party and your 49ers are down a field goal, you are going to inhale an entire platter of Creamy Hot Hoagie Dip to calm your nerves.

It’s one of the best foods for football watching and tailgating. You better start planning now.

This year’s Dip Spectacular! — the exclamation point is mandatory — is a mix of new recipes and ones from the archives that are proven hits. Some of the old ones have been tweaked here and there, tastes and techniques that have been improved with time and repeated experimentation, a couple I always get requests for from readers, and ones that are frankly my own personal favorites.

As always, feel free to leave your own tips and questions in the comments, but I’d also like to see what dips you guys are making this Super Bowl season. If you have a recipe to share, please post it or link to it for the rest of us. Just because there are a couple dozen recipes in this post doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more.

To the recipes!

Queso Fundido 

If possible, try to use Mexican quesadilla cheese with this dip. It melts without becoming stringy and greasy, unlike many other cheeses. Queso fundido goes especially well with warm soft tortillas.

You will need:

6-7 ounces chorizo, casings removed
1/2 onion, diced
1 poblano pepper, diced or (1) 4 ounce can fire roasted chiles
2 serrano peppers, seeds removed, diced
1 ounce tequila
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 medium tomato, seeds removed, diced
10-12 ounces Mexican quesadilla cheese or monterey jack cheese, shredded
Cilantro, chopped for garnish

Preheat oven to 350º.

In an oven-proof skillet, brown the chorizo over medium heat, breaking up the sausage as it cooks. Once cooked, remove from the pan and drain on paper towels. Using the same pan (there should still be a little fat left in the pan from the chorizo), saute the diced onion and peppers until soft. Deglaze the bottom of the pan with the tequila and cook until the liquid has burned off. Remove from heat and stir in the chorizo, tomatoes and cumin.

Top with shredded quesadilla cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes, until all the cheese has melted and become bubbly.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with warm tortillas or tortilla chips.

If you don’t have an oven-proof skillet, cook the chorizo, peppers and onions in the skillet and then transfer to a baking dish before adding the tomatoes and cheese.

Serves 4-6 as a snack.

Spicy Avocado Hummus

Sometimes you want to mix it up from the usual guacamole, or maybe the avocados in your market are a little on the small side this time of year. This is a good way to stretch those green goddess globes and have a good dip. Spicy pepper and cool avocado always go well together.

You will need:

2 small avocados
(1) 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, plus more for garnish
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon good quality olive oil

Peel and pit the avocados. In either a food processor, bowl with a stick blender, or a traditional blender; chop together the avocados, chickpeas, garlic, tahini, red pepper flakes, kosher salt, and cayenne. While blending, slowly add in the lemon juice and olive oil.  You should have the proper consistency once done blending, but if it’s still a little thick, thin with a small amount of the reserved water from the canned chickpeas while blending.

Serve with pita chips.

Chipotle Black Bean Hummus

Over the years, this has proven to be one of the most popular recipes I’ve ever posted. Warm chipotle, black beans; it’s hummus for people who say they don’t like hummus. (And remember, you can correct anyone who says hummus needs chickpeas. No, it pretty much just needs tahini to be hummus.)

Large Batch: (Half for a smaller batch of hummus.)

(2) 16 oz cans of black beans, drained (If possible, reserve the fluid from one of cans for thinning the hummus while blending.)
2 gloves garlic (Do not be tempted to use more than two gloves of garlic. The longer the hummus sits, the more the garlic will open up and excess garlic will overpower the rest of the flavors in your hummus.)
2 chipotle peppers packed in adobe sauce
3 tablespoons of tahini
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of paprika
Salt and ground pepper to taste (About 1/2 teaspoon each should be more than enough.)

In either a food processor, bowl with a stick blender, or a traditional blender; chop together the garlic and chipotle peppers. Then add the drained black beans, the olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper and blend until smooth. The hummus will be very thick, so using either the reserved water from the can or plain water, slowly add a tablespoon of liquid at a time while blending to thin to desired consistency.

Serve with fresh pita, pita chips, rice crackers or chopped vegetables for dipping.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

A more traditional hummus that never disappoints.

Large Batch: (Half for a smaller batch of hummus.)

2 16 oz cans of chickpeas, drained (If possible, reserve the fluid from one of cans for thinning the hummus while blending.)
3-4 gloves of garlic, sliced in half
2-3 tablespoons of tahini or tahini sauce*
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil, plus 1-2 tablespoons more for topping finished hummus
1-2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
Salt and ground pepper to taste, (About 1/2 teaspoon each should be more than enough.)

*Some people don’t like the taste of tahini. You can use a tahini sauce, sold in stores like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, for a milder hummus. Just only use this substitution when making a more traditional hummus, as tahini sauce would not stand up to the stronger flavors of chipotle or jalapeno.

Even chickpeas in the can have this little shells on them. To remove these easily, soak the chickpeas in bowl of water (not the water from the can), for an hour and then swish them around to remove these casings.

Now, you don’t have to do have to remove these shells, but it makes for a smoother hummus if you do. Up to you.

In a 375º oven — the same heat for your pita chips! — roast 3-4 cloves of garlic chopped in half, wrapped in foil with a light drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt until cooked thoroughly, about 20-30 minutes.

You can use more garlic in this recipe than the raw garlic in Chipotle Black Bean Hummus because roasting the cloves will take the pungent edge off of the garlic.

In either a food processor, bowl with a stick blender, or a traditional blender; chop the roasted garlic. Then add the drained chickpeas, the olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, salt and pepper and blend until smooth. The hummus will be very thick, so using either the reserved water from the can or plain water, slowly add a tablespoon of liquid at a time while blending to thin to desired consistency.

Serve, topping with a drizzle of olive oil — Do not skip this step! It’s where the magic happens! — and sprinkle with paprika.

Pita chips:

4-5 pieces of pita bread, split open and cut into wedges
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
Kosher salt or sea salt

Preheat the oven to 375º and line a cookie sheet with either parchment paper or foil.  Brush the pita chips with olive oil, (or put in a giant plastic bag with the oil and shake until coated), then place on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with dried oregano and salt, then bake until golden brown, approximately 4-6 minutes.

You can also use lemon zest, sage or pepper to season the chips.

Toasted Sesame Edamame Dip

Personally, this is one of my favorite things I’ve ever posted. Inspired by a similar dip served at Sushi Roku in Santa Monica (Michael Bay sighting heaven), I find myself craving it constantly. It’s also not as heavy on the stomach as many other dips, so I especially love it on game days when there is a lot of other food around.

Edamame and toasted sesame seeds go together like two very different plant seeds or brother from another tree mother in a pod. The brightness of the edamame is enriched with the smokiness of the sesame, then made a touch sharper with the lemon and the salt. If you want to add a little heat with some cayenne or add some cumin you can, but you run the risk of overpowering the earthiness of the soybeans and the complexity of the sesame.

Sure, you could argue that toasting sesame seeds and then blending them into your dip is just about the same as using tahini (which is ground sesame seeds), but the taste profile in this dip more nuanced and layered than if you you were to just throw a tablespoon of tahini in the mix.

You will need:

Dip:

16 ounces shelled edamame, cooked and cooled
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, plus pinch more for garnish
1 clove garlic, peeled
1-2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
juice from 1/2 a medium lemon (about 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon sesame oil, plus a dash more for topping

Chips:

6 ounces wonton wrappers (1/2 12 ounce package is usually enough chips)
Cooking spray or vegetable oil

Ingredient notes:

I usually buy frozen shelled edamame, cook the beans in boiling water with a pinch of salt for about five to six minutes, drain, and then immediately run under cold water to cool so they do not become over-cooked and mushy.

When shopping for sesame oil, I’ve found that grocery stores tend stock it in both the olive oil section and ethnic food aisles. Large, expensive bottles of sesame oil are always next to the olive oil where the $9 -$12 price point doesn’t seem out of line, but if you walk over a few aisles to the other side of the store and look in Asian food section, you can usually find much smaller bottles that are cheaper per ounce.

One clove of garlic is enough. Resist the urge we all have to make “50 Cloves of Garlic and By The Way There Is Also Some Edamame In Here Too” dip.

Preheat the oven to 325º.

Cook the shelled edamame according to package directions (which will vary if you bought frozen or fresh), cool immediately in cold water and then drain.

While preparing the edamame, while the wonton wrappers  are still in their “block”, chop them in half and then separate into individual slices. Place on a lined cookie sheet and very lightly brush with oil or just lightly spray with cooking oil. Bake in a 325º oven until golden brown, about 7-10 minutes. Set aside for serving.

Toast the sesame seeds in dry skillet over medium heat, tossing in the pan every few minutes. Eventually you’ll hear a light cracking sound and the seeds will become fragrant while taking on a golden brown hue. Remove from heat once toasted. Set a aside a pinch of the seeds to use as a garnish.

You can buy toasted sesame seeds, but they’re never as fresh tasting and you need to use much more of them get the right amount of impact sesame in your dip. Avoid them if possible and toast them yourself.

In either a food processor, chopper, a traditional blender, using a stick blender in a bowl, or if you have the strength and the patience, a hand pastry cutter, combine the cooled edamame, toasted sesame seeds, a clove of garlic, ground pepper and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. Blend until combined and the beans have taken on a paste-like thickness. Drizzle in the sesame oil and the lemon juice and blend again until the dip has reached a nice, thick consistency.

Taste for seasoning, adding more salt if needed and blend again. (Disclosure: I always add the second teaspoon of sea salt.) If you would like a thinner dip, blend with a tablespoon or so of cold water.

Top with a light drizzle of sesame oil and the remaining toasted sesame seeds. Serve with the wonton chips.

If you don’t feel like bothering with the wontons, this dip is also excellent with endive leaves, rice crackers or even unsalted pretzels. This dip can be made a few days ahead of time and refrigerated and is find served either cold or at room temperature.

Garam Masala Dip

I came up with this dip early last summer when I was looking for a way to get the essence of a chicken tikki masala dip or wrap, but without all the mucking about cooking.  Not so surprisingly, you get a very bright, tart dip of tomatoes, yogurt, garam masala and warm ginger and cayenne. Just lovely with pita or naan chips.

You will need:

(1) 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, preferably no salt added, drained (should be about one cup after being well-drained) chopped
2 cups (16 ounces) plain Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons finely minced shallots (about 1/2 a shallot)
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Scallions for garnish (optional)

Blend well, refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

Serves 8-10.

Spicy Pickle Dip

Spicy and salty, this is an easy dip you can make ahead of time without any effort.  The crunch of the pickle really picks up this particular dip.

You will need:

Generous 1 cup of sour cream
4 ounces of cream cheese, softened
3/4-1 cup of chopped pickles, preferably a spicy or garlic variety (About 4-5 whole pickles depending on size.)
3 tablespoons of pickle brine from the jar
1-2 teaspoons of crushed red peppers
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1-2 tablespoons of fresh dill, chopped (optional, but highly recommended)

Many pickle dip recipes call for a mixture of sour cream and mayonnaise. While that combination works for many taco dips and the like, I’ve found that cream cheese provides better consistency for the dip, especially when you need to add pickle juice to the mix.

I’m a big fan of Rick’s Picks NYC The People’s Pickle in this recipe or Kruergermann who brought their pickle recipes over from Germany. Both their garlic pickles and their Hungarian spicy uborka pickles work great in this recipe.

Don’t have access to specialty pickles or don’t live in an area with a large Eastern European population? Add a little more garlic and crushed pepper to the recipe.

Chop up a few whole pickles. Decide you want even more pickles in your dip, so chop up another one. Mix everything in a medium bowl.  Cover and let rest in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours. This gives the dip a chance to firm back up, absorb the pickle brine and let garlic, dill and pepper flakes open up and permeate the cheese and sour cream.

Garnish with a little more dill and serve with potato chips.

Roasted Pepper Artichoke Dip

A spin on the classic spinach and artichoke dip, roasted red peppers bring a fiery tang while fresh mozzarella makes this dip especially creamy and rich.

You will need:

12-16 ounces roasted peppers, well-drained and patted dry, diced
14 ounces canned artichokes, drained and chopped
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced (about 2 tablespoons)
Pinch of kosher salt and cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 350º.

In casserole or baking dish, combine all of the ingredients. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes, until thickened and bubbly.

Serve with crostini or crackers.

Hot Pastrami Reuben Dip

or

Hot Pastrami Reuben Dip with Russian style dressing and Provolone not Swiss because Swiss is stinky (but you can use Swiss if you like)

You will need:

3/4 a pound of good quality deli pastrami, chopped
1-2 cups of sauerkraut, depending on taste. (Half a 16 oz jar or bag is usually 1 cup.)
8 oz and 4 oz of provolone cheese, separated and chopped. (Or you can use Swiss. I think it’s better with provolone.)
8 oz of cream cheese, softened to room temperature
8 oz (1 cup) sour cream
1/2 medium sized onion
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon celery seeds. (Or if you don’t have celery seeds, celery salt and omit the other salt. And if you don’t have either, you might want to re-examine how you’re making your Bloody Mary’s for football brunching.)
1/2 teaspoon salt, kosher preferred
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1 heaping tablespoon of mustard, to taste

If you’re like me and not a big fan of sauerkraut, this step is crucial. If you hate runny dip, and I think we can all agree no one likes a runny dip, this is also an important step. Drain and squeeze all the liquid out of the sauerkraut. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze like it’s a stress ball and you’re a Texans fan. Set aside to rest and drain some more.

Finely dice 1/2 medium onion and blend together with Worcestershire sauce, celery seeds, ketchup, salt and pepper. You can even put the whole thing in the food processor if you like. Then mix together with the cream cheese and sour cream.

Pour into a bowl to rest if you are doing this step ahead of time, (I do this so I can assemble during commercials and bake at the half, or the night before), or pour directly into an oven proof dish for the baking if you are making it right away.

Swirl in a heaping tablespoon of mustard into the dressing.You don’t have to add mustard if you don’t want to, but it adds a nice little bit of depth to the other flavors in the dip.

Fold in your pastrami and about 8 ounces of cheese. Top with the desired amount of sauerkraut and the remaining 4 ounces or so of cheese.

Bake at 350º until bubbly, about 25-35 minutes.

Serve with cocktail rye or pumpernickel bread, rye crackers and pretzel thins.

Now, I bake this dip. I know other people put their Hot Reuben Dips in Crock-pots to let heat for a few hours. That’s up to you, but if you decide to make it in a slow cooker, be sure to fold in ALL the cheese and the sauerkraut and not let them sit on the top. Also, keep a small amount of extra sour cream on hand or maybe some of the drained sauerkraut water to add back in later, because I have found that dips made in slow cookers tend to dry out after a while once everyone starts leaving the lid off all of the time for serving.

Salsa Verde

Personally, I like a good salsa verde over the usual tomato, onion and jalapeño routine. Roasting tomatillos creates such a beautiful smell in the kitchen and it’s a nice treat if you’re used to just pulling out a jar of whatever salsa happened to be on sale that week at your tailgate.

You will need:

1-1 1/2 pounds tomatillos
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (optional, depending on how well your cast iron skillet is seasoned)
1/2 white onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
Small bunch of cilantro
1-2 serrano peppers, seeds removed
Juice of half a lime, about a tablespoon or so
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Peel the paper husks off the tomatillos and rinse clean. In large skillet, pack together the tomatillos whole in the pan, using a small amount of oil in the pan if it is not well-seasoned.

Over medium heat, roast the tomatillos until soft on one side and then flip to roast the other half. Don’t worry if they char and burn, that’s a great part of the flavor right there.

Once your tomatillos are completely roasted, remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Toss in a food processor or blender and chop until you reach salsa status.

If tomato salsas are more your thing, my pal Josh showed me his family recipe a couple of years ago.

Blueberry Goat Cheese Dip

This dip isn’t for everyone, just us sexy people. It’s tart with just a hint of sweet and spice, best matched with fresh fruit and cookies, this fruit and cheese dip a great palate cleanser on a day full of heavy football foods.

