We’re coming into the unfortunate part of the football season when two things start happening that cause the average football fan to stop putting their full effort into Sundays; holiday obligations and their favorite team being eliminated from playoff contention.

Neither of these things are good excuses for not putting forth at least a little bit of an effort. You still have fantasy playoffs to manage, you still have to hope your team shows some sign of life, you should still have something spicy, fatty and carb-y to go with your beer.

Smoked Cheddar Jalapeño Crisps

This is a combination of two previous recipes I’ve posted for the Football Foodie, Smoky Habanero Jalapeño Popper Bread and Parmesan Crisps. Smoked cheddar and jalapeños go together like Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, the perfect match of heat and savory. Crisps are something you can prepare ahead of time and without much effort, like working on a game plan against the Texans. Similes are a writer’s lazy tool, like Albert Haynesworth.

You will need:

1 stick (8 tablespoons unsalted butter), softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cup flour
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp salt
3 jalapeños, seeded and minced (about 3/4 cup)
1 scallion including white section, chopped
6 ounces extra sharp cheddar, shredded
3 ounces smoked cheddar, shredded
Flour

Blend together the butter, salt and flour with a pastry blender (or cut together with two knives) until your ingredients have a sandy texture. Using your hands, mix in the cheeses and egg yolks, then the chopped jalapeños and green onion, crumbling with fingers as you go to evenly mix everything together.

Once all the ingredients are fully incorporated, form into two large balls. Roll each ball out onto a log on a lightly floured board or clean counter and then wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate for an hour or two, then slice into 1/4 inch pieces.

Don’t worry, I know it doesn’t look like much dough, but you’re still going to get a ton of crisps out of this batch.

In a 350º oven, bake on lined cookie sheets for 15-20 minutes, until the crisps are golden. Cool completely and then serve.

You can make these crisps a day ahead of time and either store in an air-tight container or make the dough and the refrigerate in both wax paper and plastic wrap before baking. As I said, minimal planning.

Now if we could only figure out what would be the least amount of planning for Raiders-Jets or Bucs-Bills with stooping to just opening a bag of Bugles, bleach and despair.

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.

In last week’s Foodball, Smoked Cheddar Jalapeño Crisps, we discussed how important it is to still make an effort for these rough few weeks of the football season. Sure, anyone can care about the buffet they make for September tailgating and the playoffs, but a true fan still puts in the time to make a dip in the dead of December. If you’re going to watch Washington-Atlanta or Buffalo-Jacksonville, you may as well have a good snack to offset your suffering.

But because it’s the middle of December, we’re also in peak cookie and candy season. You need a dip that’s tasty but not too heavy. White beans? High in fiber and iron with a pretty respectable amount of calcium. Greek yogurt packs protein, vitamin B12 and even more calcium. A dip that is rich without being too heavy, because you want to leave room for cookies.

Zesty Za’atar White Bean Dip

I’ve already sung the praises of za’atar earlier this season when I posted the recipe for Grilled Za’atar Chicken Pitas, and I wanted to give everyone a second recipe to use the beautifully earthy, smoky spice mixture in so you didn’t feel bought all this za’atar then didn’t know what else to do with it. I hate when a recipe calls for say, machalepi or fenugreek but then doesn’t suggest what else I could use those ingredients in. After I posted how to make Chicken Tikka Masala Wraps, I posted a recipe for Garam Masala Dip to inspire readers to find their own ways to use up the rest of their garam masala. So if you ever see me list an ingredient you don’t think you will use often, especially an unusual or expensive item, don’t hesitate to ask me what else you can put it in while creating in your own kitchen.

Unless you’re Tony Dungy. That Sunday night secret ingredient nonsense gives us nothing but leftover Peyton Manning, which frankly is pretty bland. This dip’s secret ingredient is peperoncini. Gives you a little extra kick (unlike Vanderjagt).

You will need:

15 ounces white beans, drained
7 ounces plain Greek yogurt, approximately 1 cup (low fat or fat free works fine)
2 tablespoons za’atar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup kalamata olives, drained and roughly chopped
1/2 cup sliced peperoncini, drained and roughly chopped

Pita chips, tortilla chips or crudités for serving

In a food processor or a blender, puree together the white beans, Greek yogurt, za’atar, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Once at the desired consistency, remove the mixture from the food processor and put in a bowl. Fold in the chopped peperoncini and olives until throughly combined. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Serve with your favorite dipping item. Personally, I like multigrain tortilla chips with this dip, but baked pita chips seasoned with even more za’atar are excellent with this savory dip.

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.

Because my husband and I are in the middle of moving, we’ve been eating a lot of pizza. Lots and lots of pizza. Pizza for-three-days-in-a-row-pizza because the pizza shop messed up our order and put black olives and not green olives on the pizza and gave us a second pizza for free pizza. Because we didn’t book our movers soon enough and apparently Christmas week is the busiest week on the moving schedule, we’re moving our furniture on Sunday morning before football, which means as our Steelers-Packers snack we’re probably going to order a pizza.

Like most sane people, I love pizza. I love $25 12-inch pies from the gourmet shop with squash blossoms and ricotta that was made that morning, I love $2 slices on paper plates. I even love a pizza from some chain places now and again (although that’s not the type of thing you admit in polite company). But as much as we all love pizza, we cannot help but fiddle with each slice and make it our own pizza.

So today, let’s take a break from making our own football foods and order a pizza instead. Because frankly, we’re exhausted.

1. Garlic powder – Even a perfect pizza is helped by a dash of extra intensity from garlic powder. Remember the first time you saw a shaker of garlic powder in a pizza shop as a kid or even an adult leaving the midwest for the first time? Glorious. You couldn’t put enough garlic powder on your pizza that night.
2. Tapatio Hot Sauce  – Probably one of the most balanced of the hotter hot sauces. Doesn’t overwhelm the tomato sauce or the pepperoni.
3. Crystal Hot Sauce - Milder hot sauce for when you want a small kick. Also keeps people from Louisiana quiet about the hot sauce you have around because lordy me do people from Louisiana like to talk about hot sauce and you need something beside of sixer of Dixie and dime store beads to shut them up.
4. Jalapeño Tabasco Sauce - An even milder hot sauce. Good for when the pizza just needs a smidgen of something extra and garlic powder might throw the whole thing off. (Although it is really good with garlic powder on pizza.)
5. Garlic Salt - So the pizza shop you ordered from used some rather bland, tasteless cheese. Garlic salt will help hide this sin.
6. Grated Parmesan  - And now you have a sandy pizza, although it is helpful when your pizza is on the greasier side and you need something to help sop up the extra oil.
7. Peperoncini/banana peppers - If you want your pizza to taste like vinegar and regret, who am I to judge? 
8. Matouk’s Hot Calypso Hot Sauce - Submitted by KSK Contributor Trevor Risk. While I haven’t tried this hot sauce on pizza, on paper a super hot sauce with a touch of sugar sounds promising and we’ll trust Trevor has good taste.
9. Salt - Man, this cheese is pretty bland, isn’t it?
10. Sriracha - That’s fine. No one wanted to actually taste the pizza anyway.
11. Papa John’s Sauce  – Pretty gross, especially since the pizza you are eating is from Dominos.
12. Dried Oregano - Might possibly be a shaker full of pencil shavings.
13. Onion Powder - You have onion powder but not garlic powder? When was the last time you went to the store?
14. Cholula Hot Sauce - This one got a few votes from the other KSK staffers, but not a sauce I like on pizza. A little too thick and hard to evenly distribute on a slice.
15. Red Pepper Flakes - Why even bother having a pizza? You can put hot pepper flakes on anything —  pizza, mashed potatoes, Peyton Manning’s forehead — and it’s just going to taste like red pepper flakes.
16. Black Pepper - So how is dorm life these days? Beds still too short? Roommate still hooking up behind his girlfriend’s back? What is that smell? Did you try cooking meth in your hot pot?
17. Napkins - Never trust anyone who blots their pizza with paper napkins.
18. Ranch Dressing – I’d insult this choice but food-shaming is a terrible thing to do and will probably cause you to fall into some sort of depression where you put even more ranch dressing on your pizza to drown out the pain. But seriously, stop that.

Unranked:

Honey - We shall not name the KSK Contributor — fine, it’s Old James – who said he dips the crust of pizza in honey. When Pizza Hut reveals their new Honey Crust Pizza, I hope he makes millions.
Extra Oregano - Code for a nickel bag of weed from one of the local pizza shops when I was in college.

