Belated game food porn

Seems like just a few minutes ago that the Packers laid a major ass-whipping on the Eagles, but it's been two days now and I really need to post the food porn. Sorry, I've been busy. Anyway, we had a good lineup Sunday. Because it was a 4:30 game, the food had to at least resemble dinner. So naturally, we started with a veggie tray:

That quickly turned into this, even with some celery added and other reloads:

Of course we had stuffed potato skins:

We also had onion straws with horseradish sauce:

Because Marrying Into Wolves' parents came to watch the game, we had squadoosh on the leftover action. I think the game food was appreciated. But those things aren't all we had. Oh no.

Sunday I served, for the first time in nearly two years, the Bacon Explosion. What, you might ask, is the Bacon Explosion? It is not my own creation, but I love it. It starts with two pounds of thick cut bacon:

You will take one pound of that bacon and weave a mat out of it:

Should look like this when you're done:

Cook the other pound of bacon. You'll need it soon. But first, you will take two pounds of mild Italian sausage:

On a separate surface, you will spread that sausage into a square of even thickness the same size as the bacon mat. You will then crumble the second pound of bacon over the top of the sausage:

Toss a bunch of shredded cheddar cheese over that:

Roll that sucker up, keeping the cheese and bacon inside the roll, and place it on the bacon mat:

By all means, make sure the ends are sealed so nothing leaks out:

 Then roll the sausage roll up in the bacon mat:

You should season this concoction with a barbecue rub. You can sauce it, as well, if you like. For a rub, I used Bad Byron's Butt Rub. You may use your own favorite:

Byron's is good, though. So rub it up:

Ideally, you would now toss this sucker into a smoker and cook it for one hour per inch of thickness at 225 degrees. But that takes constant attention, and you might have other things to do, as I did, so you can toss it in the oven at 225 for the requisite time, about three hours. Better smoked, but sacrifices must be made. Comes out looking pretty damn good, though:

And it served up nicely, too:

A good time was had by all, the food was good, and the Packers kicked ass. Who could ask for more?

Chapter whatever, in which I deliver on the promised home-opener game-food porn

Sometimes I'm late, but I deliver. A thrilling, comeback victory by the Packers yesterday. First quarter sucked, but by the end of the first half I knew we had those suckers. Always good to win the home opener. With a 4:30 game, the game food had to be kind of dinnerish, leading to the following menu:

We started off, naturally, with stuffed potato skins, the one constant of game food porn:

And its not dinner with no vegetable, so we also had a veggie tray:

As the game progressed toward dinner time, I brought out more items. For the main course, brats:

Yes, I boil them in beer before I grill them. You mean you don't? Then I brought out the cheeseburger macaroni and cheese, a favorite of Marrying Into Wolves:

Throw in some wings for the starving masses:

And top it off with roasted corn:

All in all, a pretty good feast. I was pleased, and I heard no complaints. That might be because I was screaming too loud to hear any complaints during this play.

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.

Most triumphant division-champion game food porn

Yeah, Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb came back from injuries just in time to put the Bears in their place. Game food doesn't taste much better than when you get to eat it while watching a 4th-and-8 touchdown pass for 48 yards with only 38 seconds left in the game.

Anyway, because it was a 4:30 game, once again game food was also dinner. So we had a vegetable tray to keep people from accusing me of meat bias:

Naturally, we had potato skins, which in my opinion contain all the vegetables anyone could ask for:

And we had onion straws with sauce:

Later, when Cpl. Wolves got home from work and the game was entering the 4th quarter, we had brats and baked beans:

Oh, so good. And, of course, with 38 seconds left in the game, on fourth down and eight, we had Randall Cobb catch a 48-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to deliver the win over the Bears, dealing them the defeat they knew was coming:

Next week: playoff game food porn against the 49ers. Can't wait.

Game food porn, part I

Sure, the Packers lost -- mostly because of ineptitude, but we will not speak of this, as the Bears crapped the bed and gave us one more chance to with the division -- but we enjoyed the hell out of the game food. This game food post will be in two parts (three, if you count the pie) -- this one, with the standard game food offerings, and Part II, in which I detail the dishes that comprised dinner later in the game. So, without further ado:

We had pigs in a blanket, because they are always good.

Serve those with mustard, kids. Can't beat it. Naturally, we had stuffed potato skins, because that's what we do:

Finally, we had a vegetable tray, on account of Marrying Into Wolves came over and likes that kind of thing. Also, that way I could claim I had vegetables with dinner without relying on the skins:

Stay tuned for the dinner portion of the game food. (Jeez Louise I cook a lot during 4:30 Packers games!)

