Big game coming up

The Packers are at Atlanta for the NFC title game in about 20 minutes. We are geared up, ready to watch. Game food coming, maybe in real time, so stay tuned.

I told you there would be game food porn, so there is game food porn

Barely any time these days to post -- I think this swordfish is not looking too good, so take the hours while you can, as Rules 2 and 3 inform us. I'm taking what I can, but that doesn't mean I don't take time to watch the Packers. And if we watch the Packers, we serve game food! Sunday, when we beat the shit out of the Giants, 38-13, was no exception. We started with stuffed skins:

Because this was a dinner-time game, I fixed French dip roast beef sandwiches with baked beans and onion rings. The rings were baked, and were damn good. Start with a couple large onions cut into wide rings. Take the smaller interior rings and use them for something else. Only big rings here. Put the rings in ice water (I have no fucking idea why):

Put 1-3/4 cups of flour into a wide, shallow dish. Add a tbsp of coarse salt. You should take those big rings and rub them around in the flour:

You then need a flat dish filled with 2 cups of butter milk. Then you should drop those big onion rings in the buttermilk:

Presumably, you have crushed a couple cups of corn flakes and put hose in a flat dish as well. Naturally, that means that next you will dip and drag your onion rings through the corn flakes:

As you complete the process for each ring, you will put the completed ring on a well-greased baking sheet:

You will bake them at 450 for about 25 minutes, turning them at about 12 minutes:

You will then enjoy the hell out of them with steak sandwiches and baked beans, or whatever the hell you prepared:

You will enjoy them even more if you beat the shit out of the Giants, which we did. Yeah, it's dated, but that's what happened last week. Victory over the Cowboys game food is coming shortly.

A no-game-food game post

Having dropped DirecTV in August, for the third time this year I was forced off-site to watch the Packers, and so have no game food to report on. I am pleased to report, however, that the Packers laid a serious ass-whipping on the Vikings, eliminating their worthless butts from playoff contention. In a side not, the Redskins also laid an ass-whipping on the Chicago Bears, whose playoff hopes died weeks ago cuz they suck, but it still is always a good thing to see the Bears get their asses whipped. If Dallas could lay an ass-whipping on the Lions tomorrow night, that would be good, but I don't really care because all we have to do to win the division is beat the Lions next week. Which we will do.

Game food, but not

We went off-site today to watch the game with Married Into Wolves. Went to Buffalo Wild Wings (not paid for the plug, but not opposed to a little gratuity, if B-dubs is listening) for the Packers' 1 pm game. Still haven't bought the NFL's Game Pass or whatever they call it, and no more DirecTV, so I am filling in at the moment.

So, I didn't make game food. Sorry. If it helps, and you've been to BWW, we had the sampler (onion rings, boneless wings, nachos), some wings, potato wedges and popcorn shrimp. Yeah, food coma afterwards. Great food, and we had the perfect booth -- game on a screen in front of me and behind, so Mrs. Wolves and I could watch one and Married Into Wolves could watch the other. And, of course, we had a glorious victory at home over the hated Lions. We looked great (I can say we, as I own two shares of the Packers) in the first half, and then we looked like we were clock-killing pretty much the entire second half. It was enough, though.

As for my lack of posting, the current gig is killing me. I have a lot of backed-up content on all manner of things. I'll get there, I guess. Hell, I don't even get to The Farm every weekend. No posting leads to bad traffic, and numbers are way down. I promise to try and do better.

We lost, but the game food was a win

We were the night game Sunday, so game food was served late. We had our new stuffed tater tots (at left), brown sugar bacon dogs (center) and the traditional potato skins (right):

We also had mini-lasagnas, also excellent:

All in all, the game food was great, the game, not so much. Turnovers, missed opportunities, bad communication -- that's no way to win a Super Bowl. We'll see how things shake out. But the food will be good!

This might make some good game food

I like meatballs at least as much as the next guy. This looks pretty good:


Feel like I should test drive this before football season.

Big doings on Sunday for game food

It's been awhile, but Sunday will mark the return of Bacon Explosion to the game day menu. Not since Dec. 2, 2012 has this bundle of pork-products goodness made an appearance on the game food menu. Naturally, it is because Sunday is a special occasion. Marrying Into Wolves is bringing the parental units to the game so we can discuss details of the impending wedding. And watch the Eagles get shot down, we hope. Not sure what else will be on the menu, but I am consulting with Marrying Into Wolves, who suggested the Explosion, thereby getting me off the hook. I can hardly wait.

I can't lie, that sucked -- but the game food was good

I don't think anyone predicted a defensive struggle between the Lions and the Packers, but that's what we got. The Pack gave up 9 points to the Lions defense, for God's sake. The whole thing sucked, start to finish. Credit to the Lion's defense. For once, Packers' defense played well, but the offense did nothing.

