Two Day Magazine

Football feast...

After 17 weeks of regular season football and two weeks of playoff games, only two teams are standing for the big show, The Super Bowl. If you’re lucky to live in one of the two cities representing the AFC or NFC, it’s time to party!

Considering that both of the cities representing the NFL’s best football teams have a combined populations about 400,000, the maximum capacity of Cowboy Stadium is 80,000 and the Super Bowl is estimated to have over 90-million viewers, there is a good chance that most of us will be planning a party or attending a party at home.

So, if you are planning or attending, here are a few food ideas for party favors:

Barbeque Tofu and Mini Veggie Wraps.

I recommend that you not tell your meat eating guest that that you’re providing vegetarian snacks; may be a bit unethical but entertaining, nonetheless!

Barbeque Tofu ingredients:

• 1 - pound of firm or extra firm tofu

These ingredients will yield 4-cups of sauce or 1- jar of vegan barbeque sauce to save time.

• ½ - onion minced

• 4 - cloves of garlic, minced

• ½ - teaspoon black pepper

• ½ - teaspoon kosher salt

• 2 ½ - cups of tomatoes

• 1/3 - cup of white vinegar

• ¼ - cup Worcestershire sauce

• 1/3 - cup hot sauce

• 1 - pound of angel hair pasta, but any type of strands of pasta will work

• 1-tablespoon of olive oil

Preparation Instructions:

Combine all of the above ingredients into a sauce pan and simmer for 20-minutes, stirring occasionally as to prevent any sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. Once the minced onion and tomatoes are fully cooked, turn off the heat and let it cool. Let your sauce cool and then run it through a food processor or blender to create a smooth consistency. Your sauce is ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 300-degrees. Slice the tofu long ways to make slabs. Cover the bottom of a 1’ deep pan with 1/4 inch of sauce. Place the tofu on top. Cover the tofu with sauce. Do not use all of the sauce as it will be used again, but make sure the tofu is covered. Place it in the oven and cook for two hours. If you like your tofu very firm, cook longer. Check every now and then to make sure nothing is burning. All ovens are all different.

About 20 minutes before the tofu ribs are done cooking, begin the pasta.

Pour eight cups of water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Place the angel hair pasta carefully inside of the boiling water, add the olive oil and immediately stir. It will only take the angel hair pasta a few minutes to cook. The texture should be firm. Once the pasta is done, remove from the boiling water and drain and rinse the pasta in a strainer under cool water. Shake the strainer to remove as much water from the pasta as possible, and plate the pasta on a large serving dish.

Plating instructions:
Place one cup of pasta in the middle of the plate and place the tofu on top then drizzled your extra sauce over the tofu and pasta. Enjoy!

Ingredients for Mini Vegetables Wraps

• 1- package of spring roll pastry

• 1- green pepper

• 1- red pepper

• 1- red onion

• 1- yellow onion

• 8- mushrooms

• 4 - jalapeño peppers

• 2 - tomatoes

• 1 - head of romaine lettuce

• 1 - 16 oz container of hummus

• Reduced balsamic (click HERE for homemade recipe)

Preparation instructions:

Thinly slice all of your vegetables, dice the tomatoes and shred the lettuce. In a heated sauté pan, add olive oil and the onions, peppers, mushrooms and cook until the vegetables are tender. Toss the vegetables several times adding reduced balsamic at the end of the cooking process, then toss a few more times, but do not over cook.

The vegetables are done when you taste one and it is warm and crisp to taste. Place two tablespoons of hummus at one end of the spring roll wrap, add the cooked vegetables on top finish with fresh lettuce and tomato. Begin wrapping the vegetables by folding up the outsides of the wrap over toward the center of the wrap and folding the wrap forward delicately, constantly bringing the outside in, seal with a mixture of flour and water. Place the seal wrap is a heated sauté pan with one tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the wraps until one side is golden brown flip and cook the other side. This process will take 3 - 4 minutes depending on the heat in the pan. This recipe will yield 25 wraps, so you will need to store your completed wraps in a warming dish. No warming dish? Use your oven, set on a very low heat temperature, 100-degrees.

Completing all the wraps will take about 30-minutes.

Plating Instructions:

Simply cut the wraps in have and place on a serving tray. A nice dipping sauce can be used with the wraps but they are great by themselves. If you want to try a dipping sauce, try a Thai sweet and spicy chili sauce.

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I’m a Pittsburgh native, so Go Steelers!!!

Steve Bland is a Pittsburgh based chef whose delicious foods you can enjoy at Embury in the Strip District. Stop by and tell him twodaymag sent you!