Top 10 Super Bowl Recipes

While considering the Super Bowl party I'm not having, I started thinking about all the great appetizer-type dishes that make these parties fun for those of us who aren't such big football fans. There are the classics, of course, and the misadventures (usually in the form of a seven-layer-bean-dip) - but good food always makes a good party. 

Pot Roast

OK - so I have never made Pot Roast before, and always wanted to.  When I got a new enamel cast iron dutch oven (cuisinart - on sale TJMaxx), I decided to give it a try.  Any covered pot will work - metal, cast iron, or glass.  I bought my roast at my local butcher, and it was already trimmed of fat, and tied.   If you buy it at supermarket, trim off excess fat with a sharp knife, and tie the roast together with twine - 2 pieces of twine, in order to keep the cooking more even. This is yet another easy one-pot dish...although I did make mashed potatoes and string beans separately.   

- 1 boneless rump roast or chuck roast - approx 3 ~ 3 1/2 lbs

- olive oil

- salt/pepper

- 1 large yellow onion (sliced), 1 package baby bell mushrooms (sliced), 2 large carrots (cut up), 4 cloves of garlic (whole)

- water

Take the roast out of fridge 1 hour beforehand.  Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.  Heat up 3 tbsp olive oil in dutch oven on the stove top.  Get this HOT!   Sprinkle the roast with (kosher) salt and pepper.   Sear the roast in the pot, getting all sides a nice brown color - approx 4 to 5 minutes per side....including the ends, if it is shaped like a log.   Remove roast from pot and set aside.   Add all the vegetables to the pot, and let them caramelize - approx 10 ~ 15 minutes.   Then, add the roast back to the pot, on top of the veggies. Fill pot with water, about halfway up the roast.  Cover and put in oven for 3 hours.   

Once done, carefully (meat is very tender and will fall apart) remove the roast and let rest on plate, tent a piece of alum foil over it.   With slotted spoon, remove veggies and set aside.  The makings for gravy are left - heat over burner....add a little bit (1 tbsp) of flour and whisk together, to thicken it up....and add more stock (or even a little bit of red wine) if there is not enough gravy for everyone.  Feel free to add any other spices/herbs that you like - for example - more cracked pepper and thyme.   Put everything together on a big plate for the table - the roast, veggies, gravy, and serve.  

 

Roasted Garlic Bean Dip

So I'm standing on line at the grocery store, and I'm next. There are several people behind me with loaded carts and I notice I have a voice mail. It's from my wife. She's asking me to bring home some hummus. There's none in my cart but there's no way I'm abandoning my spot in line.

I'd be committing another 30 minutes for those mashed garbonzos and it's not that my wife isn't worth it, but I figured I could come up with a substitute when I got home. Here's what I improvised.

Meatballs with Soy-Mirin Glaze

My kids aren't the best eaters.

Well, let me clarify. The Big One is happy to try most things and has a broader palette (which mostly doesn't include vegetables), but the Little One has a diet whose entries you could count on one hand.

Wedged between the hot dogs and the chicken fingers are little meatballs that my wife get's from a local deli. He wants nothing to do with my Real Italian Meatballs, which is a point of contention and the reason I'll be taking him out of my will unless he changes his ways, but I figured I could at least try to replicate the golf-ball-sized spheres of beef he drools over whenever my wife returns from town. I tried once without much success, then a co-worker gave me a recipe, which I've based these on.

I'm pretty sure those deli meatballs use some kinds of canned beef gravy and I'm absolutely sure these are much better. As it turns out, the Little One thinks so, too.

Potato Latkes

The best thing about having married a Jewish woman isn't the gifilte fish.

My wife possesses many wonderful qualities but cooking isn't one of them. Bad cooks aren't born that way so I do my best to indulge her food cravings, the latest of which was potato latkes. I'd never made them before, so the recipe below is an amalgam of a few different recipes I researched online. 

Pork Chops with Hot and Sweet Peppers

Last night we went out with a few of the neighbors - sort of a holiday-couples-night-out. For me, the best part is that it was a good reason to send the kids to the in-laws for the weekend. Ahhh, sleep. And peace and quiet. And a clean house. I could keep going, but what I really wanted to say was that I ordered the house special, which inspired me to make something similar. Both were quite good.

Pasta - done risotto style!

  OK- so the basis for this recipe came from NYTimes dining section (12/2/09). You are cooking pasta slow, in a saute pan, with broth....similar to risotto. It is delicious, and an easy one-pan dinner. -3/4 (give or take) of a pound of small/medium size pasta - break up linguini if using it - 1 + 1/2 quart of stock (I used veggie stock, but any will do) - 1 package of mushrooms (slice these) - baby bell are great - small onion or 3 shallots - 2 garlic cloves - fresh parsley - fresh or frozen spinach (about 1 cup, or more) - pine nuts - toasted in dry pan (optional) - olive oil - Parma or romano cheese for serving Chop shallots (or onion) into small pieces, and saute in 3tbsp olive oil (medium heat). Add garlic. Cook both for 3 to 5 min. Add mushrooms, and cook down about 10 minutes. Next, add the pasta, and 1/2 cup of water - let the pasta get coated with liquid - about 3 minutes. Add stock, 1 cup at a time. Cook and let it get absorbed, then continue adding stock, little by little, until pasta is al dente (approx 30 minutes). Add spinach during the last 5 minutes. Add pine nuts, if desired. Garnish with fresh parsley and Romano cheese.

Rigatoni with Sausage, Peas, and Tarragon

Each July we rent a beach house and my wife and kids spend the month frolicking in the sand and surf. Given that I'm trying to keep my day job, I'm able to spend weekends with them but during the week I'm home - working during the day and trying to figure out what to do with myself during the evenings.

Because I get home from work so late, there's usually not much time to cook anything exciting, and my dinner usually ends up being a beer and a burger at the local pub (while I watch the Yankees), or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at home.

I did manage to cook twice this July, however. Once it was a ribeye on the grill - and if you don't know yet, let your steak come to room temperature before putting it over the hot coals. The second time was this dish. It was inspired by nothing, really, other than a memory of tarragon and trying to figure out how I could get into my dinner that evening.

Tequila Lime Shrimp Recipe

In my younger years, a bottle of tequila might not hang around my kitchen for very long. But I've had this bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold sitting my my cupboard for a couple years now (longer?) and I figured it was time to do something with it. I couldn't really picture me and the wife lining up the shot glasses, what with the kids needing to be fed and all, so I inebriated some shrimp instead.

Chicken Soup with Dumplings

My mom used to make this soup - it is very easy, and delicious...my kids even love it.    I usually start by making a roasted chicken dinner one night for dinner (I am sure Tin Pig has a roasted chicken recipe here somewhere), and then making a stock with the leftover carcass.   Just put the leftover chicken carcass in a large stock pot, cover with water, and boil, slightly covered, for approx 2 hours. I then let it cool, and refrigerate.   The next day, you can skim off any fat solids, remove the chicken bones, and leave any of the meat in the stock.    This is the base for the soup.  It makes approx 3 quarts.

Soup:

3 quarts (give or take) Chicken Stock with chicken pieces (see above for recipe)

1 cup Chopped carrots

1+1/2 tsp salt

Fresh Parsley

Dumplings:

1 cup unbleached flour

1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup milk

Mix Soup ingredients above, and bring to medium-low boil.    In separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt together.   Add butter, and mix it in with a fork.   Add milk all at once, and stir quickly, and as little as possible, until everything is moistened.   Drop rounded spoonfuls of dumpling dough onto the boiling soup.   Let simmer for 10 minutes uncovered, then cover, and let simmer for another 10 minutes. Enjoy.