Fortunately, that was not the case with the Chez Wolves kitchen. The game food rocked. First, we had tortilla chips and salsa, served in a Packers bowl, naturally:

We also had onion straws with horseradish sauce, always good:

Of course we had potato skins:

We also had brown sugar bacon dogs, which we have had before but, as I realized when preparing for the game, I have never given instructions on how to make them. So, without further ado, here are the instructions.

First, grab some bacon, cocktail wienies (or hotdogs cut into 6 pieces each -- I prefer Hillshire Farms wienies, but you can use what you like), some brown sugar, some toothpicks, worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce.

Yeah, I know, not everything is in the picture. I was kind of winging it. Anyway, cut the bacon into 6 pieces per slice. You can do it as 1/4s, but you will have a lot of overlap. Take a wienie (I love saying that) and wrap it in bacon, then secure everything with a toothpick. Like so:

Get a two-quart baking dish and put about a quarter-pound of brown sugar in the bottom. However many wienies you have wrapped, put them in there. You are limited only by your appetite for pork products and how much bacon and wienies you have on hand.

Top that with another quarter pount of brown sugar, then douse it with about a tablespoon of Tabasco and a couple tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. This is to taste, of course, so you might use more or less.

Put those in the oven at 350 for about 50 minutes, covered. They will be swimming in melted brown sugar when you take them out:

I served them in the Packers Snack Helmet, with mixed nuts in the facemask, but a serving bowl will suffice:

The spread looked pretty good, as did Marrying Into Wolves and whichever kit-tay that was.

Would have  been nice if the game outcome had been as good as the game food, but such is life.

Now they tell me

Two of the attendees at the Chez Wolves Super Bowl party Sunday expressed disappointment that the Bacon Explosion did not make an appearance in this year's game food. Now they tell me. I didn't fix the dish because Mrs. Wolves was so opposed -- it is a heart attack waiting to happen -- and no one voiced a desire to see it on the menu. File that under information that would have been useful earlier. Perhaps I can fix the Bacon Explosion for an NFL draft party. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

A pathetic (game food) performance

Maybe if I had prepared more game food. Maybe if I had done something more elaborate. I don't know, but the Packers lost yet again to another shitty team. I am contemplating going to Green Bay and laying hands on Aaron Rodgers to heal him myself. Yes, I can do that. Don't doubt me.

In any event, we had just me and Mrs. Wolves for today's game, and with a 4:30 start, I didn't want to spoil dinner, so I held back and didn't prepare most of what I had planned when I thought there would be more people. As it was, I just made skins. They were good. The game wasn't.

A commenter noted that I might enrage the readers of the game food porn posts if I didn't always take a new picture of the skins, even though I fix them every week. He might be right, so there you have it, a new picture of a recurring item.

Vote in the game food poll!

The Packers are the Monday night game for week 9 (this coming weekend) so the game food poll is for week 10. That gives you lots of time to vote, so vote early and often. I'm hard at work searching for new game food recipes for the second half of the season, so look forward to those. In the meantime, vote!

The people have spoken

Looks like the winners for the Week 6 game food poll are nachos and meat balls. Interesting combination, but the voters have spoken. I am already compiling my ingredients shopping list. I'll be posting a poll for Week 7 as soon as I decide what the choices should be. Stay tuned.

Stay tuned, kids

We have game food porn coming. Also, I will be posting a mega-picture post about my trip to the county fair yesterday. Coming up soon.

Game food porn, part two!

As promised, here is the step-by-step on stuffed potato skins. I figured people might make this more often, as it is a fabulous every-Sunday thing. Without further ado:

First, get a half-dozen russet potatoes. Bake them:

Let the spuds cool a bit (or don't, if you have tough hands), then cut them in half length-wise.

Take a spoon and remove the potato part. you can save the innards for potato salad, mashed potatoes or whatever later, or you can toss it. We are interested in the skins.

Remember, these are stuff potato skins, so don't leave a bunch of potato in the skin. The idea is to get a thin shell of potato skin without making holes in it. It takes practice and care. Mostly care.

You will now need about four stalks of green onions.

Chop those suckers up, and mix the white part up nicely with the green part.

Slather the halved potato skins with sour cream so that they are lined with a thin layer. Don't overdo it, but don't be stingy. Personal taste is the determining factor here.

Now, line your skins with the chopped green onions.

Fry some bacon. Crumble it up, line your skins with bacon. How much depends on you. For a half-dozen spuds, I usually use about a half-pound of bacon, but it depends on how much it reduces upon cooking. Less fat, less reduction, less bacon. Figure a half-pound and leave me alone.

Top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Bake at 400 F for about 18 minutes. Should be golden brown on top.

Cut each spud in half diagonally and put on a platter that is nowhere near as cool as mine.

