I just can’t believe how well the Packers are doing this year. Now, granted, the game on Sunday was a close one. Like, so close we were yelling and screaming at the TV. But hey, it was exciting. In the end, they got the win, which is all that is important. They stayed undefeated and we celebrated with lots of high fives, hugs, and sandwiches. Does life get any better than that?

This week’s sandwich was cold cuts on bagels. We wanted to make something “New York-ish” and bagels were the answer. I had a turkey sandwich, and it was deeeeeelish.

I also made some seafood chowder too. I’ll admit, I’m missing the soups we usually make on Sundays. This particular recipe came from Real Simple, so it was easy to make and done in an hour. It has scallops, potatoes, corn, and some other good stuff. Very good and added some balance to the sandwiches we made.

We also found out that the Packers have already sealed up the division. Now we’re playing for things like home field advantage in the playoffs. Go Pack!

Can I tell you how weird and wild and wonderful it is to be 10-0? I can’t get over it! Ten games! It feels good. Now, the game was an ugly win, but sometimes you gotta take what you can get. I’m really nervous about Thursday’s game. It’s a national game, Thanksgiving, and we play the Lions, who are second in our division right now. This means the game will actually mean something! (That hasn’t happened in a while on Turkey Day from what I can remember.)

For our sandwich this week, we went with an old-fashioned Wisconsin tradition. I’m not sure if other places do this, too, but on Sundays many families get hot ham and rolls for lunch. They usually swing by the deli after church, get a pound of hot, sliced ham, and then get a batch of rolls for free. We decided to do that, although by the time we got there the free rolls were gone so we got these mini-ones instead. No biggie. They were still delish!

We saw Lombardi (the play) this weekend, too, so it was really exciting to be reminded about the long history of the Packers. The play was excellent. I was actually really surprised. Wasn’t sure what to think, you know? But it was so good. So that was a nice treat and then it was capped off with a Packer win. Doesn’t get any better than that!

My mind is still spinning from our Packers’ undefeated season. I can’t quite believe it. It was so awesome to crush the Vikings last night!

For our sandwich, we made Hot Dogs ala Rose. This was a recipe we got from Aarti, who won Next Food Network Star. The recipe is so ridiculously easy, and uses up things you have in your pantry, that you really have to try it. You will not believe that it is made with hot dogs. It doesn’t even taste like hot dogs when you’re all finished with it.

Aarti serves this on pita bread, but we usually just toast some hot dogs buns in the oven and eat them that way. Whatever works for you, but give the recipe a try and let me know what you think. It sounds like a weird one, but it’s really really good.

I’m almost too afraid to say what I think: that the Packers are going to go all the way with an undefeated season. I know. ***slap*** I’m trying to slap myself out of that line of thinking.

But I can’t help it! Sure, our defense gives up points, but then they made 14 points on Sunday. And sure, our offense has some holes, but then we do have so many positive points, like outscoring any other NFL team right now.

***sigh***

We have a great team and yet we’re worried. That’s Packer fans for you. Then again, maybe we’re just cautiously optimistic?

Anyway, we played San Diego this week (and I was reminded of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy [Blu-ray] when he would say “You stay classy, San Diego.) The Chargers really gave us a run for our money, and if we continue to play like we have, we will drop at least one game. So we’ve got to step up.

For the game this week we made meatball sandwiches. Don’t they look yummy?

We chose these for no other reason than convenience! haha – We had the ingredients and that was that. No theme for this week, but they were as delicious as that Packer win.

The Packer’s undefeated season continues! I can’t believe it, it’s been so fun to watch. This week was a bit of a nail biter, tho. We’ve got to get better on defense.

For our sandwich this week, we tried to think of what went with a Minnesota type theme since we played the Vikings. I couldn’t think of a thing. The family said “hot dish.” What the deuce is a hot dish? I have no idea. But as we continued to talk about it, we gave this “Swiss Steak Supreme Sandwich” a try.

First, a little background on the recipe. I first found this in one of those great church cookbooks. You know what I’m talking about. They are sometimes filled with really great recipes. The cookbook used to be my mom’s, but she didn’t use it that often and let me have it because I was constantly asking her for recipes out of the book.

There was this recipe called “Swiss Steak Supreme.” Don’t you love the names cooks gave recipes in the 70s? Hilarious. We tried to make everything so elegant. What it consisted of was round steak that you cooked in a pan with water, cream of mushroom soup, and Lipton onion soup. You’d put the whole thing in the oven for a few hours, and it would make it’s own gravy. We used to eat it with mashed potatoes. When I moved out on my own, this was one dish I would make when company came over because it’s basically foolproof. I also made this in advance for a couple people who recently had babies. I just kept everything in the pan and gave them instructions on how to cook it, so they’d have a nice hot meal with no fuss.

I eventually adapted this recipe for the crockpot. I took out the water, and added a can of cream of mushroom soup. After awhile, I realized I could probably substitute stew meat for round steak because when you cook it in the crock pot it gets so tender anyways. We moved away from mashed potatoes, and instead served it with egg noodles.

Now that you have some history, when my family said “hot dish,” they were referring to a dish like this: something that you could take from the crock pot and put on a toasted hoagie roll. So we used this “Swiss Steak Supreme” as the basis for our sandwich. I’ll admit, I was a little worried that it would be “too much.” It’s a very rich dish, but you really only need one sandwich and you’re more than full. (My husband could have had two, but we actually ran out.)

To make it, just take the ingredients….

Pop it in the crock pot for eight hours on low….

and viola! Hot Dish Steak Supreme Sandwiches!

