DITCH THE DOUGH - Cauliflower Steaks

Most of us love bread.  Breads are the foundation that holds some of our favorite foods together.  They act as a blanket for hot dogs and submarine sandwiches.  They are also the base of one of our favorite food groups, the pizza!

But breads are not exactly the healthiest option in the world.  I used to always think that sandwiches were healthy, depending on what you put on the bread.  Of course a bacon sandwich isn't exactly good for you, but that's because of the bacon, right?  Peanut butter sandwiches aren't too good for us either because peanut butter is filled with peanuts, butter and sugar.  So maybe a nice tomato sandwich, with a light dressing and some lettuce!  Yay!

Perhaps if we get the vegetarian pizza, that will be a much healthier alternative to the usual with pepperoni, bacon, meat and more meat.  But the breads are just as much a part of the problem as whatever you decide to put on it.

Mini Eggplant Pizzas!

Back when I was not exactly in the best shape of my life, I would sometimes think I was doing myself a favor by living on sandwiches for a week.  To my surprise, after about two days, my clothes were tighter.  "It has to be what I'm putting on the bread", I kept telling to myself.  Bread has fiber.  We are always told that fiber is good for us.  But it wasn’t so much what was on the bread but the bread itself.

So I say, ditch the dough every once in a while.  And I am not talking about going full insane mode and swapping bread slices or buns for chicken like one of those KFC Chicken Chicken Chicken burgers.  Try replacing the bread with something healthy and full of flavor.

Cheesy Broiled Tomatoes with Basil!

Try using tomato slices as the base for mini pizzas instead of any kind of dough.  Use eggplant.  Heck, slice a red pepper into slices, top them with awesomeness, bake or broil for a bit and there you go!  Bread, if nothing else, is a mostly flavorless base for whatever you decide to put on or between it.  Think I’m wrong?  Explain dipping sauces to me that you can buy with your pizza order.  How many people who used to never eat the crusts will now eat them if they have a sauce to dip into?  Exactly!  Chalk another excellent point up to Chef Nairby!

Broiled Zucchini with Mozzarella & Dill!

What other options are there to use as a base besides bread?  Tomato slices, eggplant slices, zucchini slices, red, green, orange and yellow peppers, and, as you will see as you continue scrolling down, cauliflower steaks!  Just try it!

Ingredients for Broiled Cauliflower Steaks

Broiled Cauliflower Steaks!

CAULIFLOWER STEAKS

There really is no right or wrong way to make these as it is all up to whatever you choose to use as toppings.  Here is what I used for this particular go-around.

INGREDIENTS

1 Head of cauliflower, cut into about 1 inch thick steaks

Grated marble cheese

Goat Cheese

Grape/Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Fresh chopped dill

Red pepper, chopped

Onion, chopped

Olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Brush cauliflower steaks with olive oil and place in a shallow baking pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

2.  Top steaks with your choice of toppings, and however much you want, like a pizza!

3.  Broil in the oven for 7-10 minutes or until your eyes tell you they are ready!

Easy!  Enjoy!

Chef Nairby

BARBECUE SEASON: Salads

Spring is here!  And with Spring, comes nice weather.  With nice weather, comes spending more time outside.  And with spending more time outside, comes that unmistakable scent in the air that you can smell coming from backyards and balconies of apartment buildings.  The scent of barbecue season!

Ingredients for Chef Nairby's Cheesy Vegetable Medley

That smell, of course, comes from the meats being fired on the grill.  Hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, steaks, chicken, pork, ribs and so on.  But one mainstay of the typical barbecue that is often overlooked when we think of that time of the year are the salads.

When I was growing up, every barbecue had three 'default' salads: coleslaw, macaroni salad and potato salad.  Almost always bought from a grocery store.  But sometimes you would have someone who would also make a great big batch of something homemade.  Usually a tuna and macaroni salad.

Cheese Sauce!

While I liked and grabbed a portion of the grocery store default salads, I would always favor the homemade batch.  Homemade salads for the barbecue have always had their own unique flavor to them, and because there was always a lot more available compared to the store-bought salads, I would always eat more of the homemade stuff.  But as good as the homemade salad tasted, it never seemed to measure up in flavor when compared to the salads from the grocery store.  And the reason is simple.