You will need:

1 pint blueberries, rinsed
5 ounces goat cheese
7-8 ounces plain Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon lemon zest (about 1/4 of a lemon)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamom

Combine in a food processor or blender and then transfer to a bowl to serve.

Blueberry Salsa

Blueberries also make for one of my favorite fruit salsas. Again, a nice break from the stuff in the jar, this sweet and hot salsa has always been a hit when I’ve brought it out on game days.

You will need:

12 ounces of blueberries, roughly chopped
1 shallot, finely minced (Or 1/4 cup of red onion)
1 jalapeno, seeds removed and finely minced
1-2 tablespoons of cilantro, stems removed and finely chopped
1 tablespoon of lime or lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons of kosher salt

Mix all the above ingredients and refrigerate for at least six hours and up to two days ahead of time to let the flavor develop.

Creamy Hot Hoagie Dip

Another one of the baked dips, I created this one a few years ago after being tired of seeing hoagie dip recipes that were cold. Hoagies are meant to be baked! A cold hoagie is just a sandwich and no one wants just a sandwich dip. Lame.

I’m including this recipe from my archives for two reasons; commenter Sill Bimmons requested the re-posting because it’s disappeared from his party very quickly and secondly because long time Football Foodie reader BULLET! BULLET! BULLET! has be bugging me to try this recipe again “Pittsburgh Style”, i.e. it should have a layer of fries added to the top which he says is perfect. I still haven’t had a chance do to this, but if any of you hearty souls wants to give it a whirl with fries, you should.

EDIT – B!B!B! reminds me that Pittsburgh Style of this dip is “Fries AND Cole Slaw instead of lettuce! You forgot the cole slaw! But I still love you.”

You will need:

1/4 pound capicola
1/4 pound salami
1/4 pound mortadella
1/4 pound pepperoni (preferably deli sandwich style)
1/4 pound ham
8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
8 ounces of provolone, diced
8-12 ounces of shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup of mayonnaise
2 teaspoons of oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper
1/2 white or yellow onion, roughly chopped
4-6 ounces of pepperoncini
2-3 Roma tomatoes, seeds removed and roughly chopped
1/2 a head of iceberg lettuce, shredded

1 large baguette and olive oil for crostini

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Chop up all of your deli meat and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, celery seeds and ground pepper with the mayonnaise, much like if you were making a creamy Italian dressing. If you want to just use a packet of Italian dressing mix, that’s fine, but most dressing mixes are loaded with salt and when you consider the amount of cured, salted meat — more than a pound! — you’re about to chop up, I’d advise against it. You’re watching football; not running a Shenanigans. Make the dressing fresh if you can.

Mix together your chopped up deli meats with the soften cream cheese (if you need to, put it in the microwave for a minute), about 3/4-1 cup of the shredded mozzarella cheese, the chopped provolone and your dressing.

Spread your hoagie mix into a large 9×13 glass pan or the largest casserole dish you have so you can make the thinnest layer possible. This helps everything bake evenly and for easier dip-scooping later.

Top with just a little more mozzarella cheese, say about a 1/4 cup.

Bake until it’s bubbly all the way through to the middle, not just the edges. About 20-25 minutes should do it.

Once baked all the way through, remove from the oven to cool for a minute to set and so you don’t burn yourself putting on the rest of the toppings. You’re almost at hoagie heaven.

Top with chopped onions and then pepperoncini. If you’re not a big fan of raw onions, have no fear. By putting the onions on the bottom layer of vegetables just above the hot meat and cheeses, you’ll get a wonderfully steamed cooked onion while also avoiding making the dip too watery by baking the onions in with the rest of the hot layers.

(Add fries and cole slaw here if doing so.)

Top with the lettuce and tomatoes — Roma because they are the least watery – and serve with crostini.

Smoky Chipotle Bacon Pimento Cheese

I’m going to go ahead and tell you to make a double batch of this recipe from the archives. One batch is never enough. Last year when I brought it to my friend’s place for Conference Championship game day, I actually had to hide a small amount of it in the back of the fridge just to make sure I would get some, it was gone so quickly.

The original version of this recipe called for more mayonnaise, but I found that it made it much too thin. (I also discovered that since I first adapted this recipe a couple of years ago a few chefs in the South have started a rivalry over whose version is better. I’ve now tried a few different ones and this still comes out on top.)

You will need:

8 ounces (1/2 pound) smoked cheddar, grated
8 ounces (1/2 pound) bacon
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
8 ounces mayonnaise, preferably Dukes
2 chipotle peppers in adobo, chopped
1-2 scallions, chopped, optional (highly encouraged)
Salt and pepper if desired

Chop and gently cook bacon until crispy. Drain and cool.

While the bacon is cooking, grate the cheese and combine with the softened cream cheese and mayonnaise.

Once the bacon has cooled, fold in the bacon and then chopped chipotle peppers. Add salt or pepper if desired.

Top with the chopped scallions and serve with crostini topped with smoked paprika, vegetables or even as a filling in a sandwich or burgers.

Wildcat play! Mr. Chris Mottram has advised me this pimento cheese dip is fantastic baked, so if you want to pop it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at about 350º until it reaches magical bubbly dip status, go for it.

 9-Layer Ranchero Dip

This one goes very deep into the archives and I pretty much repost it every season. Why? Because it is my favorite Super Bowl food. I’ve been making this dip for nearly fifteen years now, usually only once a year and almost always just for the Super Bowl. It damn near feeds an army of people and you still might have some leftovers which GOOD it means you can have some wrapped in a tortilla with some scrambled eggs the next morning while I sort through the flotsam and jetsam of postgame coverage.

A layer dip is everything football represents; it’s excessive, large, soft in the middle and ultimately you cannot believe you consumed so much of it. Just perfect.

You will need:

(3-4) 15 ounce cans of no-fat refried beans (See the bacon down there? You don’t need the refried beans with fat, you are adding your own fresh fat.)
1/2 to 1 pound bacon
8 ounces sour cream (I usually double this, as you will see.)
2/3 cup mayonnaise (Again, usually doubled.)
1 – 2 packets of taco seasoning, or your own taco season mix of chili powder, paprika, cumin, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and red pepper flakes, about 3-4 teaspoons worth
4-5 avocados (Use your best judgment here. If they are really small avocados, use 5-6.)
(2) 4 oz cans of green chilies
1-2 jalapeños, seeds removed and diced (optional)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
8-12 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups green onions (About a bunch of scallions should do you, including lower white section)
2 cups chopped tomatoes, seeds removed
6 oz – 12 oz sliced black olives

Mix together mayo, sour cream, and taco seasoning in a bowl. Really to taste, but remember the longer this sits, the more the spices will open up on the cream so do not over do it. You can also make your own taco seasoning by mixing together chili powder, paprika, cumin, garlic powder and onion powder and such if you happen to have all the above on hand.

Chop green onions and tomatoes and put into separate bowls. Put all three bowls into the fridge to chill while you make the next few layers.

Fry 1/2 pound bacon until very crispy. If you want to use more, I will not judge. Once cooked, remove the bacon from the pan. Drain off all the grease from both the bacon and the pan.

In the same skillet, heat refried beans so they absorb the trace amounts of bacon fat from the pan and crumble in the fried bacon. Cook for a few minutes and then remove from heat. Spread into large, deep serving platter or lasagna dish. Set aside to cool.

Mash together garlic powder, lemon, and avocados. Use more garlic powder to taste, and lemon juice as needed. Do not over mix or over season though, as you want to keep as much as the avocado flavor as you can. Layer on top of your bacon and beans base.

Drain water from green chiles, and add on top of the avocado layer. If you think your crew can handle the heat, add some diced jalapeños to this layer.

Pour on your seasoned sour cream layer and spread out evenly over the bottom layers.

Then layer on the green onions, tomatoes, black olives and finally the shredded cheese.

Either serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve. If making a day or two ahead of time, assemble all the layers except for the green onions, tomatoes, black olives and cheese. Add those layers when you’re an hour away from kick-off, which sounds like a great excuse to be in the kitchen and not have listen to Train during the pre-game ceremonies.

So you don’t want to hassle making a dip from scratch. You want something simple like just buying something and mixing it into something else. I understand. Even I buy mixes from time to time.

The one I’m in love with these days is a super spicy green chili mix from the Women’s Bean Project. It’s meant for a salsa, but you can also mix it with sour cream or plain Greek yogurt for a real treat. The type of heat that makes you say, “Oh, woo. No. So hot. Need a sip of something. Okay, give me another chip, I’m going back in.”  You can order it online or find it in specialty stores.

(And no, this is not a paid ad, nor am I plugging anything that was given to me. I stumbled across this not long ago and have bought three more packets since then and ordered a Groupon for their site. Just great.)

What other dips should you make? You should make my friend Clare’s Blue Cheese and Caramelized Shallot and Dip Gus’ Bacon & Horseradish Dip.  White Bean Spread with Sage. God is it is good and almost healthy. This Baked Fontina is easy but tastes amazing. The Hot Bean and Chimichurri Dip I posted here on KSK earlier this season. Really, any dip recipe I’ve ever published over the years, Pizza Dip, healthy veggie dips, I love them all.

Oh! And let’s not forget last year’s Super Bowl Guacamole Extravaganza, ten legit awesome guacamole recipes can be found there.

And as always, a special aside for the Every Day Should Be Saturday commenters: Thanks for linking to my Buffalo Chicken Dip every so often in the comments over the past how many years after Holly Anderson first posted it in the Digital Viking (RIP). I’m always flattered to see it come up from time to time. I’d repost it here but I almost feel like it needs to stay special between us, you crazy college football wackamoles.

What about the KSK Kommenters? What dips do you love for football and look forward to for the Super Bowl?

The post Super Bowl Recipe Month: Dip Spectacular! appeared first on Kissing Suzy Kolber.

We’ve nearly reached the end of Super Bowl Recipe Month here at KSK, so hopefully by now you’ve come up with some semblance of a plan for this Sunday’s game. No? Don’t feel bad. I haven’t either.

A friend of mine asked me the other day if I was going to post a gumbo recipe for since New Orleans was hosting the Super Bowl. I sent her in the direction of the gumbo recipe I posted a couple of years ago when the Saints played the Colts in the Super Bowl in battle of New Orleans gumbo versus Indianapolis sugar pie, so if you’re looking for Cajun-style gumbo go here. (And if you’re looking for a sugar pie recipe, bless you and your diabetes.) You can also check out this recipe for both a traditional and a New Orleans-style Pimm’s Cup click here. I personally love Pimm’s Cups and their Italian cousins the Americano made with Campari, so if you’re looking for lower-alcohol drinks for your Super Bowl party, you’re much better off serving a drink that is a nod to the host city than say, oh, a Miller 64.

Still want to make something more traditional but want a hint of something Cajun? The same spices work in most meat dishes, like sausage rolls.

What does a deep dish pizza have to do with New Orleans? Nothing unless you want to get into the history of jazz music in America and make a tenuous connection through that route. But it’s the Super Bowl, you might want pizza you make at home and you might be having an intimate gathering or just your family around and this pizza is perfect for such occasions.

To the recipes!  

The post Super Bowl Recipe Month: Cajun Seasoned Sausage Rolls And Deep Dish Pizza appeared first on Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Via LA Weekly

Since there is a pretty small pool of people who talk about football and food on a regular basis, I thought I’d invite a few friends over to discuss Super Bowl snack planning, stadium eating, parties and regional San Francisco/Baltimore/New Orleans cuisine.

Our guests are Albert Burneko of Deadspin, host of the popular Foodspin column and Spilly, food humorist at SB Nation. Honored to have them both over for a chat.

SS: Here we are, Ravens and 49ers. Baltimore and San Francisco. Two cities known culinary for seafood and seafood. Old Bay and Rice-a-Roni. Cakes under ten pounds of fondant and dim sum. (Although I am sure some jerk from San Francisco will take the time to mention Mission-style burritos, to which I say, no one cares about your burritos, SAN FRAN.)

What do you guys think of when you think about food from either city?

Spilly: Unfortunately, the entirety of my San Francisco knowledge revolves around early-90s Rice-A-Roni ads, so I assume that everyone eats that and communicates via streetcar bells. Having done extensive Wikipedia skimming though, I found that Shasta soda was once headquartered in Baltimore, but then moved to the San Francisco area later. There’s your real game storyline once people get tired of the Harbowl stuff. BATTLE OF THE SHASTA.

Maryland is obvious – Old Bay, crabcakes and cans of Natty Boh. I myself never really liked seafood, though crabcakes aren’t terrible. Our nation has a terrific urge to pattify any possible meat, and I’m okay with that. I’m glad this game doesn’t include two cities where the only notable food was barbecue, because every single city, town, hamlet and outhouse in America claims barbecue as their own. We could have used the word Harbaughcue though. Ah, opportunities missed.

AB: Because I am an actual, literal walrus, when I think of the iconic foods of these two cities, I think of crabs. Specifically, I think of how comparatively boring and flavorless the Pacific Northwest’s Dungeness crab is, and how this has never stopped native San Franciscans, when transplanted to the mid-Atlantic, from haughtily dismissing the exponentially more delicious Chesapeake blue crab for being too small.  Every ironically-tattooed, liberal-arts-educated man jack of them. Yes, the Dungeness crab is larger than the Chesapeake blue and requires less work per bite. If this is the standard that makes the less-flavorful of the two nevertheless the better to eat, as San Franciscans would have you believe, then I can only assume that the most in-demand seafood item in San Francisco’s fish markets is a ten-gallon bucket of sand and a spoon. Mmm-mmm! That’s good eating!

Of course, on the whole, it must be said that San Francisco is probably the superior food town of the two, insofar as it is one of the best food towns on the planet, while the second-most-popular thing to eat in Baltimore, after crabs, is lead.

SS: Like Spilly, I’m not a big seafood fan but can get by on crab cakes because they tend to be small and not really have much crab in them. They’re more of a “food I can eat to be polite at a party” than a “oooh, fancy crab” treat for me. Add in the fact the Super Bowl is being held in seafood-loving New Orleans, I might be in for a bit of tough go of it if I end up at a party where the host decides to go native.

Albert does bring up a good point though, this is very much a working-class eating city versus the cultural elite. Does this play into how you look at each team? San Francisco already gets a bad rap for being a team that has sushi and wine at tailgates, but is Baltimore too low-brow that it doesn’t have any culinary appeal? (I should disclose, I’ve looked up lots and lots of recipes for game meat raven over the years.)

Spilly: The Forty Niners already have the whole 80′s dynasty about them. Combine that with a larger national fanbase and a city that has already won a championship this year, and it’s not helping the wine and cheese elitist stereotype. Were it not for the sordid history of one particular middle linebacker for Baltimore, I think we’d have an easily cheerable working-man Baltimore team. I compare it with the ’97 Broncos / Packers game, where a star that had a vocal subset of people hate him (in Baltimore, no less), went up against a ‘classic’ dynastic team who had been away from the spotlight. Sure there’s differences. I still think it’s a good comparison though.

AB: I dunno, there’s something kind of appealing about food that you eat out of a styrofoam bowl, with a plastic fork, in a seedy, divey, grim place full of blue-collar salt-of-the-earth types, isn’t there?  Unpretentious food that is nonetheless hot, flavorful, and nourishing?  Food that makes up in hardbitten ingenuity and generations of homey tradition what it lacks in novelty and luxury? Food that, hey, maybe it’s not the tastiest thing you’ve ever eaten, or the freshest or the most attractively presented or the least frightening, but at least it fills up your stomach and gives you energy for another day of hard, physical labor?

And hey, if all of that is true, isn’t that something Baltimore could aspire to have someday, after it has been razed and rebuilt?

SS: I will say, there is something very fancy sounding about this Blue Crab Salsa. Personally, if I was the type to do a city-themed Super Bowl party, I’d keep it New Orleans-based and make a giant batch of Cajun-style gumbo with chicken and sausage and a muffaletta.

