From a Local Bakery
Bear Claws! We ordered these ahead and picked them up this morning. They’re cherry with almonds and delicious. If it looks like one is already cut in half and eaten, you’re right. I didn’t get in with the camera quickly enough; Chuck had already grabbed one.
On another topic, we have our Christmas tree! The tree farmers named their trees this year. Ours is Grayson. 🙂
My calendar is filling up with more appointments than I’m used to having. Not all are cancer related – one is for my new hearing aids. Yippee! I get excited when a new pair of hearing aids is ready. I update my Ears, as I call them, every seven or eight years, depending on my needs. It’s nice to have something positive coming up.
As life goes on, so does Eating the Opponent. This week my Packers face the Chicago Bears, and lo and behold, the Bears are playing well this season! Yikes! We approached the game with Chicago style hot dogs – all beef franks dragged through the garden, as they say.
No ketchup. Nope.
The dill pickles are homemade (mine, of course), and the jalapeno pepper came from my own garden. (I skipped the pepper. I’m not a spicy hot person.)
On Saturday we’ll pick up our order of Bear Claws pastries from the local bakery. Bear Claws and coffee should set us up for a Sunday afternoon victory.
As always, Go! Pack! Go!
In the beginning, I found Minnesota difficult in Eating the Opponent. Minnesota is so much like Wisconsin, it was hard to find something that was uniquely Minnesota that wasn’t also generally Midwest or Wisconsin type, too. Eventually, we found this.
Classic Tater Tot Hotdish
Easy to cook, delicious comfort food, and very Minnesot’n.
We’ve also made elk meat chili (anything wild game is good), wild rice (often says Minnesota on the package), and good old SPAM. In fact, today we’re planning brunch of pancakes with leftover caramel apple chunks and SPAM on the side. Take that, Vikings!
My Packers didn’t play well last weekend. They just weren’t quite on the ball (no pun intended). And here they go, coming up on a Monday Night Game against the defending Super Bowl champions. Oh, my.
I’m sure Coach LeFleur is preparing the team as he does best. The receiving corps will work on filling the hole left by Tucker Kraft’s injury (sob), and Jordan Love will be perfecting his pass precision.
The ordinary fans at my house ate the opponent with a classic: Philly cheese steak on a sub bun. Here’s a look at it:
Yum!
We stopped at the deli to pick up thin sliced beef and cheese. The white cheddar was out, so we chose provolone. It worked. Onions and green peppers we already had in our pantry, and the neighborhood sub shop sells their day old bread for next to nothing. Pile them all together (well, it’s not quite that simple, but almost) and Chuck presented the family with his version of a Philly cheese steak sandwich. And yes, it was delicious.
He served it with a side dish of roasted potatoes from the air fryer and my homemade applesauce with peach added. A great combination! We’re ready for Monday night. Are the Packers ready? We can only hope.
Chuck made Bog Rice with chicken and sausage for Eating the Opponent: Carolina Panthers. It’s a recipe we found that fits the region and incorporates ingredients we already have in the house. Oh, and it’s delicious, too. Go! Pack! Go!
I had a brief moment of panic thinking we’d have to devour all the Halloween candy ourselves. The front porch light and the doorbell both gave out tonight within minutes of each other. Is the front porch haunted? Well, Chuck found a suitable battery for the doorbell – not the exact size needed, but close enough that it worked. He replaced the light bulb on the porch and then announced that we were out, completely out, of light bulbs now. I sense a trip to Home Depot or Ace Hardware coming up soon.
On a more positive note, all three of us received our Covid19 boosters today at the pharmacy. The pharmacist was quick and she was good. We hardly felt a thing. We’re all up to date with flu and Covid vaccines. (Take that, conspiracy theorists. We’re vaccinated.)
So there you have it, folks. Bog Rice, Halloween candy, a new light bulb and doorbell battery. That’s all the news from the O.K. Chorale.
This game is a bigger deal than it appears. Aaron Rodgers, he who quarterbacked the Packers to Super Bowl XLV, is now a Steeler. This guy has a history; he has defeated very team in the NFL except Green Bay.
