Category Archives: cheeseheads

>Eating the Opponent – New York or New Jersey?

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>My Green Bay Packers play the New York Giants tomorrow. In keeping with our tradition, we are planning to serve New York cuisine of some sort tonight to represent eating the opponent. This gets complicated, though. The Giants don’t actually play in New York. Their home field, Met Life Stadium, is actually in New Jersey. What to do, what to serve, what to eat?

Amigo suggested New York strip steak. Chuck and I said, “Sure! That’ll be delicious.” It was almost too easy, though, so we kept going with our research. We settled on bagels for breakfast – not just any bagels, bagels from a local store that calls itself Jersey Bagels. They have great coffees, too. Ahem. Easy decision, that one.
Then Chuck found a site called New Amsterdam Market, saw a picture that inspired him, and started searching for the recipe. He found a pasta dish that incorporates butternut squash and fresh sage, both ingredients we have in the house. We’ll have that on the side with our steak tonight.
In other factors, it’s lousy weather this weekend in Northeastern Wisconsin. 37 degrees Fahrenheit, steady rain, and that means cold, wet, and colder and wetter. Two cold-weather teams ought to do well in this mess, but neither will enjoy playing. I almost (almost) hope the temperatures go down several degrees and that rain becomes snow. Green Bay Tough means coping with snow is easy. Well, maybe not easy, but within reason. Is New York-Jersey tough the same?
Several years ago when Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning came to town, a local television station decided to change its schedule and refuse to air reruns of Manning’s favorite show, Seinfeld. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it had no effect on the game. Favre threw one of his patented interceptions (Rodgers will let him keep that record), and the rest is history that ended with the Giants beating the Patriots in that year’s Big Game.
Here we go, with the Packers undefeated at 11-0. Can they battle the elements as well as they’ve battled opponents? Will Manning and company be able to overcome Mr. Rodgers’ home field neighborhood advantage? Stay tuned, and eat steak. New York strip steak, with a Big Apple on the side.

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>Flat Stanley visits Lambeau Field

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When Flat Stanley arrived in my mailbox from Irving, Texas, we knew one place we needed to go: Lambeau Field. Chuck folded Stanley into his wallet and headed off to work.
Stan’s first stop was the Lombardi statue at the entrance. He held onto Vince’s left shoe; that first step would be a doozy.


The best place to start any tour is the Lambeau Field Atrium, including the entrance to the field itself. Can you see the lines on the floor? They line up exactly with the yard lines on the field itself. “Impressive,” thought Stanley.


Stanley’s first stop was the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame where he saw the collection of Lombardi trophies. He felt a lump in his throat as he viewed the most recent addition to the collection, the trophy from last season, Super Bowl XLV.


Then Stanley considered his choices. Locker Room or Field? The locker room was locked, so on to the field it was.


“Wow,” thought Stanley. “This is hallowed ground, not frozen tundra.”


Flat Stanley had the good fortune (and the connections) to sit on the sound board during the evening show of Larry McCarren’s Locker Room. The studio audience overflowed the place for this guest: Aaron Rodgers himself.

Stan was exhausted after his Green Bay adventures, so he climbed back into his envelope in Chuck’s wallet and went to sleep. After all, tomorrow would be another day. There were places to go, people to see, and adventures galore awaiting his flat little self.

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>Eating the Opponent – and Michigan’s U.P.

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>We’ll be eating a traditional turkey dinner at Grandma’s on Thanksgiving Day. Grandma is cooking most of it ahead of time so she can watch the game.

What do you mean, what game??!!??
The Green Bay Packers are playing the Detroit Lions, of course. That’s The Game. Turkey Day dinner will be on the table after the fourth quarter clock winds down. In the meantime, our Eating the Opponent project continues. We decided to broaden the definition of Detroit to include the entire state of Michigan, including the Upper Peninsula – da U.P., der hey, to us Wisconsinites. U.P. residents, affectionately known as Yoopers, have their own unique menus.
I stopped at a local pasty cafe and shop — okay, okay. Stop the snickering in the peanut gallery! That’s Pass-Tees. Not pays-trees or pays-tees. Pass-tees. The pasty was a food that miners could carry in their lunch pail and eat with their hands when they had their mid-day break. Traditional filling ingredients are beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions and other good stick-to-your-ribs edibles stuffed inside of a strong crust. Yooper history contends that the pasty was brought to the continental United States by Cornish miners (not minors) who came to work in the copper and iron mines of the mineral rich U.P. Nowadays, locals serve pasties with ketchup (not gravy) or a special sauce that tastes like a spicy ketchup with jalapeno peppers.
Pasties out of the oven, ready to eat!
Pasties are baked, never fried, never nuked. I bought “breakfast pasties” with bacon or sausage and scrambled eggs inside – 5 for $10, plus one free – to serve Thursday morning. Our official Turkey Dinner will hit the table after the game, so we’ll need a solid breakfast. I think Yooper style Breakfast Pasties fit the bill.
Now if any of you doubt that U.P. food is appropriate for Eating the Opponent, I give you this. I asked the cafe staff, both native Yoopers, if football fans in da U.P. are Packers or Lions backers. Without hesitation, they both declared, “Lions!”
I think I’ll serve these with a side of Trenary Toast.