And the Memorial RobotsFightingDinosaurs I Can Eat Pizza Like This Because I’m In My Early 20s Pizza Topping List (in no particular order):

Trader Joe’s Hot Sauce
Fritos
Pringles
Bacon Bits
Curry powder
Totino’s Pizza Rolls

And yes, he made that. Cannot wait to follow him around with a bottle of Dairy Ease pills when he turns 35.

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.

Pittsburgh win, Miami loss, Baltimore loss, Chargers loss. I’ve looked at that formula a thousand times this week. I’ve looked at the schedule a few million times. Browns-Steelers, Jets-Dolphins, Ravens-Bengals in the morning, Chiefs-Chargers in the afternoon. There is a chance I will have no idea what is happening to my favorite team’s playoff hopes until late in the day. Since I am a nervous eater — fine, nervous binge eater — Sunday is going to be hell. I’ve already stocked up on extra crunchy items; flatbread to make pita chips for Toasted Sesame Edamame Dip and Chipotle Black Bean Hummus, sour cream to make some other dip, probably Green Chile Dip for crunchy potato chips. Extra ice. Maybe stop by Home Depot for a small bag of gravel in case I get really tense.

Oh, and bacon and cheese. It’s the last weekend before the New Year diets kick in, so why not spend this last rivalry-filled Sunday of the regular season with as much bacon, cheese and carbs you can possibly eat. Our nerves are going to need them all.

Toasted BLT Bread

A few weeks ago I was in the mood for the BLT Bites I’ve made a hundred times for parties and football Sundays. And while I love them, they can feel like a lot of work even though they are not much of a bother at all and I was feeling like I wanted a heartier BLT for football that day. Since a local gourmet shop in my area serves their BLT with camembert cheese, I started to play around with making it much like I make Smoky Habanero Jalapeño Popper Bread.

The result? Everything you could want out of a BLT and even more. Smoky bacon, peppery arugula to cut through the richness of the cheese, meaty tomatoes which pop with extra zing once they’ve been baked. All so easily assembled you can prep your snack beforehand and then bake it during halftime with ease.

You will need:

16-ounce loaf of bread; preferably a soft baguette or ciabatta
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
12 ounces thick cut bacon, diced and then cooked and drained completely
2-3 ounces Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
2-3 cups arugula, roughly chopped
1 cup (1 medium to large sized heirloom) tomato, seeds removed and diced
Dash of freshly cracked black pepper
Pinch of kosher salt

Why an heirloom tomato? Far less watery insides to remove, much more tomato meat and real tomato taste. If you cannot find good heirlooms at your market this time of the year, use Roma tomatoes.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Cut the baguette down the middle and then slice each half open so you have four equal-sized bread quadrants for easier BLT-assembly management.

In a large bowl, fold the cooked bacon, shredded Monterrey Jack cheese, diced tomatoes, arugula, salt and pepper into softened cream cheese. Once combined, evenly spread across each quarter of a loaf.

Bake on a lined cookie sheet for 20=25 minutes, until the top of the cheese starts to toast and turn slightly golden.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 3-5 minutes. Why the cooling? If you hurry along the slicing, you’ll lose all of your BLT toppings to the tyranny of your knife, much like surrendering to the ineptitude of a six-person crew not seeing who actually had possession of the ball after a blocked punt. (No, I will not let that go.)

Once cool enough to slice, cut into 1-2 inch slices and serve. Eat a million slices of your toasted BLT depending on how stressed or despondent you are when you hear the first John Williams’ French horns announcing Football Night in America.

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.

Playoffs! I don’t care that you resolved to lose ten pounds just days ago, it’s the playoffs! This is the last time you can eat copious amounts of fat and fried things without regret until next season! I am going to use as many exclamation points as necessary to convey how important snacking is to your life for the next month!!!

The playoffs determine which foods you will consider “lucky” going forward. Your team wins this weekend, whatever you ate and drank during that game is the EXACT SAME THING you make until your team loses. Eat a kale wrap with sliced almonds, golden raisins with a lemon vinaigrette when the Chargers upset the Bengals? Lucky you! You’re having kale for the next two weeks, at least. Leftover pho when Niners beat the Pack? Better start eating pho all week so you have enough leftovers for your friends the following week. Gravy with a side of gravy, followed by a slice of sugar pie? Well, you’re already pretty happy with that menu Colts fans, win or lose. Choose your playoff snacks and rituals carefully fans, because you have to do them over and over again. By the Super Bowl, you should have your menu perfected.

Your team isn’t in the playoffs? Yeah, neither is mine. But don’t let rooting interests get in the way of a good excuse to drink beer and cook your way through the weekend. If anything, you can relax and enjoy the games for a change, no pressure. Dare I say football almost becomes leisurely and enjoyable when your heart isn’t hanging on every down.

Almost. We’re obviously still hate-watching all the other teams.

Shepherd’s Pie Potato Skins

A quick note before we get to this week’s recipe. This season Foodball featured not just one, but two recipes featuring za’atar, Zesty Za’atar White Bean Dip and Grilled Za’atar Chicken Pitas. The Kommentariat responded enthusiastically to both recipes and even posted their own tips for working with this spice mixture. This week Bon Appetite named za’atar one of the hot new food trends for 2014. Coincidence? I choose to believe the KSK Kommentariat moved the needle on this one.

So if two food items can be a trend, and I already posted a recipe for Poutine Potato Skins, then yes. Potato skins are something everyone loves for football watching. And as delicious as sour cream, cheese and bacon are in a twice-baked potato, they tend to feel heavy on your stomach pretty quickly. Surprisingly though, filling the potato with beef, vegetables and more whipped potatoes makes your potato skins more like a meal, and not as greasy and weighty.

You will need:

3 pounds medium-sized Russet potatoes
Vegetable or canola oil (Cooking oil spray or regular oil works just fine)
1 – 1 1/4 pounds ground beef, preferably 80% lean ground chuck
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced onion
2 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons tomato paste, preferably tomato paste concentrate
1 tablespoon mustard
1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Kosher salt and cracked pepper, about a 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of each
2 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4-1/2 cup milk
Scallions for garnish, one or two stalks should be fine

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Since I’m not going to top the instructions I wrote in my Poutine Potato Skins recipe for properly making a potato boat that will hold up to whatever you stuff into it, I’m just going to repeat my previous directions, making a few changes for our shepherd’s pie variation.

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 our shepherd’s pie topping.

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.

See? That plagiarizing oneself isn’t so painful. Back to our shepherd’s pie version.

While the potatoes are baking, start to cook the ground beef in a skillet over medium, adding a touch of oil if necessary. (Hopefully though you’re using a beef blend with enough fat content you will not need to add extra oil.) Once your beef nearly completely browned, add the diced celery, carrots, onions and one 1 tablespoon of butter and cook down. When your beef is completely browned and your vegetables have softened, reduce the heat slightly and stir in the tomato paste, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, kosher salt and pepper. Allow the mixture to simmer for a few minutes and then remove from the heat and set aside until your potato vessels are done baking.

Meanwhile, take the still warm potato innards and place them in a large bowl. Mix in the shredded cheese until melted and whip in the remaining butter and add milk until desired consistency is reached. Personally, I prefer to use my hand mixer for this job so I get nicely smooth potatoes I can pipe with a a pastry bag or a plastic bag, cutting off a corner to form a pastry bag, but if you want to spoon the potatoes out as your shepherd’s pie lid, you can.

Once your potato boats are done baking, reduce the oven temperature to 350º. Evenly fill with the ground beef and vegetables and then top with your whipped potatoes. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the whipped potatoes get a nice golden crust. Garnish with chopped scallions and serve.

These meaty little shepherd’s pie bites are so easy to make, serve and eat, you may never go back fussing with making them in a pie crust base again. And if you really want to give them a little more bite, use a blend of ground lamb and beef.

Worried about doing this much baking the day of the game, especially once this becomes your lucky snack for the rest of the playoffs? You can assemble your shepherd’s pie potato skins the day before, refrigerate and then bake as normal, just add 10-15 minutes more to their time in the oven so they properly heat the entire way through.

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 have been early reports this week of a shortage of Velveeta this Super Bowl season, sending cheesy dip lovers into a small panic. Oh noes! The nation’s dips! What will we do?!

As Bloomberg’s Vanessa Wong pointed out on Marketplace yesterday, we’ve heard this song before without consumers ever seeing any real decline in product availability due to the shortage. Last year we supposedly wouldn’t have enough wings for the annual Super Bowl buffet and in 2009 word was there wasn’t enough avocados to meet the nation’s guacamole needs. Neither of those shortages ever came to fruition. Velveeta is also stable at room temperature, so if one really needed Velveeta that badly, I’m sure there’s are enough bodegas and country markets with a stockpile of Velveeta bricks that have been on the shelves since 1997. (Personally I find the timing a little off myself considering I’ve been seeing Velveeta-Ro*Tel commercials on TV the past couple of weeks and I cannot think of a single time I’ve seen them team up for a national ad campaign before.)