Green Bay, on the other hand, has defeated Pittsburgh a few times, most notably (and ironically?) in Super Bowl XLV. However, the Packers haven’t won in Pittsburgh since (gulp) Bart Starr was quarterback. Yikes.
So here at the O.K. Chorale, we’re taking our superstitious responsibility seriously this week. Eating the Opponent: Pittsburgh – bring it on!
Pierogies, of course. Not racing around the baseball diamond like the Famous Racing Sausages (hey, Pirates, we haven’t forgotten you), but pan fried and delicious.
Pan Fried Pierogies
With a little research, we found the Chip Chop Ham Sandwich. Thin sliced ham with barbecue sauce on a soft toasted bun. Delicious!
Simple and yummy.
Did you know that Pittsburgh claims to be the home of the Big Mac? We’re going to try it at home tonight. Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun! I have all but the buns in my kitchen right now.
To continue Eating the Opponent: Pittsburgh, I’ll pick up sesame seed buns, and my favorite Pittsburgh product: Klondike Bars.
If we have anything to do with it, the Steelers don’t stand a chance. Sorry (not sorry), Aaron.
Sorry, folks. No picture. We did, however, get back into the routine of Eating the Opponent this week. The Packers play the Arizona Cardinals, so I brought out my binder and let Chuck (chief cook at our house) take a look. He almost chose a chicken dish, and then decided to shift gears and go with enchiladas.
He seasoned the ground beef with my home-grown green onions and jalapeno peppers. My hot peppers are still growing, thanks to climate change. After wrapping up the enchiladas and placing them in the pan, he poured my homemade and home canned enchilada sauce over them. This enchilada sauce is yet another way to use tomatoes and stock the pantry shelves. The grated cheese, of course, included good Wisconsin varieties: mozzarella and cheddar.
No picture (I forgot, oops), but the enchiladas were delicious. Even though Chuck cooked them, I had a hand in the process with my home grown ingredients and made from scratch sauce.
Go! Pack! Go!
I looked through my binder for Eating the Opponent, and we had a few recipes that worked for the Dallas Cowboys. Cowboy beans, for example, the dish we call Calico Beans outside of the NFL season, is easy to cook. Amigo reminded us that Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza has a Cowboy Pizza, too. Then Chuck remembered that he had made Texas Chili in the crock pot, and it was delicious.
And then we went out to lunch for our Fun Day Friday and found this on the menu.
Cowboy Chicken Sandwich
We made cider that afternoon, so Texas Chili in the crock pot was the perfect solution. Go! Pack! Go!
“Eating” the Cleveland Browns wasn’t easy. Cleveland, dear readers, has a lot in common with Milwaukee. My Internet searches found references to Lake Erie perch or cod. Would a Lake Michigan fish fry count? It’s Great Lakes fish. Pierogies and polska kielbasa were options, too. I found terrific pierogies at a Polish deli in Milwaukee when I was bunny-sitting for La Petite. I’m certain we have a polska kielbasa in ring bologna form in our freezer.
Then we found the Polish Boy sandwich. Polish sausage, with coleslaw and French fries piled on it, topped with barbecue sauce. Nope. This pile of foodstuffs, no matter how yummy, wasn’t going to cut it in our house.
We cut down the Polish Boy to a simple Polish sausage on a bun with pierogies on the side. We got our pierogies from the grocery store because we weren’t going to be in Milwaukee this week. Added a fresh peach from the farm stand, and that was supper.
We made an effort, Packers. Jordan Love and company will need to do the rest. Go! Pack! Go!
September 11. Packers are playing the Washington Commanders. This brings back memories of the first Monday Night Football game after the September 11 attack which was – Washington at Green Bay.
But back to 2025. We’re eating the opponent with a crock full of Senate Bean Soup tonight. The recipe is simple, and you can look up variations online. I kept it fairly straightforward, with dried beans and a ham bone to start out.
It tastes as good as it looks. Go! Pack! Go!