For lack of a better term, people half-assed their homemade salad.  In the case of the barbecues I always went to, the homemade salad was always tuna macaroni.  And it was always the same.  A bunch of eggshell macaroni mixed with tuna, mayonnaise and onions.

Love the colors!

I can't help but think that the reason people did the minimum with their homemade salads was because they figured that they were more of a garnish for the protein than anything else.  Like the parsley on a plate that is only added to give a dish some color.

Cheese sauce added.  One more step to go before oven-ing!

Top with more cheese!  Who doesn't love cheese!

Out of the oven!!!

I say screw that!  If you are going to make a homemade salad to bring to a barbecue, why not give the protein some competition?  When you think about it, the flavor of the protein at a barbecue depends on what it is marinated with, and because of that, a lot of the proteins taste the same every time and every year.  If you really want to make a memory, try having everybody at the barbecue wondering who made the salad, wanting the recipe and excited for the next Spring and Summer get together because maybe your memorable homemade salad will be there!  And making a great and memorable salad for a barbecue is not hard to do.  You just need to think outside the eggshell macaroni, tuna, onions and mayonnaise box.

Chef Nairby's Cheesy Vegetable Medley!

CHEF NAIRBY’S CHEESY VEGETABLE MEDLEY

This vegetable medley is packed with flavor, creamy cheese and awesomeness!

INGREDIENTS

-4 Avocados, separated (3 for the cheese sauce, 1 chopped for the medley.  (Soft, but not too soft.  We’re going to mash the ones for the cheese sauce up nicely!)

-1 TBSP butter

-300g Goat cheese, separated (3/4 for cheese sauce, the rest for topping and baking)

-1 cup milk

-2 TBSP plain yogurt

-4 Zucchini, chopped into bite sized pieces

-2 cups sliced mushrooms

-1 pint (about 2 cups) grape/cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

-450g grated cheddar, separated (half for the cheese sauce, half for topping and baking)

-1 19oz (540ml) can of dark red kidney beans, drained

-1-2 TBSP fresh chopped dill

-Salt and ground black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Using an electric hand mixer or food processor, mash up the avocado until fluffy like mashed potatoes.

3. On low to medium heat, melt butter in a medium-to-large sized pot or sauce pan.  Add milk when melted.  Stir until combined.

4. Raise heat to medium.  Add ¾ of the goat cheese.  Stir gently until combined and creamy.

5. Add half of the grated cheddar cheese.  Continue stirring until combined.

6. Add the mashed avocado, yogurt and chopped dill.  Continue stirring until combined.

7. In a large bowl, toss zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, chopped avocado, kidney beans, salt and pepper until nicely mixed.  Add the cheese sauce and stir gently until all nicely combined.  Empty into a deep baking pan that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

8. Top with other half of grated cheddar and remaining ¼ of goat cheese, broken up into chunks and scattered.

9. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes.  Remove from oven, empty into a large pot or bowl, mix and serve.  Can be served warm or cold!

Chef Nairby

GREATNESS BY ACCIDENT

Sometimes cooking something new doesn't go as planned.  Especially when you use your experiences from previous recipes and try coming up with your own creation.

A recipe that you followed and turned out excellent will inspire you to use similar methods to try making something different.  If it worked then, if should work now, right?  Not always.  And sometimes when things don't go as we thought it would, our natural reaction a lot of the time is to throw in the towel.

But just because your original idea didn't work, it doesn't mean that you were not on to something.

Sure, there are times when you substituted an ingredient for something similar and it turned out to be a disaster.  In the early stages of when I started taking my cooking a lot more seriously, I had made a homemade pasta sauce from a recipe I found and it turned out great.  It turned out so great that the following week I decided to make it again.  Unfortunately, none of the supermarkets near me had fresh basil, which the recipe called for.  So I turned to dried basil that you get in your typical spice aisle.  BIG mistake!  The sauce was ruined.

But there are also times when a dish is still salvageable.  You just need to change the game plan.

Previously made Pesto Pasta.  Perfection.

