Superbowl Sunday

Of all the major network sports I think football is about as interesting as, well, baseball. Being Canadian I'm naturally a hockey fan, but I'm hardly a sports enthusiast. I only watch the playoffs and only the games where I don't happen to have anything better to do.

There's something different about the Superbowl though. It's not really about football at all. It's about advertising and half-time shows. Truthfully, I don't particularly care about that stuff either but I still end up watching every year. I don't know why, but I do. I can't even tell you who played last year. I didn't even know who was playing this year and I only vaguely remember now. If the Superbowl is anything to me, it's an excuse to make unhealthy bar food and pass it off as dinner.

It's sometimes cheaper to order Hot Wings in a bar than it is to make them yourself. I think this and bar nuts (which are free) are the only food items that are actually less expensive to purchase in a bar than you could make at home. This simple homemade version is good and definitely healthier, but nothing compares to a wing deep-fried in week old and overused oil and coated in hot sauce with someone else's order.

Shannon prepared two recipes tonight. The first was some Sun-dried Tomato Rollups that are
loosely based on the patiacitas at Julios Barrio. I really like the texture of rolled up eggroll wrappers, but part of my brain shuns eating them because of their lack of nutritional punch. The cream cheese and sun-dried tomato filling is very tasty and worth even packing in an extra teaspoon (or two!) They were especially nice with a dollop of plum sauce.

Her second dish was Potato Skins. I've never particularly liked potato skins, likening to leftovers from a loaded baked potato. I think I should have left them in the oven longer because the skins did not crisp up as much as I expected they would. Other than that, they were better than the pub food ones lingering in my memories.

For some reason tomatoes were magically on sale, so I made some Fresh Tomato Salsa. This is the most classic fresh salsa recipe I know of. I dislike cilantro so I'm a bit torn. Eating this reminds me of Mexico, which I enjoy, but makes me taste cilantro, which I don't. It could easily be substituted for another fresh herb (such as parsley or basil) but it just wouldn't be the same, even if it was better. It's definitely important to use the freshest ingredients possible when making fresh salsa; otherwise you might as well be buying the stuff in a jar. Other than that, there are countless ways to experiment with the general idea, some more palatable than others, and for a variety of uses, from nachos to curries and seafood dishes.

Finally, I made a recipe for Ranch Dressing and served it with some raw vegetables. Apparently Hidden Valley invented the original ranch dressing and it became big when the Clorox Corporation bought the recipe and mass produced it. So a company that specializes in bleach is what made ranch dressing one of the most popular salad toppings in our country. I hope they have separate factories.

Anyhow, it's very important to use full-fat ingredients for this or you'll end up with a ranch flavored soup. Even still this recipe is a bit runnier than commercially prepared stuff, which would make it ideal for coating a salad, but not so ideal for dipping vegetables into. I hadn't been around buttermilk since I was a kid and decided to drink some and realized how revolting it is, but now that I realize that it smells just like sour cream, I can see a wide variety of culinary uses at my finger tips extending far beyond pancakes.