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>Eating the Opponent: Wild Rice Hot Dish

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>Yep, Green Bay played Minnesota last night. The Badgers played the Gophers, too, for the prize they call Paul Bunyan’s Ax. Saturday night Amigo and I had a wild rice dish to invoke the taste of Minnesota.

Ingredients:
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 cup Minnesota wild rice, uncooked
1/2 lb. fresh muchrooms, sliced (optional)
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons beef bouillon mix
1 1/2 cup water
Directions:
Rinse and soak wild rice in hot water for up to three hours. Drain.
In a four quart saucepaan, cover rice with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain any excess water.
Brown ground beef in a nonstick skillet. Drain any fat or juices. Combine cooked ground beef with remaining ingredeitns in a large casserol dish. Mix thoroughly.
Cove and bake one hour at 350 degrees F. Uncover and bake 15 additional minutes.
Serves 6. Amigo and I had a lot left over.
Daisy’s comments: I also added a diced chili pepper, one of the last from my garden. It spiced up the mix considerably. The final result was rather monochromatic. Delicious, but not much to decorate a plate. Next time I’ll add something with more color. Various peppers, perhaps, or corn or peas (frozen from the garden or Farmers’ Market, of course) would make this look as good as it tastes.
One more addition: this wild rice dish with its flavor and its beef made a great addition to potato soup. Potato and beefy wild rice soup; easy and delicious. I’m packing some in my lunch tomorrow.

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>Eating the Opponent – a different angle

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>Here’s a look at the opponent wall in the Packers Hall of Fame from a different angle. This week we took a different angle on our Eating the Opponent project, too.

The Packers played the San Diego Chargers. Normally we’d look up a signature food from San Diego and cook it Saturday night. This weekend was different because the time available for research and grocery shopping was slim to nonexistent and because we visited Amigo on Saturday to watch a Goal Ball tournament. A what tournament? Stay tuned; I’ll have a post on it later.
What to do? The tiny bit of research I did named seafood and Mexican food as typical San Diego fare. That’s rather general, but it got me started. Most of the seafood in my freezer is Midwestern in origin – tilapia, etc. I did have half a package of shrimp, so I made it with thin spaghetti topped with butter and grated Parmesan cheese. Yes, I know, it’s a lame attempt at seafood. Saturday we ate lunch at Taco Bell, but that’s far from authentic, so it doesn’t count either.
Chuck got a little silly on Sunday. Since we hadn’t cooked a good San Diego food, he created the following. Readers, I give you: Sandy Eggs on Charred Jer-sey (beef). Trust me; it was an improvement over the Sandy Eggo waffles he thought of first.
Translation: grilled steak with an egg over easy, topped with finely crushed pecans to resemble sand.
It’s a groaner, I know. Next week the Pack will battle the Minnesota Vikings. I have a dish in mind already, and it has no puns whatsoever.

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>Touring Lambeau Field, Daisy style

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Field trips are different in a virtual school. We arrange field trips in different locations in the state, and families sign up to meet a teacher or two there. Several families met two teachers, Mr. P and me, at Lambeau Field for the stadium tour and the Hall of Fame.
My photos were a bit different, too. I took several of the families that came, trying to balance the atmosphere with the faces. These turned out quite well, I thought.
My own personal pictures took a rather different angle, too. I didn’t need the standard Green and Gold; I’ve seen it and internalized it plenty of times. Instead, I noticed the Wall of Opponents. All they need now is an extension of this for our Eating the Opponent project! That would be a great addition to the hall of fame, or even to the menu at Curly’s Pub, in my perspective.

The Wall of Opponents is rather long and curved; it’s tough to fit the whole thing in a standard picture. The menu would take up an additional wall.

Then there was the Packer trivia game. I got a few wrong (doh! I should have known the answers), but I still made the High Scores list. What? You doubt me?


I compared spirited socks with one of the girls along on the tour. Mine are on the right. I could be convinced to pick up a pair like hers. Socks like these would coordinate perfectly with my pink Packers polo shirt.


And I seriously coveted the tour guides’ shoes. I know, these are men’s shoes. But they could be made in women’s sizes, I’m sure. Couldn’t they? I mean, the Pro Shop carries Super Bowl XLV sweaters for dogs; they could make tour guide shoes for women.

These shoes are standing on hallowed ground: The Tunnel. Come the next home game, I’ll have a new perspective as the team comes out of the tunnel onto the field.

Go! Pack! Go!

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>Eating the Opponent: Minneso-ta style

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It was fried ravioli with Shock Top beer last week.

Amigo had his with Mello Yello.

This week, it’s Minnesota. The guys in purple. The Northern team that plays in a (snort) dome. The dome that couldn’t handle the snow last year and actually collapsed. No players in purple were injured during the perilous storm, but the Vikes had to play their next home game in an outdoor college stadium. Pardon me while I giggle a little at the irony of the whole disaster.