Last year, I had an idea to make a pesto dish using broccoli and cauliflower instead of pasta.  A pesto pasta recipe I made a few months prior turned out great and I figured replacing the pasta with broccoli and cauliflower would be simple enough.

I went back to the pasta recipe to remind myself of the ingredients I needed to make the pesto sauce and the basic instructions to make it.  The sauce called for cashews soaked for a few hours, some basil, garlic, lemon juice, grated Parmesan and extra virgin olive oil.

I bought the ingredients and started with soaking the cashews first.  I used more cashews than the pasta recipe called for, thinking I was going to make a large batch of pesto broccoli and cauliflower and therefore needed lots of sauce.

Once the cashews had soaked for a few hours to soften them up, It was time to put them in my food processor and periodically add everything else.  Unfortunately, the mixture was not creating any kind of smooth consistency.  It was becoming more like a ball of dough than anything else.  Adding a little extra olive oil wasn't helping.  I had made the mistake of using too many cashews, and if I wanted to get the mixture smooth, it would have meant adding a lot more olive oil which I didn't want to do.

When my attempt at a Pesto sauce for a Broccoli & Cauliflower dish didn't work, I came up
with Plan B: Operation Salvage.

I stopped the food processor and looked for a minute at what I had.  It looked more like a stuffing you would have with turkey than any kind of sauce.  I decided to give it a taste and it tasted excellent!

I decided that I needed to change my game plan as I had stumbled on to something.  I still had the broccoli and cauliflower, but I also had some grape tomatoes, half a brick of mozzarella and an extra red pepper leftover from the previous days' creation.

I roasted the red pepper, cut the grape tomatoes in half and grated the mozzarella.  I kept some grated mozzarella to the side and put everything else into a large bowl with the cauliflower, broccoli and cashew mixture.  Mixed it all up, put it in a baking tray, topped with the remaining mozzarella and some pepper.  Baked at about 400 degrees for 15 minutes and out came my Cheesy Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli with Pesto Stuffing!

Greatness by accident!

CHEESY BAKED CAULIFLOWER & BROCCOLI with PESTO STUFFING

INGREDIENTS

4 cups of raw natural cashews.

1/4 cup fresh chopped basil.

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped.

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice.

2 Tbsp grated parmesan.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil.

4 cups broccoli florets.

4 cups cauliflower florets.

1 pint grape/cherry tomatoes (about 20 of them), sliced in half.

1 red bell pepper, roasted and chopped.

4 cups grated mozzarella.  Put aside 1 cup for topping.

1 tsp ground black pepper.

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Soak cashews in water for about 3 hours.

2.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees after the cashews are done soaking.

3.  Mix cashews, basil, chopped garlic, lemon juice and parmesan in a food proccessor while slowly adding the olive oil during the mixing process.  Continue mixing until it has a stuffing texture throughout.  Process will take close to 10 minutes depending on how powerful your proccessor is.

4.  Put stuffing mixture in a large mixing bowl and add the broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, roasted red pepper, only THREE cups of the mozzarella and the ground pepper.  Mix and combine in the bowl.

5.  Put the entire mixture into a baking pan line with non-stick cooking spray.  Top with the remaining mozzarella.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Serve.

Chef Nairby

THE SLOW COOK KING

I love my slow cooker!

I don't remember exactly how I obtained my first slow cooker.  I am tempted to say that an old friend of mine told me about them about 15 years ago and I decided to buy one and give it a try.  I still have that first one and one larger one which was a Christmas present a few years ago.

I was blown away the first time I used one.  I made a beef stew.  I believe I found a slow cooked beef stew recipe online and followed it.  I bought some stewing beef, potatoes, carrots, celery, corn, beef broth powder and some seasoning salt.  I chopped the stewing beef in cubes, seasoned them, chopped everything else up and threw it all into the slow cooker with the beef broth mixed with a cup of water.  Cook on low for 8 hours.

Fresh tomatoes, chopped and added to the mix for Slow Cooker Lasagna Soup!

As it was my first time, I could not help but check on the slow cooker every once in a while.  The world of slow cooking sounded too good to be true and my main concern was throwing everything in raw, including the beef, and letting it cook.  So I kept checking.