Yeah, we had game food porn yesterday

I tell you what, this jet-set lifestyle is going to kill me. The whole running errands, doing yard work, cooking game food, watching games and working 60 hours a week is a drag. And not a damn jet in sight.

Anyway, yeah, yesterday we fixed some game food, which means we have game food porn. We did ribs, which you might remember from Memorial Day food porn, or you might not. Doesn't matter, because we did this one just a little differently, and I have to say, best ribs to date. So we start with a couple racks of baby back ribs of the pork variety.

Cut these into two- or three-rib sections:

Place them in a large pot of water and bring them to a boil. Boil for about 20 minutes. Your ribs are now fully cooked. Everything that follows is to make them tender and taste good:

Take those boiled ribs -- please, let them cool before you do this, or else you will burn the living shit out of your hands -- and put a barbecue rub on them. I use Famous Dave's -- at least right now -- but you can use whatever you like.  Serious barbecue folks have their favorite rubs that they usually order online, but Famous Dave's is probably one of the better rubs available in grocery stores. Experiment, people, and find what you like, then put it on the damn ribs:

On a charcoal grill, fire up some wood chunks. I use hickory because it is what I can get around here. White oak is best, mesquite only works for Texas beef. Applewood is for fru-fru losers. If you can't get white oak, get hickory. Let the fire get going:

Put the ribs on without putting any ribs directly over the flames:

Cover and let that smoke work its taste magic:

You will need a sauce. I use King's Barbecue Sauce. I order it online from King's  in Petersburg, Va. Dinwiddie County, Va., is the birthplace of barbecue, so I go to the source. There is other good sauce out there. Find one you like.

After smoking your ribs for about 2 hours (more if you can) pull them from the grill, put them in a cooking pan and sauce them up. Cover with foil, put them in the oven at about 250 degrees F and let them roll for at least 4 hours, 6 hours if you can:

Tender ribs, guaranteed:

What with the Packers being the 4 o'clock game, I figured game food would be dinner, so vegetables were in order:

Potatoes are a vegetable (and so are the green onions in stuffed skins), so they were on the menu:

As a bonus, Mrs. Wolves suggested that I turn Saturday night's magnificent chicken parmesan into individual servings with toothpicks and reheat, so I did:

All in all, great game food. Sorry the wings got bumped by the chicken parmesan, but I promise wings for next week. Bon appetit.

Game food porn, Can't Believe We Lost That Game edition

Packers spotted the Bengals two touchdowns, slowly got it all back, went up by 16 points and finally managed to lose the game. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. But the food was good. We did a couple really simple things this week, starting with pigs in a blanket. For this, you need only two things: cocktail wieners and a can of biscuits. I guess it's called a can. I don't know. Any way, 10 biscuits. I used Hillshire Farms Bee Lit'l Smokies, but you can use any cocktail wiener you want. Carolina Pride is good, too. Just throw some wiener, dammit:

Take your biscuits, and tear each biscuit into three pieces -- two each of equal size, something less than half, and a third piece that is not one-third of the biscuit. Something more like three-eighths twice, and one-fourth once. You combine the little piece from every two biscuits so that you get five pieces of dough from every two biscuits. Get it?

Once you have done that to all ten biscuits -- which means you will wind up with 25 pieces of dough -- take a piece of dough and stretch it out to get it ready to wrap around a wiener:

Then wrap it around a wiener.

Do that 24 more times.

You will cook these at 400 degrees for about 13 minutes, until the dough is golden brown.

Serve these with mustard. Simple, but really good.

The other simple-but-good game food we did today was pizza rolls. Again, you will need few ingredients, just some pepperoni, some mozzarella cheese (shredded), some sliced provolone cheese (not pictured because I forgot) and a refrigerated pizza crust dough (is that at can of dough?):

Grease a cookie sheet, unroll the pizza dough, then stretch it out a bit so it is no longer square, like so:

Slap on some slices of provolone cheese:

Layer that with pepperoni:

You will then spread some shredded mozzarella on top of that, keeping everything about a half-inch from the edges. For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of the mozzarella phase. Anyway, once the shredded mozzarella is on, roll that sucker up. Seal the edges with a fork, like so

It should look like this right before you put it in a 350-degree oven for 35 minutes.

Once that sucker comes out, it looks a lot like this:
 

Slice it like bread, put some marinara sauce in a bowl and serve. It's really good.

Naturally, we also had potato skins:

Soon-to-be Mrs. Cpl. Wolves came by, so of course we had a vegetable tray:

And yes, hidden under the dip container is a Green Bay G:

All in all, the spread was tasty:

Ultimately, no lie, the food was better than the game, certainly as far as the outcome goes. But it's a long season. Many more games, and much more food porn, to come. Enjoy!