Consider blasphemy if you like, but for the most part I prefer lentil and bean chili over beef chili. Beef chili weighs you down, sitting in your stomach as if you had swallowed a bowling ball whole. Lentils and beans are filling without being heavy, spicy chipotle provides the heat and beer gives the chili a rich, smoky taste.

This chili can be made in either the Crock-Pot or in a heavy kettle on the stove, depending on your kitchen needs on game day. I made this batch on a day when I was using the oven and the stove for other things, so the slow cooker it was.

My guests? Yeah, they’re lentil and bean chili converts too, even though they’re all heavy meat eaters.

You’re going to need a dessert for your Super Bowl party, but one that is not so sickly sweet it doesn’t go with beer, cocktails and soda. Sweet potato pie with a touch of toasted marshmallow creme make a great addition to the buffet without a lot of work, and can even be made a day or two ahead of time and refrigerated for game time.

This makes a good 50-60 bite sized pies which sounds like a lot of pie, but the first tray of these disappeared before we even got the brisket off the grill on Sunday, so don’t worry about having leftovers. Or worry about having leftovers and hide a few for yourself to have for breakfast the next day, which is what I wish I would have done.

Not that it matters to anyone else other than me, but I’m 7-8 in playoffs picks (the one loss, obviously being the Steelers Wild Card Weekend).

Baltimore Ravens – New England Patriots

I’ve seen some late-week picks going for the Ravens after early predictions had the Pats heavy favorites, despite Ed Reed calling out his quarterback Joe “Ed Hardy of Unibrows” Flacco for being scared against the Texans. Sure, New England has a pretty weak defense compared to Baltimore, but all four of the Ravens 2011 losses came on the road, including giving up games to the listless Jaguars and San Diego Chargers. Picking the Patriots over Baltimore 31-17, but really rooting for a meteor/bird flu outbreak in Foxboro on Sunday. (I guess the Patriots are a lesser evil. YOU MEMBER I SAID SOMETHING NICE ABOUT YOU NEXT SEASON PATS FANS.)

A few seeds and nuts go along way to filling out any Super Bowl spread, and these savory rosemary almonds are incredibly addicting. Not a fan of almonds? Many people use this same blend and method on cashews.

A few seeds and nuts go along way to filling out any Super Bowl spread, and these savory rosemary almonds are incredibly addicting. Not a fan of almonds? Many people use this same blend and method on cashews.

Longtime Football Foodie readers know we’re no strangers to matching pierogies with football around these parts. Making traditional homemade pierogies is easy enough and we’re still making special blue cheese pierogies in Buffalo sauce when the craving hits around game time.

But the only problem with making pierogies from scratch is that it’s quite a time commitment. What if you want the taste of pierogies, but don’t want to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen? Easy. You make a pierogi lasagna. All the cheese, onions and potatoes you could ever need layered between lasagna noodles gives you the same taste without all the work.

Strike that. This version has way more delicious, creamy cheese melted between fluffy potatoes with the soft bite of onion and garlic.

Mozzarella sticks are problematic.

While great in a bar, mozzarella sticks are a ton more work when you’re at home. First, you have to make sure you get a good mozzarella that will hold up to frying. Then you have to bread them. Then fry them with a ton of oil, or worse, try to bake them in the oven where they inevitably melt into goo. Then they pretty much only taste like whatever marinara or ranch you pair them with for snacking. A lot of work for very little reward. Which is why my favorite fried cheesy snack to make at home is queso blanco.

The problem with most popcorn is that it doesn’t taste like anything other than what you put on it, which means it usually tastes like a salted turnpike doused in Paula Deen’s tears. Long time readers of the Football Foodie know I love salt and butter as much as the next person, but sometimes you want to a crunchy snack to actually taste like what it is made of; in this case, something that tastes like toasted corn.

Somewhere early in our trip to Europe I got this idea in my head that I wanted to know what sort of snacks I’d be munching on if I were an American ex-pat during football season.

Note that I said “American ex-pat” and not a “European NFL fan” because from what I saw during two game days in London and one in Prague, the only people who care about the NFL in Europe are ex-pats, despite what Roger Goodell tries to tell us in his push for a second game a season in London, even though this season’s game still isn’t sold out. Of course my experience is only anecdotal at best, but when we went to what was supposedly one of the biggest NFL bars London, it was only the Americans watching the NFL. Everyone else was busy with the Premier League, Italian soccer, Spanish soccer and yes, German Bundesliga. (Which is just a fun word to say. BUNDESLIGA! Those kids were really upset over Brennen losing.)