But why would you want to limit your queso to just a block of what is called “cheese food” and not actual cheese? That’s ridiculous, like asking for the best replica Blaine Gabbert jersey when you can easily buy an authentic Adrian Peterson jersey for the same price.

Last season we made Queso Fundido with Chorizo that was thick and meaty. But if you’re looking for a queso that is thinner, meltier, similar in profile to the missing Velveeta — but with you know, taste — this is how you do it.

(Also before we begin, let me apologize for the bad lighting in the photos. I recently moved and while it gets beautiful full sunlight during the day, it has terrible lighting at night.)

Basic Queso Dip

Did you make my Beer Cheese Soup last season? No? Well, if you haven’t, you should because it’s delicious and great in the cold weather. If you did make it, you’ve already got the basics down to make your own queso. A roux, some whole milk and some cheese. Boom. Installed.

You will need:

4-5 Roma or medium heirloom tomatoes (You want a tomato that has the least amount of seeds and pulp.)
2-3 jalapeños
Small amount of cooking oil to brush the tomatoes and the jalapeños while roasting
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, freshly shredded
8 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, freshly shredded
1/4-1/2 cup diced scallions, about 3-4, including the white sections
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, about one small bunch
Avocado, diced for garnish (optional)

Now, you can season your queso anyway you like. You can add ground cayenne, chipotle — either ground or diced peppers that have been packed in adobe sauce, garlic, hatch chiles. Up to you. When melting cheese, it’s good to go with one young cheese, like the very soft Monterey Jack,  and one older cheese (I prefer extra sharp cheddar because it has the most punch). I like to garnish my queso with avocados, but you can add your own salsa, black beans or even sausage if you like.

And if you want to cheat and use a can of tomatoes and chiles because the tomatoes in your market don’t look so hot, (it is January after all and not all of us live in California), feel free. I just prefer this method so the tomatoes and the jalapeños get a nice roasted char on them.

You can also make your queso thicker or thinner based on how much milk you use. I think one cup is perfect, but some people like their queso a little thicker, and some like it thinner. I used to work with a cook who liked his queso very creamy and made his with evaporated milk.

Preheat oven to 350º.

Slice the tomatoes and the jalapeños in half and remove the seeds. Place cut side down on a baking sheet lined with foil and lightly brush with cooking oil (or spray with cooking spray) and roast for 20-25 minutes, until soft all the way through. Turn the oven to broil and place the baking sheet under the broiler for 5-10 minutes, until the skins have started to blacken and char. Once done, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Once cool, drain off the excess liquid and coarsely chop the tomatoes and mince the jalapeños. Set aside.

While the tomatoes and jalapeños are roasting, shred the cheese and let sit out to get closer to room temperature. Your cheese sauce is less likely to break if your cheese isn’t ice cold.

When you have your tomatoes, jalapeños and cheese ready, you can start making your queso. Think to yourself, LOW AND SLOW. In a medium sauce pan, gently heat the butter over medium-low heat until foamy, and then whisk in the flour to make your roux. Keep stirring until you start to get a light toasty brown color, about two or three minutes. Turn down the heat a touch and slowly stir in the milk, adding just a small amount at a time so it can properly thicken with your roux. After you have stirred in all the milk, add the cumin and keep stirring until you have a nice thick sauce.

Turn down the heat all the way down to low and at a handful at a time, stir in the cheese until it melts.

Once you get all the cheese incorporated, giving the bottom of the pan a good scrape every now and again to prevent any sticking, you should have a nice melty blend just like this. See how easy that was? You’ll never go back to Velveeta again.

Keeping the heat at low, slowly add your tomatoes, jalapeños, cilantro and scallions. If you are adding beans, you can either incorporate them now or you can do what many people in Texas do, put them in the bottom of your serving bowl and pour the queso over top, adding pico de gallo and avocado the same way.

But see? You can add all these other things and your cheese sauce will not break.

Garnish with avocado and serve with chips.

Want to make your queso ahead of time? No problem. Just refrigerate and then gently reheat over low on the stove, stirring frequently until hot and smooth.

Making your own queso is easy, tastes better, gives you more room for experimentation with your seasoning and isn’t embarrassingly referred to as “cheese food” by the FDA.

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.

The nice thing about the divisional weekend and the conference championship weekend is that you have a whole day to concentrate on just two games. No mucking about with the RedZone, no flipping around hoping to catch a better game, just the beauty of one game unfolding and developing before you.

I personally prefer it. I have little patience for the RedZone (sorry, I like to see how the game has developed before the miraculous drive that turned it around for any one team, or how a thousand small breakdowns resulted in everything falling apart), and I think watching just one game in its entirety is more fulfilling, more exciting than something cheap and easy as endless money shot, touchdown highlights being pelted at you one after the other.

Which brings us to today’s recipe, a pot roast sandwich. A slow, long build, your patience rewarded with greatness. Something you can start in the morning and have ready to start either the early or the late game, or somewhere in the middle. It’s a Sunday of just football, and you’re going to need something hearty to get you through it.

Easy Pot Roast Sandwiches

I’m not going to lie, this is the same way I’ve made my regular pot roast — save reserving the potatoes for last and the rolls —  for years. Adding a bit of cayenne and chili powder doesn’t make the meat spicy, but it does add a little depth to your meat and your overall flavor. Bay leaves, rosemary and thyme always go well with beef, as well as the extra tomato paste.

You’ll see a lot of people recommending to be very generous with your salting of the beef, but what I have found — and I have a serious salt addiction problem — is you actually end up over doing it. The stock, especially if you use store bought, has loads of sodium in it already.

If you’re tight on oven space you can use your slow cooker if it is large enough, but brown the meat in a skillet first, and then deglaze the pan with some of the stock as not to lose any of that great tasting browned bits at the bottom of the pan.

You will need:

3-4 pound chuck roast, excess fat trimmed off
4 tablespoons flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2-1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 1/2 cups dry red wine (If desired, you can use extra beef stock in place of wine.)
3-5 good sized carrots, peeled, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
3-5 stalks of celery, cleaned, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
2 medium sized yellow onions, quartered
2 cups beef stock
2 bay leaves
1 sprig rosemary
5-6 sprigs thyme
2 tablespoons tomato paste, preferably a tomato paste concentrate
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
2 russet potatoes, peeled, diced and rinsed in cold water (If desired, 2 cups of frozen home fries can be used.)
8-10 crusty rolls

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Trim off the extra fat from the roast. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of flour and the ground cayenne, chili powder, cracked pepper and salt, using adjusting the amount of salt and pepper you need depending on how large the size of your roast is. Rub the seasoning all over the meat until entirely covered.

In a large dutch oven, melt 1 tablespoon butter together with 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Gently set your roast in and brown for a couple of minutes on each side. Once you have created a nice browned crust to your roast, add the carrots, celery and onions around and on top of the meat, then pour the red wine over everything and allow it to simmer for a minute to let the wine really get into the meat. Add the beef stock, rosemary, thyme and tomato paste and bring to a low boil.

When the bubbles start to come to surface of the pot, cover and put in the oven. Roast at 350º for 30 minutes and then reduce the heat to 250º and roast for 3-4 hours, depending on how big your roast is. You want the meat to easily tear with a fork when done.

Once the meat is ready, remove from the oven. Using a large slotted spoon strain out the carrots, celery and onions and place on a large cutting board. In a large skillet, heat the remaining one tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat and start to cook the potatoes. Giving a good stir every minute or so they don’t stick. While they cook, roughly cut the cooked carrots, celery and onions. Add to the pan with the potatoes and saute until the potatoes have been completely steamed through and are soft, then remove from the heat.

While the vegetables are cooking, remove the roast from the dutch oven and place on a large platter. Shred using two forks into bite-sized pieces, removing any excess fat that might still remain. Pour just a little bit, say 1/4-1/2 cup, of the reserved stock from the pot over the meat to keep it from drying out.

Strain the reserved stock through a sieve or a cheesecloth until you have about 2 cups worth. In a medium sauce pan, melt the remaining two tablespoons of butter until foamy over medium heat and whisk in the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. Reduce the heat and cook your roux, whisking constantly, until it has reached a rich, golden brown color. Working slowing, add the strained stock until you have whisked in 1 cup worth. Allow to simmer for a minute and thicken and then add in the remaining strained stock until you have the desired consistency to your gravy. (I personally like mine on the thicker side, so about 1 1/4 cups usually does it for me.) If you have a lot of gravy lovers at the party, you can easily double the amount of gravy.