Location aside, what do you think makes for a good Super Bowl spread? A lot of different small items, grilling and barbecuing, dips, sandwiches?

Spilly: I’ll fully admit that I’m not nearly on any sort of foodie level as you guys, and I actually tend to run counter to the idea of the massive, pre-planned Super Bowl food layout. If I’m watching an important game, I’ll shovel down whatever is put in front of me, without really considering what it is. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy a thoughtful spread, or that I’m some hulking cro-magnon chucking beef riblets into my gaping maw for 4 hours. I just feel like good food deserves more than the attention I’ll end up giving it during the game. Your blackened turnip ganache is probably fantastic! However, unless it’s 45-10 in the third quarter, It’s going to get as much attention from me as a that pile of stale Dorito bag afterbirth left over from the World Series party. That said, there’s a few items that I think should be addressed. I try to avoid anything that needs both a dish and a fork/spoon because it will end up everywhere. There won’t be enough places to put bowls and plates, and some guy’s ex-roommate will try balancing it on his knee and will spill the chili you spent six days simmering onto the couch. Barbecue is good as long as it’s not overly messy. I think it’s far more important to have a wider beer selection for everyone, from hipster microbrews to cheap pisswater. People will eat whatever charred animal chunks you throw in front of them, but the only thing that rivals a sports argument is a beer snob argument.

SS: I’ll readily agree that during the Super Bowl (lordy I just typed “Souper” about three times just there) you should be concentrating on drink selection because you will of course have people who never watch football around complaining about the beer “too fancy” or “did someone bring this Coors Light as a joke?”

I actually don’t mind letting other people do the heavy lifting cooking-wise for the Super Bowl. By the end of the season, all I want is to make my nine-layer dip and be left alone.

And before we get too far, let’s stick a pin in topic of dealing with guests just there for the food and not there for the game. (i.e. I missed a quarter of the NFC Championship game last year because I got pulled into women’s book/empowerment discussion group that I could not escape from at halftime and I did not want to offend the lady of the house.)

AB: I don’t know if things have actually changed, or if I’m just remembering it wrong, or what, but I feel like the phenomenon of the Super Bowl being a day which called for food preparation more concerted than pulling open a bag of ruffled potato chips and yanking the lid off of a can of onion dip is a relatively recent one. My guess is that’s tied to its consecration as a secular holiday for even non-football fans–call it Commercial Day–which means that there are millions upon millions of people out there who are expected to celebrate the day, but who don’t give a fig about football, and thus need something to hold their interest during the boring interludes between live-Tweeting their reviews of the horrifyingly misogynist beer advertisements. Food’s the natural choice, there, just as it was for our forebears who discovered that, while Thanksgiving is an entire day on the calendar, the act of giving thanks for stuff really only takes about 42 seconds.

In any event, I suppose I’ve never expected much by way of novelty or innovation or fancypantsness from a Super Bowl spread. I’d like something to eat. I’d like something to drink. If the foodstuff is portable, more the better. If the beverage is alcoholic, I’ll probably take my shirt off. But, part of the equation, surely, is whether I particularly care about the outcome of the game. By the time Super Bowl XLII rolled around in February of 2008, I hated the New England Patriots with the kind of burning intensity usually reserved for race-baiting politicians, murderers of children, and Legos that stab through the sole of my foot in the dark, roast in hell you little fuckers die die die. I needed the Patriots to lose like I need air. Point is, I was far too into the game to have any patience for, say, barbecued ribs, which are messy and require enough attention to at least allow you to see where the meat is before you take your next bite. At the same time, though, I was anxious and fidgety and needed something to do with my hands and mouth other than gesticulate wildly and screech profanity at Tom Brady, and I’d have eaten the couch cushions had there not been a handy bag of salty pretzels for me to give myself heart disease with.

So, um… that’s the answer? It depends? Portable food, abundant drink, and, um, a game I care about?  Sure. That’s sounds great.

AB: Not for nothing, but my answers might get shorter from here: my eyeballs melted and ran in rivulets down the front of my face when Spilly called me a foodie.  I’LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU SPILLY

Spilly: To be fair, a foodie to me is: “Someone who eats food that does not contain a petroleum product.”

AB: YOU SAYIN’ I DON’T DRINK GASOLINE.

Spilly: YEAH I’M SAYIN THAT. LET’S PROVE IT BY LIGHTING OURSELVES ON FIRE. THE FIRST TO COMPLETELY BURN WINS.

SS: Please. The last thing I should ever be called is a “foodie” person. I picked the “Football Foodie” name for the column six years ago because the f-word was considered bad as a sort of joke and because I’m hacky enough to enjoy alliteration.

Spilly: (You don’t need to include this, but it’s a fun aside story)

I won a contest for tickets to Steelers / Broncos in Denver this year, and it was the BIG FANCY seats with all the Important People, etc. (Franco Harris was in our box) They had executive chefs carving up filets and passing them out. Gorgeous salads, ice sculptures, seafood, and none of it was easily transportable to the actual seats and could be eaten with anything less than a full set of cutlery. I ate exactly none of it because I was watching the game the entire time, and I didn’t feel like going over a wine list when there’s FOOBAW literally right outside.

SS: Did you wear your Broncos hat?

Spilly: I did. I was also on the Jumbotron for winning the contest. Spillygirl is a Steelers fan so. uh. Yeah hey the Broncos won!

SS: Box seats are weird because there are all these food options, most of them good, but then you have to sit at those weird tables in the back. We’re all agreed though the best stadium food is just the plain nachos but you ask the nacho person to put the melted cheese and salsa in the same side container.

Albert, you’re a parent. Do kids change how you plan for a Super Bowl gathering at home or going to one?

AB: True story: For several years after my wife and I got together, but before we became parents, we didn’t have TV at all (poor!), so our standard Super Bowl move was to visit people who did. We got TV right around the same time we had our first kid, so it’s hard for me to pinpoint whether the fact that we’re housebound on Super Bowl Sunday is more because our kids immobilize us or because we have the option of a less nomadic experience. I’m sure it’s some combination of the two: however much we might like to go watch the game somewhere else where other people are responsible for cleaning up my upchucked beer and hot wings, the damn thing doesn’t even start until bath-time, so bringing the kids with us isn’t really a plausible course of action. When they get older they’ll be more able to come along to a festivity that lasts late into the night, which means I’ll have to come up with another excuse for being a hermit.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that I will be watching at home. Which, because it means I will also be responsible for cleaning up any messes made by any drunken debauchery of the preparation of any bountiful spread of exotic Super Bowl foodstuffs, also means that we will be dining on salted cashews out of a can and drinking tap water from our cupped hands.

SS: It’s funny, the game starting at 3:30 PT makes so much more sense now that you’ve mentioned bath time. I’d be fine if it moved to closer to 1 or 2 PT so the East Coast could have a more manageable start time since it is a Sunday. (This however does not mean I have softened my belief that Monday Night Football should return to its 9:15 ET/6:15 PT kickoff.) Your Super Bowl with young kids sounds very much like a New Year’s Eve with kids.

AB: I’m happy to have the game start late enough that I can make a token effort at getting my kids to eat a fresh, nutritious dinner before giving up and just letting them gorge themselves on Super Bowl junk food until they fall asleep with their upper bodies burrowed deep inside Doritos bags.

Spilly: Given my reputation for punching delicious ingredients in the face with Sriracha and Tang, I don’t think there’s any food out there that people would be abhorred to find out I enjoy. Perhaps a tasteful and sensible vegetable platter.

If I had to pick one that people bag on a lot, it’d probably be Taco Bell. No one wants to actually admit they eat Taco Bell at any time before 11:30pm. There are reasons for this: The meat isn’t actually meat, the toppings are laughably pitiful, and the after-effects are the stuff of legend. Sometimes, though, all you have three dollars in a change cup and all self-respect and culinary dignity is out the window.

SS: Would you bring a box of Taco Bell tacos to a party though?

Spilly: It works in the ads right? Look how happy they are!
…
No. To be fair, my friends would at first be relieved because what I was bringing was, in fact, edible and not homemade. My friends have exceedingly low standards for me.

SS: Have you ever brought Spilly Food (TM) to a party?

Spilly: Nope – Spillyfood is like the nuclear deterrent. Everyone is nice to me at parties or else they get Worcestershire Cupcakes next time.

SS: So we got a legit question on Twitter from @ecalof: What’s the best way to prepare chicken wings for optimal footballish consumption.

Personally, I think wings are a lot of work at home for little reward, which is why I make Buffalo Chicken Dip instead of wings, or a dozen other Buffalo chicken-related items. Pasta salad, wraps, wontons, pierogies. If you are going to make wings at home, don’t mess around and bake them no matter how high the heat, you’re going to get gummy wings. Fry them.

AB: Yeah, I agree with all of that.  Really, I kinda don’t recommend people ever make wings, for exactly the reason you said, and because I just generally think deep frying is a huge annoying pain in the ass. I do enjoy eating wings, but there’s a simple pseudo-math involved in the decision to cook them yourself: the difference in tastiness between the kind you make at home and the kind you get with a friggin’ delivery pizza is this big: [  ]; the difference in labor between the two is this big: [                                   ]. Do it if you want the sense of accomplishment that comes from having learned how to do it, and if you’re gonna, do ‘em right: deep fry ‘em, make your own sauce, whip up your own dressing. Odds are, it’ll be a long time before you ever feel that urge again.

Spilly: I have, of course, never made wings because the labor involved is astronomical. I don’t even like real wings that much – eating them is so much work for such little payoff. If I want hot sauce I’ll drink a bottle of hot sauce with a straw. Why not just skip the middleman?

SS: Any last football food thoughts before we send everyone into the wild for this weekend? Last chance to use sports as an eating event until fall.

AB: That’s what YOU think. Wait until my NBA Finals piece about how to feed yourself through a seven-game series with nothing more than a spoon and a single tub of sour cream!

Spilly: Cherish this weekend, because by April you’ll think it’s a good idea to host an NFL Draft party. By the 5th round the only thing left in the house to eat will be a pack of Dunkaroos eligible for a learner’s permit and half a case of grape Little Hugs. Only then will you realize there’s still 4 months until football.

The post Super Bowl Eating And Partying Roundtable With Guests Albert Burneko of Deadspin and Spilly from SB Nation appeared first on Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Super Bowl Recipe Month: Designated Driver Drinks And The Football Foodie Year In Review

The last couple of days of the 2012-2013 NFL season are finally here. Time to suck the marrow from the bone and crown a new champion. One last game, one last party, one last excuse to eat your own weight in nachos.

It’s been a fun season having the Football Foodie column run here on KSK and I’ve loved all the comments and the interaction with fellow fans who also enjoy putting a little extra effort into their game day spreads. Thanks to all of you for making this year fun.

So let’s wrap this up with a drink for the designated drivers and the extra DUI checkpoints across the country this weekend and review the complete rundown of all the snacks — 52 of them! —  from this season. [Update from the comments: Yes! Also very good for the pregnant ladies watching the Super Bowl!]

To the recipes!

The post Super Bowl Recipe Month: Designated Driver Drinks And The Football Foodie Year In Review appeared first on Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Just because the season is over it doesn’t mean making game charts, scouting reports and power rankings aren’t important anymore. Those skills need to stay sharp by applying football logic to non-football situations, no matter how small and trivial they might be. With Valentine’s Day coming up this week, we’re presented with a perfect opportunity to keep our game day tactics fresh.

There is a good chance someone who loves you (or even just like-likes you) is going to give you a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. This person may even be thoughtful enough to think while they’re at the drug store or Target, “Hey, object of my affections likes football. I was going to buy them fancy gourmet chocolates, but a heart-shaped football seems more their speed. A giant red heart seems a little cliche and plus, this is only ten bucks. They’ll love this.”

Now you’re faced with a sampler and some hard decisions; which piece of chocolate do you eat first? Which do eat last? Which pieces do you give away? It’s time to apply football logic and game planning to everyday life.

First, you make a chart.

Fortunately, most boxes of chocolates these days come with a guide to what is hidden underneath each chocolate exterior. This will help you plan a map of attack, an order, so even if you get lost on the play, you can get your bearings and figure out where to go next.

If your lover wants to know why you’re drawing x’s and o’s on the chocolate guide, lie to them and say you’re imagining each chocolate is a kiss or a hug sent directly from them. Don’t feel bad about this lie. Sometimes it’s better not to let the person you’re with know every thought that goes through your head, especially if you don’t want them to know you’re a complete weirdo (yet).

Maple Fudge: Not the worst selection, but not good enough to even be a middle of the pack chocolate. Exciting enough to start with, but definitely not a strong enough to finish with. Hardly any maple, which makes it slightly Canadian-ish. The Buffalo/Toronto Bills of the chocolate box.

Coconut Cream #1:  Need to get this one out of the way early because there are two of them and the last thing you want is multiple sweetened piles of mush at the end of your chocolate game. Someone will always be excited for coconut. Do not trust this person, because they obviously have no idea what goes into a good piece of candy. This person will also tell you how much better the coconut is better in Hawaii, but if you held both a Mexican and a Guatemalan coconut in front of them, they would not know the difference. Of course it’s better in Hawaii, because all trips to Hawaii are spent drunk with a touch of sunstroke, and you’ve spent so much money to be there, to allow the thought that anything is less than paradise would be crushing.

In short, the first Coconut Cream is the New York Jets.

Molasses Chew: Ugh, so much chewing. So much molasses. Enough to make you not want go any further. Not once in the history of all sugar products has anyone ever wandered into their kitchen, taken out a spoon and asked, “Hey, where’s that bottle of molasses I keep around for the rare times I need one goddamn tablespoon of molasses for cookies.” But it’s still a chocolate treat and you’ll take it, no matter how bad. Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Toffee #1:  Palate cleanser of both taste and texture after three chewy chocolates in a row. Could be better quality toffee, but it’s still interesting enough. Just shy of being a contender. Chicago Bears, being generous to the Bears.

Almond Nougat: More nougat than almond, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Surprisingly not awful, but it’s never going to be best of the box. Atlanta Falcons.

Vanilla Cream: Typically decent if a bit bland, but when it misses, it really misses. Nothing too out of the ordinary that woud upset anyone, plus you rarely hear of anyone being allergic to vanilla. If this chocolate was to never appear in the sampler ever again, it’s doubtful anyone would ever notice. Indianapolis Colts.

Fruit & Nut Cream: Almost too much excitement with both a mix of fruit and nuts, this is the chocolate that will inevitably get something lodged in your back teeth and possibly hurt you. Washington Bad PR Moves.

Toffee #2: Secretly happy to be back at toffee even though it’s not the best chocolate toffee in the world. Almost an afterthought. Seattle Seahawks.

HALFTIME: Take a break because despite sharing pieces with your partner, you’ve given yourself a tummy ache eating too much chocolate. During this break, you might take a look at the serving size and calorie counts. Wait, two pieces to a serving, six servings? Quick count shows there are eleven little serving trays in the box. Multiple toffees? How does that work, there are three toffees in this box, not two. Tell yourself if you skip dinner, take into account you had fruit and yogurt for breakfast, black coffee for lunch, eating a box of chocolates isn’t the worst thing calorie-wise for dinner. Make a note to take an extra multivitamin before bed. (Allow halftime to go as long as you want, even a few days.)

Plain Chocolate: Need to ease back into the box of chocolates, so this is a good time to have just plain, no nonsense straight ahead chocolate. Plain chocolate on it own when of the best quality can move mountains, but this is a chocolate part of a sampler and was never meant to shine above the rest. 2012 Pittsburgh Steelers.

Caramel: Not the nice soft caramel you would expect, this a chewy, dense chocolate caramel that’s tedious to get through. After having such high hopes for this chocolate, it’s a relief that this isn’t the last chocolate in the box. Denver Broncos.

Coconut Cream: This chocolate’s still here? Do you really want to eat it? All the same hype of the previous Coconut Cream, but none of the interest. Putting this chocolate here in the final ranking, but not really eating it. Hopefully a friend or your partner will eat this chocolate when you say, “No, you have the last one.” New York Giants.