After almost two hours, it seemed like everything was cooking.  An hour so so later, it SMELLED like everything was cooking.  As the 8 hours started dwindling down, I grew more excited, not because of what I was seeing through the glass lid because the steam and condensation didn't leave much to see, but because of the smell.  And it was everywhere in my tiny one bedroom basement apartment.  My landlord came down to do laundry because the washer and dryer was in the basement, and she even acknowledged that it smelled really good down there and it could be smelled upstairs!

Building awesomeness!

Needless to say, I was beyond surprised with the results.  I was in love with my new slow cooker instantly and began searching online for more ideas, but in the beginning I would mostly stick to the beef stew, because I'm a man, and man love meat!

I love that, "set it and forget it" feel of the mighty slow cooker!  It wasn't until I recently took my cooking more seriously that I finally expanded my slow cooking world to more than beef stew.  I started relying less on searching online for ideas and more on simply picking up ingredients on instinct, prepping them and tossing them in.  And it has come out perfect every time.  It's like the slow cooker cannot go wrong.

Everything added and ready for a slow cookin'!

My slow cooker has never let me down.  I will still cruise the slow cooker aisle every now and then at department stores just to see what latest fancy functions have been added to newer models.  Despite the fact that I have two of them, I am always on the lookout for one with a built-in timer.  I have come close many times but then I stop myself as my oven has a built-in timer on it which I use.  But I still can't help but be tempted.  I sometimes fantasize about having at least 5 slow cookers going at once, but as a single guy, that's not really logical at the moment unless I'm cooking for others.  But I am always on the lookout for the next member of my slow cooker family.

Who knows.  Maybe it will be bigger than my big one.  Or maybe it will be one of the itty-bitty single portion ones which I have seen on shelves.  Have one nice slow cooker family in my collection!  That's not crazy, is it?

8 hours later!

Slow Cooker Lasagna Soup!

SLOW COOKER LASAGNA SOUP

INGREDIENTS

1 lb ground beef (or vegetarian crumble)

3 cups of beef broth (or vegetable broth to make vegetarian)

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 TB dried parsley

1 TB dried basil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1, 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (I used fresh tomatoes because that's how Chef Nairby rolls!)

1, 6oz can of tomato paste

1 cup V8 (or any vegetable drink)

2 cups uncooked shell pasta

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup of water

Optional topping- shredded cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

1. First mix together the can of tomatoes, and tomato paste in slow cooker.

2. Next add broth, beef, garlic, parsley, basil, onion, V8 and salt/pepper.

3. Cover and cook on LOW for 7-8 hours or on HIGH for 4-5 hours.

4. When 30 minutes are left of cook time, add in the 1 cup of water and noodles. Stir to combine. Put lid back on and continue cooking for 30 minutes.

Chef Nairby

CARAMELIZED TEARS OF JOY

Onions.  They are a key ingredient in a lot of our food.

We put them on our burgers, hot dogs, submarine sandwiches.  In our soups, stews and chilies.  So many uses.  Many different varieties.  And yet if you are like I USED to be, you either avoided cooking with them or did not get the usage out of them to justify the big 5 or 10 pound bag you bought, and if you were lucky, you threw them out before they grew those lovely tentacles.

I only recently discovered the awesomeness of perhaps the most versatile and longest lasting version of the mighty onion......the CARAMELIZED ONION!

One weekend recently, I made a very tasty tomato soup in a cheesy baked bread bowl.  I posted a picture of it, as I usually do, and mentioned how I was so blown away with how it turned out, that I had to try other cheesy bread bowl ideas.  An old school friend of mine had some suggestions, one of which being a soup with caramelized onions.

I had never made caramelized onions before, and if you were to ask me, I would have told you that along with a few onions, you also need some kind of sweetening ingredient, maybe some soy sauce for color and who knows what else.

Caramelized onions can be as simple as just two ingredients!

I took to Google and searched, "How to make caramelized onions".  Every result sang the praise of the caramelized onion.  I got a bit intimidated but clicked one of the first links and could not believe what I saw....

Caramelized Onions Ingredients:

Onions

"And???????" I thought to myself.

Start.

And nothing.  I read the instructions and immediately wanted to kick myself.  Why did I not look this up before?!  I then took to Youtube to search for videos on making these things.  The search results were right.  Onions.  Pretty much.  You can add some salt, maybe some pepper and some Balsamic vinegar for flavor, but just onions.

Cover and cook on medium to high heat for 10 minutes.

I quickly went out and headed to the supermarket right across the street which has a produce section so pleasing to an aspiring Chef, that I will still go over there just to walk around and look at everything!  I picked up about 10 onions, as the recipe I chose to follow on Youtube stated that you need to get a good number of them when making these things because they shrink.  So I picked up about 10 sweet onions and some Balsamic vinegar.

After 10 minutes.  Keep uncovered
for the rest of the process while cooking, stirring every 10 minutes..

I should have picked up some goggles, too.  Chopping one or two onions can burn a bit.  Chopping about 10 of them can feel like a forest fire is happening in your eyes!  But is it worth it?  HECK YA!!!

20 minutes.

Caramelized onions take about an hour to make and they create a scent in your house that you just wish you can put in a can and use as an air freshener!  But maybe that's just me.

40 minutes.

When it comes to cooking, I enjoy the journey just as much, if not more than the destination.  I LOVE making caramelized onions!  LOVE IT!  The smell that builds up.  The slow changing of color and texture.  I love all of it!  I mentioned it in my very first Blog post....if I was a contestant on Hell's Kitchen, I would probably secretly throw some of the competitions just to stay behind and do prep work.  If I was on Hell's Kitchen and my team won a challenge where the losers had to chop and make caramelized onions in preparation for that night's dinner service, I would be very tempted to stay behind!  Maybe fake an injury.  Claim a fear of heights or a tummy ache.  I would.  Surely that would impress Chef Ramsay and not get me eliminated, right?  Screw my teammates!  I want to make some onion stuffs!

Chef Gordon Ramsay.
Courtesy, "Hell's Kitchen".

Caramelized onions can keep in the fridge for a very long time.  Some have even said that you can store them in the freezer for up to six months!

Buy a 10 pound bag of onions, caramelize them and you've got a special ingredient you can add to just about anything for a while.  Put some in your pasta sauce.  Add some extra awesomeness to a grilled cheese sandwich.  Top a salad with them.  Heck, eat them as they are!

50 minutes.  At this point, add 1-2 Tbsp of Balsamic Vinegar or whatever else
you planned to add for extra flavor.  Or just leave as is!  Still tastes great!

You can buy onions in bulk for a very reasonable price at any supermarket.  In my area, a 10 pound bag goes for $3-$4.  I can make two batches of caramelized onions with one of these bags and have that awesome extra ingredient to spoil myself for the next one year if the six months in the freezer thing is true.

Give them a shot.  All you need is onions!

1 hour!  Done and ready to be put to work!

Perfection!

SIMPLE CARAMELIZED ONIONS

INGREDIENTS

LOTS of onions, chopped!  I use half of a 10lb bag.  The onions shrink quite a bit during cooking.

2 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil.

1-2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar

DIRECTIONS

1.  Heat olive oil on slightly over medium heat in a large skillet (Preferably one that has a cover).

2.  Put all chopped onions into skillet and lightly stab at them a little bit to separate.  They will eventually get easier to separate as you cook them.

3.  Cover and let cook for 10 minutes.

4.  After 10 minutes, uncover and stir.  Leave the skillet uncovered for the remaining cooking time.

5.  Cook for another 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  The onions will produce dark burnt looking pieces.  This is good!

6.  After 40 minutes (50 minutes total), add Balsamic vinegar and stir.  Cook for 10 more minutes, stir and serve or store in fridge or freezer.

My Research has shown that caramelized onions can stay good for up to 6 months in the freezer.  I haven't tried it yet, though.

Eat them as is.  Add them to salads as a great alternative to dressing.  Have a ball!

Grilled Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Sandwich.

Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Grape Tomatoes and Fresh Dill.

Caramelized Onions in a Cheesy Baked Bread Bowl.

Chef Nairby

ROAST THEM PEPPERS

Bell peppers are an ingredient that I have used in a lot of my cooking for several years.  They come in a variety of colors and have a bold flavor.

