Tailgate Tuesday: Sausage and Cheese Chowder

 One of our tailgate staples, this creamy soup has made appearances on the road and at home.  It's easy to make...so easy, I think The Godfather could do it (but he won't).  I highly recommend pre-prepping it at home in a large heavy-bottomed pot and transferring it to one or two crock pots / slow cookers for serving.  Recipe makes enough to feed a large crowd.

Adapted from Tailgating.com.

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds of smoked kielbasa or other smoked sausage, diced
• 1/2 pound of bacon, preferrably peppered bacon, diced
• 3 medium onions, diced
• 1 bunch scallions, diced
• 3 Tbsp granulated garlic
• 6 cups of corn kernels, frozen is fine
• 1.5 cups of flour
• 1 gallon of whole milk
• 3 pounds of finely shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 quart heavy cream
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

• Cook bacon in bottom of large (at least 10 quart size) heavy bottomed pot
• Remove bacon with slotted spoon, set aside
• Add onions and granulated garlic, cook until starting to caramelize
• Add sausage, cook until heated through.  A little browning is fine.
• Add corn, cook until heated through.  Again, a little browning is ok.
• Add flour and stir continuously for 2-3 minutes.  This is like a roux.  It will darken a bit, but don't let it stick or burn
• Add 3 of the 4 quarts of the milk (don't add the whole gallon!), one quart at a time, bringing the milk close to boiling each time.  Stir vigorously, breaking apart the flour/vegetable/sausage mix and incorporating it into the milk.  You will be left with a quart of milk...keep that off to the side in case you want to make the soup thinner later.
• Bring the concoction to a simmer, turn the heat down to low to medium-low and add in the cheese...again stirring constantly.
• Once melted, add in the cream.
• Keep heat on low and keep cooking for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, check the thickness of the soup.  Too thick?  Add milk a cup at a time, waiting 10 minutes each time to make sure it is incorporated into the soup, until desired consistency is reached.  Too thin?  Make a slurry of one cup of milk + one cup of flour (whisked together) and add it to the soup, again waiting 10 minutes between additions to make sure it gets incorporated.
• Just right?  Add the bacon back in, add scallions, crack some black pepper in there, and salt to taste.
• Serve!  Note:  It tastes great now, but you should probably reserve a couple bowls for yourself and put it in the fridge...because it's even better tomorrow.

Important tips! Once the cheese is added, the heat should never go beyond low or medium-low, otherwise you will burn the bottom resulting in a beautiful pot of creamy charred crap.  If you feel like you have burned the bottom, don't stir up the bottom!  Transfer to another pot to try to salvage the soup, leaving the cheesy charred remains behind.

Enjoy! ...and Go Blue!

The Unreality Continues

Hey!  We're famous again!

Ahhh yes, UMTailgate.com...featured previously in the Orlando Sentinel and the Ann Arbor News, has found itself with some fresh new publicity.

The Free Press's food maven Susan Salasky has interviewed me a few times over the past month for an article on tailgating for the paper.  What started small has ended big, and in today's life section of the Free Press, there are a couple pieces that feature UMTailgate.com. Nice stuff.

Thanks to Tailgater Patty for helping to make all of this happen.

Articles are here, here, and even though it says that the recipe is from Kevin Miller here...it was actually from me.  That's grandma's baked beans!!!

Make Your Own Damn Jalepeno Poppers

These spicy little bastards take some time to put together, but they are well worth it.  The nice thing is, you can make them the night before, put them in your customized popper tray, and take them from fridge to grill when you are ready.  Also, they keep well in the fridge after cooking, and are surprisingly tasty cold.  If you don't have the means to acquire said popper tray, or you have banned yourself from Cabela's because you are afraid you might blow $500 on new tackle, these can be done without the tray.  Just lean them on their side and roast them, but try to get the tops as vertical as possible.  As they start to really heat up, they're gonna need constant attention as the water chestnut will certainly try to escape and take some cream cheese with it.  Not that they don't require attention when they are on the tray, as in most cases the bacon fat will cause flare-ups.  Just keep the heat low and keep them on the grill until that bacon looks crispy.  Don't fear a blackened bottom on the pepper...that's where the flavor comes from.

