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!

Super Bowl Food!

This post is almost as super late as the bowl itself is super...That was a bit of a stretch, yeah?  Bottom line-I know it's late, but I wanted to still get this up.  So here it is.  The big game is often tricky for our family because we have to figure out how to make and serve dinner before kick off while still attending church.  This year church let out at 4:00 pm, giving us exactly 25 minutes to get home and get served.  So anything that could be made ahead of time, or cooked while we were attending services was on the menu.  

I first decided to build the menu around slow cooker pulled pork.  

The recipe for this can be found here.  It's a sweet pulled pork and has lots of steps, but is so worth it.  The recipe calls for a bone-in piece of meat, but we found boneless cuts at Costco so we used that instead and increased the recipe by 1 1/2.

The pulled pork recipe also calls for serving the meat on hamburger buns, but we thought the pretzel rolls (also from Costco) would compliment the sweetness of the meat nicely.  We were right. :) But we also provided regular steak rolls (from Wal-Mart).

You can't have barbecue without some baked beans and mac and cheese.  The baked beans simmered in a smaller crock pot while we were at church, then I added some brown sugar and bacon pieces (from Costco) to the top before broiling for a few extra minutes.

The mac and cheese was prepared using a basic roux with some cheddar jack cheese melted into it.  The macaroni was cooked, the cheesy roux poured over it, then sharp cheddar cheese and bacon pieces (the same as the ones used in the baked beans) then broiled in the oven for a few minutes.

As you can see, it was quite a hit, with most of it getting eaten before I could get a picture.  I also sliced some green onions for anyone who wanted to put them on the macaroni.  They were an excellent addition.

Not to forget that this should be a somewhat balanced meal, a veggie tray (yes, from Costco) was also put out.

For dessert I wanted to do something that would show my allegiance to the Seahawks.  All right, I'm not really a Seattle fan, I'm just really not a Broncos fan.  But I thought, what better way to celebrate Seattle's road to the Super Bowl than to pay homage to Seahawk's Running Back Marshawn Lynch?  Thus, I give you a Skittles cake.

And the Skittles theme continues on the inside.

All in all the food was great, and was much appreciated by everyone at our Super Bowl party!