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by Emily

Endless Super Bowl: Top 10 Recipes for Your Football Party

Yeah yeah YEAH SONS!!!!! This Sunday is the Super Bowl and the Seahawks are BACK, BABY! Loyal ES readers may remember that I am from Seattle and loooove me some Hawks and made this ultra-handy Super Bowl Snacks for Seahawks Fans last year, and that post still stands because OBVIOUSLY THE SEAHAWKS ARE BACK IN THE ‘BOWL.

(If you want me to stop typing in all caps, SORRY NOT SORRY I CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP because I LOVE THE SUPER BOWLLL)

This year, though, to add to my Seahawks-centric list, I thought I’d share a Top 10 list of general football recipes guaranteed to please any Super Bowl partiers. There is NO shortage of Super Bowl recipes online but these are the tried-and-true snacks we’ve successfully made in the past, and/or new (to us) recipes I’m excited to try this weekend. Need even more inspiration? Take a gander at our Endless Super Bowl Pinterest board.

Big Popper Hot Buffalo Chicken and Bacon Grilled Cheese from Half Baked Harvest

What… even… ARE YOU? Once again, one of my personal favorite food blogs, HBH, comes through with an amazing recipe and gorgeously mouth-watering photos. I want, no, NEED this sandwich in my life.

Baked Garlic & Swiss Dip from Endless Simmer

I developed this recipe two years ago and it is GOOD. Your breath might smell, but so will everyone else’s, so you’ll be just fine.

Buffalo and Blue Cheese Lil’ Smokies from Inspired by Charm

Lil’ smokies are one of Rob’s favorite football snacks (and one of mine, and one of probably most of America, let’s be real…) so obv they’re a Super Bowl staple. The addition of creamy buffalo dipping sauce and blue cheese inside the “blanket” ?! A stroke of genius.

by Emily

Ultimate Crab Rangoon Dip with Wonton Chips

We threw a holiday party last night and I wanted to make something a little different, and also wanted to use my new-ish crock pot so I wouldn’t have to stand over the stove while we had people over. While brainstorming about my favorite drunk foods, I realized I wanted to make crab rangoon, or even easier, reverse crab rangoon aka a crab rangoon dip. (If dip counts as “reverse,” not sure, you know what I mean.)

A quick search on the ol’ internet taught me that I was not the first person to think of a crab rangoon dip, but a lot of the recipes from Pinterest just seemed a little basic (in the purest sense of the word). Crab, cream cheese, basically done. I attempted to elevate mine to the next level by incorporating more Asian ingredients and baking my own wonton chips, which is actually incredibly easy. This dip was devoured at my party. It’s perfect for a big gathering of boozy friends, say, your own holiday or new year’s party?

Ultimate Crab Rangoon Dip with Wonton Chips

in Cheese / Recipe 0 comments

by Emily

Curried Cashew Chicken Dip

I was going to a party the other weekend (okay, okay, it was a World Cup watching party, maybe the fact that I made an Indian-inspired recipe for a gathering themed around Argentina & Germany can tell you how much attention I paid to the World Cup. Sorry world!) and like any good guest at any sort of sports-watching thing, I brought food. Chips & dip! Obviously!

Anyway… Stonefire, who I’ve written about in the past, sent me some samples of their newest products, naan crisps. I almost didn’t get a chance to test them out and make a recipe, because my friends jumped on these like Liz Lemon on some night cheese! (I’ve been binge-rewatching 30 Rock on Netflix this summer.) Rob declared these “the best food blog sample [I’ve] ever received” so that’s really saying something. These naan crisps are super good – light, crispy, airy, and savory.

I wanted to do something that tied in with these chips before they all got devoured, so I threw together a protein-packed dip with an Indian twist – that, despite being neither Argentine or German themed, was a hit at the watch party. Added bonus: this recipe gets its creaminess from yogurt instead of mayo or sour cream, so it’s actually pretty good for you!

Curried Cashew Chicken Dip

in Recipe 0 comments

by Emily

Bacon, Spinach, Swiss & Caramelized Onion Dip

I know the Super Bowl is over (GO HAWKS OMG!) but I see no reason why I can’t share my latest dip recipe with you. I mean, DIP! Who doesn’t love it? It’s not like you can’t eat dip just because football season is over (*sob*). After all, we still have basketball, Oscars, random Saturday nights when you feel like staying on the couch with a box of wine, Costco-size bag of chips, and bucket of dip all night, etc… So here we go.

