Tag Archives: food

stress-free super bowl recipes

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A collection of stress-free Wee Eats recipes that are perfect for your  super bowl party

(Click the picture to go to the recipe!)

Act 1 : Savories

1. Puff pastry makes these cheese twists super easy (to save time, you can make them in advance and freeze them!)

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2. Make a batch of chili (or even sloppy joes) and serve it on top of hot dogs or tots to make a tasty snack! Or go vegetarian with some cheesy artichoke bread.

chili cheese tots

3. Cut the pretzel rope into 2-inch pieces for delicious pretzel bites.  You can bake these ahead of time, freeze the bites, and reheat them in the microwave or oven before serving! (Short on time? Try this 30-minute pretzel recipe instead!)

pretzel thumb

 4. With all the artery-clogging goodness you can eat at most football fiestas, sometimes a veggie or two is a nice break.  Or some super easy & portable bruschetta or flatbread should do the trick.

caprese thumb

5. This loaded potato dip takes about two minutes to make, and you can make it a day or two ahead of time.  Warning: You will want to double or triple the recipe to have enough to serve your ravenous guests.

loaded potato thumb

6. How about some sliders? The chipotle bacon variety, 5 chile turkey burgers, or just a build-your-own burger slider bar!

If you’re not in a burger mood, you could make sliders out of sloppy joes or (our favorite) beef sammies, too!

7. This easy salsa is made in your food processor or blender and only takes a few minutes!

salsa thumb

Act 2: Sweets

1. Cut these brownies into football-shaped bites if you want.  I’m sure they’ll be just as enjoyable as squares, though 🙂

btc brownie

2. Make these cake pops and cover them with sprinkles that match your team’s colors.

cake pop thumb

3. Mini oreo cheesecakes are a quick and easy (make-ahead) bite-size treat that are sure to please.  You could add food coloring to match them to your team’s color!

mini oreo cheese thumb

4. These toffee chip cookies are a favorite around these parts, they’re easy to make and you can freeze them pre or post baking to save yourself some time on game day.  Or give these giant chewy M&M-stuffed cookies a try.

toffee chip thumb

Act 3: Drinks

1. Start infusing vodka today with berries or pineapple and it should be ready by the time game-day arrives.  Tip: the smaller you slice your fruit the faster your vodka will infuse!

2. Cut this solid hot chocolate into football shapes and you’ll have super bowl hot chocolate on a stick!

hot chocolate stick

Collage

loaded potato dip

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With the Super Bowl coming up, I’ve already shared a couple of snacks with you, but here’s one I really love.  Not only is it the easiest thing in the world to make, and you can make it with ingredients that you most likely have in your house right now, but it is packed with flavor.

Or should I “loaded” with flavor?  (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)

All you do is take all the stuff you would normally put on a baked potato: bacon, cheese, sour cream, etc… and put it into a bowl instead!  Stir it up and let it sit so the flavors can “mingle”, and then serve it up, on top of potatoes!

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Well, potato chips.  Same thing.

If you’re worried about your waistline, or still hanging onto some shred of your New Year’s Resolution, do what I did and use reduced-fat sour cream and turkey bacon.  No one will ever know, unless you tell everyone about it on your blog later.

Oops?

Well, since you’re saving all those calories, you might as well double the recipe.

Loaded Baked Potato Dip

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • ½ cup sour cream (use reduced-fat if you feel guilty)
  • ½ cup extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
  • 5 slices bacon or good turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
  • 1 teaspoon dried chives (because that’s what I keep in my pantry) or 1 Tablespoon fresh
  • ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon (1 pinch) ground pepper

Stir everything else together, then sprinkle your extras on top and cover with plastic wrap.  Place in the fridge for at least one hour or up to one week prior to serving.

Garnish with extra shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, and chives if you’re feelin’ fancy.

Serve with your favorite potato chips (or baked kettle chips!)

Dip can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may also like these party favorites:

 

 

fig thumb 543914_520358348003784_1734403736_n caprese thumb pretzel thumb

 

hot chocolate on a stick

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We recently had a cold snap here, which I hear is in store for the rest of the country as well.  (I don’t know what that means, because I’m pretty sure it’s actually “winter” for the rest of you, but that’s what the weather man said.)  I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to warm up than a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Not just any hot chocolate, but THE BEST HOT CHOCOLATE IN ALL THE LAND!

I know this because I was told so by my co-worker when she had some.  And also from those who received it in their Christmas baskets.

Oh, and it’s way more fun than regular hot chocolate, because it’s on a stick!  How fun is that?  Just stir it into hot milk (note: really hot milk, unless you want to eat the fudgey leftovers like I some people do).

It’s so good it’ll warm you right up.  It will warm your tummy and your heart.  Especially when served in an adorable, heart-warming penguin cup.  (BF took this pic with his iPad)


penger

This is nice to enjoy while warming your toes with your loved one, or as quietly as possible standing in front of the fridge.  I store mine in the fridge because I think it stands to reason they should last longer that way.  In the event that they hang around long enough that their shelf-life becomes a concern.

