Tailgating At Home!

I am a huge football fan and a die hard New York Giant's fan.

Although the Giants did not make it to the playoffs, I still love football enough to watch the playoffs and Superbowl, each game start to finish. I truly enjoy cooking on Sundays during football season and like to stick to some traditional tailgating foods. I love Buffalo wings, but rarely eat them since they are so fattening!

However, I was determined to figure out an alternative, and that came in the form of meatballs! After reading various recipes for Buffalo chicken meatballs, I came up with a recipe that combined details of a few delicious sounding ones and came up with this one. Instead of dipping them in blue cheese sauce, which you can do as a great appetizer, I decided to make blue cheese mashed potatoes and make it into a meal with carrots on the side. As far as beer, I was sipping Michelob Ultra and miserable. I don't know why I bother with that beer. The lack of flavor is just not worth the lack of calories.

The meatballs were rich tasting and nice and hot with the sauce on it. The mashed potatoes had a great sour tang to them that complimented the meatballs well. I love fresh parsley and decided to keep it coarsely chopped since I enjoy biting into pieces that have tender leaves cooked into them.

My cheers go to the New Orleans Saints! I hope they win the Superbowl! What team are you cheering for? Hopefully fellow food bloggers will have some great tailgating recipes in the next few weeks leading to the Superbowl!

• Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
• Ingredients:
• 1 pound ground chicken
• 1 medium onion, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup plain bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup hot sauce (I used Frank’s)

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2) Combine chicken, onion, garlic, parsley, bread crumbs, egg, and salt and pepper to taste

3) Mix with your hands and cut into 4 equal portions - this should yield 16 meatballs

4) Arrange meatballs on a nonstick baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil

4) Bake meatballs until golden brown (about 12 minutes)

5) Heat butter and hot sauce in a saucepan and spoon over meatballs in a serving platter.

Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters

1/3 cup light blue cheese dressing

1/2 cup milk (or more depending on what consistency you like)

1 tablespoon butter

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1) Boil potatoes in salted water until fork tender, mash

2) Add milk, blue cheese dressing, butter, and salt and pepper to taste.