Toffee 3: Toffee again, and it’s lost any sort of flavor or flare. It’s still a chocolate, but you’re no longer excited to have it. Might even give it away with the last Coconut Cream. Pro Bowl chocolate.

Chocolate Butter Cream: NO YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO WIN THIS IS JUST CHOCOLATE WITH MORE CHOCOLATE WHY DID I THINK YOU WERE PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE YOU ARE BOTH THE DISAPPOINTING 49ERS AND THE OVERACHIEVING, UNDERWHELMING RAVENS ALL AT THE SAME TIME. END OF THIS BOX OF CHOCOLATES COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE POORLY PLANNED IF JIM HARBAUGH HIMSELF GAVE US THESE CHOCOLATES. AND NOW IT’S ALL GONE EXCEPT FOR THAT GOD AWFUL COCONUT CREAM JUST MOCKING US IN THE BOX AND WE HAVE TO WAIT HOW LONG BEFORE GETTING MORE CHOCOLATE WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE A JERK FOR NOT APPRECIATING THIS GIFT? WHO THE HELL BUYS A BOX A CHOCOLATES THAT DOESN’T HAVE A PEANUT BUTTER FILLED CHOCOLATE  ANYWAY?

Awful, and now everyone involved is sick of chocolate, football and tedious football and chocolate connections. Thank goodness we only have to do this once a year.

Track how my stomach ache from this post is going here.

The post Someone Who Loves You Gave You A Football Box Of Chocolate: Here’s How to Eat It appeared first on Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Our guests again today are Albert Burneko of Deadspin, host of the popular Foodspin column and Spilly, food humorist at SB Nation.  Honored to have them both over for a chat about the kickoff to the summer barbecue season after we had so much fun talking about Super Bowl food. 

(We made small talk about steaks, Pittsburgh rare, broken ovens and other nonsense before jumping in.)

SS: So we briefly talked about steaks, but really what this Memorial Day post should be about is the kickoff of barbecue and grilling season.

Do you guys grill or barbecue? Do you get caught up in the semantics of what you call grilling or barbecue?

AB: I grill/barbecue/whatever constantly when the weather permits it (and sometimes when it doesn’t), and no, I don’t pay much attention to whether I am using the word “barbecue” according to how it was first used five bazillion years ago when some Cro-Magnon first said “barbecue” and the other Cro-Magnons looked at him askance and were all, “NUH-UH THAT IS GRILLED TOR DON’T YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BARBECUE IS DOUCHE?” If it is cooked over (or, OK, near to but not directly over) a relatively low heat and flavored with sauces and/or spices typically associated with barbecue, I call it barbecue. Or I call it grilled. Or I just friggin’ eat it because that is what food is for.

I mean, care about the semantics if you want (although I do reserve the right to roll my eyes and/or make dismissive wanking motions at you). I understand that there’s value in preserving the precise meanings of words. It’s just, Christ, the barbecue dorks are insufferable. If you’re popping out from behind bushes, brandishing your snottiest “Well, actually…” every time somebody dares to use the dread b-word to describe anything not cooked over a dug-out pit full of firewood, it’s possible you’re maybe missing the main point of the whole cooking-and-eating-things enterprise just a tad.

SS: I was hoping you’d take that stance because I too get crazy when people get all up in arms about the usage of the word barbecue. Your grandparents didn’t have people over for grilling, your parents didn’t have people over for grilling, and you don’t spend the summer racing from grilling party to grilling party. This is America and we go to barbecues with plastic red-and-white tablecloths, paper plates that fall apart after the beans have been sitting on them for too long, rolls of paper towels for napkins and Coleman coolers full of ice.

Amen.

Spilly: I don’t have nearly the barbecue experience I would like to have at this point; this is usually due to silly things like ‘landlords’ in the city. So I’ve never been able to use a proper barbeque pit or smoker like many people. I do enjoy the progression of barbecue from college student hidden contraband hibachi grill to the first charcoal grill to one that lasts more than six weeks before rusting apart. I prefer charcoal to gas myself – not just because of legitimate flavor reasons, but that it’s the only real time I’m allowed to start fires without being arrested, and I don’t like a little button taking that joy away from me.

As far as barbecuing vs. grilling, I honestly don’t care. I know people do. This is the internet, though, where no one is allowed to be ambivalent on any topic, especially pedantic issues of nomenclature. I mean, we’ve had internet arguments for days over how to say ‘GIF’

SS: I’m a charcoal person myself too, Spilly, which has caused more problems in my marriage than probably any other topic aside of perhaps how the closet is arranged.

I think the preference is all in how you were raised. My parents always grilled over charcoal, he came from a family of gas grillers. I was taught smoke and heat mattered and you slaved to get the right shade of gray ashes, he was taught there is nothing better than being able to grill every night as long as you remembered to fill up the tank.

I won out on our grill ownership debate and we have a charcoal grill. Since I grew up with charcoal, learned how to stack, make different heat zones, how much air to allow in the kettle, I can get a good grill going in no time. He’s still learning the basics and often gets frustrated with the fire. We’re a pretty even-keeled couple, partnership and gender politics rarely pop up in our home, but the grill brings out some hard feelings when I have to do some quick fixes to his fires when they’re not going… so… hot.

Spilly: I haven’t been able to master lump charcoal with any sort of regularity. I see the advantages, but I rarely need them.

AB: I’m passionately in love with lump charcoal and never really use anything else. It crackles like a campfire! You can quote me on that!

Spilly: I never can get the damn things to heat evenly. Agh.

AB: Yes. You’re right.  It doesn’t heat as evenly as briquettes, and that can be annoying. I like it because it heats up so much more quickly and burns so much hotter than briquettes, and, seriously, it crackles! I love the crackling. God, I am a fucking infant.

SS: We can get to main items later, what what do you think are the most underrated sides?

AB: This might seem an odd choice, only because it’s already everyone’s favorite thing ever, but the most underrated side is still corn on the cob, because it’s scientifically impossible to rate it correctly.  Sort of like how infinity’s already infinity, but it’s still not as big as infinity + 1.  That’s probably not true.  I have no way of knowing.  Point is, corn’s the best.

SS: Corn is a top three for me, but I need to have a knife around to cut off the kernels. This is not negotiable. Beans that are actually cooked in a skillet over the grill don’t get enough love in my book.

AB: Wait, whoa, you just melted my brain. You don’t, like, just pick up the whole thing and chow down on it like a gross pig and get chewed-up corn all over your face? Because, holy cow, I’m sure I can’t think of five more enjoyable things to do.

SS: Always cut it off with a steak knife. That way the corn can properly meld with meat juices and butter on the plate. Also it’s less likely to get stuck in your teeth.

Spilly: Obviously, like everyone else, I do dogs/burgers/chicken/steak. I tend to enjoy dry barbecue over wet – though I will gladly eat both. I’m actually not a corn cob person – I prefer it taken off the cob because I hate the 45 minutes with a toothpick afterwards. Sure, there’s the “I get to be a boorish oaf” aspect of eating it, but trying to wedge that last cob strand out of a back molar before giving up and flossing is kind of a downer.

SS: I’m a wet and dry fan, as long as the sauce is something a little more than just a bottle of ketchup.

Ice cream sandwiches and popsicles, pie, or cake for barbecues?

AB: Ice cream sandwiches and popsicles, of course! Pie is OK if there are no children present. Cake–I mean, cake at a barbecue… that’s… that ain’t legal.

SS: Children and pie don’t mix?

AB: Sure they do, but children work even better as an excuse to have ten million ice cream sandwiches laying around.

SS: Fair point. The best part about a popsicles is that you can eat about a hundred of them and suffer few side effects. Very few foods you can say that about.

Spilly: You really have to go with ice cream sandwiches / popsicles. It’s summer. You have all year for pies/cakes. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of those things, but frozen dessert is really the winner here.

SS: Most overrated barbecue food? Beer can chicken, perhaps?

AB: That’s gotta be it, right? I mean, the beer does nothing. Nothing. Apart from the fact that it plainly, manifestly doesn’t flavor the chicken in any way, I mean, it doesn’t even work in concept. It does nothing!

Other than that, I love pretty much anything that comes off a grill. I’m not the most discerning eater.

SS: It’s okay to be a little picky. I hide it well, but I’m always a touch disappointed when I go to a BBQ and see a giant bag of frozen Costco patties sitting next to the fire.

Spilly: It depends, I think. Is it a tailgate barbecue? I think patties can work for something like that. It’s not the BEST, but considering conditions and space limitations, it’s allowable. This also goes for if you have one of those massive block party meals that you basically have to go assembly line style for.

Other than that, yeah, it’s a cop-out. What annoys me are the ‘Kobe-beef’ people who think they actually bought Kobe beef.

SS: That’s fair about the block party/tailgate conditions. They’re just so thin they go from frozen to oversized hockey pucks in about two minutes flat. Some local butchers here in LA, Lindy & Grundy, do a 80% ground beef, 20% ground bacon mix that makes one of the best burgers around and is remarkably reasonably priced.

So we got a couple of questions from the readers for our discussion about grilling vegetables. I actually grill vegetable kabobs pretty frequently during the peak farmer’s market summer season. Yellow squash, zucchini, sliced onions, Japanese eggplant, red and green bell peppers, brushed with a small amount of olive oil, whatever fresh herbs I have on hand, cracked pepper, some lemon juice and a touch of soy sauce. It’s especially good if you take these grilled veggies and put them with warm pasta or chill for a pasta salad the next day. One reader brought ending up with “raw and burnt” vegetables, and I’ve always found the key is making sure you use medium-low heat for a longer period of time and cutting all the vegetables to be a uniform size. (Although when I grill brussel sprouts, I steam them a bit first. Obviously leave off the pork lardons if you’re a vegetarian.)

What about you guys?

Spilly: I enjoy grilled vegetables, but other than corn or the occasional kebab, we don’t do it very often here. My grill isn’t the biggest (due to landlord restrictions) so I tend to devote it to meat during a barbecue and handle vegetables some other way. Unless veggie patties count. I’m going to go ahead and count it.

AB: Sarah, you said everything I’d have to say about grilling vegetables. Oh! If you can avoid it, don’t grill your vegetables after the meat, because they tend to take a long time, and everybody’s going to give in to temptation and eat the meat while they wait, and then the vegetables will seem really unexciting once everyone’s stomachs are full of meat, and then you will have a lot of sad grilled vegetables and you will feel guilty, like, oh great job you gross pig, you crammed yourself full of meat and now you’re just gonna sock those vegetables into a Tupperware and avoid making eye-contact with them for the next week until you can credibly assume they’ve gone bad and dump them down the garbage disposal. God, you make me fucking sick. Don’t do that to yourself. Cook the vegetables first.

SS: It’s funny Albert, I always grill hot dogs (veggies on the other side of the grill) first, because I consider them the “appetizer” of the BBQ day. If I fill up on a burger early, no way am I going to eat anything else.

What’s an essential food at a barbecue?

AB: I’d say the most essential thing at any barbecue is beer. I think I could stand next to a hot charcoal fire and flip food on top of it for a month if I could be assured of a cold bottle or can or cheap red plastic cup of beer to absentmindedly sip from the entire time. Also, if you keep a pack of cheap non-fancy hot dogs in your fridge, you absolutely will go Oh shit, I have hot dogs! and grill them after you’ve taken everything else off the grill but the charcoal is still hot. And then they will wind up tasting at least as good as everything else, even though they are just tubes of pulverized offal and ought by all rights to taste like absolute shit. Which is to say, keep some hot dogs in your fridge.

Spilly: What is essential at each barbecue? Variety. Burgers and dogs are okay, but I think too many people start and stop there. There’s a ton of animal flesh out there that needs charring. Go forth and incinerate!

SS: And my required food? Watermelon. You have to have watermelon at a barbecue.

Thanks again to Albert Burneko of Deadspin’s Foodspin and SB Nation Food Humorist Spilly for joining me. Can’t believe we didn’t even get to discussing seafood on the grill. Huge oversight in our limited amount of time. We’ll have to do this again next year when we all have smokers and my dream, a proper rotisserie over my grill. You can find the complete collection of Football Foodie recipes on KSK here and a special section of grilling recipes on my personal site here. 

Since Roger Goodell just cannot help himself when it comes to his dreams of NFL-izing the United Kingdom and has announced the addition of a third London game each season, I thought it might be a good time to revisit a topic from a few years ago; what sort of chips would you eat as an NFL fan in the UK?

(We’re going to say chips in this post and not “crisps” since I’m writing this piece, well, as an American. Not going to spend the whole morning writing out “American football” or “football football” or “soccer” or “English football” either.)

Last time I held this little exercise we tried chips from all over Europe, with the eventual winner being a the Swiss Snacketti Bacon Strips and the Czech Chalupářský Špíz (kabob) chips coming in second. Since this time our travels took us to Scotland via London, our selection represents just Scotland and England. There are a couple of repeats of flavors from the last experiment, but different brands just to see if they would fare any better this time around, which is to ask the question: are roast chicken chips just not designed for American tastes?

The Game: 

Since it’s not football season and it’s difficult to get friends to come over and watch “The Road To Super Bowl XL” DVDs — even with the promise of weird chips, the role of the Jacksonville Jaguars was played by the NBA Finals, Game 5.

The Chips: 

McCoy’s Sizzling King Prawn, Walkers Worcester Sauce, Golden Wonder Roast Chicken, Golden Wonder Smoky Bacon, Brannigan’s Roast Beef & Mustard, Co-Operative Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar, Walkers Picked Onion, Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli, Golden Wonder Sausage & Tomato, Walkers Cheese & Onion, Burts Guinness, McCoy’s Flame Grilled Steak, Walkers Sensations Oriental Crackers Peking Spare Rib, McCoy’s Thai Sweet Chicken, Co-Operative Streaky Crispies, Smith’s Frazzles Crispy Bacon, Piper’s Crisp Co. Chorizo, Mackie’s Haggis & Cracked Black Pepper

The Judges:

Myself; Jeremy Smith, aka Mr. Beaks, writer, reviewer, AICN raconteur, Cleveland Browns detainee; Amy Nicholson, playwright, freelance writer and reviewer; Bryan, Football Foodie Beta Tester #1, spouse, football fan and lover of crispy things.

The method:

Each chip tasted individually and then discussed as a group. Palate cleansers of plain American dips, celery sticks, baby carrots, spicy green chili dip and beer taken as needed since some of the chips were strongly flavored. Beers used in tasting were Deschutes Brewery River Ale, Victory Swing Saison, Caldera IPA and from Scotland, Argyll’s Fyne Ale Avalanche.

Chips are not listed in the order in which they were tasted. Notes posted here reflect both what was completed on tasting forms and discussion in the room.

McCoy’s Sizzling King Prawn

Jeremy – Bland with a prawn aftertaste, and not a good prawn. Vinegar.
Amy – Can’t taste much besides sweet vinegar. Vague airy shrimp puff, but barely.
Bryan – Odd, prawn comes in at the end like I was eating mediocre Chinese food and then someone shoved a prawn in my mouth. Needs salt, and why a wavy chip?
Me – Why isn’t this briny? Shouldn’t it be sweet with a touch of brine?

Walkers Worcester Sauce (Repeat from previous tasting for baseline)

Jeremy – Basic. A little bite, I’d stuff my face with these chips.
Amy – I’m not sure when I would want to eat these.
Bryan – Good chip, sweet, not too vinegary. Nice aroma.
Me – Amy, you’d want eat them with a horrible made Manhattan flavored with worcester sauce. (Ed. note: True story!) I’m not a fan of worcester on its own, so these are a pass for me.