Did I mention that it’s also delicious on its own as a fudge-pop?  Like a lollipop made of fudge.  Fudge on a lollipop stick.  Whatever.  Or, ya know, as a cube of not-hot chocolate.

You should always taste for quality-control.  You wouldn’t want to gift a sub-par product, would you?

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Hot Chocolate on a Stick

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk (1 1/4 cups)
  • 3 cups semisweet chocolate (chopped chocolate bars or chips)
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or extract of your choice)
  • Marshmallows
  • Lollipop sticks

1. Line an 8″ x 8″ pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

2. Heat the cream and condensed milk over low heat until steaming.  Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate.  Set aside for 10 minutes while the chocolate melts.

3. After your 10 minutes have passed, return the pan to the burner and whisk over low heat until the chocolate has completely melted.  Whisk vigorously until the mixture is thick and shiny.  This is where you can add extract, if you wish.   I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract, you could make peppermint hot chocolate with peppermint extract, or hazelnut with hazelnut extract… you get the picture.

4. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pan and shake the pan to level.  Set aside overnight (I stored mine in the microwave… with the microwave off, of course).

5. Remove your chocolate from the pan by pulling your foil handles (if you covered the pan in foil), or you can turn it upside down if you like.  If you didn’t line your pan (aka – didn’t follow step #1), gently go around the edges of the pan with a butter knife to loosen the chocolate, then remove it from the pan.

6.  Slice into 1″ to 1-1/2″ cubes (I actually tried to size mine to the diameter of my marshmallows).  Heat a knife in hot water and wipe dry before each cut, for smoothest cuts.  Stick a lollipop stick into the center of the marshmallow, then the center of each chocolate block.  I wrapped mine in cellophane bags that were made for “cake pops” (the bags and sticks actually came together as a cake pop kit, but the sticks were a little shorter than I’d have liked.)

7. When you are ready to consume your hot chocolate, just stir it into 8 ounces of hot milk -plus or minus a couple ounces, depending on how chocolatey you want your hot chocolate.

wee eats nyc

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Zabar's - just a short walk from our hotel

For our first local breakfast (since the first day we were fueled on Starbucks alone… until we found the BEST PIZZA EVER) we hit Zabar’s. Just a couple blocks north of our hotel, bagel w lox & coffee (New York enough?) and then we hit the museum… we didn’t mean to… it just happened that way.

Zabar's Bagel + Lox

Side note—don’t run through the NYC museums. Also, the planetarium is inside the Museum of Natural History, so if you think you’re just going to the planetarium, plan for a long day, because you will discover that you are actually in the history museum and henceforth obligated to check out the rest of it… just sayin…

Half my sandwich, half BFF's... didn't quite last without a bite

So continuing our short stint in NYC, we also had to hit Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, of course. The food was great, the atmosphere was a little jarring though. At first, we thought it was a bakery, then upon realizing it’s actually in the upper level of Time Warner Center (Keller’s more formal restaurant ‘Per Se’ is also located in the same building, one level up from Bouchon) – set up almost as a food court restaurant would be.

Dessert Duet

Slightly bewildered we sat down and looked over the menu. Not at all what we had expected, but hey, let’s go with it. We each ordered sandwiches (being that it was lunch) and of course we couldn’t leave without dessert… I ordered the mini bouchons, which are like 2-bite brownies almost, while BFF ordered the crepe cake… layers upon layers of crepes and crème bruleed at the top served with some pistachio ice cream. To Die For.

BFF's crepe cake -- notice the bruleed top

Upon leaving Bouchon, I happened to notice a mere 20 feet away was the actual Bouchon Bakery counter that we had been looking for! They had an extensive collection of baked goods: TKO’s (which I made this past Christmas—and will make again for you, of course!), croissants, and giant macarons to name a few…. as well as the very same sandwich I’d just ordered for $3 cheaper! Those bastards! Good thing it was delicious and I had a case full of sweet delicious in front of me or else I might have been upset…

Katz's deli

Of course you can’t go to NYC without stopping at Katz’s Delicatessen for pastrami or corned beef sandwich… being the indecisive one that I am I decided to just get a sandwich with both on! (Thanks.) The sandwich was great, the people though… not so friendly. Maybe it was the crappy weather, or maybe they just don’t like tourists, but they were not at all warm or welcoming… also good to note that when you enter here they give you a tiny ticket for no apparent reason. DO NOT THROW IT AWAY! If you don’t have this when you go to check out the world will most likely implode… also they don’t take credit. Which was a not so pleasant surprise, but luckily I had some cash on me to cover BFF & I.

Katz's Pastrami + Corned Beef

Our trip’s end was tragic. It was the only clear day since we’d arrived, and neither of us was ready to go… I’d like to thank the Met for this accurate portrayal of how it feels to leave NYC.

This is how it feels to leave NYC

 

View the full album here :

NYC

also, my old home eats… Columbus, OH

wee meets nyc

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Some months back, my BFF and I took a trip to NYC. You see, we’d been reading all this stuff about all the delicious treats that were exclusive to the Big Apple, and we just couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve … Continue reading →