This recipe came from our old friends at Diner's Drive-In's and Dives by way of The BBQ Shack in Paola, Kansas.  Rest assured, Mangino has had a few of these in his time.  It's rare that I fail to alter a recipe I find on the internet, but this time, things looked pretty much perfect, so all I added was a bit of my home-blended chili spice on top....  From foodtv.com:

Jalapeno Poppers

1 can whole water chestnuts
2 cups soy sauce
Approximately 1 1/2 to 2-pounds brown sugar
1 dozen large jalapeno peppers
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
1 pound thin sliced bacon
All-purpose bbq rub

Preheat grill over medium-high heat.

Take whole water chestnuts, put in a plastic bowl or container of some type and cover the chestnuts with soy sauce. Then pour enough brown sugar into the bowl to cover the chestnuts. It will dissolve as you put it in so it may take a fair amount of brown sugar. Let them marinate, refrigerated, overnight. In the morning, stir the mixture and let sit until you need them.

Cut the stems off the peppers. The larger the jalapeno the better. Core the jalapenos. You can find a tool called a chili twister at most BBQ/fireplace stores. Warm the package of cream cheese in the microwave and squeeze it into a quart freezer bag. Cut a little bit of the corner off the bag and use it as a pastry bag. Fill only the bottom part of the pepper. Now stuff 1 or 2 chestnuts into the pepper. You may need to cut the chestnuts in half. Leave a little space at the top of the pepper. Take a pound of bacon (thin sliced works best) and cut strips of bacon in half. Wrap each pepper with the half slices of bacon. Use toothpicks to keep bacon in place. Using the rest of the cream cheese, fill the remaining space at the top of the peppers. I sprinkle a little bit of all-purpose bbq rub on top for some color. They are ready to cook.

Place onto grill and cook until bacon is done. Watch them closely! If the bacon grease pools it will catch fire. Open grates work good (but the bacon drippings will still catch fire), but an offset fire works best. Also at most BBQ/fireplace stores you can find holders that will hold 1, 2, or 3 dozen jalapenos.

Make Your Own Damn Ribs

Adapted from several recipes across the internets...

UMTailgate Ribs

Rub 'Em

• Baby back ribs


• 2 parts chili powder


• 2 parts smoked paprika


• 2 parts coriander


• 1 part onion powder


• 1 part garlic powder


• 2 parts crushed red pepper


• 3 parts ground cayenne


• 1/4 part ground coffee


• 1/4 part lemon pepper


• 3 parts dark brown sugar


• Sugar in the raw

Preheat oven to 280 degrees.  Reserve about 2 cups of rub for later.  Mix rub 2 to 1 with sugar in the raw.  Spread half a cup of mixture on meat side of each rack of baby backs (spare ribs work too) with membrane removed.  Spread a quarter cup of mixture on bone side.  Place ribs on sheet pan, meat side up and cook for 2.5 hours.  Remove from oven.

Glaze 'em and baste 'em

• Peach preserves


• dark brown sugar


• apple juice

Lower the temperature in the oven to 230 degrees.  Make an individual packet out of tinfoil for each rack.  Depending on thickness of the foil you are using, you might want to double up on layers.  Spread 3 tablespoons of peach preserves on each slab followed by 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.  At this point you are wondering why you are making peach pie on top of a rack of ribs...but trust me, it works.  Seal the ribs leaving one end open and pour about 1.5-2 cups of apple juice into the foil packet.  Seal it completely and put it on a rack in your oven being careful not to tear the packet and have the apple juice leak out all over the oven.  You might want to use a sheet pan underneath them if you are worried.  Cook packets for 1.5 hours.  Remove from oven once again.

Finish 'em

• apple juice


• rub from step one

Feel free to cover refrigerate at this point, up to overnight.  Place ribs on a medium grill and moisten each rack with about 2 tablespoons of apple juice, then sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of of rub and spread it around.  Heat ribs to desired temperature...which should be somewhere around "hot"...usually found around the time you start to see significant carmelization of the glaze.

Serve 'em up and enjoy.