Golden Wonder Roast Chicken (Repeat flavor from previous tasting, different brand)

*Dread fills the room. Both Bryan and Jeremy whimper remembering the last time we tried a roasted chicken.*

Jeremy – The My Lai Massacare of potato chips. A war crime against my taste buds. Kill it with fire.
Amy – Smells like tuna, tastes like chicken ramen. Good onion there.
Bryan – Like licking the carcass of a roast chicken. Crisp chip, terrible smell.
Me – Well, they taste better than they smell.
Bryan – By a small margin.
Amy – I don’t know why you guys don’t like these. *Eats more.*

Golden Wonder Smoky Bacon

Jeremy – These are not agreeing with me. Inconsistant taste from chip to chip. Sometimes good, sometimes bland.
Amy – Way smoky and fake. Actually, less fake than Smith’s Frazzies Crispy Bacon. Tastes like burned bacon.
Bryan – Nice bacon taste, not overwhelming, kinda smoky. Good chip, crisp.
Me – Liquid smoke so I’m in. Not too salty, which is nice. I’d buy many bags of these.

Brannigan’s Roast Beef & Mustard

Jeremy – As advertised. Flavorful and just the right side of disgusting. A chip shouldn’t taste like this but I admire the effort.
Amy – Nails it. But is that a good thing? Tastes heavy, sandwich-y, feels like something I’d order at a restaurant. *Amy goes on to describe how she’d crunch them up and make a sandwich out them or put them on a sandwich.*
Bryan – What?! Lots of mustard, where’s the beef?
Me – The restaurant thing is close, Amy. It’s like someone made the chip out of the essence of a dank Irish bar or the old Tom Bergins.

Co-Operative Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar

Jeremy – Chardonnay wine vinegar you say? Fancy. *Holds out pinky to eat chip.* Good, functional S & V chip.
Amy – Vinegar chips for beginners.
Bryan – Mellow vinegar taste for a small, hard as a rock chip.
Me – I like these, because the vinegar is much lighter than usual. Wish they weren’t so hard though, they’re like a hard candy-chip.

Walkers Picked Onion

Jeremy – Tastes like pure fucking vinegar. Might have ruined my palate.
Amy – INTENSE. Is to picked onion what flaming is to Cheetos.
Bryan – Last thing I’ll taste in my life. Packs a wallop. Nice chip though, thin and crispy.
Me – Not so different than a dill pickle chip, just less salty.

Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli

Jeremy – Spicy, addictive. Would empty a bag without thinking.
Amy – Herbal, floral, nice.
Bryan – Kind of spicy, kind of sweet. Good chip quality.
Me – So spicy, but at least it doesn’t have the fake chicken taste. Needs a dip.

Golden Wonder Sausage & Tomato

Jeremy – Lots of tomato, real faint taste of sausage.
Amy – That’s the grey Brit sausage I hate.
Bryan – Unnerving taste. Lots of tomato up front. Very inconsistent chip; dog did not like. Feel like this is the type of chip that would leave you with very bad breath and you’d have to leave the bar when a woman came up to talk to you.
Me – You got a lot of women coming up to you in bars and talking to you? Lots of tomato and rosemary. If they had not mentioned the sausage, I’d be okay with it. It should be noted that the bag says “Suitable For Vegetarians” on the back.

Walkers Cheese & Onion

Jeremy – O, Cheese, where art thou? Serviceable. Light.
Amy – Taste more onion than cheese. I like the subtle – it’s not sour cream and onioned to death.
Bryan – Mild, yet pleasing. Not too cheesy, not too onion. Nice thin chip.
Me – Admittedly, I ate a couple of small bags of these late at night after drinking a few times in Scotland and am biased, but these are much better than sour cream and onion chips. Perfect for a beer and a game.

Burts Guinness

Jeremy – Puzzling.
Amy- Malt and cotton candy, flat Dr. Pepper.
Bryan – Like a chip got drunk and threw up in my mouth. Horrific chip appearance. If that is what my insides look like after drinking Guinness, I need to stop drinking Guinness.
Me – Tastes like the spent malt after brewing. No thanks. I’ll find a home brewer to hangout with if I want this taste around.

McCoy’s Flame Grilled Steak

Jeremy – No idea what I am tasting. Not sure what this has to do with grilling or steak. Puzzling.
Amy – Pecans!
Bryan – Odd, odd taste. Meaty? Nutty? Pecans? Why a wavy chip again? This is the piece of steak that fell through the grill.
Me – Very salt and very smoky which a touch of meat. I love these chips.

Walkers Sensations Oriental Crackers Peking Spare Rib

Jeremy – Like cereal. I’d eat a bowl of it with milk. I never knew spare ribs could be a cereal, but I tip my hat.
Amy – Super anise tasting, kind of like a cookie.
Bryan – Really, really strong tasting. Good chip quality but a lingering, odd aftertaste.
Me – Again, too spicy. The pork taste — and there is pork in these chips — is a bit off for me. Sort of like a Muncho gone wrong.

McCoy’s Thai Sweet Chicken

Jeremy – Solid, spicy. Not much chicken, but better a paucity of chicken than a preponderance.
Amy – More anise. I’m… okay with these or without them.
Bryan – Ick! Bad chicken! Good spice. Soft but wavy chip.
Me – Unholy marriage between canned chicken juice and chili spices. Never again.

Co-Operative Streaky Crispies

Jeremy – Really good! I’d eat many of these!
Amy – Okay, I can admit these are the best of the bacon.
Bryan – Sweet and salty bacon. Chip is kind of styrofoam-ish.
Me – Another one that I ate with beer abroad. I wish we had these here, I’d buy them for football nearly every weekend.

Smith’s Frazzles Crispy Bacon

Jeremy – Corn overwhelms the bacon. Decent taste.
Amy – Artificial, fake bacon bit, weirdly smoky and watery. Smells like dog treats.
Bryan – Needs more bacon! Crunchy, salty, kind of corn flavor. Still crunch styrofoam texture.
Me – I’d buy these if they were on sale and the Co-Op brand was out, which is odd since Co-Op is a store brand.

Amy – It’s interesting that you three all like the fake bacon tastes, but not the chicken and I like the chicken taste and not the bacon. Biological preferences?

Piper’s Crisp Co. Chorizo

Jeremy – Complex. Layers. Rambunctious! Impetuous!
Amy – Complex! Goes through lots of layers of flavors. Genuine meat taste with a good sweetness.
Bryan – Pretty authentically chorizo! Best yet! We need these here in the US! Thickest of the chips.
Me – Tastes exactly like a chorizo in a chip. Just great and they’d be perfect for a barbecue tailgate. *Checks bag* Holy crap, they actually make these with real chorizo. That’s amazing!

Mackie’s Haggis & Cracked Black Pepper

Jeremy – More peppery than organ-y.
Amy – Vague liver taste, lots of pepper.
Bryan – Some haggis, but not enough. Too peppery. Good chip, if somewhat soft.
Me – Just taste like pepper, but in all fairness, a lot of the haggis I’ve tasted just tasted like black pepper.

The Winner: 

The absolute favorite chip from every judge was Piper’s Chorizo. We loved this chip so much, we wondered how we could lobby our local gourmet market to start to carry them and discussed which of our friends would be over in the UK soon and could possibly bring back a case. According to the bag and the ingredients listed, they’re actually made with chorizo and not a weird artificial meat flavoring, which is nice change from seeing “pork flavoring” (not that we actually have many meat-flavored chips here in the States).

But it’s the perfect football chip; meaty, smoky and just the right amount of spice.

Judges Top Five:

Jeremy: 1) Piper’s Chorizo, 2) Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli,3) Walkers Worcester Sauce, 4) Co-Operative Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar, 5) Walkers Pickled Onion. (Ed. note – Of course the judge who loves palate-wrecking IPA beers loves palate-wrecking pickled onion chips)

Amy: 1) Piper’s Chorizo, 2) Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli, 3) Brannigans Roast Beef & Mustard, 4) Walkers Cheese & Onion, 5) Walkers Sensations Oriental Crackers Peking Spare Rib

Bryan: 1) Piper’s Chorizo, 2) Walkers Cheese & Onion, 3) Walkers Worcester Sauce, 4) Co-Operative Streaky Crispies, 5) Smith’s Frazzles Crispy Bacon

Me: 1) Piper’s Chorizo, 2) Co-Operative Streaky Crispies, 3) Walkers Cheese & Onion, 4) McCoy’s Flame Grilled Steak, 5) Co-Operative Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar

Votes for Worst Chips

Barts Guinness (Everyone), Golden Wonder Roast Chicken (Everyone except Amy), Smith Frazzies Crispy Bacon (Amy)

Biggest Frauds

McCoy’s Sizzling King Prawn (Everyone), McCoy’s Flame Grilled Steak (Jeremy)

Biggest Disappointment 

Golden Wonder Sausage & Tomato (Everyone)

The Football Foodie is dead, long live Foodball.

Earlier this week, I accidentally typed “foodball” instead of “football” about three times while writing about Shonn Greene’s empty locker. I could have kicked myself. Going into the seventh season of writing the Football Foodie, I finally found a name I liked.

See the thing is, way back when I started the Football Foodie on a small little site called Ladies… (run with luminaries such as Grantland writer Holly Anderson, comedian Jelisa Castrodale, bon vivant Texas Gal, tennis expert SA, beautiful Miss Clare, hilarious Metsy and television critic Andrea Reiher), the word “foodie” was always meant as a joke. Of course none of the food I was presenting was fancy — okay, maybe the pork belly tacos were a bit fancy — but the name “Football Foodie” was always meant to be firmly tongue-in-check. (Also I am a lazy writer who loves alliteration.) Unfortunately over the past seven years the “foodie” grew to have a negative connotation; hipsters in pop-up restaurants Instagramming locavore humane foie gras topped cronuts with Pappy Van Winkle reduction glazes. With each passing season it became harder and harder to put the word “foodie” in the title of my column, especially when writing about white chicken chili and beer cheese soup served with kielbasa & potato bakes. Football food isn’t foodie food, it is hearty, filling food meant to feed an entire tailgate or living room full of your family and friends. Food that gets you through and afternoon of drinking, yelling, cheering and yes, sometimes tears. Do you think you can maintain flipping between Falcons-Saints and Giants-Cowbotys while resetting your fantasy team for fifth time on nothing but a ramen burger? No. Of course not.

And as my colleague Holly said when I told her about changing the column’s name, “The word ‘foodie’ is used by too many assholes anyway.” We don’t want to thought of as assholes, that’s for sure.

Of course when I Googled the word “foodball”, I was reminded there was already a hilarious comic named The National Foodball League which features football players as food. Our own Burnsy even covered them last year over on With Leather. Clever. Not wanting to be the jerk that just takes a name someone else is already using, I reached out artist Will Riggins and asked if he minded sharing the term with my column. He could not have been nicer about my request, and for that I could not be more grateful. The series can finally shed its terrible title and focus on what matters; food and football.

2013 Foodball Kickoff: Roasted Mezcal Bloody Marys

As I said last season when I wrote about Pizza Bloody Marys, there isn’t a better cocktail for tailgating or for morning brunch football on the west coast than a bloody mary. Still a little hungover from Saturday night? Need just a few vegetables to jump-start your metabolism with a touch of salt to balance out your dehydrated body and some booze to soothe your headache? Want to have enough energy to make it through the first game of the day? The bloody mary mini-meal in a glass is the perfect solution to all of your problems.

This bloody recipe calls for a smoky mezcal, rich and earthy as any scotch you will find. When paired with roasted tomatillos, meaty heirloom tomatoes, the heat of poblano peppers and the brightness of cilantro and lime, you get a refreshing, bracing bloody mary to jumpstart your day. Want a little extra heat and extra smoke? Add a chipotle pepper in adobo sauce to the blend, but honestly, I think the milder version pairs better with the mezcal. Poblanos have enough heat on their own to stand up to alcohol and tomatoes.

You will need:

1 pound tomatillos, husks removed and cleaned
2 3/4 – 3 pounds tomatoes, preferably heirloom tomatoes
Canola or vegetable oil for pan roasting, about 1-2 tablespoons (optional, depending on how well-cured your cast iron skillet is or if you are using stainless steel)
2 poblano peppers
Small bunch of cilantro, about a dozen stems worth of cilantro leaves
Juice of one lime plus one or two extra limes for garnish
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cracked pepper
1 chipotle pepper packed in adobo sauce (optional for extra, extra heat and smoke)
6 1/2 to 7 1/2 cups smoky mezcal, mid-priced, like Sombra or Del Maguey Vida
Picked hot peppers for garnish
Ice

The reason why you want to use heirloom tomatoes if possible is they tend to me meatier, less watery than your average tomato and hold up much better to pan roasting, and frankly, they just taste better. You will get a thicker, richer bloody mary if you use heirlooms instead of the usual hot house tomato. (They also have far less seeds to deal with, which makes for a smoother cocktail without having to use a food mill.)

In a large cast iron skillet or large frying pan, heat a small amount of vegetable or canola oil if needed — no more than a teaspoon or so, depending on how well-cured your skillet is — to prevent sticking while cooking your tomatillos. Much like when making salsa verde, roast the tomatillos over medium-high until soft all the way through, about four minutes on each side. Once softened and charred, set in a large covered bowl while roasting the other vegetables for your bloody blend. Repeat the process with the heirloom tomatoes, which depending on size, can take about 5-7 minutes a side to soften.

While the tomatillos and tomatoes are roasting in the pan, roast the poblano peppers by either skewering them and cooking them over the open flame of a gas stove burner, or if you have an electric stove, roasting in a skillet like your tomatillos and tomatoes but without using any oil. You want the skin on all sides to blister and blacken. When the peppers have a nice char on them and have started to soften, put the poblanos in a bowl covered with plastic wrap or a brown paper bag for five to ten minutes to keep softening them via the trapped steam. Once cool enough to handle, scrape most of the charred skin off with a dull knife or a spoon, then slice the peppers open, removing the stem as you work, and scrape out the seeds.

In a food processor or a blender, blend together the roasted tomatillos, the poblano peppers, a small bunch of cilantro leaves, teaspoon each of kosher salt and cracked pepper and the juice of one good sized lime until liquified. Pour into a large bowl. Then liquify the roasted tomatoes and if using, the chipotle peppers in adobo, then add to the tomatillo mixture. If you want, you can run this mixture through a food mill to remove the seeds, but honestly, it’s not really worth the effort. Stir until will combined and cover.

Refrigerate the bloody mary mix overnight. If you taste the blend now and think the lime is overpowering, don’t worry, as the mixture rests the citrus will mellow.

When you are ready to make your bloody mary, make drink flags with a slice of lime and a pickled hot pepper for a garnish. Put a few ice cubes in a large glass and fill with 8 ounces of bloody mary mix and 2 ounces of mezcal. This is a cocktail where you don’t want to overdo it on the ice, as cold dampens the heat and the smokiness of the beverage, so a few ice cubes means only a few ice cubes.

Stir or shake well, garnish and serve.

The heat of the poblano hits at the end, building on the smokiness of the roasted tomatoes and mezcal with each sip. A little extra kick of lime from the garnish picks up the cilantro and tomatillo notes, while the hot pepper gives you something to cry about other than the lack o-line in Pittsburgh, or worse, that you’re watching the Browns-Dolphins game.

Yields 5-6 drinks.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

I’m on the road this week for a family wedding  – before you start getting all up in arms over fall weddings, remember, we leave that sort of nonsense whining and hysterics to college football fans – which means I don’t have to cook for football for a change. Sort of nerve racking, to be honest. What if I cannot find the right chips? Why do all these bags say “Utz” on them? Is someone going to season the hamburgers before they go on the grill? Will someone give me their wireless password so I can check on my fantasy team with my laptop since we all know the mobile apps for fantasy are the worst?

And the most surprising and yet shouldn’t have been surprising event, “What the hell, this hotel doesn’t get the NFL Network? But I want to see both Brady AND Rex Ryan meltdown at the same time!” Sadly, I’ve had to live the game through watching reruns of “Mike & Mike” all morning on ESPN2. Greenberg’s Belichick could use some work and my brain, in an amazing evolutionary leap of self-defense, filters out every sound that leaves Golic’s mouth so it sounds like the Peanut’s “grown-up” voice in my head.