Bon appetit.

Super Bowl Food porn, delayed edition

So excuse the fuck out of me for being maybe too something to post last night after the Super Bowl. I had company, I was busy, it was a long day and there is a possibility that beer was involved, meaning by the time the day was over, it was freaking OVER and I didn't have the energy to post food porn. Don't like it, refer to the name of the blog.

In any event, apologies for some of the pictures. In cleaning up to prepare for our gameday company, Mrs. Wolves put my camera somewhere that it could not be found. Consequently, she took the food pictures with her much more expensive, far more sophisticated and capable camera. That's why the pictures are blurry. On the one hand, she got every picture on the first take. On the other hand, the first take was maybe not good. So here we go.

First up, we had French dip sandwiches:

There was au jus to go with these. Very popular. We also had meatballs with marinara sauce:

While I normally try to take pictures that leave out the kitchen detritus that goes along with the preparation of game food, Mrs. Wolves obviously feels no such inhibitions. In any event, we then went with shrimp. First, steamed, with cocktail sauce:

Then, stuffed:

We also had onion straws with the secret sauce:

Before the action started, we put out some tortilla chips and salsa. Of course, with the top still on the helmet, not way to tell what is inside, and you can't see the salsa inside the facemask, but hey:

Finally, we had what we always have, stuffed potato skins:

All in all, we were not unhappy with the result. I preferred a Ravens victory as opposed to a 49ers win, and we got a good game thanks to the power outage, which reversed the momentum enough to make this very interesting. Hope everybody enjoyed the game. We sure enjoyed the food!

Super Bowl food porn preview

We got some pretty good food porn coming Sunday. Planning to post in more-or-less real time, to the extent that cooking and my guests allow. Large enough crowd expected that the Super Bowl menu will exceed the usual three items. So far, locked in stone, we have stuffed potato skins, steamed shrimp, stuffed shrimp, onion straws and steak sandwiches. Likely additions are wings, pigs in a blanket, and brie and baguette. That should do it. Oh yeah, plus lots of fucking beer.

I'm sorry, Pro Bowl?

Somebody asked me if I was going to have game food porn for the Pro Bowl. I looked at them kind of askance and asked, "Pro Bowl game food? I only do game food for football games." The Pro Bowl is not a football game. It's not even a good All-Star game, as most of the best guys stay away to avoid getting hurt or to get over being banged up from the real season. Also, the rules changes and short prep time make it impossible for it to resemble a football game: they're just playing pitch-and-catch, with no defense allowed. If that were pro football, Steve Spurrier would still be the coach of the Redskins and nto at the University of South Carolina. Just sayin'.

The "Still Gotta Eat" edition of game food porn

AFC and NFC title games yesterday, both games were good, food was great. Atlanta, having inexplicably managed last week to both choke away a lead and still win, this week managed to just do what they do best and choke, period. Maybe getting a little tired of being 9-point underdogs for the second straight week, the Ravens took what the Patriots freely offered and moved on. Overall, good football-watching.

But that's not why we're here. No Packers? No problem. Still gotta eat. And eat we did. For the early game, we started with ribs:

Cooked for a gazillion hours until the meat is falling off the bone, slathered with sauce from King's Barbecue in Petersburg, VA. Best ever. Man cannot live on ribs alone, however (although I wouldn't mind trying). We also had chicken wings:

Not a game without stuffed potato skins, of course:

With a double-header, three is not enough. As the Patriots-Ravens tilt got under way, we trotted out some baguette and brie:

Granted, not that manly, but there were ladies present. As you can see, I almost forgot to take a picture before those vixens demolished the entire plate. Finally, threw in some pigs in a blanket:

So, basically, we gorged on shit that is bad for you and watched a lot of good football. Stay tuned for Super Bowl game food porn, just 13 days from now. Bon appetit!

Only one day left to vote!

Super Bowl game food poll only has one day left! Make your voice heard. Otherwise, how can I ignore it?

Playoff food porn

OK, so that really sucked. Basically, the Packers got their asses handed to them. On the other hand, the food was fucking fabulous. I guess if you're not a team owner, that makes it a wash. As a team owner, I am still seeking a strong rafter over which to throw my rope, but I will, in the meantime, share the game food with you. No, I didn't ask if you wanted me to. If you don't like that, please refer to the title of the blog. In any event, we had pizza rolls:

Looks sloppy tastes great. Threw in some wings, with beer batter. Yeah, pretty fucking good:

Using onion straws later, so went with cheese straws this week. For those of you who want recipes, please feel free to contact me at raised.by.a.wolf@gmail.com:

And, as always, we had stuffed potato skins:

The game wasn't a total loss, then, as the food was excellent. Even with the Packers out, I'll be doing game food for the NFC title game and the Super Bowl, so stay tuned.