my super bowl snacks bring all the boys to the yard... line.

anyone who knows me well will know that i am a die-hard football fan.
or is it that i've never watched a full game before? i forget.

okay, the truth is i'm a super bowl band-wagoner. well, sort of.

i'm not one of those dinks who pretends they've been following all season and that their life depends on the outcome of the game. you know who you are.

i'm more of a general sports fan who likes catching the game with some buds (my parents and dog) and eating obscene amounts of sports-themed food, like such as:

pigskins in a pretzel blanket, brady's buffalo wing sauce and strong side salsa. 

i'm gonna keep this short and sweet since i'm actually watching the game as we speak/counting down the minutes to madonna.

my favourite part of any sports event is the concession food - hey, i'm not ashamed. and my two favourite game-time snacks are hot dogs and soft pretzels. and since my goal is to someday eat so much that i am a candidate for the Giants front line, i thought it'd be a great idea to combine them.

i started by making some pretzel dough: 4 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups warm water, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 packet of yeast, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt all shmixxxed up and left to set for an hour.

then i cut it into 16 sections and rolled them into 12 inch tubular tubes. of tuberculosis. or just tubes.
then i rolled these dough tubes around regular plain jane hot dogs. not very complicated.

until i got to the next step. what makes pretzels different from other bread isn't what's in the dough, it's this:

no, i did not accidentally punt my pretzel dog into a cup of water. i meant to do it. 

to make pretzels shiny and hard on the outside and soft on the inside, you submerge them in a hot water/baking soda mixture for a few seconds, THEN stick them in the oven. 

side note: the water/baking soda mixture bubbles like a cauldron full of hot strong love. chances are, making it will have you feeling like a wizard in potions class or a mad scientist. 

so i sprinkled them with salt and put them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.
they came out like this: 

i served them with a side of ketchup and honey mustard. delish!

next up: brady's buffalo wing sauce - called "brady's" because he's one of the only players whose name i know :)

this is super easy - combine 1 cup of hot sauce with 1/2 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of honey. i heated it up in the microwave and tossed my wings in it. 

please note: any similarities between these wings and those served at pizza pizza is purely accidental. the cesareos do no endorse pizza pizza in any way. wait. yes, we do. why not grab a $7.99 large for the second half? :)

this sauce is really great because it has all the flavour of hot sauce, but the honey and butter cancel out the heat and make it a sweeeeetie. 

last, but by absolutely no means least is my strong side salsa, so named because it's the most delicious component of my super bowl feast AND because of the scene in Remember the Titans where the two players are screaming STRONG SIDE, LEFT SIDE and then they all huddle up and cheer and solve racism and whatnot. Remember the Titans is the extent of my knowledge of this sport.

so here's how it goes:

i started by roasting 6 roma tomatoes, 1 yellow onion and 2 cloves of garlic in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

then i put them through the food processor with some cayenne pepper and cilantro. 

until it looked like this: 

now, i won't lie - this wasn't my first attempt at homemade salsa. you may recall the mexican blog entry (http://theresacesareo.blogspot.com/2011/08/in-queso-emergency-make-enchiladas.html) but what you may not know is that i had originally planned to include a salsa recipe in that entry.

at the time, i thought, "hey, it's salsa, how hard could it be? tomatoes, cilantro, onions, bam!"  alas, i was not aware that the tomatoes in salsa were meant to be cooked, so the end result was what resembled a horribly chunky, raw and cold tomato soup. ya nastaaay. 

this time, i was less cocky and googled my facts before entering the kitchen. this time around, the result was infinitely more delicious and less raw, which is always a bonus in cooking. 

EEEEP! it's half-time, i'd better take advantage of the stoppage in play to get a second plate of all these goodies. and pay attention to madonna. ooooh sexy gladiators! 

hope you're enjoying the game whether you're a bandwagoner, a true fan or if, like me, you're just here for the food. 

thanks for reading!