Up until last year, I would simply chop them up and toss them in raw to whatever I was making that day and let them cook along with everything else.  For me, using bell peppers, main red and green, was more about adding color to a dish than anything else.  I am of the opinion that food that looks good manages to taste even better.

One of the methods for cooking with peppers that I had heard about for several years were roasted peppers, in particular, roasted red peppers.  But I would always steer clear of roasting red peppers as I always assumed that the process would add an unneeded amount of cooking time to a dish.

When I started taking my cooking more seriously in 2014 and was adamant about, "cooking for real", as I call it, I started to progress further into the culinary world and that meant trying new cooking methods that I had never tried before.

A Facebook friend posted a recipe with pictures for a pull apart pizza bread and it looked great and simple enough to make.  The recipe called for the most common pizza ingredients:  pizza dough, mozzarella and pepperoni.  I made the bread and it turned out phenomenal!  As per my norm, I posted the pictures and people gawked in amazement.  It turned out so perfect that I wanted to try again but with different ingredients.  That is when it was suggested to me to try one with goat cheese, spinach and roasted red peppers.

Red Peppers de-innarded and ready for broiling.

"Sounds like a great combination", I thought to myself.  "But ROASTED red peppers?  Do I go there?"  My hesitation was very brief as I was deep enough into my advancing culinary journey that I was more encouraged than discouraged to try new things.

I quickly went on Youtube and did a search for how to roast red peppers and not surprisingly, a great number of results came up.  I clicked on the first link, opened Wordpad as I assumed it would be a lengthy process and watched the lady in the video.

Four minutes later, the tutorial was over and my Wordpad document was blank.  Once again, I thought a certain cooking process was more complicated than it actually was.  There was nothing to note down.

After 15 minutes of broiling.  Looking good!  The charred black skin is what we want!

I quickly put on my shoes and ran to the supermarket across the street and bought the two best looking red peppers I could find.  I rushed home, watched the Youtube video one more time and made me some roasted red peppers!

I quickly realized that I had been missing out on some great flavors when I would simply cook with red peppers in their raw form.  Roasted red peppers are an entirely different world!  A lot more flavor and still colorful.  One week later, I made the pull apart pizza bread with goat cheese, spinach and roasted red peppers and to no surprise, it ROCKED!  Not only because of the roasted red peppers, but because I ended up discovering the awesomeness of another amazing new ingredient.....Goat Cheese!  (A lot more on goat cheese in the near future!)

Chopped and ready!  Add them to a dish or eat them as is.

Checkout this video on how to make roasted red peppers with Chef Nairby!  Educational and entertainmental!

Of course if you'd rather not watch the awesomeness of how to make roasted red peppers with Chef Nairby, you can follow these instructions:

WHAT YOU NEED

Red Bell Peppers.

Baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or  glazed with a little bit of olive oil.

Plastic sandwich bag.

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Cut off the top and bottom of the red peppers.  Clean the insides out.

2.  Slice the peppers in half so you have two pieces.  Place them SKIN SIDE UP on baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and non-stick cooking spray or olive oil.

3.  Put tray on the top rack in the oven and BROIL for 15 minutes.  **Broiling is a lot like toasting bread in a toaster.  No pre-heating required as the heating grill starts heating right away.

4.  After 15 minutes, remove peppers from the oven.  If the skin is black, GOOD!  That's what you want.

5.  Put peppers in a sealed sandwich bag and store in fridge for 30 minutes to cool.  The peppers will marinate in the bag.  They will also get pretty slimy.  That's ok.

6.  Remove from fridge after 30 minutes and remove the skin.  The skin will peel off quite easily.  Chop and serve.

Grilled Goat Cheese And Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich with Fresh Chopped Dill!

Chef Nairby

FOOTBALL FOOD

It's Super Bowl time!  And that means Tailgating and Super Bowl parties!  And THAT means FOOTBALL FOOD!

It's odd how there are countries that have their own unique style of cuisine, but there are also occasions we celebrate where you can't just have your basic meat and potatoes or simple hamburgers and hot dogs if you want to do it right.  Christmas and Thanksgiving have turkey.  Birthdays have cake and ice cream.  Super Bowl parties, or in my case as a Canadian, Grey Cup parties (GO ARGOS!), and just football tailgating in general are in their own league!

