Now that's how you Superbowl!

Holy cow, Seattle dominated. It was pretty much ridiculous. I'm going to to go ahead and take all the credit as Seattle's good luck charm because I looked so cute. I was decked out head to toe, seriously! I had my

Shoes

Nails

Shirts

Eyes

And hair!!

Seriously, this headband is SO CUTE. I got it from Nicole at Rogue Sisters, you can special order one from their facebook page or their Etsy store.

All right, on to the food! As mentioned in last week's Superbowl prep post I was working on poor memory and a single fuzzy picture of what I made last year. I decided the only thing that would be difficult to replicate would be the teriyaki wings, so I decided to just skip them all together and do pulled pork instead! It's so simple in the slow cooker and you just can't go wrong with slow cooked pulled pork.

The full Superbowl menu ended up as such:

• BBQ Pulled Pork
• Salsa
• Guacamole
• Chili con Queso
• Swedish Meatballs
• Chex Mix
• Hot Wings (last minute addition)
• Cupcakes (other last minute decision and why I shouldn't go to the grocery store hungry)

How To:

1. Pulled pork! So easy, and always delicious. I bought a four pound pork shoulder and trimmed some of the fat. On the bottom of the crock pot I laid the extra fat, a chopped onion, and 4 chopped garlic cloves. I put the pork on top of the veggies. I then added 2 cups apple cider vinegar and topped with water until the meat was covered. Ideal would be to cook this all day on low but I needed it done by 3 so I put it on high for 6 hours and then switched to warm. After the six hours take out the pork and shred it; drain the juice, fat, and excess onions; then put the pork back in. Top with a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce, I used Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ. I don't like the sauce to drip off so I used a little less than a full bottle but you make it as saucy as you want! Let sit for an hour in the sauce before serving. I put out hoagies for peeps to make sandwiches but I just ate the pork on its own!
   
2. I used the same salsa recipe I've posted before and just made a bigger batch. I used 4 roma tomatoes, 1/2 red onion, 4 garlic cloves, 1 serrano pepper, and juice of 1/2 lime. I just bought an official lemon squeezer and hot damn does that thing squeeze out a lot of juice!! I left out the cilantro because I know my mom doesn't like it. Dashed in some salt & pepper this time and stirred it up.
   
3. Guacamole is also so easy and far superior when you make it yourself! I used two avocados, one roma tomato, two garlic cloves, 1/4 red onion, and the other half of the lime. I also like to put serrano pepper in my guac buy my parents don't like spicy so I left it out. My mother has a very sensitive palate. Mash the avocados, stir in the veggies (chopped fine), add lime juice, and stir!
   
4. The chili con queso is kind of a cheat dish. It's so delicious made from scratch, but when I'm serving it as a side to an already large meal I do the extreme cheat version - one can salsa queso and one can hormel no-bean chili. Stir and heat and....done!

   

   Not my image, I forgot to take a picture other than the group food picture. I apologize. GAH I SAID I'M SORRY GET OFF MY BALLS

5. I love Swedish meatballs, and someday I'll post my scratch recipe because it's mad bueno! But again, when doing big meals like this there's something to be said for the occasional shortcut. Step one is to make simple meatballs like so; in a bowl whisk together one egg and a splash of milk. Add breadcrumbs, about 1/2 slice of bread worth. Add 1/2 onion and 3 garlic cloves chopped fine. Season with salt and pepper. Now add one pound ground beef and mix well. Line a baking sheet with foil and preheat the oven to 375. Make tiny meatballs, they should only be one or two bites big. Bake for about 15 minutes or until no longer pink in the center. While that bakes saute quartered mushrooms and chopped onions. Quantity depends on how hearty you like your dish to be! Now here's the cheat part; we're just going to use cream of mushroom soup as the sauce. Drain the clear grease from the meatballs but reserve some of the fat. In a big pot or slow cooker put the meatballs, mushrooms, reserved fat, and 2-3 cans cream of mushroom soup depending on how saucy you like it. Let simmer for at least an hour, stirring occasionally. At the end, before serving, stir in a big spoonful of sour cream.
   
6. Chex mix was store bought though it is fun to make at home when you have the time!
7. At around noon my S.O. says "You know what we don't have......hot wings. I want hot wings." So we ran to the grocery store to get some basic ingredients; a bag of frozen wings and Frank's Red Hot Sauce. Aaaaaaand cupcakes. I had been smelling food all day, my will was weak! To make simple hot wings like this, first bake the wings until cooked. Whip up the sauce in a small pot; melt a couple pats of butter and stir in some Frank's Red Hot. We totally eyeballed this so I really don't have quantities in mind; so just stir some in, taste, stir, add, so on until satisfied. Now at this point if you have a deep fryer, use it! That's how you get crispiness! Sadly we don't so we just moved on to the saucin'. Put the wings in a bowl, top with your butter hot sauce and toss. Put back in the oven for a bit. At the end we turned on the broiler for a few minutes in the hoped of some crispiness. Serve with blue cheese dressing for dip.
   

Sorscha partied hard.