Speaking of game food porn . . .

Funny you should mention that, as we have some game food porn from yesterday's most triumphant Packers performance against the Bears, in which the Bears got their asses handed to them, 38-17. At home. Suck it, Cutler, and thank you for the two interceptions.

Anyway, while the Packers were triumphing on the field, Yours Truly was busting loose with the game food. With all due modesty, I feel like I did just as good a job as the Packers in my own way yesterday. We had, to open, a blue-cheese ball with crackers:

I made this, and I will have to research whether I have revealed the recipe. I think so, but I will check. I am sure it will make another appearance this season, and if I have not yet detailed the making of the cheese ball, I will. We also had onion straws and horseradish dip:

Always a fave. Add in the ubiquitous stuffed skins:

And top it all off with some chicken fingers and honey mustard dip:

And you get a spread that looks something like this:

Not as much Packers-themed serving ware as recently, but a good spread. No one went away hungry. All in all, a very good NFL Sunday.

So we had game food even though we have no dog in the hunt

Watched both conference championship games and, because of the 6:30 start for the NFC game, fixed dinner-ish game food in shifts so that Cpl. Wolves would have something resembling dinner when he got home from work. The food was put out on a rolling basis, so there was always something just coming out fresh. Anyway, we started, of course with stuff potato skins:

To provide a little balance, also in the first quarter we had, as we usually do for dinner-like game food, a veggie tray:

Bacon-wrapped dogs came in about 2:53 into the second quarter:

 By halftime, we had the onion straws:

Finally, about five minutes into the third quarter, when Cpl. Wolves got home, we brought out the chicken fingers:

Enjoy, people.

Time for some food porn

Yeah, food porn isn't just about the high-falutin', complicated stuff. Sometimes, food porn is just the stuff you got at Hooters and want to fix at home. And that's what we have today. We're fixing beer-batter chicken fingers, folks, with home fries on the side. Nothing fancy, just good.

You start with a cup of flour, some salt, pepper, an egg and a can of beer.

Beat the egg, add the flour, salt and pepper that the way you like, then mix in the beer until it looks like batter, whisking all the while. Good news -- it might not take the entire beer, which means you can drink some of that beer. Smart people are already drinking a beer not included in the recipe. After a certain amount of whisking, things should look like this:

Now it's time to think about chicken. You can use chicken tenderloins or you can cut up boneless chicken breasts. I don't really care how you get there. However you get there -- shit, I don't care if you start with chickens in the yard -- you should wind up with about 1-1/2 to 2 pounds of chicken breasts cut into strips, like so:

You need to then dredge those chicken strips in flour, seasoned or unseasoned, it makes no difference to me. That's a matter of taste (we seasoned the batter, remember?). This flour is just to help the batter stick to the chicken.

Now, you should start dipping your floured chicken strips in the beer batter. Make sure they are well-coated, but let the excess batter drip off the chicken before moving it to the plate where you will keep it until we are ready to fry the chicken.

Once all the chicken is battered and on a plate, shove that sucker aside for a minute, because we have other things to do. It should look kind of amorphous,  something like this:

Now you need to grab some potatoes. White, Yukon gold, red potatoes, I don't care. Grab as many as you need, depending on how many people you are feeding. Once you have the number of potatoes you want, slice 'em up. Thin, not thick, people. More like potato chips than fried potatoes.

Time to throw the chicken in the deep fryer that you've been heating up. if you don't have a deep fryer, get one. Otherwise, use a wok or a deep frying pan with at least 1-1/2 inches of oil, heated to medium high or high heat. Don't set the kitchen on fire, but we're trying to fry chicken here, people. Oil temperature should be between 350 and 375, preferably on the high end. Anyway, heat up the oil and in goes the chicken.

Fry those bad boys until they are a lovely shade of golden brown. Count on about 10 minutes, but could be more or less, depending on the thickness of the cuts. Can't be serving raw meat.

Now, throw those thinly sliced potatoes in the fryer.

 Also likely to take about 10 minutes. Because you are human, the slices will be of varying thickness. After about 10 minutes, some will be completely crisp like potato chips, and the thicker ones will be cooked and browned, but still have that soft potato goodness. This is a good thing. Once they're out of the fryer, drain the chips on paper towels and salt.  Throw in the vegetable of your choice, some ketchup, and bon apetit: