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Guacamole, Dip and more Superbowl Ideas, oh my!

As many of you know I am not the biggest football fan 😉 I enjoy cheering local teams though and since I live less than 20 minutes from Gillette Stadium (and shop at the Trader Joe’s in its shadow!), I am looking forward to next Sunday! I always love a chance to cook, so here are some recipes and ideas for your Superbowl Sunday feast.

This is my favorite Guacamole recipe! Use it on its own to dip your favorite tortilla chips into or add it to a layer dip. You’ll see my idea for a layer dip below.

Guacamole

Ingredients

2 – 3 avocados (depends on size, 2 large or 3 small)

Juice of 1/2 a lime

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/8 teaspoon of black pepper

4 Tablespoons finely chopped tomatoes

2 Tablespoons of minced red onion

1 handful of cilantro, chopped finely

Directions

Add avocado, lime, salt, cumin and pepper to a medium sized bowl. Mash together with a fork. Add tomatoes, onion and cilantro. Mix together. Add more lime juice if needed on top to keep guacamole from browning.

If you want to make a layered dip, here is an idea:

Take a can of black beans and mash with a fork and place on the bottom of your serving dish. Place a layer of the guacamole. Take 8 ounces of sour cream and mix with 1 teaspoon of chili powder. Add that as the next layer. Top with 1 cup of shredded cheddar, cilantro, chopped olives and chopped tomatoes. Let sit in fridge for 2- 24 hours. Serve with your favorite tortilla chips or add it to a tortilla with some shredded chicken or pork.

Dip, chips, wings, meatballs, ribs, chili, pulled pork, Rainbow pizza or grilled pizza…you name it! There are so many options for your football feast. Desserts? Make these Chex Crispy Bars, Ice cream sundaes, brownies or cupcakes and frost with chocolate frosting and then pipe white frosting to look like laces. Simply having chocolate chip cookies or a bowl of M & Ms or rolos or hershey kisses would be plenty!

What are you having Sunday night for the Superbowl?

Crowd Pleasing Chili

If you are having a crowd over for a big game or just hanging out with friends and family around the holidays and need a big satisfying meal, chili is always a great option. It is a blank canvas and does not require a lot of hands on work. It is also very easy to make gluten free, vegetarian or allergy friendly, which is great when you have a large crowd and don’t know what everyone’s food allergies or preferences are. I don’t think I have ever really made chili the same way twice, but I made this one recently to fuel up some friends before we enjoyed a long walk.

Quinoa Pumpkin Chili for a Crowd

Ingredients

1 to 2 pounds of your favorite beans or mixture of beans

½ of a large onion, diced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1-24 ounce can crushed tomatoes

About ½ a 15 ounce can of pumpkin

1 ½ teaspoons salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

2 Tablespoons of chili powder

¼ teaspoon dried oregano

3 Tablespoons of cider vinegar

¾ cup of chicken stock (or vegetable or beef stock)

1 ½ Tablespoons brown sugar

½ cup of quinoa

Optional, add 1 to 2 cups of leftover roasted vegetables and/or turkey, chicken or beef

Directions

Pour all the ingredients into your slow cooker and stir. Cook on high for 2-3 hours or low 6-8 hours. Taste and add more seasoning if needed. Serve with sour cream and sliced green onions.

This is yet another way to disguise Thanksgiving leftovers. To stretch the meal even further, you can serve it over mac-n-cheese, as I did for lunch the day after I made it.

quinoa-chili-for-a-crowd

When you are entertaining for the holidays, having easy meals that can stretch to feed a crowd are very useful. This is a healthy meal and a hearty meal that will give you the fuel to warm you up after hiking, skiing or keep you going during overtime of your favorite team’s game.

What are your favorite crowd pleasing meals? Stay tuned for an extra post this week with some gluten free holiday entertaining ideas and a recipe!

Here are some past crowd pleasing or tailgating recipes and ideas for using leftovers (Always the same disclaimer that they are from before our family started eating gluten free so make adaptations as needed or ask me how I do it! mammascooking@gmail.com

Fall Football and Tailgating

Lessons Learned from Thanksgiving and Cooking in the Aftermath

Pre and Post Thanksgiving Ideas with a Potluck Recipe thrown in

Happy Thanksgiving

Taco Tuesday – Step outside the Taco Shell (Gluten free!)

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Turkey time, a visit to a butcher shop and italian sausage mac-n-cheese (I think I’ll make this mac-n-cheese GF tonight!)

