More Bowl Game Food

I'm always looking for an excuse to make food for an occasion and there's no better a reason for me than football.  For me, bowl games provide a much needed opportunity to think creatively in the kitchen.  This year, however, BYU played in the Miami Beach Bowl at noon my time.  Not exactly the ideal time to whip up something special.  After realizing I couldn't combine the bowl game with a nice Christmas dinner, I had to change my line of thinking; quickly!  I eventually landed on the idea of doing bagged lunches.

THE MENU:

Turkey, Bacon, Avocado sandwich

Cucumber and pepper salad

Chips

Soda

Black bottom strawberry parfait

First into the bags were the salads.  I actually had my mom make them because she's the one who first introduced me to this salad.  It's super easy and super tasty.

It's basically a mix of sliced cucumbers and bell peppers tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar with feta cheese mixed in.  Again, it's amazingly simple and the flavors blend beautifully.  Around here we love it as an everyday side dish and it makes a perfect item for any potluck gathering.

After my mom made the salad I put dished it into smaller containers to be put into the bags.  These little containers are the perfect size and for $1 per 4-pack they're pretty irresistible.

Next up were the desserts.  I made a black bottom strawberry and whipped cream parfait.  It would have been easier if I had picked up ready-made whipped cream at the store, but I prefer home made whipped cream.  I also used hot fudge sauce on the bottom of the parfait and as a little embellishment on top.

On a snowy December day I was amazed at the freshness of the strawberries I was able to find.  These beauties made me feel like it was a warm Summer day and made me forget for a minute about the howling wind and falling snow outside.

No bagged lunch would be complete without chips.  Ideally, I would have made the chips from scratch, but I ran out of time and ended up just grabbing an assortment of bagged chips from the store.

Next up were the sandwiches.  I wanted to get mini baguettes at the store, but they didn't have any so I ended up with ciabatta bread.  It ended up working out well and the sandwiches tasted amazing!  I got some hickory smoked peppered turkey from my local deli and used provolone cheese.  I also used pre-cooked bacon.  Lettuce, tomato, avocado and sprouts topped the sandwiches.

After finishing the sandwich, I wrapped it in wax paper and added a BYU label before putting it in the bag.

Once the sandwich was in the bag, I used BYU napkins to wrap up a set of silverware and attached them to the bag using baker's twine.

The silverware, bags, plastic tumblers (what the dessert is in), and the salad containers all came from the dollar store.  The rest of the other items (wax paper, labels, baker's twine, etc.) I already had around the house making it a relatively cheap food experience.

Once the bags were finished I let everyone choose their drinks and they were able to enjoy their lunches and the game!

Rivalry Week

With rivalry week approaching quickly I'm looking forward to enjoying passion-filled, heart-racing, and adrenaline-pumping football.  But one thing I love almost as much as a good game, is preparing a great game-day menu.  My BYU Cougars played their rival in September, for which I prepared quite the smorgasbord.  I thought I'd share some of the highlights here for anyone else who loves game food as much as I do.

Somehow the evening took on an Italian flair, so we started with an array of anti-pasti dishes; meats, cheeses, tomatoes tossed in olive oil and fresh basil, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, pickled asparagus spears, roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, and breads to dip in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Most of these items were picked up at Costco, while the others were purchased at our local grocery store.

After the appetizers had been enjoyed sufficiently, we had fun creating personalized strombolis.  Unfortunately, we were having so much fun I forgot to snap a picture. :(  Using typical pizza ingredients, and dough purchased from the grocery store, everyone was able to make a stromboli filled with their favorite toppings.  While researching stromboli recipes, I found this one to be the most helpful.

To continue the Italian theme, Italian sodas were served as drinks.  I was adamantly opposed to using anything red during dinner, but most of the yummy-flavored syrups are red, so I caved just once.  We offered strawberry, raspberry, coconut, or any combination of the three as flavors for the drinks.  My mom thought using the small cups would make it feel more special, but it also made it much more of a pain to keep quenching everyone's thirst.  We used 10 oz cups although the recipe called for using 16 oz of fluids.  The modified recipe worked well, but next time I would prefer to use the larger cups.  These recipes are the best I was able to find.

Although it didn't fit the theme of the night, I came across this recipe and couldn't resist.  The original recipe calls for using jimmies, but I thought tinting shredded coconut would give a similar look but would taste a bit better.  My brother, though, doesn't like coconut and convinced me to use a different color of frosting for the end zones and to use regular sugar sprinkles.  I wanted to use blue colored gummies for BYU players and red colored gummies for Utah players, and I was lucky enough to find gummies called "Evil Twins", which come in a variety of colors.  I also wanted my players to be more active than the players shown on the original picture, so I arranged a Utah fumble forced by Kyle Van Noy and recovered by BYU.  The pocky stick goal posts suggested in the original recipe worked well, but they slipped off the tray when pulling them out of the freezer and broke on the ground so we decided to do without them.  

The one thing that helped me get over BYUs loss that night was this amazing Oreo pizza.  A few weeks before the game, my cousin told me about a pizza place by her house that serves Oreo pizza.  She had me at Oreo and I dragged her out that night to eat it.  After studying it thoroughly I figured I could probably re-create it home.  It wasn't quite the same, but it was pretty dang close.  To ensure I was on the right track, I searched for Oreo pizza recipes and found this one that confirmed my thought process and will hopefully help you if you decide to make it.  The one thing missing from this recipe is how to make the icing.  Those directions can be found here.

I hope this helps you when you're planning your game-day menus.  I know for my family the food is almost as important as the game itself.