Typically I would be excited this wedding (luckily) gets me back to LA in time for the Steelers-Bengals game Monday night, but oof. Unless someone sets Boss Todd’s Fiero on fire in the parking lot, there is not going to be a lot to like in that particular matchup.

Chicken Schnitzel Sandwiches

We don’t give the German’s enough credit when it comes to food creation. Take the schnitzel. It’s hearty, is a perfect counterbalance to drinking large amounts of beer, is easy to make and takes the less-desirable pieces of meat and makes them appetizing. Stadiums should sandwich beer stands between sausage and schnitzel stands, fans at home should be making them at home instead of their usual burgers. Juicy chicken drawing in the flavor of both the butter and the olive oil, a little extra crunch from crispier panko bread crumbs, just the right amount of tart from the lemon and the dressing.

(Cheering “Ziggy, zaggy, ziggy, zaggy! Oi! O! Oi!” however is best left to the Germans.)

This recipe also works for veal, another traditional schnitzel variant. Since veal gets pretty pricy when feeding a crowd and some people have ethical reasons for not eating veal, chicken works just fine for football.

You will need:

Sandwich dressing:

1 cup mayonnaise
1 scallion, minced
1-2 tablespoon chopped cornishons (3-4)
1 tablespoon capers, drained then chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Kosher salt & and cracked pepper to taste (approximately 1/2 teaspoon of each)

Chicken Schnitzel:

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken; trimmed of excess fat (A mix of white and dark meat works well.)
Flour for breading the chicken (about 1 cup)
Kosher salt & pepper
3-4 cups panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
2-3 eggs, beaten
Unsalted butter and olive oil for frying, about 1/2 cup each

Chopped flat-leaf parsley
Thinly sliced tomato, about 2-3 tomatoes worth
Boston lettuce, about 1/2 a head
2 dozen dinner rolls
Lemon slices, about 2-3 lemons worth

Special kitchen items needed:
Plastic wrap
Meat tenderizer with a flat side or a rolling pin. If neither is available, the heaviest wooden spoon you have, but be prepared to use a little more arm and shoulder strength.

Mix everything together for the sandwich dressing in a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before using, up to a day beforehand. (This is a good sandwich spread to have around just in general. If you ever want to make it spicy, add a generous pinch of ground cayenne pepper.)

After you’ve trimmed the chicken of any excess fat, place the individual pieces between sheets of plastic wrap. Take your meat tenderizer or a rolling pin and pound the ever living shit out of the chicken until it’s between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch thick. Mad at work? Mad at your spouse? Mad that your fantasy team lost about 1.3 points last weekend? Mad that you had the poor fortune to be born in Philadelphia and a lifetime of Eagles frustration? Pound away to your heart’s desire as you flattening out the meat.

Repeat until all the pieces have been flattened and/or you finally feel better about being a Chargers fan. (Feel free to have a shot of tequila in there to help with the pain.) Cut each piece of now-thinner-but-much-wider pieces of chicken in half or even thirds to fit on your rolls.

Place a cookie sheet in a 250º with either a rack or a few paper towels oven so you can keep cooked pieces warm as you work through the batch and drain off extra oil.

Set up your breading station. In the first bowl or large plate, mix together kosher salt and cracked pepper. In the next bowl, the beaten eggs; starting with two eggs and adding a third if you need it. In the final bowl, mix together the grated parmigiano reggiano and panko bread crumbs.

In a large cast iron skillet or frying pan, heat equal parts unsalted butter and olive oil for frying over medium-high heat, about 2 tablespoons of each to start.

Working a several pieces at a time, dredge the chicken through the flour until coated, then the beaten eggs, then the panko and cheese mixture and then into the heated oil.

Cook for three to four minutes on each side until golden brown and then pop in the oven to keep warm until you finish with all of the schnitzel pieces or until serving. As always, do not overload your frying pan as ruin the temperature of both the oil and the pan. Add more butter and oil to the pan as necessary. You’re not deep frying the schnitzel, but you do need to make sure it’s getting enough heat from the oil to be golden and not blackened from the pan.

Once you have finished cooking the schnitzel, build your sandwiches. A little bit of Boston lettuce on the bottom [insert Patriots receivers joke here] bun, a couple of thin slices of tomato, the chicken schnitzel, a sprinkle of chopped parsley and the top of the bun with a small amount of the sandwich dressing. Serve with a lemon wedge to squirt over the meat by the person just about to eat it, the lemon working best when it is added at the last possible second as not to make the sandwich soggy [add another Patriots receivers joke here].

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

Week Three. This is when we start to eat our feelings during football season.

Steelers and Browns. Buccaneers and Panthers. New York Large People and Washington Skincolors. Vikings. Don’t need to say it but worth including, the Jacksonville Jaguars. Hell, even Philadelphia Eagles fans might need a few extra carbs today after last night’s interception-fumbles-missed kicks-failed two-point conversion-derp-fest against Kansas City.

And gravy. Lots and lots of gravy.

One of the interesting perks I’ve found since joining KSK last year is mining through the hundreds of tags used on the site since its inception. The majority of them only used once or twice, most funny, many disturbing, a few best left deep in the archives of 2007 (unte-Pay elated-ray). Since the above teams face a potential 0-3 start, it seemed worth it to drag up this goodie from Ufford’s past, drown your sorrows in gravy.

Spend anytime around a Canadian or drinking in any bar that considers itself a gastropub of sorts and you’ll encounter poutine; the delicious mix of fries, gravy and melted cheese curds. Sometimes they’ll also have meat or different type of gravy or sauce — Soleil here in Los Angeles has 11 types of glorious poutine while Grill ‘Em All Burgers makes theirs with duck confit, duck gravy and cracklin — but even a basic poutine still delicious. The only problem being that “poutine” generally is considered to mean “mess” and making French fries at home certainly is a mess. So potato skins. Less mess. Better cheese and gravy delivery system.

Crowds starting to grow thin as your team starts to tank? A smaller portion of mini poutine potatoes is great for a more intimate gathering of tears and team jersey burials.

Poutine Potato Skins

You will need:

4-5 pounds medium-sized Russet potatoes
Canola oil or vegetable oil (Cooking oil spray or regular oil)
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 medium white onion, finely diced (About 1/2 cup)
4 tablespoons flour
3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves removed from the stem, minced (About 1-2 teaspoons)
kosher salt and cracked pepper to taste, about 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon each
2 cups beef stock
8 ounces cheese curds
Chives

Preheat oven to 400º.

Rinse and brush clean the potatoes while the oven is heating. Dry the potatoes and then stab them all over with a knife so they don’t explode while baking. (If you’re anything like me, you re-enact the kitchen galley scene from ALIENS except unlike Bishop, you don’t cut yourself. And you’re not an artificial person. Probably.) Either brush or spray with oil until the potatoes are lightly greased.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until softened all the way through. Once done, remove from the oven and rest until cool enough to handle. Cut the potatoes in half and carefully scoop out the inside of the potatoes. Reserve the potato innards for another time. (Perhaps for making Beer Battered Mashed Potato Balls.) Lightly brush or spray both the outside and inside of the newly formed potato boats with oil and bake skin side up for 10 minutes and then turn them over and bake for 10 more minutes. This gives you a nice, sturdy potato vessel for stuffing with gravy and cheese.

While the potatoes are baking make the gravy. Now, you may end up with a little extra gravy with this recipe. Have no fear, you can gentle reheat any leftover gravy and put it sandwiches over the next couple of days.

In a sauce pan, gently melt the butter over medium heat. Add the diced onions and sauté until the onions are translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Lower the heat just a touch to medium-low. Add the flour and stir constantly with either a whisk or a wooden spoon until the flour has been completely absorbed into the butter and starts to thicken into a golden brown roux. Mix in the minced thyme and about 1/2 teaspoon of both kosher salt and cracked black pepper. Working about 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time, start to stir in the beef stock, whisking the entire time as to prevent lumps. Once you’ve added all the stock, bump the heat back up a touch and cook until desired thickness, generally until the gravy can coat the back of a spoon easily. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if so desired. Remove from heat once done.

When the potato boats and the gravy are both ready, crumble a few cheese curds into each potato skin and then cover with a tablespoon or two of gravy. Pop back into the 400º oven for about 5-10 minutes or until the cheese has completely melted.

Garnish with chives and serve.

Depending on what else you having during the game, serves 4-6 as a large snack, 6-8 as a good side snack.

Again, just you, your partner/roommate/best friend/dog? A smaller serving will do you.

Mini Poutine Potatoes

16 ounces baby potatoes
Canola oil or vegetable oil, about 1-2 tablespoons
6-8 ounces cheese curds
Chives or minced parsley

Make the same gravy as for the above Poutine Potato Skins recipe. (Actually, if you wanted to, you could make both the potato skins and and the mini potatoes with the same batch of gravy.)

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Wash the baby potatoes clean and pat dry. In shallow glass baking dish, toss the baby potatoes with a little bit of canola oil until lightly coated. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until softened. Remove the dish from the oven and allow to cool until safe to handle.

Slice open each baby potato 3/4 of the way through and give a gentle squeeze to make a small potato pocket. Stuff each baby potato with a cheese curd and then spoon a small amount of gravy over the top. Once all the potatoes are stuffed, put back in the oven for 5-10 minutes, or until all the cheese has melted.

Top with chives or parsley and serve. Small side snack for 3-4 people or substantial snack for two.

See? Doesn’t it feel better now that you’ve had a few savory bites of gravy, melted cheese and carb loaded potatoes? Yes. Yes, it does.

Just don’t check your fantasy team scores now and make that happy feeling go away.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

It’s finally getting cold enough across the country to start to think about warmer, heartier game day foods. (What’s that? 88º in Minneapolis this weekend? Too bad. Their team is in London this weekend.) A soup that can be made ahead of time and reheated when ready to serve. A spicy, filling soup that you can easily throw into giant thermos for tailgating.

A soup that incorporates football’s natural accompaniment, Buffalo chicken.

As I’ve said many times over my seven seasons of posting recipes for football, I love hot wings, but making them at home can be a lot of work for not a lot of reward. It’s much better to make wraps, dips and even pasta salads than deal with the amount of hassle that goes into frying wings at home. And no, oven-frying your wings doesn’t work as well as deep frying, I don’t care if you set your oven to “surface of the sun” hot. Or even “Peyton Manning fantasy football points” hot, an oven setting only seen at higher elevations.

Buffalo Chicken Tortilla Soup 

Tortilla soup is a natural fit for the spicy chicken treatment as you can incorporate the traditional sides of carrots and celery into the broth, adjust the amount of peppers and hot sauce to make the soup as mild or as spicy as you like it all while getting a nice “crispy” flavor of a wing by browning the chicken. Crumbles of mild cotija cheese help tame the heat while just a little bit of blue cheese and green onions on the top keeps the soup close to its barroom roots. The tomatoes and tortilla strips round out the bowl, providing both depth and heft to the soup.

You will need:

12 ounces corn tortillas (about 12 fresh tortillas)
Canola oil or vegetable for frying, plus 1-2 tablespoons oil to cook the chicken
2 1/2 pounds boneless and skinless chicken, excess fat removed (Preferably a mix of white and dark meat)
1 medium onion, diced (approximately 2 cups)
4 large celery stalks, diced (approximately 2 cups)
1-2 good sized carrots, peeled and diced (approximately 1 cup)
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 chipotle peppers packed in adobe sauce, plus 1 tablespoon adobe sauce from the can
Kosher salt and cracked pepper, about a teaspoon of each
6 cups chicken stock
1 14-15 ounce can chopped tomatoes, drained
1/4 cup hot sauce

Garnish:
3-4 green onions, diced
2-3 ounces cotija cheese, crumbled (May substitute shredded Monterey jack cheese if desired.)
2-4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled

Cut the tortillas in half and then into strips. In cast iron skillet or frying pan heat enough oil to fry the tortilla strips, about 1/4 inch of oil in the bottom of the skillet should do. If you are unsure when the oil is hot enough, wait for the oil to shimmer and throw a pinch of flour in. If the flour sizzles, your oil is hot enough. (Somewhere between 350º-375º should be good.) Working in small batches as not to crowd the pan and reduce the temperature too much, fry the tortilla strips on both sides until golden brown and then drain on clean kitchen towels. Set aside for serving in the soup.

In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, brown the chicken in a tablespoons or two of oil over medium-high heat, about three-four minutes a side depending on thickness. Once the chicken has cooked all the way through, remove from the pan and transfer it to a cutting board to rest. In the same pot, add the diced onions, carrots and celery and reduce the heat to medium. If needed, add another touch of oil to the pot to prevent your mirepoix from sticking to the bottom of the pot. (Chances are you won’t need it as the chicken should have released a little bit of fat into the pan, but just in case.) When the vegetables start to soften, add the garlic, chipotle peppers, adobe sauce, salt and pepper. Stir around with a wooden spoon and allow the garlic to open up for a minute or two and then add the chicken stock. Scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to make sure you release all the browned bits into the soup.

As the stock starts to heat, shred the chicken into soup spoon-friendly sized pieces. Add the shredded chicken back into the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and stir in the diced tomatoes and the hot sauce. Simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed.

To serve, place a small handful of tortilla strips into a bowl and then spoon the soup over them. Give the tortilla soup a stir in the bowl and then crumble a small bit of cotija and blue cheese over the soup and then top with diced scallions.

Serves 6-8

This soup can be made ahead of time and gentle reheated on the stove, just reserve adding the tortilla strips until serving. (You can even make the tortilla strips a couple of days ahead of time if stored in an airtight container.)

Still looking for more hot wings-inspired snacks for Sunday? In the past I have made Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad, Shredded Buffalo Chicken Wraps, Blue Cheese Pierogies With Buffalo Sauce, Buffalo Chicken Wontons, the always requested Buffalo Chicken Dip,  and an special adaptation of Buffalo Chicken Meatballs for a certain someone who does not like cheese.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

By Week 5, most of us have settled into the same routine we will have for the rest of the season. Which friends we’ll watch the game with, where we’ll watch game, what we’re eating, what shirts have been lucky and which shirts have been unlucky.

So you would think with these established routines that in Week 5 I wouldn’t be sitting in a car, stuck in traffic at 5:10 p.m. Pacific Time on a Thursday yelling, “GODDAMMIT! I forgot to make my picks for tonight’s game!”

Stupid Thursday Night Football, the downfall of many a fantasy football season.

Smoked Salmon Cakes

We haven’t featured much seafood on Foodball over the years. Lots of shrimp recipes, but not fish. Fish is a difficult main ingredient to make for a crowd without breaking your budget, unless you happen to be near water and you’re fishing your own trout for the grill. But mostly I avoid it because I hate the way it stinks up the place, even if you prepare it over a hot fire outside. And aside of fish tacos or nachos, I could never think of a good way to make fish seem like something that would natural pair with football.

Then I went to Scotland earlier this year, a land where they play a game called “shinty”– think of hockey before a bunch of Scots moved to Canada and were stuck with even more ice — and learned how to make smoked salmon cakes. At our first night in our little pod outside of Appin, the proprietor gave us some fish cakes to go along with our welcome hamper of cheese, chocolate, beer, scotch and such to get us through breakfasts for the week. One bite and I knew I was going to start working on my own version for the season.  (My version meaning adding more herbs and lemon zest, because as a Californian it’s my duty to use up all the lemons on the front tree when I see a piece of fish, and panko because it gives it just a little more crunch.)

These nice little cakes are a good way to get the full flavor of a good piece of smoked salmon without spending a fortune, use up leftover potatoes — say after you’ve made Poutine Potato Skins, without much expending too much effort. You can easily make these fish cakes up to a couple of weeks ahead of time and freeze them, saving yourself lots of time on game day.

You can also tell people, “Hey! It’s a healthy-ish snack. Omega-3, something. Brain food. Good fats!” if people wonder why you’re not ordering pizza this week.