Can you believe the Packers are 6-0? I can’t! It’s too fabulous! For the game this week, we tried to make our sandwiches something related to St. Louis. When I googled “St. Louis foods” I got this website that said peanut butter was invented in St. Louis. Seriously? I had no idea. The site said that, “In 1890, an unknown St. Louis physician encouraged a food products company owner, George A. Bayle Jr., to process and package ground peanut paste as a nutritious protein substitute for people with poor teeth who couldn’t chew meat.”

That sealed it. We knew after reading that that we had to make our famous peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for the game.

For those that have never tried this, I can assure you it’s really good. The garlicky coldness of the pickle mixes with the chewy sweetness of the peanut butter, and it’s a nice combo. Normally, I’d have put this on white bread, but DH decided to ramp it up a notch by putting it on buns which we lightly toasted. This is a picture of his sandwich, which really has a lot of a peanut butter on it. That’s how he likes it. The rest of us have slightly less! LOL

So how about that Packer win? They really didn’t play all that well (I didn’t think) but they won. A win is a win, even if it’s ugly. I liked something that Aaron Rodgers said at the end, which was that they still had room for improvement. Very true. But in the meantime? I love the fact that they are the only undefeated team left.

Next week: The Vikings!

The Packers are 5-0! Can you believe it? Man, that feels good. To celebrate the game this week, we tried to think of what went with Atlanta, and immediately we thought: BBQ. So I decided to make my root beer and pulled pork BBQ sandwiches.

This recipe is an easy one for a lot of reasons. First, it goes in the slow cooker, so you can buy a cheaper cut of meat. We got some pork cutlets from Aldi. The slow cooker also lets the flavor get into the meat. I take the pork cutlets and salt and pepper them, then I squeeze just a little bit of Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce over the top. And I mean, just a little. So squeeze a small squiggle over each cutlet.

Then, pour enough root beer (I always use A&W and definitely do NOT use diet for this – regular works best) to cover the cutlets. Then I cook it on low for 8 hours.

At the end of cooking, I shred the cutlets while still in the slow cooker, and mix it all up. Then I take a slotted spoon and remove the pork to a bowl. I lightly toast the buns in the oven, and squeeze a little bit more BBQ sauce onto the bun. Then I place the pork on top of it. Viola!

The root beer really adds a nice sweetness that goes with the BBQ. This dish was so cheap to make. We got all the ingredients at Aldi except for the root beer. But that’s just a buck at Wal-mart. Cheap and easy – can’t beat that. Oh wait, yes you can! A Packer win makes it even better!

The Packers are 4-0. Can I just say that again? The PACKERS ARE 4-0. Yay! The Packers really stomped all over the Broncos yesterday, so much so that one of my friends sent me this hilarious post from a Denver newspaper. I love how the article starts out, “For a little less than three hours, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers played with a new toy.”

For the game, we made salami and Swiss cheese sandwiches on these yummy, chewy pretzel rolls.

Don’t they look good? We served them some Peppercorn ranch chips. Later, we made some soup for dinner.

The soup is a crockpot number with kielbasa, kale, beans, and diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning. It’s delish, and very easy to do.

So it was a nice relaxing day watching football and hanging out. I did a little crocheting and writing, while my writing partner took a snooze:

I’m working on a Packer scrapbook to commemorate all the soups we made each week while we watched the game. Of course, we never expected the Packers to actually go to the Super Bowl. I have a bunch of photos from newspapers last year left over, and wanted to make a kind of mixed media page to put in with the other scrapbook pages.

I took some pictures of the team from magazines and newspapers that we saved from last year:

and some other mixed media materials:

and started pasted them on a scrapbook page.

Then I added paint a couple other things, like a fortune that said, “A sweet surprise awaits you.”

A sweet surprise did await us as fans! Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that same thing this year? I liked being able to use up some of the pictures this way, and I think I may even make one more before I call the scrapbook done.

Our weekly sandwich meals continue for the third week of the NFL season. This week the Packers played the Chicago Bears, so there was only one sandwich that would fit such a game, and that was Chicago-style hot dogs. I know there are “rules” about Chicago dogs and what should be on them, but everyone in the family likes them a little different. So I’ll show you mine, which I like with cucumber, tomato, pickle, relish, and a little yellow mustard. Okay, maybe a lot of mustard. Sometimes I use peppers, but this time I didn’t. Also, we couldn’t find poppy-seed buns, which would have been better. Still, the dogs were great, as was the victory over our division rivals!

I was a bit concerned about this game because things always get really intense when we play Chicago, but the last time we were in Soldier Field was when we beat Chicago for the playoffs, and I knew they’d be seeking a little revenge. But we beat them, and in a pretty convincing way too.

As a side for the Chicago dogs, I decided to make homemade onion rings. I’ve made these before, and one thing I like about them is you keep them warm and crisp in the oven as you fry in batches. You use two yellow onions, buttermilk, cornmeal, and salt and pepper. You dip them in the buttermilk mixture, then the cornmeal mixture, then fry.

I got this recipe from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You’ll Make Over and Over Again, which is a book I’ve mentioned a lot here and for good reason: it’s fabulous! There are a lot of really good recipes in there (and yes, you will make them again and again.) I appreciated this recipe because you use a dutch oven to fry up the rings, so you don’t need to buy a fryer. We don’t fry foods all that often, so I could never justify buying one. Also, the dutch oven is deep enough where isn’t any splatter. Love that idea.

The onion rings turn out really light and crunchy. They just melt in your mouth. One variation I made to this recipe (which is also available online) is that I don’t salt them that much at the end. Ina advises you to “salt liberally” and normally I agree with anything she says, but since there is salt in both the buttermilk and batter mixtures, I feel like they just need a touch at the end.

We play the Bears at least once more this season, so what should we make next? I don’t want to duplicate sandwiches, so I’d like to find a new one that fits with the “beat the pants off of Chicago” theme and is also good to eat. Suggestions?