Slice open the rolls (toast if you like, I’ve done it both ways and it doesn’t really matter too much either way) and stuff with the pot roast, potato and vegetable mixture and then top with a little bit of gravy. You should get 8-10 sandwiches out of the roast, with maybe even a little leftover.

Seem like too much work to do for a game day? You can make a day ahead of time and reheat, being sure to leave some stock on the beef so it does dry out when you warm it back up. And don’t throw out all that remaining stock. Strain and save for later in week. Caramelize a bunch of yellow onions and then make into French onion soup.

Meat, potatoes and gravy. The only way it could match up better with football was if your oven was built into the back of a Chevy. And if you still feel like a hearty beef dish this Sunday for your game and you don’t want to hassle with a pot roast, you can always make a Steak and Ale Pie.

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.

This week The Sporkful’s Dan Pashman interviewed professional eater Crazy Legs Conti about the best techniques for eating chicken wings, both for speed and for stripping the maximum amount of chicken off the bone. According to Crazy Legs, you want to reach for the flats over the drumsticks for the most meat and you want to create a “meat umbrella” using one hand — obviously to keep your other hand free for your beer — for the most efficient way to consume chicken wings. Making a “meat umbrella” may sound silly at first, but watching Crazy Legs demonstrate how to eat wings using this method is a revelation.

As someone who has stated many times I prefer making Buffalo chicken-anything over wings because I hate dealing with the bones (even though I know chicken prepared on the bone tastes better), this video has me rethinking my menu for the Super Bowl. Knowing that I could beat my friends in a wing eating competition armed with these new techniques, it does give me extra incentive to have a platter of wings around. Do people throw home wing eating competitions during halftime? If they don’t, then they should. Seems like a better use of the time instead of playing “how many Bruno Mars songs can you name” or “Anthony Kiedis, face lift or Botox?” this year.

[H/T The Sporkful]

It’s the end of the football season.

A little more than a week from now and it’s nothing but stale popcorn and basketball games; sunflower seeds, salads and baseball; hockey and arena nachos that never give you enough cheese. Soon people are going to insist you spend time outdoors and thinking about swimsuits and all the locally produced organic blueberries you can eat and strawberries so sweet you could cry. You’re going to go on a hike and eat low-fat granola and drink some sort of clear, tasteless beverage that doesn’t get you drunk called water. It’s going to be so hot out during that hike you’re actually going to want — no, love! — a clear, tasteless beverage that doesn’t get you drunk called water. These are our last moments of football food, we may as well go out with the least healthiest but most delicious thing you’re going to make all season.

May as well get a slab of bacon, slice it, fry it, dip it in sausage gravy and eat it while the final rays of football’s shining light falls upon our faces.

Our faces filled with chicken fried bacon.

Chicken Fried Bacon

You can either make this recipe with slab bacon you slice yourself or regular thick cut bacon. Both have their merits. Fried slab bacon gives you a much more meaty bite, more bacon taste. Regular bacon is easier to find and is easier to dip in your sausage gravy and raspberry preserves. Why the raspberry preserves? The sweetness cuts through the fat nicely, sort of like you were having a Monte Cristo, possibly the only snack less healthy than this one.

We’re also not going to cook the bacon entirely in the hot oil. If you’ve followed my recipes for enough years, you’d already know I am very fond of the technique of mostly frying whatever it is your making —  peanut butter honey chicken tenders, sriracha fried pickles – and then transferring the food to the oven to finish cooking. It gives you the crispiest coating while still making sure your snack doesn’t get too oily in the pan and is the most evenly cooked.

You will need:

12-16 ounces of bacon, either slab bacon to cut yourself or thick cut bacon
1-1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 – 2 cups flour
1-2 teaspoons cracked pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Cooking oil

Sausage gravy and raspberry preserves for serving (Recipe for sausage gravy below.)

Not sure what slab bacon is? Go to your local butcher and ask for it, like this:

This is unusually thick slab bacon, as one of my go to butchers doesn’t slice the slab in half like many other butchers do. But me oh my, that beautiful cured pork belly is beautiful to look at. Again, ask for slab bacon — bacon that has has not been sliced, not pork belly. If you get pork belly that hasn’t been cured you’re going to miss out on the smokiness that makes this treat so great. (The desserts in the background have nothing to do with anything, other than I love their budino and chocolate mousse and couldn’t resist buying them since I was already there. The breakfast sausage I used in the sausage gravy.) Packaged bacon also works, just be sure to use thick cut bacon.

Slice the slab bacon into 1/4  inch thick pieces. If using regular sliced bacon, cut each piece in half for easier coating and frying as long pieces of bacon tend to double over on themselves and are harder to fry evenly. Place the bacon in a bowl and marinate in buttermilk for 1-2 hours in the refrigerator. Be sure to separate the sliced regular bacon — or as they say in Great Britain, “streaky bacon” —  as much as you can so it gets well coated by the buttermilk.

Once your ready to start the first part of the frying process, preheat the oven to 400º.

Mix together in a large bowl the flour and spices. Piece by piece, remove the bacon from the marinade and give it a good shake to get rid of the excess buttermilk and then dredge in the flour and spice mixture. Set on a rack or another lightly floured surface while repeating the process with the rest of the bacon. Let set for a a few minutes so the flour and spices really get a chance to adhere to the meat and even dredge through the flour a second time if needed to get the right amount of coating on your bacon.

Fill a large open pan or cast iron skillet with about an inch of cooking oil and heat to 375º. The top of the oil should be shimmering and a pinch of oil should sizzle if put in the pan. Working a few pieces at a time as not to crowd the pan or to reduce the temperature of the oil too much, add the bacon to the pan.

Cook the thicker slab bacon for about 3-4 minutes on each side; the skinny bacon 2-3 minutes on each side. The pieces should be golden. Put on a baking sheet lined with a rack to let the excess oil drain off and let rest while frying the remaining pieces.

Once you have fried all the bacon, place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, turning the fried bacon slices over once to reach maximum crispiness.

Remove from the oven and serve with raspberry preserves and sausage gravy.

Chef’s tip: Eat a piece in the kitchen before serving to your family and friends to ensure you actually get some as it will disappear quickly.

I made this particular batch during the Patriots-Broncos halftime. I’m not saying that melt in your mouth pork belly in a spicy crispy shell is distracting, but remember very little of the second half. Something about New England being terrible on the outside coverage.

Sausage Gravy

There is nothing special to this recipe, it’s the same way grandmas have been making sausage gravy since the beginning of time and comes together quickly while your bacon is in the oven.

You will need:

1/2 pound breakfast sausage or herbed pork sausage of your choice
1/4-1/2 cup flour
1-2 cups whole milk (or 2% if you must), depending on how thick or thing you want your gravy
Ground pepper
Bacon drippings or butter if your sausage does not have enough fat for the roux

In a large skillet, break apart and brown the sausage over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and add a small amount of flour to the pan, until all of the sausage has been covered and all the fat has been absorbed. Does it feel like your sausage is a little too dry and you’re going to need more fat? Add a tablespoon or so of bacon drippings (please tell me you are saving your bacon drippings) or butter (if you are a heathen who doesn’t save their bacon drippings are are most likely a San Diego Chargers fan), and stir until melted. Slowly add the milk a quarter cup at a time until you get a nice gravy, a little on the thinner side since it will tighten up the more that you cook it, and season with ground pepper. Simmer until you have the consistency you desire and remove from heat.

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.

Welcome to The Great Chili Super Bowl Roundtable of 2014!

Few foods are as ingrained in the football landscape as chili, and such as it is with anything football fans can argue about, few foods cause as much debate as chili. What makes it great? Is it in the meat, in the manner in which is is cooked, the accents, the spices, the toppings? Quick and dirty and ready in an hour versus simmered over days. Chili is personal to each person with a pot and spoon who has spent hours carefully stirring and adding a pinch of this, a glug of that, while at the same time is one of the most communal dishes we share as fans and friends.

I thought it would be fun to have a few friends over to KSK discuss football’s other past time. A roundtable of writers and food lovers. People who would passionately talk about beans, chiles, meats and what sort of measurement is a Cool Whip tub of onions.