You will need:

Salmon cakes

4-5 ounces smoked salmon, skin removed if smoked skin-on
3-4 cups cold mashed potatoes
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons minced chives
2 teaspoons chopped dill
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Kosher salt and cracked pepper to taste, about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon
2 eggs, beaten; 1 for binding the cake and 1 for breading
1/3 cup flour
1-2 cups bread crumbs, preferably panko
Olive oil, about 4-6 tablespoons You can also use a 50-50 mix of olive oil and butter, about 2-3 tablespoons of each.
Lemon wedges for serving

You can use leftover mashed potatoes that have been made with milk or cream, or just plain potatoes that have have been cooked and mashed. I’ve found that using leftover mashed potatoes that were made with a touch of milk, salt and pepper make for a moister, firmer fish cake.

Dressing

1/2 cup sour cream
1-2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1-2 teaspoons minced chives
1 teaspoon chopped dill
1 teaspoon capers, chopped
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
Pinch of kosher salt and cracked pepper, to taste
Pinch of ground cayenne pepper (optional)

First, mix together everything for the dipping sauce in a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour

In a large bowl, combine together the cold mashed potatoes, the herbs, the lemon zest and the salt and pepper. If the smoked salmon still has its skin, remove the skin and then flake the smoked salmon into potato and herb mixture and gentle combine. Then mix in one beaten egg for a binding agent.

Portion into 1/4 cup sized patties. Dredge each patty in flour and the rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to firm up. You can also cover them in plastic to be made in the next 24 hours, or flash freeze on a flat baking sheet for 30-45 minutes before placing in a freezer bag if making them at a later date.

Heat a few tablespoons tablespoons over medium high heat in a large skillet. Dredge the salmon cakes in the beaten egg and then in the breadcrumbs, and then into the hot oil, working small batches as not to crowd the pan. Cook on each side until golden, about 4-5 minutes and then drain on a clean kitchen towel. Add more oil to the pan as needed.

Serve with lemon wedges and the remoulade style sauce for dipping, or if you want, place on small buns with a little bit of sauce for a small sandwich.

Serves 4-6 as a snack.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

I can tell you exactly where I was when first encountered the now ubiquitous bar staple jalapeño poppers. One of my first restaurant jobs was working in a small sit-down place attached to a bar. The bar’s owner’s wife had decided it was time they opened a place fancier than just the usual shot-and-a-beer, fish-sandwiches-on-Fridays waterhole that litter most Rust Belt cities. She wanted a place with tablecloths (vinyl), flowers on the table (silk), and real silverware (18/0 stainless steel). I am fairly certain they were laundering money, and I do know for certain they were running numbers out the back of the bar. The bar was full of smoke and old men, the restaurant was lunchtime diners looking for something new and curious locals at night.

I think the restaurant lasted all of nine months. Still, I worked there one summer with my best friend Craig even though we had little to no experience running a kitchen or a front house and no one seemed to notice how hungover we’d be when we showed up in the morning or evening. And the fish sandwiches were great (and enormous), the chicken soup was even better, and Craig and I spent the summer learning to set things on fire in the kitchen when we weren’t learning how to make a perfect Italian dressing or Greek marinade.

Anyway, like most small, independent, 20-years-before-farm-to-table was hip, our chef would do much of the ordering from the local SYSCO sales representative. Like pharmaceutical sales, SYSCO hired nothing but beautiful people, and our head chef  looked forward to our SYSCO rep like it was his monthly prison visit. (Maybe it reminded him of his previous monthly prison visits.) She’d come by every week with her enormous binders of food products she was hawking and they’d sit at a back table and split a bottle of wine as they went over every new item coming down the pipeline as he put in the order for canned tomatoes and bulk ground pepper. Anyway, when SYSCO got into the frozen jalapeño popper business, they did so in a big way. Big presentation. Flyers for all the staff. Free boxes sent to try both in the bar and in the restaurant. By the end of the summer, I saw them at every bar in town. Cream cheese, cheddar, jalapeño pepper and breading. SYSCO was going to make sure the nation had all the jalapeño poppers they could handle. and people loved them. Suddenly popper-everything on every menu. Only Americans can take something as graceful as a beautiful chile relleno and muck it all up.

Which is not to say I don’t love the taste combination. I do. One look at my Smoky Habanero Jalapeño Popper Bread recipe will tell you that. But doing the extra distance to make beautiful stuffed jalapeños filled with moist corn bread, melty cheese and spicy chorizo isn’t that difficult. Making a perfectly golden crust is even easier. Give the poppers a break and make the real thing.

Jalapeños Stuffed With Chorizo And Corn Bread 

You will need: 

1 1/2 – 2 pounds large jalapeños
8 ounces chorizo
4 ounces freshly shredded Monterey Jack cheese or crumbled cotija cheese
4 ounces crumbled corn bread (either sweet or plain is fine)
3/4 cup – 1 cup flour
2 large eggs
Generous pinch of kosher salt
Oil for frying

Ranch dressing of choice for serving

If you happen to be an ovo-lacto vegetarian, you can make this recipe using soyrizo in place of chorizo.

Wash and dry the jalapeños. Now there are a couple of ways you can char the peppers before sweating off the skin. I personally prefer putting them directly over a medium flame on my gas stove, laying them on burners, and blackening on all sides. This also works with electric stove tops, but I would not recommend this method with a glass top range. If you have a gas grill you can light up pretty easily, you can also do them in a big batch that way. Putting them under the broiler and turning at least once or twice during baking, either gas or electric, works well too.

No matter how you cook the jalapeños, you need to blacken and blister them on all sides, and until the start to get a little soft when you squeeze them with a pair of tongs. If you have ever blackened peppers like a
poblano before, you’ll know it takes about three to four minutes on each side of the pepper to get the right amount of “done” to properly soften them. There is something about the smaller jalapeños though that make them a little tougher, like a tiny Darren Sproles, so add a couple of minutes to your usual heating time.

Once the peppers have been blackened, place them into a bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap to trap in the heat and the moisture. This will steam the peppers and make it easier to remove the skin and seeds, and it will make the jalapeños more pliable for stuffing. Let rest until completely cool, about 20-30 minutes.

While the jalapeños are steaming in their own heat (kind of like what happens to Eli Manning’s forehead under the helmet, remove the chorizo innards from the chorizo casings or crumble out of the big tube if you live in a part of the country where you can buy chorizo like you can buy breakfast sausage, and brown over medium heat in a skillet, breaking it apart into smaller pieces as it cooks. Remove from heat and allow to cool. As the chorizo cools, your softened jalapeños should be cool enough to handle for the next step.

Word of advice; wear disposable kitchen gloves for this part unless you know you have skin of steel. Some people do. Some people can handle jalapeños all the day long and not have their hands turn into flaming balls of pain, better known as the Doug Martin Syndrome (because what else would explain his balls dropped percentage this season). I’ve heard you can also rub vegetable oil all over your hands to prevent the capsaicin in jalapeños from burning your skin, but that method has never worked for me.

Working one jalapeño at a time, remove the pepper from the bowl and place on a cutting board. Using the back of a knife, gently scrape off the charred skin of the pepper — it’s okay if some of the black parts remain, then carefully slice open on one side the length of the jalapeño. Using a spoon or your fingers (or better yet, a tomato husker or grapefruit spoon if you happen to have either one), scrape out all of the ribs and the top pith of the pepper that are all covered with seeds, leaving the top of the pepper on with the stem handling the pepper. Repeat until all the peppers are skinned and deseeded.

After you are done with the jalapeños, mix together the crumbled corn bread, cooked chorizo and cheese in a bowl. Carefully stuff a couple of tablespoons of the mix into the jalapeños, securing closed with a couple of toothpicks if necessary. Dredge through the flour and refrigerate for at least thirty minutes on a flat service to firm up a bit before frying. You can also do up to this point the day before to save yourself some time on game day.

Take your two eggs out of the fridge and carefully separate the whites from the yokes and then allow to come to room temperature while the jalapeños are resting in the cold. (That’s the trick when beating egg whites, they separate best when cold, but beat to a stiffer consistency when warm.) After about thirty minutes — just about when you’re ready to take the jalapeños out of the fridge, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until the form firm peaks, fold in a generous pinch of kosher salt and one egg yoga at a time and then beat again until firm.

Don’t want to mess with making a meringue? Then dredge the floured stuffed peppers in an egg wash and then bread crumbs before cooking, but it’s not the same light, airy chewiness you get from the meringue. (You also risk your peppers falling apart in the heat.

Heat about 1/2 of inch of oil in the bottom of your skillet to about 375º; you can tell the oil is ready if a pinch of flour sizzles vigorously when you toss it in the oil. Working in batches, dip the stuffed jalapeños in the eggs and then place in the skillet. They’ll immediately puff up, but cook until golden and then flip, about 3-5 minutes on each side. Drain on clean kitchen towels and keep warm in a 250º oven while finishing the the rest of the peppers.

If you used toothpicks to keep the jalapeños closed during frying, give them a gentle twist and then remove from the peppers.

Serve with a cooling ranch dressing. Or sour cream. Or lots and lots of beer. The heat from the peppers and the heat from the chorizo can get to you if you eat too many of these hot peppers and you’ll melt faster than the Steelers offensive line.

Serves 4-6.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

Everything about football is gluttony. Gluttony for punishment, gluttony for pain, gluttony for glory, a gluttony of pride.

It is not very different for the fans. Gluttony of expenses, obsessiveness and over-indulgence. One doesn’t have to spend too much time wandering around a tailgate or an average football house party to see how the largeness of football permeates everything around it. Oversized pizzas, oversized foam hats, oversized emotions.

Football is one of those rare exceptions the typical American negative reaction to such excess and bacchanalia. Anything around football is allowed, even expected, to be even bigger and indulgent.

What does this have to do with this week’s recipe? Armies of fans spend the week carefully planning on smoking and grilling meats for the weekend. And the end result is delicious. There are few things better than a nice pulled pork butt, pork belly, some brisket and all the sausage you can fit over the fire. But is time consuming. And you’re waiting and waiting and waiting for it to be done. The smell is killing you. Your dog and your best friend haven’t moved more than three feet away from the smoker in three hours. What to you eat in the meantime?

Why more pork of course. It’s football. And you can can have meat before your meat.

Pork Rillettes

Let’s straighten one thing out before we begin though. The other week in comments of either the post about chicken schnitzel sandwiches or smoked salmon cakes I was accused of posting pretty bourgie recipes this season, which made me cringe since I already had this recipe lined up for this month. Except, none of this is fancy. For hundreds of years all of these recipes have been considered peasant food. Just because you’ve been seeing it more in Brooklyn bars with $760 exposed wiring pendant lamps does not take away from the fact this is pretty salt of the earth, normal people snacks. (Unless you only want to eat boxes of Bugles because that’s what normal people do, I cannot help you. Do you think if I could make my own Bugles I’d be sitting here typing this up? No. I’d be making Bugles.)

What’s great about a good pork rillette is that it’s an easy snack you can bring together on a Tuesday night and have ready for the weekend. It takes a minimal amount of effort with a maximum of reward, highlighting the real taste of the pork without losing its essence to rubs and sauces.

You will need:

2 1/4 – 2 1/2 pounds high quality pork butt (like a coppa cut) or pork shoulder, or a blend of the two, cut in to large cubes
2 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary
1-2 sprigs fresh thyme
3 bay leaves
1-2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1 teaspoon cracked pepper
Lard, approximately 1/4 of a cup depending on how many ramekins or pots the rillettes are stored in.

I mentioned using a coppa cut in the ingredients because the last couple of times I’ve made rillettes I’ve used this specific section of pork with great results. It’s the perfect balance of fat and meat for what this recipe needs without a lot of gristle. (It’s also the cut used to make capicola or coppa, my favorite of the Italian cured meats.) The seasoning I use for prepping the meat is not too far off from what I use in my Candied Corned Beef Sandwiches.

Depending on how fatty your meat is before cooking, you may not even need the lard, but it’s a good idea just to buy a little extra clarified lard from the butcher. Plus lard freezes well, so you can save unused lard for making very rich pie crusts or to give to your friends on paleo diets who haven’t used butter in their cooking for quite some time (weirdos).

Heat a large Dutch oven or stock pot over a medium-high flame. Sear the pork in the bottom of the pan without cooking the meat the whole way through, just a minute or two minutes on each side.

Add the water and seasoning, reserving half of the salt and the cracked pepper for later. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer and cover. Cook for approximately 3 hours, until the pork is fork tender and easily starts to fall apart.

Once the pork cooked, carefully remove it from the pot and place in a large bowl. Allow the meat to cool enough until it safe enough to handle and then gentle start to shred with forks, removing any gristle and peppercorns that might have made their way up into the meat (it happens) as you go. Once you start to get to it going from being a course shredded meat to a finer shred, add the cracked pepper and the remaining salt. Keep shredding until it’s a fine texture and taste for seasoning, adding a touch more salt or pepper if needed.

Since a large vat of pork is a bit unwieldily for storing and serving, pack the meat firmly into several smaller ramekins or jars, glass or ceramic; nothing metal that could react with the pork. As you pack the pork down, you notice the fat creating a nice little seal around each bit of meat as you push out the air. Perfect.

Gently melt a small amount of lard in a saucepan and then carefully pour it over each rillette to seal in the meat. Allow the lard to cool and then cover tightly with a lid or plastic wrap.

This is tough part. Put in the refrigerator and allow to rest for at least two to three days. AT LEAST. A rillette on the first day hasn’t fully developed its favor and day two is better but not really there, but day three is where the money starts to happen. Do not worry about waiting too long. Pork rillettes, if properly sealed, last a couple of weeks in the fridge.

When ready to serve, allow the rillettes to start to warm to room temperature at least 30 minutes.

On its own, the pork rillette is near simple fatty perfection. Of course, it’s always fun to mess with perfection and used some added accoutrements to cut through the richness of the pork. I like to serve my rillettes with stone ground mustard, sliced cornishons, pickled vegetables, raspberry preserves and my favorite, smoked sea salt. Just a couple of flakes of the smoked salt brings out the earthiness of the pork and picks up the herbs the meat had cooked in.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

Tip of the hat to KSK Kommentariat stalwart Feklhr for making last week’s Jalapeños Stuffed with Chorizo and Cornbread and posting the pictures.  

Every September, people start to talk about football weather. The air is crisp, the days get shorter and leaves begin to change. Wool blankets and hoodies and sweaters and letter jackets all worn with a jaunty scarf.

Barf. That is J.Crew football weather. That is Ralph Lauren and Lincoln Parkers at Solider Field tailgating. It is the lightness and hope of a new season before the clouds and grind settles in.

The end of October. It is legitimately cold during the day and freezing at night. Frost even hits the south. Leaves are disappearing from the trees and the forecasts mention freezing rain and snow. In my mind, this is the true start of football weather. Thermal underwear, turtleneck, jersey, sweater, jacket, heat packs in your gloves and in your boots football weather.

And a stiff hot drink to help you stay warm.

Spicy Boozy Cafe Mocha For Tailgating (And Trick-Or-Treating*)

This drink was inspired by my buddy Josh in Albuquerque who one day last year talked about having a really good chile mocha on a cold morning. Of course you could booze that baby up for tailgating. Of course you want to. The heat from the chile reaches down into your bones while the cinnamon makes the chocolate feel fuller, warmer. The Kahlua brings an extra richness to the espresso while the tequila takes you full circle, bringing you right back to the chile and the cinnamon.

Now if you happen to live in an area where you can readily buy Mexican hot chocolate tablets you melt with the milk and the sugar (and mesa if your really going for something authentic), feel free to adjust the recipe to use the melting tablets instead. Since most of the country unfortunately does not have those magical wheels of chocolate at their local grocery store, I choose to use cocoa powder in this recipe instead.

As listed, this recipe yields two very strong drinks, but is it easily multiplied for the number of beverages you are making.