When tailgating and bringing food to parties, the refrigeration and cooling situation is always a bit dicey. At some point, you’ll need more room in the cooler for beer and as much as I love potato salads and macaroni salads, the last thing I want to leave out in the sun during a pre-game round of cornhole or pin-the-tail-on-Rex-Ryan is any sort of mayonnaise or cheese dressed food.

If you watch enough football and snack enough while watching football, you start to run out of ways to have variation of pizza. Pizza loaf, pizza dip, pizza galettes, sfincione, pizzettes…

After a huge brunch this afternoon of hangover eggs, toast and hash browns, I wanted to make something lighter and remotely healthy for dinner tonight. Also because all of yesterday’s calories were spent on a yogurt, brown rice, a Mallow Cup and Jameson. (Mostly Jameson.)

Possibly one of the all-time greatest bar foods is fried pickles, a snack I hold above mozzarella sticks and fried zucchini.

So when The Gurgling Cod told me about how they preferred making pimento cheese with Rick’s Picks products a few months ago, I scouted their online store for local distributors to make sure I bought the proper prescribed pepper. Imagine my amazement when I saw they sold sriracha pickles. Could it be? A way to improve my beloved fried pickle? I could barely contain my excitement as I bought a jar at my local cheese shop. Spicy, cut thick enough to endure frying, locally sourced pickles? Okay, so I bought more than just one jar.

Over the summer, Bryan and I had a chance to take a couple of weeks off to take a road trip across the country. See some friends and family, go to a ballgame, stop by Steelers training camp in Latrobe, have some sweet tea in Tennessee. Obviously having a lot of time in the car, I started to toss around ideas for the 2010-2011 season of the Football Foodie series with both Bryan and with my readers on Twitter. I don’t quite remember how it came up, but somehow we got stuck on Buffalo-style pierogies and how could you do them aside of the usual way of just putting hot sauce on a box of Mrs. T’s. Someone suggested chicken, which I rejected even though I know a few cooks make pierogies with poultry in them. Beef or pork is a common filling in Eastern European pierogies, but chicken? I wasn’t convinced.

Right now, we’re in the middle 42-7 Pro Bowl blowout which surprisingly enough, makes today’s NHL All-Star defense-free 11-10 final seem competitive in retrospect.

Busy week this coming up for football and food planning. I’ll be posting recipes both here and over at SB Nation for all of your Super Bowl party needs, so keep an eye out for upcoming posts covering Blue Cheese Pierogies with Buffalo Sauce, Sriracha Fried Pickles, Oven-Baked Mini-Burritos, Coffee Glazed Chicken Legs, cocktails and more. So let’s get to it, we only have one week left to get our Super Bowl menu ready!

I can’t lie, I’ve long imagined that if I were to ever open a local watering hole, these biscuit bites would be our bar nibbles instead of peanuts or pretzels because they go so well with beer and cocktails.

You may be worried that the small dough ball won’t make that many biscuit bites, but this recipe yields about five dozen of these savory little treats. If you’re having a large party, the recipe is easily doubled or even tripled. And if you are not a fan of cheddar, these are very similar to the Parmesan Crisps I posted a couple of years ago, but with sour cream instead of egg.

Just because it’s the Super Bowl doesn’t mean it should be all chips, wings and pizza. You’re going to need something sweet to counterbalance the savory.

Fortunately the salt from the pretzels prevents these cookies from being overly sugary tasting and they keep their crunch nicely in during baking, matching well with the softness of the dough.

I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I’ve brought this salad to a tailgate, football party, or picnic in the eight years since one of my mother’s Orange County cousins shared with me the general recipe for this dish. I’ve tweaked it some since then, added more olives, and incorporated in some balsamic vinegar, garlic, cucumber and parsley. I can tell you it vanishes at ever party I’ve ever brought it to.

Listen, you may think this doesn’t look like a football snack food. That craving for bread your guests get after about their third beer? Yeah. These disappear in a heartbeat.

This past weekend, fellow Steelers THUNDERDOME fantasy football league member Joshua Rivera was in town with his buddy for a Laker game and a long weekend visit, which means we got to play host for Saturday’s Steelers-Ravens rematch. Since I wanted to make sure they got the full LA experience and didn’t get stuck inside our place while the weather was so nice, we headed out to Big Wangs to meet up with some fellow black and gold fans. (Don’t worry, I cooked and had people over for Sunday’s games and the Golden Globes so they could get a feel for what our usual football party is like.) Great game, great people and way too many shots from Big Wang’s resident mayor, Smokey.