Our panelists:

Stephanie Stradley – Houston Chronicle and Texans tailgating powerhouse.
Michael Felder – In The Bleachers, CFB. Chronic Tweeter and amazing barbecue cook.
Rob Iracane – Deadspin emeritus and baseball shrimp expert. (Shrimp being the sports term, but he cooks shrimp too.)
Andrea Hangst – NFL writer at Bleacher Report, Chicago based cook. Always trust someone in Chicago who can cook.
Fesser – The Gurgling Cod, bon vivant and cookbook editor. Also claims his chili recipe is the best chili recipe.
Albert Burneko – Deadspin’s Foodspin. The only person I know who can write 5K words on making macaroni and cheese.
Ted Berg – Ted Quarters, USA Today’s For the Win. Sandwich expert. Has very, very strong opinions on chili.
FILM CRIT HULK – Badass Digest. Well-regarded film and story critic, sports fan and excellent cook.
Dan Pashman - The Sporkful Podcast, Cooking Channel, Giants fan. Love his motto, “It’s not for foodies, it’s for eaters.”
Celebrity Hot Tub – Every Day Should Be Saturday/SBNation gadfly, well-regarded football weekend host.
Jeb Lund (Mobute) –  Contributor to Sports on Earth, The Classical, Deadspin, Esquire, GQ, The New Republic, SBNation, Theand Vice. Cooks and eats.
Chris Mueller – Radio Host, 93.7 The Fan Pittsburgh. Level-headed host, energetic home cook.

And Old James, RobotsFightingDinosaurs, Unsilent, Flubby and myself for KSK. RobotsFightingDinosaurs is our young bachelor cook, Old James is also a big home cook, we all know how much Unsilent loves to talk about food (I expect his chili recipe will involve a sous vide), and Flubby who is just straight up awesome.

Beans, Meat and Ratios

Sarah: So! First topic, may as well get into right away:

What type of chili do you like? Beef? Chicken? Is it okay to substitute ground turkey? Beans or no beans! With both beef and chicken chili, I always use beans, either black, cannellini or great northern beans. I’m not a fan of kidney beans in chili. They’re too big and they force out all the other ingredients on the spoon.

Flubby: Why not just get a bigger spoon? Problem solved.

Turkey chili, I suppose, is acceptable for infants and those in their dotage. That’s it though.

Unsilent: Oh god, we’re jumping right into the bean or no bean end of the pool? I like beef (big chunks) and have no problem embracing beans in my chili. I have no problem with kidney beans, in fact I’m using them in the short rib chili I’m making tomorrow. Get a bigger spoon, Sarah. This is what happens when you use a spoon that was carved from a slightly larger spoon.

RobotsFightingDinosaurs: If any of you are doubting my qualifications as a chef, don’t worry. I know my way around a kitchen. I made this.

For me, I make chili I’d like to eat, and while I do enjoy eating chili with beans and generally think they add a nice texture to chili (especially kidney beans– sorry, Sarah), I rarely add them to chilis I make. It’s an economical thing for me. Why would I add beans to this chili when I could simply add more of this delicious, delicious animal carcass that has been so lovingly prepared for me by my friendly neighborhood Jewel-Osco butcher?

In terms of types of meat, again, I’m not a picky eater, I’ll eat what’s in front of me, and I’m not really part of the ONLY CUBED MEAT MAFIA or whatever. I usually find that ground sirloin works best in chili– I like having the meat permeate the dish and almost dissolve into it. I’m less of a fan of chili that has cubed or shredded meat in it. Chili should be chili, and not stew.

Ted Berg: I don’t know that there’s any meat I’d shun on face. Beef is obviously better than turkey, but there’s lots of good turkey chili to be had. What’s confusing me, though, is why we’re all ignoring pork. It’s the best meat.

I tend to prefer diversity in my meats, and I like incorporating one ground meat and one that’s a little more substantial — cubes of chuck or pork chop, for example — for more interesting textures. I use beans in my own but I’m not about to push away a chili without beans, since obviously I’m here for the meat.

RobotsFightingDinosaurs: Wait, you people eat chili with spoons? What, are you too good to shove your face into a hot pot of chili and inhale, thereby eating chili as god intended?

Dan Pashman: Sarah’s concern is a valid one. It’s not just about fitting the beans on the spoon, it’s also about ratios of one chili ingredient to another. Chili involves lots of flavors coming together as one. If any one component is so much bigger than the others, your ratios will be a mess. Beans aren’t a must for me, but I prefer to have them. They offer textural contrast for the mouth and hearty satisfaction for the stomach.

Chicken is only acceptable if it’s a slow-cooked, dark meat situation, like if a really lame person wanted to make their own version of Jack’s short rib chili, where it gets tender and falls apart. If you use ground turkey it’s still chili, just chili that doesn’t taste as good. There’s just no substitute for beef. Besides maybe pork.

Rob Iracane: To me, the only true defining characteristic of a chili should be its chile pepper content. Does it or does it not contain SOMETHING that was RECENTLY a dried chile pepper, preferably with spice? Meat or no meat, beans or no beans, what is the provenance of your chile peppers? We have all been guilty of using sad, old grocery store chile powder in our sad, old chili which is a shame when good dried chiles are available all over nowadays. Ancho, pasillo, guajillo, what have you. Toast ‘em, seed ‘em, grind ‘em up.

Film Crit Hulk: HULK’S PROBLEM IS THAT HULK CAME TO CHILI LATER IN LIFE SO THERE IS NO ESTABLISHED INTEREST IN THE CLASSIC NORMS, NOR AS A COMFORT FOOD. BY THAT POINT, A CREOLE APPROACH WAS ALREADY IN THE BONES AND SO THAT DICTATED MUCH OF THIS. BUT THE SECOND THING IS THAT HULK WORRIES CHILI RECIPES ARE TOO COLORED BY THE CHILI-COOKOFF MENTALITY THAT REWARDS THE CONSISTENCY OF “A SINGLE BITE.” RESULTING IN SMALLER APPROXIMATIONS OF EACH INGREDIENT. BUT HULK’S ALL ABOUT HAVING “THE BIG, VARIED BOWL.” THE RESULT OF THESE TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT RESULTS IN HULK’S CHILI GOING: RED BEANS AND MEAT COMBO: BEEF, PORK, FENNEL SAUSAGE, AND BACON. (THAT’S THE BASE APPROACH AND WILL WAIT BEFORE GETTING INTO THE ACCENTS).

Ted Berg: Much like the Hulk, I use loose sausage meat in my chili. Also, I’m wearing skin-tight ripped purple jeans.

Michael Felder: I like a kidney bean, myself. As for the meat, I’m not much for the ground turkey. It’s good for others but I want no parts. I like to mix my meats. I like a little steak, some ground beef and a sausage to go into the mix, usually andouille. Weird? Yeah. But I’ve got big spoons at my house and we like to meat it up.

RobotsFightingDinosaurs: Oh my god Rob, you’re going to hate my recipe so much. I use *shudder* canned chipotles in adobo sauce.

Rob Iracane: Those are wonderful too! They have been preserved with care.

Unsilent: Canned chipotles are fine. Chipotle or any other powder is where I stick my nose up. Grind your own.

Ted Berg: I recently came into a huge thing of dried peppers so I imagine this will change soon, but I typically use chili powder from the spice rack. Judge away, fools. My chili tastes incredible, and I don’t need to use a food processor.

Stephanie Stradley: Though I guess I’m supposed to be anti-beans because I’m from Texas, I like a variety of chili as long as it is good. Beans are nice to bump up the nutritional value so provide the illusion that your chili is good for you.

Don’t sleep on venison chili. It’s either really good or really bad, but when it is good it is great. People get very inventive when they are trying to figure out to do with all the deer they shot.

Andrea Hangst: I always put beans in my chili though I’m often just like, “Damnit, Andrea, make some true Texas Red sometime, it’s going to be good.” The beans vary. Sometimes kidney, sometimes pinto, sometimes little pink or red beans (I have a lot of access to heavily-stocked Goya aisles so I like to mix it up with my beans). I never use black beans for whatever reason, even though they are my favorite bean.

One HORRIBLE and DELICIOUS thing I do is include two cans of regular rinsed, drained canned beans plus one can of the “chili beans” made by Bush’s that have chili spices in the bean liquid. I just use it to amp up all the spices I put in myself and help out the texture of the, well, not broth exactly but the.. whatever it’s called that the chili bits are swimming in. Sauce?

Sometimes I make this stupid and quick chili recipe that involves chicken but it barely counts as anything but a 20 minute dinner. I either use ground beef (I only go to my fancy butcher for ground beef anymore because they grind to order and you know the beef has all come from one cow) or, I get nice stew meat and cut it up even smaller because I don’t want like, giant cubes of beef in my chili. But nine times out of 10, I use ground beef. I’ve never used ground turkey in chili or in anything at all because I just think it’s wrong.

Unsilent: I have never used sausage in my chili, but god damn it I’m going to give it a try. I also love cubed or shredded pork shoulder, it’s just not in my regular rotation.

