By Food and Football (Part 1)
I didn’t make all of the Super Bowl food in the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook this year, but I did make a good chunk of them! This year I tested:
- Buffalo Chicken Bites
- Grilled Corn Dip
- Classic Potato Skins
- Pepperoni Pizza Potato Skins
- Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders
OMG. So good!!!
Yesterday
I prepared as much food as I possibly could the day before, as usual. I love that this book has a section at the beginning of each chapter letting you know what can be done ahead of time!
For the Buffalo Chicken Bites, I chopped up the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Then I diced pepperoni for the Pepperoni Pizza Potato Skins, and formed the Spicy Whiskey BBQ Slider patties
Next, I shucked the corn and grilled it over the stove, then sliced off the kernels for the Grilled Corn Dip. I sliced green onion and grated cheeses for both the dip and potato skins, and scrubbed the potatoes.
Today
The first thing I did was make the Grilled Corn Dip. It has to sit in the fridge for at least a couple of hours anyway, so I was able to get it out of the way early.
Essentially, you mix everything together, cover it, and store it in the fridge. Easy peasy! Although she recommends you use an electric mixer, I don’t have one (it’s on its way though!) so I mixed by hand.
Then I baked the potatoes, cut them in half, and scooped out the inside so they were ready to go when needed.
Around this point my friend Radhika showed up to help me out! She cooked bacon and chopped it up for the Classic Potato Skins, while I worked on the Buffalo Chicken Bites. I heated the fry oil, mixed together the ingredients for the Buffalo Chicken’s dip, and prepped the beer batter.
And since I cut the Buffalo Chicken Bite recipe in half, we split the extra half beer. Cheers!
The chopped chicken was then tossed into the beer batter and deep fried in the oil (highly recommend using a fry thermometer here!). Radhika handled the frying while I mixed the hot sauce, which was poured over the fried chicken once it was done. Then it was all thrown in the oven to set for 10 min. before serving.
People started arriving at this point, so we served the Grilled Corn Dip and Buffalo Chicken Bites and finished up the Potato Skins. Both went over VERY well, and I heard “Best Buffalo chicken ever” from a couple of people.
The skins were brushed with butter, thrown in the oven, then filled with cheese (or sauce + pepperoni + cheese for the Pepperoni Pizza Potato Skins) and thrown in the oven again. Then bacon, green onion and sour cream were added to the Classic Potato Skins, and a sprinkle of parley to the Pepperoni Pizza Potato Skins.
And the final dish, Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders, I served a bit later since we were already pretty full!
The beef patties were cooked on the stove so that they were almost cooked through, and then removed from the stove. Onion is sautéed in butter, then whiskey is added in and cooked until it’s reduced before adding in BBQ sauce and jalapeño peppers. Finally, the patties are put back in and simmered for 5 minutes in the sauce.
They were served on little slider buns and were absolutely DELICIOUS!
Taste: 10/10 for the Buffalo Chicken Bites and Grilled Corn Dip, 9/10 for the Classic Potato Skins and Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders, 8/10 for the Pepperoni Pizza Potato Skins
I LOVE the Grilled Corn Dip, and so does everyone else. It’s my favorite thing on the table today! The spices were perfect, the corn added a bit of sweetness to the cheesy flavor while the hot sauce added some bite, and I served it with corn chips which worked perfectly!
And the Buffalo Chicken Bites were my #2. They taste like they came straight from the local pub! The Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders were absolutely delicious as well, and everyone loved them!
The Classic Potato Skins were really good, but I felt they needed more cheese. And the Pepperoni Pizza ones were good as well, but just not the same as the original.
Difficulty: Average
Nothing too challenging here, it’s just time-consuming. I would definitely recommend doing as much prep ahead of time as you can.
Cost: Average / Pricey
Compared to some of the other recipes in this cookbook, these weren’t all that expensive. But there are a lot of ingredients, so it’s not cheap either.
Suggestions:
For the Buffalo Chicken Bites, use a fry thermometer if you can to make sure the oil doesn’t get too hot, or else your chicken will burn quickly on the outside but may be undercooked on the inside. Also, as painful as it is I suggest dropping the chicken in one piece at a time, otherwise they fry themselves together in one big chunk.
This Geek Loves Food 