Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Super Bowl Eats: French Dips & Crispy Footballs

If you didn't know, the Super Bowl was this past Sunday and the Green Bay Packers won! Having the Packers in the Super Bowl was cause for a small celebration, so we invited my parents over, as well as our friend Craig and Margo.

Everyone provided great food--Margo and Craig brought little smokies two ways: in a tasty and slightly spicy sauce in the crockpot, as well as rolled in cresent dough and baked for a few minutes. My parents brought spinach dip, a beer cheese dip and one of my favorites, sesame potatoes (hashbrowns baked in sour cream, cream cheese and other deliciousness!).

For our part, Nate and I made crockpot French dip sandwiches. and I attempted to make mini Rice Krispy footballs (more about that later).

I had never made French dip sandwiches before, and franky, I'm not sure I've ever ordered one. But a few weeks ago, my coworker Val was talking about a tasty and easy crockpot recipe she had. I thought it would be perfect for a Packers gathering.

Here is the recipe I used, from Our Best Bites food blog. We followed it pretty closely, with a few additions:
-We used a 3 lb. rump roast, since we knew we were cooking for six people.
-We used just one cup of water and then a bottle of Nate's homebrew to give it some more flavor.
-For additional toppings, we sliced and sauteed onions, mushrooms and green pepper.
-Next time, I wouldn't add so much water. I'd pour the beer in, and if the meat is uncovered at all, I'd put some water in just to cover or mostly cover the meat.

We served the sandwiches (we topped them with provolone cheese) on fairly large, crusty sub rolls from Peter Sciortinos Bakery, and, of course, with a side of the au jus and my mom's potatoes. Yum!
Years ago, for a Super Bowl party, I had made Rice Krispy treats in the shape of footballs. I remember those being good, but not quite as flavorful as what I was looking for (and I couldn't find that recipe!). So I did some Googling and came across this recipe from About.com Cooking for Kids (should be easy enough, right?).
I had a helluva time making these things, and even vowed never to make Rice Krispy treats again (we'll see what happens!). They tasted really good, so that was good. But it was a mess trying to get the mixture out of the bowl when I was done and on to the wax paper. I formed the first few footballs fairly easily, but as the mixture started to harden, it was almost impossible--plus my hands were continously covered with the mixture.

So, I attempted to just stuff the mixture in a pie plate (why a pie plate, I don't know--I was desperate!). Then, I thought, well, maybe from the pie plate I could make football-type shapes by taking a chunk and shaping them. That worked ... OK. Some looked better than others. I was so frustrated by this point, that I didn't want to make any icing for lacing, but then as I looked at the treats some more, they looked really ridiculous without the lacing (not going to lie--they looked like turds!).

So I made some homemade icing, and, of course, I ran out of powered sugar! Nate was out and about later on and he picked up some more for me, so I could finally put the laces on them. Like I said they tasted pretty good (they had Nutella in them, after all!), but getting to that point was a bit of a mess! (And it looks like I didn't take a picture of the final product. Oops!)

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