Back to the topic at hand: a Minnesota staple food. I asked my Facebook friends to help, but the two who live in the Twin Cities remained silent. I blogged a plea for ideas on Monday, and two chimed in. So…. we’ve narrowed it down.

We haven’t decided or shopped for ingredients yet. Well, folks? Wild rice? The ubiquitous Minnesot’n hotdish? Lutheran-style after-church pie?
There is still one Farmers’ Market left. I might buy my pie from the Amish baker. She makes delicious – well, everything. And almost next to her booth is the cheese vendor, the one who sells the freshest cheese curds I’ve ever eaten. Oh, wait. Cheese curds are Wisconsin, not Minnesota. Or are they also eaten west of the Mississippi and the St. Croix?
Meanwhile, let’s not forget the whole reason for the Eating the Opponent routine.
Go! Pack! Go!

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>Meal planning, Daisy style

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A typical week looks like this in the OkayByMe kitchen:
Monday: Chuck works late, Daisy makes an omelet.
Tuesday: something good for two.
Wednesday: something good for two.
Thursday: something good for two. Can you tell we’re enjoying the empty nest during the week?
Friday: Crock Pot or other easy dish to accommodate Amigo’s pick-up time around five.

Meanwhile, eating the opponent continues on Saturday nights.

St. Louis Toasted (fried) Ravioli was delicious, but high maintenance. Chuck said “Never again.” I said, “Let’s leave it to the restaurants.”
Next week, Minnesota Vikings. Last year we faced this dilemma, too. No lutefisk, I declared, not in my home! So instead, we made a stuffed meatloaf (good hot-dish, Lake Wobegon style) and bought a can of Spam. Breakfast featured turnovers in honor of former Packer turned traitor, er, Viking, Brett Favre.
No one liked the Spam.
But anyway, we’d like to expand on eating Minnesota next weekend. A search through Swagbucks turned up recipes with rhubarb (too easy), wild rice (a strong possibility), and the ubiquitous hot dish. Hot dish, for the uninitiated, is another name for a casserole. Meat, veggies, pasta or potatoes, all in one pan, stirred with a can of cream soup to hold it all together. Many hot dish formulas call for a can of tuna or a pound of browned ground beef.
We could make a ground beef and tater tot casserole using tater tots made in Plover, Wisconsin.
We could make a wild rice dish with fish or other wild game meat.
Turnovers? Not necessary this year. Take that, Brett.
Well, readers, what do you think? Minnesota friends, weigh in, please. What should we serve for Eating the Opponent when our Packers play the Vikings?

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>Eating the Opponent: meet me in St. Louis, Louis!

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Last weekend we had peach cobbler for dessert and cornbread with peach jam with the meal. We tried Coke with peanuts later in the evening and made grits with maple syrup to go with brunch.

This time, we’re looking to St. Louis. The Brewers were up against the Cardinals, and the Packers are playing the Rams. My sister-in-law lived and taught in St. Louis for several years, so she joined Earth Muffin in recommending some good local fare.
Our tentative plan: Fried ravioli. Chuck will find a beer (not Budweiser, by the way) with St. Louis or at least Missouri roots. We weren’t willing to fry a cardinal – that’s another sport entirely. Besides, I hear cardinal tastes like chicken.
Some of the fun in this project comes from the research. We get ideas from friends and family, we look things up on the Internet, and we get creative to add a bit of Wisconsin to some. Adding maple syrup to the grits was one nod to my state tree, the sugar maple. The peaches in the jam were Wisconsin and Michigan produce, not Georgia, to be honest. It’s the spirit of the project that counts. So on we go, eating our way (we hope) to 6-0!
Readers coming from Plurk or Twitter might know that I’m having my first cataract removal surgery today. Yes, of course I’m nervous. I’m using my irreverent sense of humor to survive it. No coffee in the morning before surgery? I’ll convince Chuck to drive through Starbucks on the way home.

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>Eating the Opponent: Green Bay vs. Atlanta

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>It’s time for Georgia peaches and Coke with peanuts!

Last year I made peach cobbler and it was delicious. I also have peach jam this year – made from Wisconsin and Upper Michigan peaches, but tasty. Very tasty. We served Coke products with the meal, of course.
If you’re new to Eating the Opponent, we’ve developed a tradition of looking at the Green Bay Packers schedule and serving a local dish from the opposing team’s locale. Sometimes it’s sincere, sometimes it’s tongue in cheek. We had bear claws for breakfast the day of last season’s Conference Championship game in Chicago.
Lately, Wisconsin sports fans have offered up a lot of great play for fans, and a lot of fun eating for us. Our Brewers keep on hitting and defending their Beast-ly title, too. And the Wisconsin Badgers? Last week was easy; sweet corn on the cob to represent Nebraska. This weekend, we’ll eat our fill of good food and cheer on our favorite team: last year’s Super Bowl Champs, the Green Bay Packers.

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