Game food porn and a win -- sweet

So, the 49ers might not be the team they were a couple years ago, but beating them sure felt good. Their defense was inspired, but so was ours, and our offense had way more in the tank than theirs did. Because it was a 4:30 game, the game food had to be dinner-like, at least in some ways. So, for the early parts of the game, I trotted out the garlic-parmesan potato bites:

Long about half-time, when Married Into Wolves arrived, we brought out the meal. We had macaroni and cheese:

We also fired up the grill and did some brats:

Other dinner elements, not pictured, included roasted corn and baked beans (out of a can, not homemade- sorry). All in all, it was a very satisfying win. Same for the game food.

Game food porn, Part III

So the final part of the game food porn was macaroni and cheese. Yes, I've done the bacon-cheeseburger mac and cheese, but this one is meat-free and is suitable for use as a side dish or as game food. And yes, this recipe makes a metric shit ton of mac and cheese.

You will start with 8 tablespoons of butter (one full stick), 1 lb of elbow macaroni, 1/2 cup of flour, 5-1/2 cups of milk, 4-1/2 cups of grated cheddar, 2 cups of grated Gruyere, 6 slices of bread, torn into pieces, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp red pepper and 2 tsps of salt:

Yeah, not everything is pictured, but you get the idea. So put the torn-up bread in a bowl, melt 2 tablespoons of butter, and pour it over the bread:

You know what to do here, people. Mix it up right:

Now set that bowl aside. Grate the Gruyere:

Melt the remaining butter over medium heat. I used a large pot rather than a skillet so I could do the whole dish in that one pot, start to finish:

Whisk in the flour:

Whisk it up right until the flour is blended in Keep whisking and add the milk (yeah, I'm not whisking in the picture -- I ran out of hands):

Whisk it up right, again. Stir until the mixture thickens:

Add four cups of the cheddar:

Add 1-1/2 cups of the gruyere:

Mix it up right, people:

Once the cheese is thoroughly mixed in, stir in the macaroni, which you cooked earlier even though I didn't tell you to. And you know what to do -- mix it up right, people:

Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of cheddar and 1/2 cup of Gruyere over the top of the gooey, cheesey goodness that you are concocting:

Remember the bread you tore up and mixed with a melted butter? Yeah, bring that stuff over here and top the macaroni:

Bake for 30 minutes at 375. Don't let the bread topping get over-browned:

That's some good eatin', there. Bon appetit, y'all.

I got game food porn in three parts; Part I

Yes, we saw an epic collapse in the last few minutes of last night's NFC championship game. It was inexcusable. I damn near killed myself. Had they presented themselves, I probably would have killed some random strangers. Fortunately for everyone, none of that happened. But the Packers did, in fact, lose a game they should have won. It was horrible.

The game food wasn't, though. Actually, the game food was excellent. Nephew to Wolves and his girlfriend, Knows Fuck-All About Wolves, were in attendance, so in honor of her vegetarianism, we had several veggie-friendly dishes, including a veggie tray:

We also had caramel dip and apples, also veggie friendly but on the menu mainly because of the presence of Marrying Into Wolves:

Instead of bacon-cheeseburger macaroni and cheese I fixed a vegetarian friendly mac and cheese (the recipe and instructions will follow this post):

Did some fondue, too:

Finally, meat makes an appearance in the form of brown sugar bacon dogs:

Back to meat free, I did some cheese-stuffed potato bites (recipe will follow in a later post):

Of course, we had stuffed potato skins:

Yes, we had veggie versions, too. At one point, the table looked like this:

Cpl. Wolves and Marrying Into Wolves both enjoyed the game food, although I think Cpl. Wolves enjoyed Marrying Into Wolves more:

Oh, yeah. For desert, we had bacon-wrapped doughnuts:

Those are really good. Game sucked (at least at the end). Game food didn't.