Jeb Lund: On Jan 24, 2014, at 4:46 PM, RobotsFightingDinosaurs wrote:

It’s an economical thing for me. Why would I add beans to this chili when I could simply add more of this delicious, delicious animal carcass that has been so lovingly prepared for me by my friendly neighborhood Jewel-Osco butcher?

See, this is the RobotsFightingDinosaurse argument I always think of, but from the other side. Stews and chilis—really, anything you put in a giant pot and cook until soft and until the flavors commingle—are basically peasant-staple food. It’s taking something that you might not eat on its own or might not really enjoy and trying to make it go a little further and stretch a budget. (Well, I mean, not now, sure, what with a mass email debate about chili being one of those first-world problems things.) So to me the idea of adding beans is just a totally practical thing. They’re vastly less expensive than sirloin or pork tenderloin or whatever, and it lets you take something delicious that you’ve made with all your meats and make it go further, healthily, and at low cost. If you don’t mind the expense, great, make a mostly meat chili. But I can’t get on my high horse about someone not wanting to spend another $8 on a pound of meat when they just want something hearty that will last through a couple nights of leftovers for a couple people.

Unsilent: If I’m planning ahead I always use dry beans. If it’s an impromptu thing I’ll reach for the canned ones.

Sarah: Listen, I’m not going to sit here in my own roundtable and listen to chicken be badmouthed in chili. A good white chicken chili when the meat has been properly charred before going into the pot with cheese, butter, white beans, milk, chili and corn is an excellent way for me to gain ten pounds in ten minutes, thank you very much.

Celebrity Hot Tub: This is all just warmup for the Great Toppings And Accompaniments Battle, right?

Did you get through all 10688 words of The Great Chili Super Bowl Roundtable of 2014 yesterday? Excellent. As many of you noted, it was quite an eye-opening discussion about chili for amateurs and chili veterans alike. To be honest, if we had the time we would have argued over toppings and heat for another ten thousand words.

But what’s the fun in debating when there is actual chili to be made for this weekend for the Super Bowl. The whole point of this exercise, for me at least, was to add more recipes and techniques to my chili repertoire. You guys have already seen my White Chicken Chili (Balls of Steel is my favorite Kommenter for saying my chili is better than Magary’s, as is everyone else who praised its glory), my Chicken Mole Chili Frito Pie, Poblano White Bean Chili, and even my vegan-friendly Lentil Beer Chili. What do other people do when they make chili? Why am I stuck making chicken and vegetable chili when I could be using so much more meat? Obviously I’m not worried about health, I posted a recipe for Chicken Fried Bacon last week. Was fear holding me back? Lack of recipes?

Well, that’s no longer a problem as I now have twelve new chili recipes to try. (Actually eleven, as I made Rob Iracane’s chili last weekend for the Pro Bowl to great success.)

Today we welcome back the majority yesterday’s panel of experts and their chili recipes; Willie’s Chili by Old James, RobotsFightingDinosaurs’s Chipotle Chocolate Stout Chili, Het Het Beef Chili con Carne with Meat from Fesser, Jeb Lund’s “Is Lorde Problematic?” Chili, Albert Burneko’s Red Chicken Chili, FILM CRIT HULK’S CHILI, Unsilent’s Great F*cking Chili, Andrea Hangst’s Standard American Chili, Stephanie’s (Mrs. Flubby) White Chicken Chili, Beef and Black Bean Chili perfected by Rob Iracane, Ted Berg’s Good Chili and lastly, Chris Mueller’s Polish Pistol Whip Chili.

So enough talking about chili, let’s actually make some chili this weekend for the Super Bowl.

Willie’s Chili By Old James

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound ground beef chuck
1 pound Italian sausage (spicy)
1 10 oz. tube of chorizo
2 28 oz. cans of diced tomatoes
3 15 oz. cans of chili beans (mild) – drained
1 15 oz. can of chili beans (hot/spicy) – leave in the spicy juice goodness
1 6 oz. can of tomato paste
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and chopped
1 dried chipotle chile, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon of bacon bits
4 beef bouillon cubes
½ cup of strongly brewed coffee
¼ cup of store bought chili powder*
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon liquid smoke
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons** hot pepper sauce***
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon bacon salt (optional, but certainly recommended if you have it)

Optional (but suggested):
Corn chips
Shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
Guacamole****

First, the disclaimers:

[EDIT - This chili powder recipe is via Alton Brown. This is  Old James telling of creating it it and adding it to his chili. - ss]

*Store bought chili powder is way easier. But it’s cheating. Plus, creating your own chili powder is one of the most fulfilling parts of the chili making process. I make the following, but if you go this route I HIGHLY recommend taking the dosage down to 2 tablespoons (instead of 1/4 cup), then adding to your chili as you see fit. Because it turns out arbol chiles are hot as fuck.

Also recommended if you’re slicing/seeding chiles: WEARING RUBBER GLOVES. I can’t stress this enough.

3 dried arbol chiles, seeded and sliced into strips
3 dried ancho chiles, seeded and sliced into strips
3 dried cascabel chiles, seeded and sliced into strips
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon dried oregano

Heat a pan to medium-high heat and throw in the sliced, seeded chiles and cumin seeds. Cook for about 5 minutes, tossing frequently, until it starts to smell a little like burnt chili. Pull off heat and let cool, then throw in a blender along with the garlic, paprika and oregano. Process until you’ve got a powder. Then DO NOT open the blender and take a huge whiff to see how spicy it is. It’s spicy. Just trust me.

**It’s hot sauce. Just grab your favorite kind(s) and wing it. You know how much you want.

***I use a combo of Frank’s, Tabasco and Cholula, if you wanna roll like Old James.

****WTF? Guacamole? ON CHILI? That’s right. Sounds crazy, but believe me: it’s glorious. If you don’t have guac, someone at your Super Bowl shindig will probably bring some. If possible, insist they make the homemade stuff. Dean’s sells a tub labeled “guacamole”, but I’m pretty sure it’s just expired tapioca pudding.

Got it? Good. Now let’s make some chili.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Dump all your meat in a large bowl, with the chopped jalapeños, sprinkle some salt and pepper on top (and maybe a little barbecue rub, which I do, since I’m from KC and don’t know any better) and mash it all together with your paws. You should be left with a big glob of meat. (Image 3, above) Cover, and put in the fridge for about an hour. This is a good time to make your chili powder. And your guac, if you’re ambitious. Or nap, if you’re lazy.
2. After the meat has marinated for about an hour, throw it all in a big pot over medium-high heat and brown until it’s good and crumbled. Drain. (Image 4, above)
3. Throw the cooked meat stuffs in a large crock pot. Pour in the diced tomatoes, drained beans, beans left in the sauce, and tomato paste. Stir it up a bit and set the crock pot to ‘hot’. Add the onion, chipotle chile, bacon bits, bouillon, coffee, chili powder, Worcestershire, liquid smoke, garlic, oregano, cumin, hot sauce, basil, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, sugar and bacon salt. Stir until everything’s good and mixed together, cover, and leave the crock pot on ‘hot’ for about an hour, but you’ll want to come back and check/stir every so often.
4. Taste your chili goodness. If it’s deemed acceptable, stir it up again and repeat the cook/stir process on ‘hot’ for another hour. If it isn’t spicy enough, or lacks the bold flavors you crave, add in more chili powder and hot sauce, or salt/pepper until you deem fit. Then cook/stir on ‘hot’ for another hour.
5. You’re done simmering. Turn crock pot down a notch or two, just enough to keep the chili warm during the game. Engage taste buds.
6. BOWL THAT SHIT. (Image 5, above)
7. Take a taste. Relish in your accomplishment. For you have created chili, and chili is good.
8. Add toppings (Fritos, cheese and guac). (Image 6, above)
9. Consume chili.
10. Consume more chili.
11. Die happy.
12. FYI non-bachelors you’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight.

SLS

It’s hard to believe we’re going into the eighth season of Foodball and the Football Foodie. You’d think I would have given up and moved to just ordering pizza every week or at least given one or two of my friends heart-attacks by now.

Nope. Still here, still watching football all day and stuffing myself silly because that’s what you get to do on Sundays as reward for eating bare salads, fruit and sautéed vegetables all week.

Football will always be fun no matter who you watch it with or what you snack on while watching the game, but it’s always so much more fun when you make football an event. As my friend Wanda once said to me, football is a miniature Thanksgiving every weekend to celebrate eating and just hanging out with family and friends under the guise of watching sports, either at a tailgate or in gentle glow of your own television in your own living room. Make the most of it, because you only get so much time to sit down and ignore the rest of the world in the name of relaxation and camaraderie.