This isn’t anything revolutionary, but it’s all of the best snacking kind of flavors combined into one. Salty bacon? Yep. Sweet caramelized onion? You know it. Refreshing spinach? Heck yes, you’re getting your iron, son! Savory, cheesy…cheese? YES! I tried to keep it kiiiinda light by incorporating some lowfat ingredients in my Creamy Dip Trinity (cream cheese, mayo, sour cream) but let’s be real. You’re eating bacon pulverized into a dairy base, so “light” is pretty relative in this case. But it’s worth it.

Bacon, Spinach, Swiss, & Caramelized Onion Dip

in Bacon / Cheese / Recipe 2 comments

by Emily

Super Snacks: Baked Garlic & Swiss Cheese Dip

Ugh…. no Seahawks, no Saints, no Chargers, no Cowboys, no Texans… remind me again WHY I want to watch the Superbowl this year?!

Oh yeah, duh–the day-long bounty of indulgent dips, deep-fried apps, and beer. That’s right.

I love football and I love TV, and obviously I love cooking, eating, and drinking, so it should come as no surprise that Superbowl is one of my favorite days of the year. For me, it’s not a true celebration unless there are copious amounts of chips and dip involved. There is no other day in the year when dip gets the respect and attention it deserves. So when my friends at Kashi sent me some of their newest products and asked if I could dream up a delicious Superbowl recipe incorporating their tasty new garlic pita chips, of course I was more than eager to comply.

What goes better with garlic than more garlic? I was inspired by one of the best soups in Seattle, the amazing, rich garlic swiss soup at Hopvine, which was my fall and winter staple when I lived there. This is kind of a fondue version of that idea–a thicker, cheesier, more amped-up version that is straight-up addictive. I used elephant garlic because it adds a sweeter, mellower taste than regular garlic and mushes up nicely, but if you can’t find it in your area, no sweat. Just roast 3 large cloves of normal garlic and you’ll be fine.

Baked Garlic & Swiss Cheese Dip

in Cheese / Recipe 1 comments

by snebbu

Pumpkin Gone Wild! Top 10 Ways to Use Pumpkin

Do you hear those crisp leaves crunching underneath your feet as you walk to your car in the morning, holding your favorite brand of pumpkin coffee in your hand? Are apples the only fruit that you pack in your lunch for the next month, yet you know you won’t get sick of them? Then you love fall, too. But before we go too far into fall, let’s focus on the hallmark food of the season: pumpkin.

Pumpkin pie and bread are great…but it’s time to mix it up a bit. Enjoy…

10. Pumpkin Pie Martini

Don’t tell me you didn’t think we’d have some form of booze on here. I know, some of your are cringing thinking of “ruining” a glycerin-induced regular martini with the sweet taste of pumpkin. Well then you go ahead and drink your regular martini. The rest of us will enjoy the pumpkin…and not feeling like we have to call poison control.

Recipe: Life’s Ambrosia

9. Pumpkin Pie Dip

There is a dip that neighbors make every year for fruit. It has cream cheese, sugar, and peanut butter in it. I’m not complaining, but I think they could also mix it up and try this pumpkin dip. I’ve had this before, and in addition to fruits and graham crackers – pretzels are a great instrument in carrying the dip. Plus – sweet and salty.

Recipe: The Girl Who Ate Everything

8. Pumpkin Tagliatelle

There’s a restaurant in Philly that makes the best pumpkin pasta I’ve ever had. And I’m dead-set on returning this fall. However, for those of you that can’t enjoy it at the restaurant: this tagliatelle looks awesome. Used the right way, pumpkin adds a buttery, nutty flavor to the pasta. Yum.

Recipe: The Little Things

7. Pumpkin-Caramel Mousse Cakes

Pumpkin. Caramel. Mousse. I’m sold.

Recipe: Bakers Royale

in Desserts / Drinks / Lists / Top 10 Lists 4 comments

by gansie

All Together Now: Dips Make Everything Better

I’m still heavy into my ad-hoc Indian cooking phase. I visited an Indian grocer in Takoma Park, Maryland and brought home a new slew of ingredients: hot curry powder, coriander powder, ghee, hing, paneer and masoor dal. I went right home to cook, trying to perfect a no-recipe-necessary dal palak. I had a vegan friend coming over so I skipped the ghee, but added all of my new spices. I still couldn’t find the necessary depth, but it’s an improvement over the last. However, when I whipped the lentils into a dip for the next day’s party, it turned out perfectly.

Dal Palak Dip

in Recipe / Veggie 5 comments