Well, my long winded intro for this post was spun-off into its own entry, Yes, you should have an opinion on the upcoming lockout, so go read that post then come back here for a surprisingly healthy Football Foodie post about brussel sprouts.

So assuming you went back and read that particular post, understand that being an informed consumer is just like having healthy snacks. It’s not that hard and frankly, you’re going to enjoy it more than you think you’re going to.

I used up all my energy earlier with Scientists Claim NFL Did Not Take Into Account Earth’s Wobble in Realignment, so this post is nothing but the recipe!

So in the spirit of hoping the Jets and the Patriots completely beat the crap out of each other on Sunday, I’ve come up a list of Henny Youngman-style insults in case either team (read:Patriots) needs some inspiration while improving their own trash talk.

Steelers fan paranoia week is finally here. Thank goodness it’s a short week with the AFC North rematch scheduled for Saturday, because frankly I don’t think I could keep it together until Sunday. As I said yesterday, you just knew it was coming. It could be a Tuesday in July and everyone would want Steelers-Ravens.

So while we impatiently wait for the next round, there is a whole work week to slog through, Pens-Bruins (twice, with one of those match-ups also on Saturday), a BCS championship game that the NCAA will probably disavow and vacate at some point, and probably a good $2-$3 million dollars worth of ad buys for Vince Vaughn’s THE DILEMMA. What a horrible rivalry week.

Originally this week I had planned on doing a snack guide for the entire college football bowl season, but when I realized I could only make so many BYU/Utah Jello jokes I decided to fall back on lazy jabs about college football fans being nuts. (Which as we will see later in this post, they are.)

Considering there are approximately 273 bowl games, you’re going to need a snack that you can make in large batches and will keep for days. Some people are big fans of heavy holiday noshing – the carb-and-salt-loaded Chex Mix and sugary “white trash” come to mind, but I prefer items that are both filling but not too heavy this time in small doses this time of year. A small handful of nuts not only go well with beer, they are also substantial enough to make a football watching food. (A good trade off since you’re not going to spend a lot of time planning football entertainment around Christmas and New Year’s aside of the bowl games, and if you’re anything like me, going to be sick of being in the kitchen after all the holiday cookie baking.)

Unlike a lot of people, I like Thursday Night Football. Sure, it stinks if you’re on the East Coast or live somewhere in the middle of the country and football goes up against your favorite shows, (we’ll leave the ‘Community’ vs ‘Big Bang Theory’ debate for another day), or if you’re on the West Coast and football starts at 5:20pm while you’re still at the office. The trade off is that if your team plays on Thursday, you’re under a lot less pressure to watch football on Sunday and this is the time of year when Sundays start to become very, very valuable.

I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but truth of the matter is the only way to avoid destruction is not to play the game.

Now to crackers.

Usually, I post a whole string of photos on how to make these recipes, fill it with some half-funny jokes and vague references to fat players.

Considering the long walk I took above, well.  Just look at the photo set here and read the below directions. You’ll figure it out. These are really awesome crackers and I’d be lying to say I haven’t eaten an entire other batch of them while typing this post.

So on that note, WONTONS! I love fried wontons for Living Room-Gating — yes I am going to keep using those words all season until it catches on — with a bunch of people. Easy, quick, and they feed a ton of people. It took five big eaters to go through a tray this size during the All-Star Game this past summer.

For Indianapolis, I’ve made the regional favorite, sugar cream pie.  At first glance, the recipe made me break out in hives.  Out the hundreds of sugar cream pie recipes I looked at, all of them called for a pre-made frozen pie shell.  Sacre bleu!  The filling is made out of heavy whipping creme, sugar, flour, whole (!!!) milk, butter and a touch of nutmeg and/or cinnamon.  Only a few of the recipes I saw even called for the very racy ingredient of vanilla.

Hooray!  I’m watching a substandard Pro Bowl — which by pro-football standards is already a very, very low standard — with third-choice players, a rainy field and tens of thousands of other football fans who all agree; even bad football is better than the best the Grammys have to offer.  (By the way, how is it that even with moving the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl, it manages to be the same weekend as the Grammys again?)