You will need:

4 ounces brewed espresso or very strong coffee
4 ounces tequila
2 ounces Kahlua
2 cups milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground chipotle chile (use ground ancho chile for milder heat)
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (optional, but it really rounds out the drink nicely)
Pinch of kosher salt

In two glasses, put 2 ounces each of espresso and tequila, then 1 ounce of Kahlua and stir together.

In a medium sauce pan (or a very large one if making more than four drinks), start to gently heat the milk over medium heat, whisking briskly. In a liquid measuring cup, mix together the cocoa powder, sugar, spices and salt. Once the milk starts to get warm, pour a small amount into the measuring cup with the cocoa mixture and stir, adding a more milk as needed to make a slurry. This will help prevent lumps in your beverage. Once you have thick sauce, pour everything back into the sauce pan and keep whisking until the milk starts to steam and bubble.

If you have whisked enough, there is no need to keep making froth, but if you are the type of person who likes lots of air in your steamed milk with extra foam, either use an immersion blender to whip the milk even further or carefully run through the blender for a minute.

Carefully pour the steamed cocoa over your espresso, tequila and Kahlua mixture. Sprinkle with either cinnamon or cocoa and serve, or pour in thermos for later.

*I have a lot of friends who either serve drinks to the adults taking their kids trick-or-treating or bring along a thermos for themselves; coffee to keep them warm, booze to temper the “BUT I DON’T WANT TO WEAR MY COAT OVER MY COSTUME” tears. This drink is perfectly suited for those needs in addition to any tailgating fuel you may need.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

Week 9. This is when, depending on your team, it can be tough to muster up the enthusiasm to fire up the grill on Sunday. Your quarterback is out with a groin injury, your head coach is a psychopath, your NFC championship-caliber team won’t even break .500 this year, or worse, you cheer for a team in the NFC East. Or AFC South. Or AFC North. Don’t give in and sit on the sofa with a bag of Bugles. Don’t be the one who shows up at the tailgate with bag of still-frozen, unseasoned generic hamburgers. It’s still football. Show your other family you care.

Grilled Za’atar Chicken Pitas

A couple of weeks ago I got a request for a lean protein football grilling recipe and I immediately thought of one my favorite ways to make chicken skewers; Greek yogurt and the Middle Eastern spice mixture, za’atar.

Za’atar is a mixture of sumac, dried thyme, salt, toasted sesame seeds and sometimes dried savory, marjoram or oregano. The dominate taste comes from the sumac though; a tart, earthy spice that goes well baked on a pita, on poultry or in dressings. By using non-fat — but still thick — Greek yogurt you keep down the level of fat in your marinade, (unlike what I call “special chicken” which calls for a fair amount of butter) while still adding a lot of tang and richness to meat. It also makes for a nice char when you put the skewers over the fire. Lemon zest and garlic make it a party.

For a nice crunch and to carry the za’atar forward, a garnish of thinly sliced red onions, green peppers and in a light dressing compliment the grilled chicken once you stuff it all into a pita.

You’ll need:

Chicken and za’atar marinade:

6 ounces non-fat Greek Yogurt (about a cup)
2 tablespoons za’atar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
zest from 1/2 a lemon (about 2 teaspoons)
juice from 1/2 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 1/2 – 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken, diced into large cubes and strips (A mix of white and dark meat is fine, or all dark meat.)

Onion and pepper garnish

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon za’atar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
1 large green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1/4 – 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

Metal skewers or wooden skewers that have been soaked in water for at least thirty minutes.
Pita or other flatbread of your choice

At least six hours before grilling, but preferably the day before, mix together the za’atar, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, pepper, minced garlic and Greek yogurt marinade together in a large bowl. Add the chicken and toss together in the bowl until all of meat is well coated in the marinade. Cover and refrigerate until you are just about read to put it on the grill.

While you’re heating up the grill, wisk together the dressing for the onion and peppers; olive oil, lemon juice, za’atar, salt, and cracked pepper. Set aside and allow the flavor to develop. Toss with the sliced peppers and onions.

Thread the chicken on the skewers and when you have a nice steady medium-high heat, grill the chicken evenly on all sides.

Stuff pita with the peppers, onions and grilled chicken and serve. Or if you’re like me, keep watching the game through the window from the grill because you want to keep poking at the fire and you’re pissed you didn’t buy at least six other types of meat as not to waste a perfectly heated outdoor cooking mechanism.

Makes about 8-10 pita halves, so more than enough for your family or friends. Easily doubled or tripled for a large party.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

As the season goes on, it’s easy to get sick of the same old sour cream based dips, guacamole or hummus, and you don’t always want a heavy baked spinach and artichoke dip made with cream cheese. The next best option for creaminess and taste? Ricotta.

By roasting the garlic, artichokes and some of the serranos, it tones down their sharpness and tames the heat so the peppers won’t overpower your palate. Fresh scallions round out the dip, but if you want a little extra bite of salt or brininess, fold in a tablespoon of chopped capers or kalamata olives.

Roasted Serrano Artichoke Ricotta Dip

You will need:

15-16 ounce can of artichoke heart quarters packed in water, drained
2-3 cloves of garlic
4-5 good sized serrano peppers
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 – 2 1/2 cups ricotta cheese, preferably whole milk for a creamier dip but you can substitute reduced fat if desired
2-3 scallions, green and white parts, diced (about 1/2 cup)

Crostini, pretzel bread, chips or endive leaves for dipping. (Yes, I forgot to pull the endive out of the fridge for this group shot.)

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Remove the stem and seeds from 3 or 4 of the peppers, reserving one pepper for garnish and extra crunchy heat.

Make an foil packet that contains the artichoke hearts, the seeded peppers and garlic cloves. Drizzle with the olive oil and a generous pinch of salt, approximately 1/2 teaspoon. Gently toss so everything is coated in oil. Close up the packet and make sure it is well-sealed. Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes or until the contents are all nice and soft. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Once artichokes, serrano peppers and garlic cloves have cooled, carefully separate the three ingredients. In a medium bowl, smash the garlic cloves into a paste. Mix in the ricotta cheese and the remaining kosher salt until the garlic and salt are fully incorporated. Finely dice the peppers and toss into the bowl with the ricotta and garlic. Then coarsely chop the artichoke hearts. Add to the bowl along with the diced scallions and gently fold all the ingredients together. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour to let the flavor develop.

When ready to serve, thinly slice the remaining serrano pepper and top off the dip.

Serve with crostini, endive leaves, multigrain chips or pretzel bread. Eat while watching your team fall approximate twelve touchdowns behind the Patriots. (Optional.)

Serves 4-8, depending if any of your guests are nervous eaters.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

With Thanksgiving coming up soon, it’s never a bad idea to start thinking about what sort of snacks you’ll need before the turkey (no, not Steelers-Ravens in the evening) for the early games without spoiling the feast. Roasted nuts are great for any part of the year, but for some reason we’re always so centered on grilling meats, putting together dips and sandwiches, and working on new bloody mary recipes for the first half of the football season we overlook the humble nut that pairs so well with all everything else we make for Sundays.

And there are few things on this earth that go together like beer, nuts and football on the TV.

Sweet Ancho Chile Roasted Cashews

Out of all the nut recipes I’ve posted over the years, this is one of my favorites. The smoked paprika giving extra depth to the mildly hot ancho chile, a little extra heat from the cayenne; big, fat crunchy raw sugar crystals on the crust; just the right amount of salt to the sweetness. You can also use this spice mixture on peanuts if you like, but the butteriness of the cashew really is the best play with the ancho and cayenne.

You will need:

1 pound raw cashews
1 egg white, room temperature
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground ancho chile powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 300º. Line a large jellyroll pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, mix together the raw sugar, kosher salt, ancho chile, smoked paprika and cayenne until throughly combined.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg white until very frothy. Not meringue thick, but more like a nice cappuccino froth. Add in the cashews and stir until the nuts are completely covered with the egg white. Fold in the sugar and spice mixture and turn until the cashews are evenly coated with seasoning.

Pour the cashews onto the pan and spread into an even layer of nuts. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring and tossing the cashews every 15 minutes.

While the nuts are roasting, place another piece of parchment paper on the counter. We’re going to cool the cashews on a clean surface because anyone who has ever roasted nuts knows that the bottom of the pan quickly becomes a morass of extra sugar and seasoning that becomes difficult to remove the nuts from once cooled.

Once the cashews are done, remove from the oven and transfer the cashews to the clean parchment paper, breaking apart any nuts that may stick together. Allow to cool for at least 15-20 minutes (don’t worry, they’ll still be warm if you prefer them toasty from the oven) and serve.

If not serving immediately, store in an airtight container up to a week.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

There are people who complain that this week’s Broncos-Patriots/Manning-Brady game is completely overhyped. There are also people who complain about traditional Thanksgiving foods being completely overhyped. All of these people are insane.

As soon as November hits, everything can be turkey, stuffing, potato, cranberry and gravy tasting in my book. Actually, I don’t even wait for November. If I am in a diner that offers any sort of a Thanksgiving sandwich or platter, that’s what I’m ordering for lunch, no matter what the calendar says. And since the weekend before Thanksgiving is when a lot of people do practice runs of dishes they’re making later in the week, this is a good sandwich for testing out the cranberries, maybe some new seasoning for your dressing, or the bread you plan on baking Thursday morning.

Alternatively, you can make this sandwich the night before Thanksgiving and serve as a light lunch snack during the Packers-Lions game or even Raiders-Cowboys depending on which coast you live on and how late you eat your Thanksgiving dinner. Or maybe you eat early in the day, and you need something for the Steelers-Ravens night game. Pick up some brie and you should already have everything you need to share this with your friends and family on Thanksgiving. Or this Sunday. Or Monday.

(Although god help you though if you’re already entertaining relatives this weekend, especially ones who will not want to watch football on Sunday night, much less on Thursday. Who said your Aunt Roberta could show up four days early anyway? And who does she think she is, holding the remote and saying she’s got to catch up on “Bad Girls Club” while chain-smoking in your living room? Christ, you should have vetted your future in-laws more carefully.)

Herbed Cranberry Brie Sandwiches

What make this sandwich work is sautéing the herbs in wine and olive oil to make the dressing. It cuts right through the sweetness of the cranberry and the richness of the cheese so you have a perfect balance of flavors. Not too filling, but not so light that after you’ve had one or two slices you’re looking for chips in the cupboard.

If you’ve followed my recipes for awhile, you’ll know I’m a big fan of making pressed sandwiches, like this Italian Pressed Sandwich. You can make them ahead of time so you can either pull them out of the fridge when you want them or you can easily bring them to party or tailgate, letting the sandwiches rest gives them time to develop their favors just a little bit more than if you served them right away, plus you can easily cut them into smaller serving sizes for a snack. All of these elements make a pressed sandwich one of my usual go-to Sunday foods, especially on busy weeks like this one.

You will need:

1 large baguette (14-16 ounces)
4 tablespoons dry white wine
3 tablespoons olive oil
6-8 sage leaves, about 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoons finely minced
1-2 rosemary sprigs, about 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoons finely minced
1/2 – 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
1 – 1 1/2 cup cranberry sauce, cooled
12-16 ounces brie (Use more brie if you are cutting off the rind. I usually leave the rind on, but I know it’s not for everyone.)

Have never made your own cranberry sauce? Easy, 12-16 ounces of fresh cranberries, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar. Heat in a large saucepan until desired consistency. Want to make it fancy? Toss in some orange zest, pinch of allspice, or a cinnamon stick. Or go crazy and use all of the above. What you do to your berries is your business.

I’ve found that it’s easier to make this particular pressed sandwich — really any pressed sandwich I use baguettes for — by first cutting the loaf into four sections. Makes it easier to manage during assembly and pressing. So cut the baguette into quarters, and then slice each quarter in half making top and bottom pieces.

Mince your herbs if you haven’t already. In a small skillet, gently heat the olive oil, white wine, herbs, salt and pepper to a simmer over medium-low, occasionally whisking. Allow the mixture to reduce for about 3-5 minutes and remove from the heat. Cool for a few minutes and then evenly brush on both the top and bottom of the open baguette.

Spread half of the cranberry sauce on the bottom slices of the baguette, then top with brie, then cover with the rest of the cranberry sauce. Place the top slices of the baguette on each section and then tightly wrap each loaf with plastic wrap.

Place the sandwiches in the refrigerator under a a cookie sheet and then weigh down the cookie sheet as much as possible for maximum squishing. Press for at least 1-2 hours to allow the flavors to seep together and develop.

When ready to serve, unwrap and slice into 1-2 inch pieces.

Still looking for something else to serve this weekend or next Thursday? May I recommend Roasted Butternut Squash Sage Dip, Savory Mushroom Pithiviers, Chorizo Stuffed Sweet Potato Skins or even Tart Cranberry Deviled Eggs? All work for both holidays and football, so perfect for when you need to cook for both.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.

Thanksgiving is a long day of friends, family and football. It’s also very, very cold in much of the country right now, so you are going to need a warm drink you can slowly sip as you wait for your Cousin Doug to get the turkey fryer going outside or so help you, you’re tailgating in Detroit, Dallas or Baltimore tomorrow.

Green Bay-Detroit? You’re going to need at least one or two pre-dinner drinks. Raiders-Cowboys? Nap and/or food eating. Steelers-Ravens? Nightcaps or perhaps still having dessert if you are on the West Coast. So you can either get this cider going first thing in the morning or while you’re doing the dishes before the evening game.

If you are tailgating, this cider keeps well in thermos or can be heated over the grill, just add the scotch on site. Or, if you’re like me at a cold tailgate, keep the seat heater on as long as possible and every once in awhile get back in the car and ask yourself why you picked going to the game over your sofa in the first place. Nothing to do with football, I love watching football in person. I’m just old and my tolerance for peec-icle Port-O-Potties disappeared years ago. Anyway, seat heaters are good for keeping your cider warm in addition to your tuchas.

In addition to the physical heat radiating off your cider, this drink has warmth from both the scotch and the spices. Peppercorns help pick up the scotch and a add nice spark. Raw sugar is just a little more earthy than white sugar thanks to the molasses, which in turn echoes the peat in the alcohol.  In this drink I prefer using a clementine instead of an orange as its smaller size helps you tame the citrus notes of a typical cider. It’s not as sharp, nor does it have so much juice as to overwhelm the apple notes or the scotch.

Use a good, drinkable smoky blended scotch instead of your best Ardbeg, one that you enjoy drinking but not one so precious you’re going to get pelted with whisky stones for using in a cocktail. If anyone does give you a hard time about spices, especially pepper, in scotch drink, tell them to read up on the Scottish wedding tradition of bride’s cog. At least you’re not putting egg in it.

Scotch Cider

You will need:

64 ounces unfiltered apple juice
1/4 cup raw sugar (You can substitute white sugar and a touch of molasses, about a 1/2 tablespoon.)
1 clementine
1 – 1 1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns (Depending on how fresh they are, you may want to use fewer peppercorns.)
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
10 ounces of a smoky blended scotch, like Black Grouse (A decently priced, very everyday drinkable scotch.)
Orange peel for garnish

Stick the cloves into the clementine so it is studded all over like Pinhead. This helps the juice of the fruit to gentle seep into the cider as it heats up. By the time it’s done steeping, most of the juice should have exited its clementine skin host.

In a small stockpot or 3-quart sauce pan, toss everything in except for the scotch. Cover and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 90 minutes, giving it gentle stir every now and again.

Once the cider is done, remove from the heat and allow to cool for about five minutes. Strain out the peppercorns, clementine, cloves and cinnamon stick. Pour 8 ounces of the cider in a glass and add 2 ounces of scotch. Garnish with an orange peel and serve.

Yields about 5 drinks, but this cider is easily doubled or tripled for a larger gathering if made in a large stockpot or slow cooker.

Need even more football watching-centric recipe ideas? Find the complete archive of Football Foodie/Foodball recipes here, and all recipes that have appeared on KSK here.