Monday, January 25, 2010

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.

17 comments:

  1. MEatballs and mashed potatoes...great....
    Nice large meatballs and amazing mashed potatoes-fantastically delicious.....

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  3. Yumm! I've never made chicken meatballs, but this sounds great! And what a great combination with the blue cheese mashed potatoes. I may try this for dinner tonight. Thanks

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  4. Cute blog title!
    And what a delicious meal. Perfect for Super Bowl watching!

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  5. Thank-you chef Aimee for providing me with wonderful recipes for dinner tonight...and I am excited that I have all of the ingredients at home already (assuming ground turkey can be substituted for ground chicken ;)
    -Sara ;)

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  6. These meatballs look and sound divine. Meatballs are great comfort food :).

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  7. Buffalo chicken meatballs sound great and the blue cheese mashed potatoes is a perfect side dish - excellent meal!

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  8. i couldn't care less who actually wins the game--the draw for me is the food, hands-down. your selections here sound delightful, particularly those juicy meatballs! tailgating rocks. :)

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  9. Your meatballs sound so yummy! And your a genius for pairing them with blue cheese potatoes! I love the combo! I'm not really into football - but I love New Orleans so by default I have to root for the Saints.

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  10. One thing my food-challenged Husband does love is Franks Red Hot...Sooooo, I KNOW I'll be trying this meatball version! Those potatoes sound pretty good, too - kind of a classic to serve hot sauce and blue cheese!

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  11. I love how this is kind of like buffalo wings - DECONSTRUCTED. Top Chef would love it.

    Buffalo wings are the best. I love your "version"!

    I am so not a beer person. I would rather just sip on some rum and cokes...

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  12. Just wanted to let you know that you are one of the winners of risotto chips giveaway :) I need your address for the company to send you the samples! Thanks! my email is natasha@5starfoodie.com

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  13. Oh my gosh, blue cheese mashed taters! My husband would be in heaven!

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  14. Very cool. I love how this brings all the right flavors together in a whole new way... and it's so clever to serve them with bleu cheese smashed potatoes!

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  15. No matter what team you're rooting for, these sound like a winner! Big YUMS up!

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  16. I bet this is yummy! I love meatballs and love buffalo wings...can't wait to try it!

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