It’s game day all over the US. Millions have placed themselves squarely in front of TV sets rooting for their chosen team in Super Bowl LIII. Snacks are made, friends are gathered, calories are consumed with abandon.

This year, we’re keeping things pretty low-key and staying home and lounging in our sweats, but we’re still eating some great game-day food! What’s on our menu? Cheese and Crab Dip Stuffed Grilled Jalapeños, Betty Crocker’s Classic Deviled Eggs, grilled chicken wings, and Pamela’s Chocolate Chunk Cookies! A good set of recipes, thrown-together pantry ingredients, and packaged mixes. In a way this kinda represents how we cook in general. I tried a new way of hard-cooking the eggs. I had seen a method on Pinterest of baking them at 325º for 30min. While it did cook them well, they all had weird brown spotting on them and were oddly shaped. In summary, I would only use this method if I were going to completely chop the eggs as they didn’t really look pretty for deviled eggs.

Deviled eggs date as far back as ancient Rome. The word “deviled” indicates a spicy ingredient mixed into the filling. Mustard or horseradish is typical. This recipe was a touch bland (and that’s coming from someone who aims to use quality ingredients), so I sprinkled generous pinches of Maldon Sea Salt Flakes and Chiquilin Smoked Paprika over top. Later, when I emerged from my food coma, I discovered only two eggs remained!

On my last Walmart Grocery Pick Up order (if you haven’t tried this yet, you NEED to! It’s so convenient and saves me money on impulse purchases. Here’s $10 to try it out!), I received way more jalapeños than I needed for a recipe later in the week. The Mr used this as an opportunity to snag some Applegate Bacon out of the freezer and some cheese and cajun crab dip to make his grilled jalapeño peppers. He split the peppers lengthwise and used a paring knife to cut out the ribs and seeds. Then he smeared about a tsp of cajun crab dip (found near the fish counter) in one half and half of a Sargento Sharp Cheddar Cheese Stick in the other. He placed the two jalapeño halves together and wrapped the whole thing in bacon, securing it all with a toothpick. He grilled them for about 15-20min.

We love a good chicken wing in our house. On big game days, we love a big basket of Buffalo Wild Wings, but we’re trying to trim back a little in a few ways so we decided to grill some wings this weekend. I love the garlic Parmesan wings from BWW so I tried my hand at saucing our grilled wings with a combination of freshly grated Parmesan, deSiam Thai Dressing Lemongrass Sauce, lemon juice, Maille Dijon Mustard, and granulated garlic. It wasn’t exactly like B-Dub’s, but it sure hit the spot!

Chocolate chunk cookies are the quintessential dessert/treat for any occasion. They are comforting and perfect, yet one knows when one hasn’t been served a satisfying cookie. There is nothing like it. It may seem simple, but there’s a certain “touch” that goes into creating the perfect chocolate chip/chunk cookie. Using a mix ensures accuracy for the most part, but you can “massage” it along to your tastes. Hints of nutmeg and cinnamon help elevate an ordinary batter to new heights. This mix was ok. Not terrible, not amazing, just ok. It definitely delivered your average chocolate-chip-cookie flavor profile, but lacked something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. If I were to make them again, I would play around with the batter a little with some different spices.

What is some of your favorite game-day grub?