Grey Cup 2007 week.  Many many pounds ago!  Partying with Saskatchewan Roughrider fans at Riderville.

Lenny Kravitz performs the Halftime show!

We have all seen them on TV.  Most of us have not been lucky enough to attend a REAL tailgate party.  Here in Toronto, we have the Canadian Football League and the Toronto Argos.  Unfortunately, our Argos don't usually have much of a pregame tailgate party going on except those put on by corporate sponsored vendors where the beers are $14 a can and the hot dogs are your basic sized hot dogs stuffed in a standard bun with an option to top with whatever sauce company is sponsoring the zone you are in.  It is not the real deal.  It is not like what you see from our neighbors to the South.

The Super Bowl, NCAA Championship game, and yes, even the Grey Cup but to a lesser extent are not just events, they are a celebration.  And one things for sure...they are also a celebration of food!

Full house at the SkyDome (aka Rogers Centre) for the championship game  Roughriders vs Blue Bombers.

Final score.  The Saskatchewan Roughriders win the 2007 Grey Cup, as we all expected.

One of the things on my bucket list is to attend an NFL game and an NCAA football game as well as a real pregame tailgate party.  The crazy thing is that, up until 2004, I hated football with a passion.  I was a hockey guy.  But then the NHL lockout of 2004 occurred and I needed a sport to fill the void.  That became football after stumbling across a Boise State Broncos home game on TV.  The insane atmosphere of the crowd was one thing, but the blue field is what got me hooked instantly and I suddenly remembered that we not only have a professional league in Canada, my city has a team which at that time had just won the Grey Cup!  I ordered season tickets for the following year and my football fandom journey began!

A few years ago, we held the NCAA International Bowl here in Toronto.  I attended two of them, but much like the Argo home games, the tailgating was not the real thing like what we see on TV.  I want to experience the slow cooked pulled pork!  The jumbo hotdogs, ribs and burgers!  And that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Much like Christmas and Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is a day where millions of people throw whatever diet they might be on out the window.  Everything becomes super-sized!  I like super-sized every now and then.

Ingredients for Slow cooked Mozzarella Stuffed Italian Meatballs.

I like meat!  And on special occasions, I like fatty meat!  And lots of it!  And I like my slow cooker!  I like beef, sausage, fresh spices and cheese!  I like meatballs!  I like meatballs stuffed with cheese and spices!  And Super Bowl means super-sized!

This giant mozzarella stuffed Italian meatballs recipe is perfect for the big game!  Granted, they’re not as mind blowing as a lot of the tailgate items people come up with, but they do the job!  And they make the house smell awesome!

Meatballs stuffed and ready to spend a few hours in the slow cooker!

I got this recipe from Buzzfeed and I highly recommend trying them out!  I wasn't able to find ground Italian sausage, but I did find linked hot Italian sausage and it was as simple as removing the meat from the casing.  Give them a try.  (Insert football cliche here!)

Here is a link to a video quickly detailing the process:

Mozzarella Stuffed Italian Meatballs

Done!

Touchdown!!!

INGREDIENTS

1 lb Ground Beef

1 lb Hot Italian Sausage

1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Black Pepper

1 cup Bread Crumbs

1/4 cup Parmesan

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup Parsley

1 Jar Traditional Pasta Sauce

1 Brick Mozzarella Cheese, Cut into squares the size of one die (or dice, however you want to pronounce it).

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Place all ingredients, EXCEPT PASTA SAUCE and MOZZARELLA, in a large bowl and combine.

2.  Take a handful of the mixture and roll into a ball, slightly smaller than a tennis ball.

3.  Place a mozzarella square into the middle of the meatball, cover and roll into a ball.  Place in slow cooker.  Repeat until you have used all of the meatball mixture.  It's ok if the meatballs are stacked.

4.  Cover all meatballs with the pasta sauce.

5.  Cook on HIGH for 2-2.5 hours (I cooked on high for about 2h 45m).  Mozzarella will most likely escape from some meatballs as they cook.  This is normal.

6.  Scarf 'em down and enjoy!

Chef Nairby