Wait, relaxation? Who am I kidding? We stress-eat through these dishes because our favorite hobby is possibly one of the least relaxing parts of our lives. I see a bubble screen and suddenly an entire bag of potato chips has disappeared in the matter of seconds. Close game going into the fourth quarter? Who has a block of cheese handy? No. We need the snacks to reassure us no matter how the game ends, we’ll be just fine.

With the eighth season of Foodball there is one change. It will no longer be a weekly column, more like a “every few weeks” column. Will you be shortchanged on recipes? No, I would never do that to you, my intelligent, witty, beautiful readers. They’re all going to be super-sized posts crammed with enough recipes to keep you going for several Sundays.

Good? Good. Now enough with the yakety-yak and more with the food porn to inspire you this kickoff weekend. That is unless you’re trying to be inspired for the Jets-Raiders or the Washington-Houston games, which in that case, I suggest pounding SoCo and Drano as soon as you possibly can.

This week in your Super-Sized Foodball: Pineapple Blue Burgers, Smoky Hatch Chile Bacon Pimento Cheese, Hatch Chile Infused Vodka, Beer Battered Jalapeños and an amazingly spicy Middle Eastern dip, Muhammara.

To the recipes!

Pineapple Blue Burgers

It’s still really hot here in Los Angeles and we’re looking at it being in the mid-90s both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Because it’s going to be so hot, I cannot imagine I’m going to want to spend a ton of time cooking, even if it is for football.

In this heat, the simplicity of a great hamburger is what I’m in a the mood for. A grilled, juicy burger with tangy blue cheese to cut through the sweetness of pineapple, the softness of the cheese and meat tempered by a crunchy cole slaw and a chewy English muffin that soaks up every last bit of flavor. Want a little extra kick? Brush just a little bit of teriyaki sauce on the patty to caramelize on your burger over the flame.

My cole slaw recipe is pretty straight forward, same way my mom and my grandmother made it. You want the taste of the cabbage to come through, not be weighed down by too much sugar since the carrots already bring the sweet to the party. If you have your own preferred cole slaw recipe, by all means use it. Just don’t be afraid to put it on your hamburger.

Don’t like hamburgers? (COMMIE AND PROBABLY A COLTS FAN.) This method makes an excellent grilled chicken sandwich.

You will need:

Cole Slaw

1/2 small head of red cabbage, cored and shredded to desired texture
1/2 small head of green cabbage, cored and shredded to desired texture
3-4 carrots, peeled and shredded
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon kosher salt (to taste)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

If desired, you can toss in some extra ground mustard or Dijon mustard in the dressing for extra tartness. If you like a little more crunch in your cole slaw, add a shredded bell pepper.

On large bowl, toss together the shredded cabbage and carrots. In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, celery seeds, mustard seeds, sugar, salt and pepper. Let the cole slaw dressing rest for a couple of minutes and taste for seasoning and adjust to taste. Toss the cabbage and carrot mixture with the dressing until lightly coated and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

Pineapple Blue Burgers

1/4 ground beef per patty, preferably a 20-28% fat ground chuck
Freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt to taste
1/2-1 ounce mild blue cheese per patty, either thinly sliced or crumbled
Fresh pineapple, cored and sliced
English muffins
Teriyaki sauce (optional)

Gently form each individual patty by hand, seasoning the beef with a generous amount of kosher salt and pepper as you go. If using teriyaki sauce, just use a light brushing of it on each side of the patty.

Over a very hot grill, cook each patty a couple of minutes on each side to desired wellness and remove from the heat, adding the cheese to each patty about a minute or two before removing from the heat.

Since each grill is different, each person’s relationship with their grill different, each fire different, I don’t dare give exact recommendations on how many times to flip your burger and when. I will tell you I am a one-flip and one-flip only, Vasili griller. I prefer removing when on the rarer side and covering with foil so it can steam a little longer while cooking to a nice medium rare to medium. If it cooks a little too long? Well, this is why you use a high-fat blend in the first place over the fire, so you don’t accidentally end up with hockey pucks.

Once you pulled the burgers off the grill, grill the pineapple slices for a minute or two on each side while the English muffins can be toasted split open, face down.

Stack a burger on the English muffin, add a slice or two of grilled pineapple and top with a small amount of cole slaw and serve.

Smoky Hatch Chile Bacon Pimento Cheese

Is this recipe very similar to my chipotle pimento cheese? Absolutely, but Hatch chiles give this pimento cheese a completely different profile. Both are a smoky pepper, but Hatch chiles match so well with the bacon, I’m pretty annoyed I didn’t have the idea to switch up my pimento cheese until this summer, as are pretty much all of my friends who I have served it to over the past few weeks.

You will need:

8 ounces (1/2 pound) bacon
8 ounces (1/2 pound) smoked cheddar, grated
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
8 ounces mayonnaise, preferably Dukes
3-4 roasted Hatch chiles, stems removed and coarsely chopped
Salt and pepper (1/2 – 1 teaspoon each, optional)
1-2 scallions, chopped

If you don’t have Hatch chiles readily available, you can use Anaheim or canned chiles.

Chop and gently cook the bacon over low heat until crispy then drain and cool. While the bacon is cooking, grate the cheese and combine with the softened cream cheese and mayonnaise. Fold the chopped Hatch chiles into the cheese mixture and once combined, gently fold in the cooled bacon. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if desired. Top with scallions and refrigerate for at least an hour to let the favor develop.

Pimento cheese can be offered either chilled or warm. Just gently bake the pimento cheese in a shallow gratin dish at 325º for 15 minutes until melted. Serve with crostini, crackers, vegetables or even use as a filling in a sandwich on toasted bread.

Hatch Chile Infused Vodka

Anyone who follows my Twitter account know that I haven’t been able to shut up about Hatch chiles this pepper season. (This is different than my usual not being able to shut up about anything because it’s about chiles and not say, Ben Affleck’s terrible accent in RUNNER, RUNNER or yelling about anti-vaxxers.) For breakfast I’m putting Hatch chiles in my scrambled eggs and my cottage cheese, for lunch I’m putting Hatch chiles on turkey sandwiches, for dinner I’m tossing them on chicken tacos, burgers and salads. Hatch. Hatch. Hatch.

So it was on Twitter that a reader named Rick suggest I try infusing my vodka with Hatch chiles. He and his wife have done it for years to give their bloody marys an extra kick. I’d infused vodka with fruit before, so why not try it with Hatch chiles?

The results were amazing, better than any pepper infused or flavored vodka I had tried to date. Hatch chiles have a real floral element to them and when pared with vodka, the fruity element of the chile really sings. You don’t even need to wait to put it in your breakfast cocktail, serve chilled over ice and it is great sipping spirit. If drinking straight vodka isn’t your idea of a good time, I’ve used it in place tequila in a margarita, in a vesper and in lemon drops.

You will need:

1 750 ml bottle of good vodka
3-4 roasted Hatch chiles, mild ones make for a better spirit but you can also you hot
A large canning jar

Do not think you can get away with using a cheap vodka. My first batch was made with Skyy and while the vodka was okay, heat from both the chiles and the vodka really didn’t make for a good drink. Subsequent batches made with Tito’s have been much, much smoother.

Combine the vodka and the chiles in a jar and let set at room temperate for at least 24 hours and up to a week, the longer you let the chiles infuse the spicier and smokier the vodka gets. In the batches I’ve made, 24-36 hours seems to be the sweet spot of getting the balance just right.

Once you’ve got the chile taste to where you want it, strain out the Hatch chiles using a clean cheesecloth into a large liquid measuring cup or a bowl. Squeeze the last of the vodka from the peppers and pour back into your jar. Cut off a few slices of pepper and put them back in the jar for decoration and refrigerate before serving. Do not freeze as infused vodkas will freeze nearly-solid.

Beer Battered Jalapeños

If you don’t have access to this year’s bounty of Hatch chiles it doesn’t mean you have to do without something spicy this season. My garden is overgrowing with jalapeños and frying them up for a game time snack is a great way to have the spicy bite without having to go through all the hassle of making Jalapeños Stuffed with Chorizo and Corn Bread, Jalapeño Crisps, or something as heavy as my Smoky Habanero Jalapeño Popper Bread.

You will need:

12-20 ounces of pilsner beer, preferably highly carbonated variety like Miller High Life or Iron City for a light batter
2 cups of all-purpose flour sifted for the batter, plus 1/2 to a 3/4 cup of flour for dredging
2-3 teaspoons garlic powder, plus a dash more for the flour dredge
1-2 teaspoons kosher salt for the batter, plus a little more for dredging
1-2 teaspoons ground pepper, plus a little more dredging
2-3 cups sliced jalapeños, preferably fresh but you can used drained pickled jalapeños
1 cup buttermilk
Oil for frying
Scallions or chives for garnish

Ranch dressing or sriracha-style hot sauce for serving.

