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Time to whip up fab football food

3 min read

It’s the final week of summer, and that means my favorite month of September is upon us filled with sunny days, drier air, lower sun angles and football games. I’ve written before about my passion for pigskin and what makes it even more enjoyable is to watch the games with family and friends.

Part of our college football game ritual involves tailgating in the Blue Lot at WVU with a whole host of friends from childhood, high school, college days and well beyond. You never know who will show up or stop by on any given Saturday, and it’s a wonderful chance to catch up and visit with loved ones.

Besides football, the other main attraction is (of course) the food! You’ve likely also read in past columns about how I don’t enjoy cooking and only do it because I have to eat. This, combined with the fact that I often have to go to work after the football games on Saturdays, gives me a good excuse to not really put forth much effort in making my tailgating snacks. My contribution usually consists of plates, cups, cutlery, napkins and some store-bought goodies.

As I walk through the tailgating crowds, I always marvel at the folks who have elaborate set-ups with smokers and grills emanating wonderful aromas of burgers, chicken and sausage. How early did they start grilling? How did they fit the grill in their car or truck? One of our friends enters the Blue Lot every game day at 6:30 a.m., regardless of the game time and proceeds to set up his spread featuring breakfast foods first before he brings out the homemade pierogies and kielbasa.

By comparison, our tailgate is filled with the “work smarter not harder” crowd. We always wind up with delicious snacks and way too much of them, but our group doesn’t want to spend the entire tailgate grilling and working on food. We’d rather socialize and just eat.

This past week, I decided to make a better effort. Since I took game day off from work, I chose to make some cookies, cheese dip and homemade pretzel bites and bought a warming rack to keep the dip heated. Now, if a recipe takes more than five steps, I’m out. These were simple and straightforward, but the soft pretzel bites were a bit of a pain (even when using frozen dough). They tasted delicious, but I decided that future events will have me buying a bag of pretzel pieces to scoop up the dip rather than boiling and draining then baking the gooey dough. It was fun to see how they turned out and the three-step cookies were also a yummy hit.

What’s your favorite tailgate food or recipe? I’m looking for ideas, so please pass them along!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.

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