Glorious victorious game food

Sure, the Jaguars are better than they were last year, particularly on defense, and a lot of sports-type people are picking them to win their division, but it didn't matter yesterday -- the Packers won, in the heat, on the road and with absolutely magnificent game food being served at Chez Wolves.

It actually was pretty serendipitous that we got to watch the game at all. Because Sunday Ticket and DirecTV are so expensive, and because the Packers are on free TV at least eight times this year, we cancelled DirecTV and got cable (a great deal, too). Figured I would get NFL Game Pass from the NFL. You can't watch live -- you have to wait until the 4 pm games are over to watch the 1 pm games -- but I was OK with that. Circumstances conspired, however.

The Ravens were on CBS. The Redskins didn't play until Monday night. The "local" game on FOX? Green Bay at Jacksonville. My cup runneth over. And I can't lie, the game food lived up to the occasion. Two new recipes -- plus potato skins, of course -- and both are solid contenders for the Super Bowl menu.

First out of the gate, we had some tater tot-based game food. Strong competitor with the stuffed skins, but different. You start with some tater tots, sour cream, shredded cheddar, bacon, green onions and cooking spray:

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Take your cooking spray and grease up a muffin pan. Put two tater tots in each muffin cup:

 Bake those on the bottom shelf of your oven for 10 minutes, then take them out. Get a shot glass, blast the bottom with cooking spray and smush those tater tots with a twisting motion to form a cup:

Like this:

Bake those bad boys for another 15 minutes. Take them out, add cheese, and pop back in for a minute or so until the cheese is melted. Then, take the tots out of the pan and put them on a platter. Top with sour cream, sliced green onions and bacon. Die happy:

 These are really good. Mrs. Wolves and Married Into Wolves both wanted these permanently on the game day menu. Who am I to argue?

The second magnificent game food recipe was actually perilously close to healthy,, believe it or not. Yet another muffin pan was required. Your ingredients are eggs, parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, broccoli, saltine crackers, frozen corn and, yes, cooking spray:

Take six saltine crackers and crush them finely.I Use a mortar and pestle. You might prefer some kind of food processor:

Mix the cracker crumbs -- or dust, depending upon how thorough you were --  with 2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese:

Meanwhile, take two cups of frozen broccoli florets in a bowl, add a little water, and microwave them for two minutes. Trim the florets from the stems, and spoon into the muffin cups:

Top the broccoli with about a half-cup of frozen corn, divided evenly, of course:

Then add the crumb-parmesan mixture to each cup, as well, and top with cheddar cheese:

Beat about 10 eggs -- add a little milk -- and fill each muffin cup with the mixture. As the egg mixture filters down into the other ingredients, top off each muffin cup so that the egg mixture is even with the top of the pan:

Bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes until the cups are puffed up and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean:

Let stand for two minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the muffin cup and plate those suckers:

BOOM! Mini quiche. So good.

Naturally, I started my game food preparation with the one item always on the game day menu: stuffed potato skins. The Packers platter was waiting expectantly:

Fortunately, the platter didn't have long to wait. The skins were great, too:

All in all, great food, and a great outcome for the game. More exciting than I like -- the defense had to make a great stand to win the game -- but an excellent opening day nonetheless. Hope the new recipes work for you, too.