A farewell to football

While the rest of America celebrated the biggest sporting event in the country (the Super Bowl, in case you didn't know), I mourned the lost of my beloved football for another season. I anxiously await the Combine at the end of this month and the Draft in April, and then I can start counting down to training camp. But anyway--T. and I made some food for the Super Bowl (I mean...who doesn't?) and here's what came of that.





Erin of Plus Sized Pretty saw a picture of these fried pickles on Instagram and asked for the recipe, so here it is! Neither the dip nor the crust for the pickles are vegan (Erin is, I think!) but the recipe can probably be easily altered with egg, milk, mayo and sour cream substitutes.



The main difference between the recipe and my end result is that I used pickle halves cut into slices, and I skinned the pickles. (I have a thing about skin on food.) I was a little worried the lack of skin would cause the pickles to lose their structure and they'd be all flopsy, but NOPE. They were delish, you guys. I cut up a whole jar of Claussen pickles, which may have seemed aggressive, but we ate them all. And still had a ton of dip leftover.





I also made crabby snacks, which may sound familiar if you've ever read/watched Silver Linings Playbook. I shred a ton of sharp cheddar instead of using Old English spread, and I also multiply the whole recipe (except the butter) by four, so there is plenty of crabby to go on each snack. I also don't cut mine up--we eat these suckers WHOLE. And they are amazing.



This is what the crabby snacks looked like last weekend for the Pro Bowl. With a salad! Classy.





T. made brussel sprouts. They weren't terrible. I guess even on Super Bowl Sunday, you have to have reach some modicum of good health.



This is either my face after the blackout had been going on for 22 minutes or a response to yet another subpar commercial. The best ones were the Leon Sandcastle NFL Network commercial, the Budweiser Clydesdale commercial--of course! I cry like a baby every year at these--and the Tide Joe Montana Miracle Stain commercial. Everything else was a waste. For a while there I thought the game was going to be a waste too, but as everyone else has pointed out, the power outage really did have a positive impact on the 49ers. I thought we were heading for snoozeville before the lights went out.





And here's who we watched the game with. Not pictured: my parents. We had a great time until the blackout, at which point James Brown's insistence that the lights would be on in 15 minutes started to wear on me. He said it four times! Al and Cris would have handled it way better, that's all I'm saying.