Well, National Snack Day is nearly a week past. I have to admit I did not give proper notation to the holy day. I had no chicken wings, no seven-layer bean dip, no nachos, or tachos (nachos made with tater tots), for that matter. Not even a scoop of guacamole.
Not that I wasn’t prepared, I had even bought avocados to ripen. National Snack Day— or as some call it, Super Bowl Sunday — never materialized into a thing at my house. You might say it was a lack of interest or just laziness to plan for it.
Friends were doing their own thing, whatever. I just let it slide by. I certainly couched it and watched all that is required, but no snacks came out of the kitchen, not one.
Luck would have it, I stocked up on food the day before for the just-in-case scenario. I bought a pork butt or shoulder. I never understood why they call it a butt when the cut of meat comes from the shoulder. Somebody got that ass-backwards. Can I say that? Guess so.
Anyway, following the just-in-case scenario, I prepared the butt roast to cook all day in a slow oven (250 degrees.) I covered it with a spice rub, studded the roast with garlic and covered the bottom of a Dutch oven with a few splashes of wine. Normally I would use beer, but I didn’t have any. I don’t drink beer and nobody was coming to join us for the big day, so I didn’t buy any.
I just put it in the oven, a “set it and forget it” situation. Went for a walk. I did realize I forgot to buy some barbecue sauce for what eventually turned into pulled pork, so I went to see what they had at the corner store. I looked at the bottles and decided five or six bucks was way to much to spend on high fructose syrup and ketchup so I decided to make my own, as I often do.
I usually wing it when it comes to making BBQ sauce, but for some reason an old recipe of my mother’s came to mind from an old cookbook she had used for years that I have since acquired. It is a Duncan Hines book called “Adventures in Good Cooking and the Art of Carving in the Home, Famous Recipes.” Yup, all that. It has recipes the famous foodie collected from his extensive travels and visits to many restaurants.
This was her go-to sauce for chicken or any other meat that required it. It is quite tangy and somewhat thin, but great for cutting through a rich and fatty meat like pork butt.
It is simply 1 cup vinegar, 1 clove garlic smashed and minced, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 teaspoon salt, I teaspoon dry mustard. Combine and simmer for 10 minutes or so.
I made some cornbread and slaw and that was my National Snack Day fare. Darn good, I must say. So were the commercials and the halftime show, by the way.
— LUCY
I went the appetizer route for the game.
Stuffed mushrooms, jalapeño popper dip, and smoked salmon/creme fraiche/onion/caper on salt-and-pepper potato chips.
Of course, these were after the smoked beef brisket sliders and lobster tails for an early dinner.
And what a great comeback for Brady and the Pats!!!
— LOU