Thank you to Mamapedia for highlighting Mamma’s Cooking 3 Easy 10 Minute Meals on Mamapedia Voices on Friday!

Sweet potato gnocchi with pesto and more fun leftover ideas

To keep things interesting, I’m challenging myself with a new cooking technique each month. Last month it was making homemade bread. This month it is making my own gnocchi, which is much easier than I thought! I made this for a cooking club last week and everyone loved it! My husband and kids really enjoyed it too.

http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/sweet-potato-gnocchi-with-gouda-cheese-sauce/

Click link for gnocchi recipe. The cheese sauce is great but I thought a little too heavy with the gnocchi, so the second time I made it with pesto.

Pesto

Fresh basil, handful

2 Cloves of Garlic, smashed

Olive oil, about ¼ cup

Parmesan, about ¼ cup shredded

Salt and lemon pepper to taste

Blend all the ingredients together in food processor while drizzling in olive oil, until smooth. Can add pine nuts or walnuts if you like. I also sometimes do half blanched kale and half basil.

I used some of the leftover mashed sweet potatoes I did not use to make the gnocchi and made chicken mango and black bean quesadillas. They were so good! Just spread a layer of sweet potatoes on the bottom half of the tortilla. Then in a bowl, mix leftover chicken with mango, black beans, cheddar, mozzarella and some cumin. Spread chicken mixture on top of sweet potato, fold tortilla over and bake in a 375 degree oven for 5-8 minutes.

I also made one of my kids’ favorites last week. Meatloaf “cupcakes” with mashed potato “frosting” and peas “sprinkles.” This is such a fun way to get kids to eat dinner. Karina enjoyed sprinkling the peas on the plates 🙂 I had so much leftover sweet potatoes from the gnocchi, that I added it to my meatloaf too!

Mix about 2-3 lbs of ground meat (whichever you like, turkey, chicken, pork, beef I like to use a mix of pork and beef), 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs, 1/2 onion – grated, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/2 cup cooked shredded vegetables (I’ve used leftover carrots, zucchini, sweet potatoes, or all three combined), salt, lemon pepper and coriander.

The key to good meatloaf is to do what the professionals do and cook a small pattie of meat in a pan and taste it so you know if the seasonings are right. I know its an extra step, but it is so worth it! That way you know to add more seasoning.

Grease your muffin tin and use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop out the meatloaf mixture, roll it in your hand to make a giant meatball and then drop it in the muffin tin. Cook at 375 for about 35- 45 minutes (may be longer or shorter depending on your oven). About half way through brush with mixture of 2 parts ketchup and one part Sweet Chili sauce (I love Trader Joe’s sauce) that has been heating on the stove. At the end brush again.

Put mashed potatoes into a large ziploc bag and cut off one corner and use it to pipe mashed potatoes on top of your muffins. Then sprinkle with peas. (I just used frozen that I microwaved for 3 minutes).

For the leftover mashed potatoes and even the meatloaf, add it to your eggs in the morning and just scramble together to make a hash with some bacon or ham deli meat that you need to use up and serve with fruit. Below I gave it to my kids with some chocolate zucchini bread on Saturday. This chocolate zucchini bread recipe is good, but for me needs a little more sweetening and moisture. Kids loved it regardless!

Eating what we eat

Karina is now eating mostly what we eat. No more double duty! Sometimes the timing just doesn’t work however (mostly when I can’t get dinner ready early enough). The other night we were getting ready to go to a friend’s house for dinner (not until 7pm), so I was trying to figure out what to give Karina for dinner. We hadn’t gone grocery shopping and the fridge was pretty bare. I was wracking my brain, then thought, “what do I usually do when Tim and I don’t have many options = quesadillas! So I found a can of black beans in the pantry, put some shredded cheese, diced up a little tomato and a little cilantro on a flour tortilla and put it in the microwave for 30 secs. I cut it up into bite size pieces and Karina loved it! Later at our friend’s house she tried some pulled pork and sweet potato. Also a big hit!

It has been a busy couple of weeks, so I’ve been trying out some different jarred food. I tried to give Karina soup. Here is the result:

I don’t know how soon we’ll try that again…Good thing it was bath night 🙂

Karina also enjoyed a great steak dinner one night (thanks to Ouma and Oupa for bringing us some steaks from Nebraska). We grilled some steak (med rare) and then cut the end pieces that were cooked through for Karina. She also ate tomatoes and some baked sweet potato with rosemary.