Super Bowl

Ham and Blue Cheese Spread for Game Day

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One day it’s brats and beers on the sweltering deck. The next you’re turning on the heat along with the tv and searching for game day snacks. (Which still could be brats and beers.) It doesn’t seem as if that would be possible, but in Colorado, it often is. We could see just such a weather change several times over the course of any September. But there’s always one metamorphic day when our whole world definitely changes from summer to fall and that’s when “the mountain” (better known to the rest of the world as Pike’s Peak) looks like Brigadoon from my front yard:

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BAKE A HAM FOR SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

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Super Bowl LV week has arrived in all its glory and, despite the American national religion of watching football not being one of my favorite ways to worship, I’m thinking this year might be different. During the nearly year of Covid-Life, we’ve missed a lot of our regular activities and that’s hurt; we’re shell-shocked across the board. But Super Bowl, the game’s yearly high holiday, will be mostly like it always has been. Not much has changed, hmmm? We’ll be at home gathered around the altar of the BIG TV. Cases of communion beer will be bought and stored in a cold garage; chili or pulled pork could be bubbling in the slow cooker to feed all who come; and tall bags of chips with deep vats of dips might triumphantly work to knock last month’s healthy New Year’s resolutions right into the gutter. There will, as always, be Monday morning hangovers for the Monday morning quarterbacks and, hard as it is to imagine, we’ll then soon be on to March Madness. But in the meantime, it’s life as usual and thank goodness! Even for the unenthused like me, it’s time to get ready for the game, prepare for the halftime show, and plan SUPER BOWL FOOD— everything from endless apps to favorite mains and football-shaped desserts! This year, I might even have a little bit different plan for that meal:

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Tequila White Chicken Chili

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LIke spicy? Add an extra jalapeño to the pot.

Next to my reading chair I typically keep a big, messy stack of books and magazines; sometimes the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES rests there until the next Sunday rolls around. In the pile are that month’s book club books (I try and keep up with three book clubs plus a cookbook club, though I often don’t succeed) along with another new one or two someone’s told me about or loaned me. If I’m really lucky, and I often am, I also keep a precious something I can read piecemeal, a tiny bit at a time when I need to get off my feet or have an extra 10 minutes before needing to stir a pot or leave for an appointment.

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Pizza Kebabs for The Big Game

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I looked on the blog for my work pizza kebab “recipe” the other day–thinking it would be great for Super Bowl snacks– and couldn’t find it. I had posted it on Facebook, but hadn’t blogged it. Perhaps because you might not really need a recipe for pizza kebabs. On the other hand, you might never have thought of them either.  I had to search out the photo, get the date, and save it to iPhoto as I hadn’t even kept it. A very sorry management practice!

For part of 2014 and nearly all of 2015, I worked as a Jenn-Air and Dacor chef, demonstrating and teaching cooking techniques at the local high-end appliance store.  It was mostly great fun and one of the things that most interested me was the need to invent quick attractive-to-the-masses recipes.

cropped-cropped-wp_20150429_008.jpgWhile I often teach a cooking class about pizza, I couldn’t figure out how to fit it into the time frame of my weekly demonstration. (And yes, in the class you do get to eat your work.  You also take dough home to try it out in your own kitchen. See below. I teach 1/2-sheet pan pizza-making. No special equipment needed. Feeds a bunch.) Continue reading →

Baked Chili on Tortilla Chips for Super Bowl–GO BRONCOS!!

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A replay of a favorite post, CHILI FRITO, for Super Bowl Sunday.  If you’d like the real-deal Chili Frito, substitute Fritos for the tortilla chips.

 GO BRONCOS!!!!

When Dave and I were in college, the cafeterias did their best to serve food that was wholesome and healthy (a salad bar appeared at student request), but that also made a teenager’s heart sing rather than sink.  As I spent a couple of years there cracking eggs–this is true–I know better than some.  Saturday nights were “steak nights,” and you seldom missed that meal, even if you had eaten all day long that day or were out at the lake at a kegger.   It was there I first heard the words London Broil or realized steaks could have sauces.  In the house where I grew up, good steak didn’t need sauce; it simply wasn’t done. (Groan.)  You wouldn’t ruin a gorgeous piece of midwest beef like that.  Looking back, of course the cafeteria steaks probably needed sauce.  The rarely-seen (ha) summer ribeye at home was fine with only a bit of garlic salt with pepper and a nice big crunchy salad right out of my Dad’s garden.  Mayonnaise was the dressing of choice.

This is Lincoln Hall.  I lived in Washington, it’s nearby exact twin. Continue reading →