3 Fabulous Football Season Foods For Sharing With Friends Who Value Flavor
- Burgers
- Chili Pie
- Wings
…. and Craft Beer
For your next football season tailgate or party, pull out all the stops and serve up these flavorful crowd pleasers! These aren’t for your “diet conscience” bland eating friends. These are the craving-inducing, delicious dishes that comfort us when our team’s struggling and help us celebrate the big wins. The main goal behind these recipes is TASTE. We will look at how to temper our zeal for full on flavor with a nod toward our diet and gym oriented psyche in the next blog, but right now, let’s talk taste!
- Burgers – yeah baby!
Ingredients:
1 ½ pounds of Ground Chuck (80/20)
Lowry’s Seasoned Salt and Pepper
Garlic Powder
Worcestershire Sauce
8 slices of cooked Bacon (center cut thick sliced is incredible but to each his own…)
4 Thick slices of Sharp Cheddar Cheese
4 fresh Sesame Seed Buns
2 tbsp melted butter
Lettuce
“beef-steak” Tomatoes (or variety of choice)
Hellman’s or Duke’s Mayonnaise
Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce
2 Vlasic Sandwich Pickles per burger
Now, everyone thinks they know how to cook a burger, and well maybe they do, but not everyone knows how to cook an AMAZINGLY delicious burger! Start with the choice of meat. If you have access to all organic or grass fed ground beef – Perfect! If not, select the highest quality with the fewest additives possible. Go for the 80% lean meat as it will be the most flavorful. Preheat your Grill until it reaches an internal temp of 400*. Once it is hot, make sure and clean off any remnants of your last grilled meal using a wire brush. While it preheats, mix 1 ½ tsp Garlic Powder, 1 ½ tsp of Lowry’s Seasoned Pepper, and 2 tsp of Worcestershire Sauce into your meat. Now separate your meat into 4 parts and pat into loosely packed patties about ¾ inches thick. Make an indention in the center of each patty by pressing down with your thumb. Finally, LIGHTLY sprinkle Lowry’s Seasoned Salt (a little goes a very long way) and more Seasoned Pepper on both sides of each patty. Once your grill has heated (it should be REALLY hot!) carefully place the burgers toward the center but at least 2 inches apart from one another. Now close the lid and do not touch them. Seriously don’t touch them. Use a timer if you must but don’t touch. You want to slightly char that side so I’d say 4 minutes is perfect. Make certain your bacon is warm at this time and have your condiments out. Turn the burgers only once during cooking and do not press down on them! You don’t want all of the juiciness going into the drip tray!!!! Now is the perfect time to brush the inside of your buns with melted butter and place them on the outer portion of the grill – it will only take 1-2 minutes for them to toast. Allow burgers to cook about 3-4 more minutes on the other side until it is light brown and this should be on the Medium side of Medium Rare. When you take the buns off of the grill, add the slices of bacon and cheddar cheese to the burgers and allow them to meld with the patty as the burger finishes cooking. When meat is cooked to desired doneness, take off the grill and place atop the toasted bun. Add a liberal dollop of Barbecue sauce to the top of the burger. Slather the mayo on the top half of the bun then place the tomato (salted and peppered) and finally the lettuce and pickles. Place the two halves together and prepare to enter the awesome zone!
Here are a couple of other Burger Recipes from professionals you may want to try:
Bobby Flay’s “Perfect Burger” or The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond’s “Perfect Bacon Cheeseburger”
- Chili Pie – MY oh MY!
Ingredients:
Your favorite homemade chili with or without beans
Fritos Corn Chips
Chopped Green Onions
Sour Cream
Shredded Colby Jack Cheese
Jalapeños
Lettuce (Optional – you may not want to clutter up all this tastiness with a green veggie)
Option 1: Family Style – Preheat oven to 350* Empty a large bag of Fritos corn chips into the bottom of a casserole dish. Cover with warm Chili. Sprinkle on a layer of green onions and jalapeños. Top with a thick layer of shredded Colby Jack Cheese. Place in oven until cheese melts and gets a little bubbly. Pull out of oven and allow to set 3-5 minutes. Serve into dishes and top with a dollop of sour cream and lettuce if you choose. Enjoy!
Option 2: Individual servings – Make sure chili is thoroughly heated. Open the individual bags of Fritos and stand up in a container (this can also be fixed and served one at a time and handed to people). Put 2-3 tbs. of shredded cheese atop the Fritos. Next sprinkle in some chopped green onion and jalapeños. Then add 2-3 large scoops of chili to the bag (you can use your judgment about the capacity of the bag and the probability of a mishap). Finally top with a dollop of sour cream and lettuce – if lettuce is how you want to roll. Use a plastic spoon and it’s a great disposable dish for tailgates
Here is a link to the Frito-Lay recipe for “Chili Pie” and here is a “Gameday Chili Pie” recipe that was on ABC’s The Chew.
- Wings, BABY WINGS!!!
Ingredients:
Start with 24 wings
A Dry Rub (I like the following ingredients, use anywhere from ¼ - 1 ½ Tsp. of each according to how hot you like it and how much you know each spice agrees with your pallet….. also, I don’t measure I shake them in there until I think it looks like it will taste good – not scientific but very tasty. Here goes: Garlic Powder; Lowry’s Seasoned Salt n Pepper; Crushed Red Pepper Flakes; Chili Powder; Dehydrated Onion Flakes; Paprika; a little sprinkle of brown sugar.)
Your Favorite Barbecue Sauce
Cut up celery & carrots
Blue Cheese Dressing
Coat all wing surfaces with the dry rub and allow the seasoning to “soak in” for 45min-1 hour. Preheat grill to medium high heat. Arrange wings on grill and allow cooking until light browning occurs on downside. Turn wings and coat the browned side with a light brush of your barbecue sauce. Allow other side to brown, turn, and brush upside. Once both sides have been coated once, allow wings to continue to cook until the inside is done with no pink. Re-coat as many times as you like to build up a crust. When done, remove from grill into bowl of barbecue sauce, toss and then place on plate. Serve with cut veggies and blue cheese dressing for dipping and you are ready to enjoy!
On this one I want to introduce you to a Knoxville cooking champ and blogger. Check out his recipes and tips on his page “Nibble Me This” http://www.nibblemethis.com/2013/08/roadside-chicken-wings.html
Finally, I want to give a little shout out to craft beers. Really you just can’t take these full flavor dishes and follow them with a light, watered down beer. I encourage you to find some local or regional brewery choices and explore your options. Though many people love IPA’s (India Pale Ale) some people find them too “hoppy”. Don’t be scared of trying a dark porter or stout to wash down and compliment your flavors. One of our Knoxville Breweries, Saw Works makes a great “Saw Works Brown Ale”. If you are going to go mainstream at least try a Sam Adam’s Octoberfest.
In Knoxville, we get very excited about Football Time in Tennessee so I can’t help but share some of what makes our tailgates awesome. This week we spared no expense…. in calories at least. Next week, I want to share some of my more diet friendly tail gate options in case you don’t want to derail your training or weekday workouts with a day of decadent eating. Oh and if you are in the area, let me know, (BlakeRickels.com) I’d love to catch up and talk recipes and real estate! If you don’t get this way often, follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Until next week…..
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