The good news is we’ve decided to stay in for this years Pro Bowl.  The last time Holly and I blogged the game from Big Wangs, we had to ask the waitress to switch from “Napa Wine Today” for the game.  This also means we have an excuse to revisit one the best recipes from this year’s Friday Football Foodie series, Ham and Cheese Pretzel Bites with Beer Floats! Do you remember how awesome they were?

The quiet before the storm.  Less then eight days left to come up with a plan for the Super Bowl.

If you are a Saints fan, you’re checking room rates, ticket brokers and staring at maps looking for ways to shave time off the 13 hour drive from New Orleans to Miami.

If you are a Colts fan, you’re debating purchasing the game day package from Costco that includes game tickets, plane tickets, hotel room, and a pre-game bar.

Everyone else?  Well, we’re still figuring out what type of food to serve next Sunday.

Sure, I am undercutting my entire argument because I am writing my opinion about Super Bowl coverage in a post about recipes you can use for a Super Bowl party (two things that certainly have no effect on the outcome of the actual game), but I would like to think that in my own little corner of the sports blogging world, it is more about having fun and being an engaged fan in a way that plays to my strengths.  If I wrote about all the dishes I had to do after each game, no one would ever read my site.  By telling your readers the story is boring before you get to the meat of the topic, what chance do you have of anyone reading through to the end?

Anything — sports, sex, music, cooking, writing, flying a kite, rambling on and on –  is immediately less interesting when you make it sound like a grind.  Maybe as writers and readers, we wouldn’t be so bored if the stories weren’t already framed in such a negative light.

You know what are not negative?  Olives!  Beautiful, glorious olives!

When you first throw your chickpeas in the oil, you will think the world is ending.  Move quickly and cover.  A few chickpeas will pop and go flying.  Neither you, the oil, or the chickpea have done anything wrong.  These things happen.

WELL SUCK IT UP NANCY BECAUSE THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU CAN EAT LIKE A PIG UNTIL NEXT SEPTEMBER.  You either start planning and cooking now or you will be stuck fighting some I-don’t-care-football-but-maybe-I-will-get-laid-if-I-get-out-of-the-house douchecake in an American Apparel hoodie over the last bag of Cool Ranch Doritos at the Silver Lake Vons next Saturday.

YES, IT IS YOU PANSY.  The players haven’t stopped playing, so where the cuss do you think you get off!   Three seasons of the Football Foodie, so these recipes better be second nature to you now, especially this week’s two easy snacks.

Likewise, it is one of the toughest months to cook for football games.  Between the parties, cookies at the office, and eggnog it is a month of pure fat, something you had reserved for your one “free day” of Sunday.  (Or Saturday, depending on your football orthodoxy.)  Calories aside, if you’re already interested in cooking for football, you’re probably the person making cookies, helping the hosts with canapes and bringing the extra bottle of gloog to your office party.  Is it too much to rest when you watch football now?

The Steelers having this week’s Monday Night Football stage gave me all day to make the most powerful lucky dish known to Western Pennsylvania (outside of Dan Bylsma’s lucky burrito); pierogies.  Pierogies may be one of the few dishes to be featured on both bar and church fundraiser menus alike around Pittsburgh.  There are dozens of filling options.  Different secrets on how to make the pasta part just right. Some people fry them.  Some people boil them.  Some boil and then sauté their pierogies.  (My preferred method making pierogies.) Served with sour cream or farmer’s cheese.  There are few things more Pittsburgh than pierogies.  Did I have a Polish or Russian Nana? No.  Did I still have pierogies for dinner at least every other week growing up?  Absolutely.

Why are pierogies a great football food?  Hearty and carb-y enough to soak up extra beer in your stomach.  If they’re fried they are just as good – if not better -  than any other bar food, i.e. a snack you can grab and stuff in your mouth without having to look away from the television.  They even look like little footballs if you squint hard enough.

For some reason people want to see Jessica Simpson in the stands cheering on Tony Romo. Others want as many shots as possible of Brady Quinn sitting on the bench.  (By my count, the networks have only cut to him once or twice all season.)  And some sick puppies don’t believe they rerun the footage of Joe Theisman breaking his leg enough.

Fans of the Friday Football Foodie apparently want more cheese. Both of these recipes are so easy that if you need second batches during your party, you will have more than enough time at the half to get these going and check your fantasy score

Pretty much whatever you have handy that you would love to have on a tostada.  It’s still early in the season so you have plenty of time for experimenting with new formations.