Want to make the batter spicy too? Add in some chili power or ground cayenne. Another way to control the heat is by removing the seeds from jalapeño rings.

Mix together 2 cups sifted flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a medium sized bowl. Whisk in the cold beer a few ounces at a time until all the flour lumps are broken down and then stir in the rest of the beer until the batter reaches the desired consistency. It should be thick, but not so thick and heavy it doesn’t drizzle off your whisk or spoon. It usually takes between 12-20 ounces of beer to reach this stage, depending on your flour.

Cover with plastic wrap and let the batter rest in the fridge for at least 30 to 45 minutes, up to a few hours. In my experience over the years of frying nearly everything in my kitchen, a cold beer batter fries better than a warm beer batter. You get a puffier and chewier bite which is important when you’re frying such a small pepper.

While your beer batter is setting up in the fridge, get your dredging plate of flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder readying. Why season your flour? Because typically you want your seasoning to carry through every layer and step of the way.

In a medium-sized bowl, coat your jalapeno rings with buttermilk and let sit for at least 15 minutes.

Once ready to fry, heat about an inch of oil in a large frying pan to 350º (a pinch of flour should immediately sizzle when you drop it into hot oil), or if you happen to have one, use your deep fryer.

When your oil is ready, start frying. Pull the sliced jalapeños a few at a time out of the buttermilk and shake off the extra liquid. Dredge in flour and then drop into your beer batter. Do this until you have the number of jalapeños you want per small batch and then fry.

Why cook in small batches? Remember the first rule of frying is to keep your oil as hot as possible, and a crowded pan means cold oil and soggy, grease-soaked food. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side. The batter should puff up and turn a nice golden brown.

Drain on a paper towel-lined pan in a warm 200º-250º oven while you finish frying the rest of the jalapeños. Garnish with chopped scallions or chives and serve with ranch dressing or sriracha.

Have some extra beer batter left? That’s when you also fry up some okra to take the edge off eating just jalapeños.

Muhammara

This is a sneaky dip. I’m not talking sneaky like the Seahawks running the Auburn offense against the Packers, I’m talking sneaky like the Seahawks running a flea flicker against the Bills. It doesn’t seem like this dip should be so spicy, but ground Aleppo pepper has a front of the tongue heat the builds the more of it you eat, but at the same time has this great fruity taste to it. Much like how I feel about za’atar, once you start using the spice you won’t be able to stop putting it nearly everything you make.

It’s also much meatier than your normal dip, even more so than hummus, thanks to walnuts and panko bread crumbs filling out the mixture. Pomegranate molasses play sweet to the Aleppo’s spicy, lemon and sumac brighten everything up, and garlic gives the dip the right depth.

You will need:

16-19 ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained
1 cup bread crumbs, preferably panko-style
1 cup walnuts
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 teaspoons pomegranate molasses, to taste
1-2 teaspoons kosher salt (to taste)
1-2 tablespoons ground Aleppo pepper, depending on desired heat
2-3 teaspoons ground sumac (optional, but if you don’t use it )
Juice from 1/2 a lemon, about 1-2 tablespoons
1/4-2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, depending on desired consistency
Pita chips for serving

Don’t have a local Middle Eastern market or a grocery store that carries such items? Alton Brown has a good pomegranate molasses recipe (and you’ll want it for much more than this dip) and you should be able to find Aleppo and sumac at most good spice markets. Still can’t find it? Substitute about a tablespoon of red chili flakes in place of the Aleppo and add a little more lemon in place of the sumac.

Toast the walnuts in a 325º for about 10-15 minutes and then roughly chop once cooled.

In a food processor or blender, chop together the drained peppers, chopped walnuts, minced garlic, pomegranate molasses, salt, ground Aleppo and sumac. Once you’ve got a nice thick paste, blend in the panko. Blend in the lemon juice and then slowly add olive oil while mixing until you reach your desired dip consistency.

Serve with pita chips. And yes, it’s a much better bargain to make your pita chips. Just simply brush or spray with olive oil, kosher salt and ground oregano — add lemon zest if you really want to be fancy — and toast for 3-5 minutes on each side in a 350º oven.

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  a while, 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.

We’re coming into the unfortunate part of the football season when two things start happening that cause the average football fan to stop putting their full effort into Sundays; holiday obligations and their favorite team being eliminated from playoff contention.

Neither of these things are good excuses for not putting forth at least a little bit of an effort. You still have fantasy playoffs to manage, you still have to hope your team shows some sign of life, you should still have something spicy, fatty and carb-y to go with your beer.

Smoked Cheddar Jalapeño Crisps

This is a combination of two previous recipes I’ve posted for the Football Foodie, Smoky Habanero Jalapeño Popper Bread and Parmesan Crisps. Smoked cheddar and jalapeños go together like Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, the perfect match of heat and savory. Crisps are something you can prepare ahead of time and without much effort, like working on a game plan against the Texans. Similes are a writer’s lazy tool, like Albert Haynesworth.

You will need:

1 stick (8 tablespoons unsalted butter), softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cup flour
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp salt
3 jalapeños, seeded and minced (about 3/4 cup)
1 scallion including white section, chopped
6 ounces extra sharp cheddar, shredded
3 ounces smoked cheddar, shredded
Flour

Blend together the butter, salt and flour with a pastry blender (or cut together with two knives) until your ingredients have a sandy texture. Using your hands, mix in the cheeses and egg yolks, then the chopped jalapeños and green onion, crumbling with fingers as you go to evenly mix everything together.

Once all the ingredients are fully incorporated, form into two large balls. Roll each ball out onto a log on a lightly floured board or clean counter and then wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate for an hour or two, then slice into 1/4 inch pieces.

Don’t worry, I know it doesn’t look like much dough, but you’re still going to get a ton of crisps out of this batch.

In a 350º oven, bake on lined cookie sheets for 15-20 minutes, until the crisps are golden. Cool completely and then serve.

You can make these crisps a day ahead of time and either store in an air-tight container or make the dough and the refrigerate in both wax paper and plastic wrap before baking. As I said, minimal planning.

Now if we could only figure out what would be the least amount of planning for Raiders-Jets or Bucs-Bills with stooping to just opening a bag of Bugles, bleach and despair.

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.

In last week’s Foodball, Smoked Cheddar Jalapeño Crisps, we discussed how important it is to still make an effort for these rough few weeks of the football season. Sure, anyone can care about the buffet they make for September tailgating and the playoffs, but a true fan still puts in the time to make a dip in the dead of December. If you’re going to watch Washington-Atlanta or Buffalo-Jacksonville, you may as well have a good snack to offset your suffering.

But because it’s the middle of December, we’re also in peak cookie and candy season. You need a dip that’s tasty but not too heavy. White beans? High in fiber and iron with a pretty respectable amount of calcium. Greek yogurt packs protein, vitamin B12 and even more calcium. A dip that is rich without being too heavy, because you want to leave room for cookies.

Zesty Za’atar White Bean Dip

I’ve already sung the praises of za’atar earlier this season when I posted the recipe for Grilled Za’atar Chicken Pitas, and I wanted to give everyone a second recipe to use the beautifully earthy, smoky spice mixture in so you didn’t feel bought all this za’atar then didn’t know what else to do with it. I hate when a recipe calls for say, machalepi or fenugreek but then doesn’t suggest what else I could use those ingredients in. After I posted how to make Chicken Tikka Masala Wraps, I posted a recipe for Garam Masala Dip to inspire readers to find their own ways to use up the rest of their garam masala. So if you ever see me list an ingredient you don’t think you will use often, especially an unusual or expensive item, don’t hesitate to ask me what else you can put it in while creating in your own kitchen.

Unless you’re Tony Dungy. That Sunday night secret ingredient nonsense gives us nothing but leftover Peyton Manning, which frankly is pretty bland. This dip’s secret ingredient is peperoncini. Gives you a little extra kick (unlike Vanderjagt).

You will need:

15 ounces white beans, drained
7 ounces plain Greek yogurt, approximately 1 cup (low fat or fat free works fine)
2 tablespoons za’atar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup kalamata olives, drained and roughly chopped
1/2 cup sliced peperoncini, drained and roughly chopped

Pita chips, tortilla chips or crudités for serving

In a food processor or a blender, puree together the white beans, Greek yogurt, za’atar, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Once at the desired consistency, remove the mixture from the food processor and put in a bowl. Fold in the chopped peperoncini and olives until throughly combined. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Serve with your favorite dipping item. Personally, I like multigrain tortilla chips with this dip, but baked pita chips seasoned with even more za’atar are excellent with this savory dip.

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.