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Super Bowl parties

A championship game plan

Score points at your Super Bowl party by ripping a page from the slow cooker playbook.

By JANET K. KEELER
Published February 2, 2005

ON TV: The New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles meet in Super Bowl XXXIX on Sunday in Jacksonville. Kickoff is 6:30 p.m. on WTVT-Ch. 13.

[Times photo illustration: Don Morris and Patty Yablonski]

	Super Bowl parties Crock pot recipes Baked potato soup Kick off with kielbasa Sweet Onion Kielbasa is a dish that would make a super appetizer for your Super Bowl party, and it's a zip to cook, ready to serve in about half an hour.

The Super Bowl party might just be the strangest gathering of the year.

The reason for the party is a football game, but for some revelers, it is the only game they (sort of) watch all season. There will be partiers unaware that the New England Patriots are marching toward Dynastyland. Or that long-suffering Philadelphia Eagles fans may be on the brink of a Red Sox-style breakthrough. Can the "Eggles" finally win the Big Game?

Some folks watch for the clever commercials, which are often notoriously more entertaining than the game. After Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at last year's halftime show, more attention may be paid to the stage show in Jacksonville's Alltel Stadium. Die-hard Patriots and Eagles fans might prefer to watch alone, a state in which they can live and die by every pass and punt.

The rest of us? We come for the food. Giant submarine sandwiches, chips and dips, hot wings, pizza and beer. Heck, it's February, time to party after a month of stringent dieting.

What better way to celebrate the melting pot of Super Bowl partiers than to muscle up something substantial in the slow cooker. The ingredients are tossed into the pot with minimal prep work and cook generally unattended. Tough meats are tamed; flavors meld and mellow. And anything from the cooker can be as fired up as each diner wants; just give them a locker room full of hot sauce.

Slow-cooker cooking will leave you more time to string streamers and blow up balloons. Or nap.

That's not to say that nothing can go wrong in a Crock-Pot.

"Some foods cannot cook all day and still be recognizeable," writes Beth Hensperger in Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook (Harvard Common Press, $16.95). It's the first slow cooker book we've seen that mirrors our experiences. You can't always dump the ingredients in at 8 a.m. and return to a delicious dinner at 6 p.m. Unless you consider bean-brown mush good eating.

Many of Hensperger's recipes call for ingredients to be added at various times in the cooking process. This is not great for workday meals but perfect for Super Bowl Sunday, when the cook is home throughout the cooking.

For instance, there's Salsa Chili with Cilantro Cream, a versatile dish that can be bent and shaped to please any palate. The chili requires seven to eight hours of low cooking, but chopped red bell pepper and canned pinto beans are not added until five to six hours have passed. This helps them keep their shape, texture and flavor.

The recipe calls for two 16-ounce jars of salsa, your choice. We used Newman's Own mild chunky salsa, but varieties with corn, fruit and black bean would also be delicious. When we added the peppers and pintos, the chili was bland, so we tossed in a bit more chili powder, kosher salt and a few healthy shakes of chipotle-flavored Tabasco sauce.

We also doubled the meat, adding 2 pounds of trimmed and cubed stew meat. We could have added more. A dollop of Cilantro Cream, made with sour cream, minced cilantro and lime juice, brightens the chili, giving it freshness that the slow cooker takes away.

Serve the chili with corn bread, which can come to the groaning table in various ways. Buy it made - corn muffins are tasty - or make it from a mix such as Jiffy. We made Hensperger's Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Cornbread, which was heavy and subtle, a perfect foil for the juicy chili. In fact, the corn bread begged to be used as a mop.

Homemade corn bread can be bland compared with store-bought and restaurant versions because it doesn't have as much sugar. Sometimes, homemade corn bread lacks corn flavor. Corn - fresh, canned or frozen - added to the batter solves that problem. Make sure to drain canned corn. You can add color and note with herbs, peppers and red or green onions, too.

When the Super Bowl was in Tampa in 2001, I used my then-new Crock-Pot to make pulled pork for sandwiches. A pork butt - or was it shoulder? - went into the slow cooker the night before the game with chopped onion and a can of condensed French onion soup. While we slept, the tough meat cooked, slow and low.

(It was weird, though, to wake up during the night smelling dinner.)

At about 10 a.m. the next day, I took the pork from the pot, discarded the liquid and onions, and let the meat cool before shredding. The shredded meat went back into the Crock-Pot with a couple of bottles of Pat's Ho Made barbecue sauce. It was delicious on soft rolls with homemade or store-bought cole slaw.

Another few hours didn't do the meat any harm, and the food was ready before kickoff. Don't wait until halftime to eat, or dinner won't be served until 8:30 or so. Many people will not stay for all four quarters. Sunday is a school/work night, and the halftime show signals the end for some guests, especially those with children.

Slow-cooker soup, such as Baked Potato, or short ribs swathed in beer and spices are other good entrees to try. Borrow a friend's Crock-Pot and make a few dishes.

After all, it's the Super Bowl, and excess is what it's all about.

Janet K. Keeler can be reached at 727 893-8586 or krieta@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 1, 2005, 10:37:04]