superbowl goodies!

one of the best parts about the steelers getting to the superbowl was that it gave me a really great excuse to throw a party with FOOD! normally college parties don't involve anything more gourmet than ordering pizza when we're drunk-hungry, so this was super exciting.

obviously, the theme is black & gold/pittsburgh + tailgate-y foods, so it wasn't too hard to come up with a good game plan to satisfy the appetites of a lot of hungry boys and my own creative requirement.

the menu:

hydration: yuengling, lion's head, and guinness

pregame: allyson's 7-layer taco dip (she's bringing this. promises goodness. there are refried beans involved. enough said.)

first-half snacks: popcorn chicken (frozen from a bag. i don't do this) with pennsylvania mustard (herlocher's, duh)

half-time extravaganza: pizza (gumby's), homemade pierogies, in honor of pittsburgh polishness 

hold me over til the end: pretzels, football-shaped jello jigglers

VICTORY DANCE: chocolate pretzel cookies with yellow "salt" sprinkles, auntie's re-vamped rum balls

i started on friday with the rum balls, which is by far the easiest recipe ever. my aunt mary ann makes them for me at christmas, and it's the only time i ever eat them. they make me think of pittsburgh, since she lives there and you can see the city from her house in south side. her recipe is the same as anyone's, but i didn't have walnuts so i substituted almonds instead. they turned out quite well, i think.

then yesterday began the marathon of pierogies! it started at 9am, right after a heaping bowl of oatmeal and a large cup of coffee to get me going. i worked with a recipe from gourmet, but tweaked it a bit to fit my needs and my pantry. it was totally easy, just incredibly time consuming. it's 100% worth it, though. mrs. t's cannot stand up to these!

I won't post the recipe because it's REALLY long. I basically went straight from Gourmet, but made them dairy-free so that I can have some. I didn't make the onion topping, but put the onions INSIDE instead. So on the ingredients list, for the filling I took out the cheese and added 1 medium onion chopped, which I sauted in some oil and then mashed in with the potatoes. I also added a little bit of dry mustard to the mix for some tang. 

A word of **CAUTION: DO NOT PUT THEM ON TOP OF EACH OTHER after you form them. As I am stupid, I didn't realize they would stick together. Pulling them apart was a mess and resulted in a few losses and some really, REALLY ugly pierogies. Do not ruin your hard work.**

They also stick after they are cooked, and I wasn't serving mine right away, so I stored them between wax paper in a pyrex dish in the fridge. As we speak, they are I reheating them in a low oven (the same that is keeping my pizza warm) and they will be served with heinz (the only acceptable kind of) ketchup.

 

--***--

I wanted to start off in the same fashion this morning with the cookies, but I slept until 9 and didn't finish my breakfast/coffee until close to 10. I was planning on making lemon-poppy seed cookies, but as I went to pull out the recipe card, these little lovelies from deb at smitten kitchen caught my eye. I'd written down the recipe a while ago, wanting to make them because they're cute and I love pretzels, but just never got around to it. I bought some yellow sanding sugar for the event (I was also going to make cupcakes; that died), and knew I couldn't pass it up. Black and gold pretzels? a must.

Late start aside, these were super fun to make and I even coerced the roomie into helping me. She was far better at rolling the little balls into logs than I was, so we tag-teamed and bonded. I love baking chocolate things because it makes the whole apartment smell amazing. The scent just wafted itself up and over the loft and into our bedrooms. Glorious. My only change to the recipe was to use 3 tablespoons of coffee (stolen from the shared pot I made for me and the other roommate this morning -- she hadn't woken up yet) instead of the instant espresso powder. I hardly doubt that qualifies as a change.

 

They turned out magnificent, and I even put them on a black and yellow plate =). I know, I'm so cute.

I'm really excited to get to use my camera for something other than food tonight. Stay tuned for a victory post, complete with pictures of my hilarious friends.

HERE WE GO, STEELERS!