A big meal for the big game!

A few weeks ago my mom realized that she had forgotten to serve the sparkling cider on New Year's Eve that we had left over from Christmas.  She wondered aloud when we should serve them and I suggested the Super Bowl.  Little did I know that that one decision would become the basis for my entire menu.

I wanted to make something that was a bit fancier than I had made in the past and I ended up making three appetizers, a beef roulade, three sides and a dessert.  One might say that I got a bit carried away.

For my appetizers I made Philly cheese steak stuffed mushrooms, stuffed jalapenos, and ham and cheese roll ups.  My parents and one of my brothers are on a pretty low-carb diet, so I try to make things that they are able to eat, which helped me decide on these low-carb appetizers.  

The recipe I used for the stuffed mushrooms can be found here.  Everyone loved them!  I wanted them to be bite-sized so I used the baby portabella option that she outlines in her recipe.  One thing that I found to be helpful was to put the mushroom caps in a mini muffin pan to fill and broil them.  

I sprayed the pan with some non-stick spray before putting the mushroom caps in and they came out SO EASILY!  It was great.  

The recipe for the stuffed jalapenos comes from this great blog.  I've used some of her recipes before.  Everything of hers that I've made has been well-loved by everyone and consistently gets rave reviews.  The stuffed jalapenos were no different.  They were the first to be finished off and with good reason; they're absolutely delicious!

The final appetizer was super simple, but also super yummy.  I took slices of Canadian bacon that we had on hand and spread each slice with cream cheese.  I then put a baby dill pickle in the middle and wrapped the Canadian bacon around it and secured it with an olive speared with a toothpick.

   The main course consisted of a beef roulade made from a flank steak and pesto.  It was delicious.  I wasn't sure how it would be without a marinade, but the oil in the pesto filled the pores of the meat nicely and gave a beautiful and tender meat.  So delicious.  The recipe for the roulade (including the pesto) can be found here.

(Yes, that is bacon inside the roulade. YUM!)

When I was trying to think of a side dish, I wanted to do something simple because the other dishes were pretty complicated.  My first thought was to steam some asparagus, but then my sister informed me that she doesn't really like asparagus.  So in addition to the asparagus I got a salad kit just for her.  I also wanted to make some mashed potatoes and I found this great recipe online!  The potatoes turned out a bit chunkier than I would have liked, but they were still scrumptious.

I then decided it would be the perfect time to make my favorite dessert. This banana cream pie is one of my favorite go-tos for impressing people.  It takes quit a bit of time and preparation, but it's SO worth it!  There are many layers of flavor in this pie and each one works beautifully with the others.