Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. As always we are hosting a party for three; me, Michael and our dog Tucker. This is a real crowd compared to the parties we had before adopting Tucker. Apparently we have no friends. It must be Michael’s fault. I remember having friends before I met Michael. Wait a minute, I still have Susan but she hates sports and she has shingles. Feel better Susan! I have Kelly but she’s a “chicken friend,” as in raising chickens, not coming over and eating wings with me. She’s probably splitting wood tomorrow anyway. Granddaughter Emily is between boyfriends so she could have come up had she not changed her phone number today and not given us the new one. Amanda just got her driver’s license, she’s sixteen, and she loves the 49er’s, so she’s out. The neighbors don’t like us because we have roosters. I’m not eating chicken wings with those people! My parents could come watch the game with us but they hate football and they’ll be in bed by the time the game starts anyway. So it will just be the three of us.
I am not nearly as excited about the Super Bowl this year as I was last year, Let’s just say the San Francisco 49er’s lost to the Seattle Seahawks in the playoffs, so turn off the lights, the party’s over, except for the food. I still love football food. Since I won’t be too concerned about missing a play or two, or an entire quarter for that matter, I have come up with a personal Super Bowl challenge to keep myself entertained.
I have decided to attempt to cook, photograph, and serve one dish during each quarter of the game. This should be panic-inducing, but if you watch football, you know that a quarter of an hour is not 15 minutes! It can be as long as an hour if half-time is involved. I do wish I had thought of this sooner. I would have made different recipe choices. I am going to have to cheat a bit to pull this off. I planned on pulled pork sliders and that can’t be done, even in football minutes. So, when I get up in the morning, the pork shoulder will go into the slow cooker. I also needed two sauces, one requiring an hour of cooking time and the other two hours. That wouldn’t work either, so I made those ahead tonight. The game doesn’t start until 3:30 p.m. so I have time for last-minute changes and grocery store runs. As of this writing, I am planning to make the following:
1.) Pulled Pork Sliders with Blood Orange BBQ sauce for me and Homemade Teriyaki Sauce for Michael
2.) Rumaki, a skewer of chicken liver, scallion, and water chestnut, wrapped in bacon and broiled. It’s retro. I may also prepare Chicken Liver And Sweet Onion Crostini if time allows. Don’t be hatin’ the chicken livers. Remember, they’re retro.
3.) Ultimate Crab Cakes with Chili Aioli
4.) Chicken Wings, two ways, Buffalo Sauce for me and Asian Style for Michael
This menu is subject to change. For example, if leave the raw chicken wings in the trunk of my car overnight, wings are off the menu. If I drop something on the floor, possible game changer. This is only a problem if there’s a witness or whatever I dropped on the floor was meant for me. Michael will never know the difference. 🙂 Also, if I don’t clean up the mess I already made, I’ll have to resort to outdoor grilling. The pot on the right is teriyaki and the one in the middle is blood orange BBQ sauce. The rest is collateral damage.
In this picture, the teriyaki is on the left. 🙂
I have to say without even putting it on something, the Blood Orange BBQ sauce is really good! It has really nice flavor without being too hot. It would be wonderful with fried mozzarella sticks in place of marinara sauce, just not tomorrow.
Have a great Super Bowl and please check back to see how I do. Go Niners!
SUNDAY UPDATE: I should have kept my mouth shut about something coming up to change my plans. I went out at dawn to feed the animals and found a huge fight going on in the emu/goat pasture. My female fainting goat was trying to mate my male emu. I’ll give you a minute to re-read that last sentence. OK, Laverne had Stuart in a run, head butted him to the ground and tried to have her way with him. Soon, Stuart’s girlfriend Loca got into the fray and it was on! I tried to break it up and almost got hurt. Jack and Diane freaked out and Jack kicked the fence. It was a mess. I finally realized that separating the love birds was the only way to keep everyone safe. I ended up erecting temporary fencing and moving the goats. Laverne broke through the permanent fence and got back in with Stuart. The entire mess kept me outside in the cold for nearly three hours.
Things have settled down and I am ready to get in the kitchen. After this commercial, the first quarter of the game begins and I start my challenge. I’ll see you before the second quarter in the next post.