Posts Tagged ‘mrs. crappy

12
Sep
13

north and south.

By Uncle Crappy Leave a Comment
Categories: Football and Gear
Tags: ,
The very definition of north and south.

The very definition of north and south.

Mrs. Crappy would have been a fan of Pete Johnson. And she might have found Archie Griffin a bit irritating.

The people who sit near us in the stadium undoubtedly recognize the chatter that comes from seats 9 and 10, Row 22 in 14 C. I sometimes have difficulty forming complete sentences, particularly when Ohio State has the ball, but Mrs. Crappy is able to clearly — and loudly — express her displeasure with running backs who stutter-step too much before hitting the hole.

“QUIT JUKING AROUND!”

She recognizes that a certain amount of, uh, juking around is necessary, but her patience with the practice is thin. After two games watching Jordan Hall and Dontre Wilson, she’s going to be very happy when Carlos Hyde — Ohio State’s premiere north-south tailback — is permitted to return to the lineup.

When Hyde is back on the field, it could be that 14 C won’t hear “Quit juking around!” quite as often for the rest of the season. But so we don’t forget — and to honor Mrs. Crappy’s contention that a downhill running game is the best kind of running game — the Killer Nuts Tailgating shirt shop has unveiled its very first new design for the 2013 season:

juking

There’s more than a week before the next home game. Order now, and we can all carry Mrs. Crappy’s message into Ohio Stadium against Florida A&M.

Your favorite KNT shirts — Pork Division Champs, Leaders Champs, Urban Renewal and We Are Killer Nuts — are still available in the store as well, as as always, your purchases assure that I’ll have two or three extra dollars to spend on our tailgate parties. Thank you once again for your support.

05
Sep
13

bob evans would be proud.

By Uncle Crappy 4 Comments
Categories: Food and Recipes
Tags: , ,

When Mrs. Crappy mentioned last week that we weren’t going to start the season with our traditional breakfast casseroles, I was concerned. After tasting what she came up with, I have learned — once again — that I need to shut up. As usual, this post is written by Mrs. Crappy, with commentary from me in italics.

OK kids, a new season calls for new recipes. In an attempt to find something new to feed the Killer Nuts, I modified a crescent roll poppers recipe, ending up with what has been dubbed (by Ethel) Biscuits and Gravy Casserole without the gravy for the Aug. 31, 2013, game in Columbus against the Buffalo Bulls.

The original recipe for ground beef poppers came from Pinterest (of course it did). Initially, I thought what the hell, we can have ground beef for breakfast, but then I got to thinking what if I used breakfast sausage instead. And I didn’t want to wrap up 48 individual crescent rolls as the recipe calls for, so casserole pan it is! Hunger and laziness — two great motivators! BONUS: This recipe contains no eggs (Other than what’s in crescent rolls to begin with.), because we have several tailgaters who do not eat them, no way, no how! As Juan says, “Lips that touch eggs will never touch mine.”

Sorry — we did not do the step-by-step photo process when cooking this week. We’ll do better as season goes on! Promise!

Mostly because she was making these at 5:30 Saturday morning, and who thinks of taking pictures at that hour?

breakfast tight

Sausage Gravy Casserole

What you need:

  • Four refrigerated crescent roll tubes (I used store brand).
  • 2 pounds ground breakfast sausage (It’s Ohio, so I had to use Bob Evans regular breakfast sausage in 1 pound packages in the bacon/sausage/hot dog section of grocery).
  • Two 8-ounce packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (Don’t be cheap on this ingredient. Store brands suck!).
  • Butter-flavored cooking spray.

What you do:

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees, placing racks on middle level. Racks on bottom will burn the bottom of crescent rolls.
  • Spray two baking pans with cooking spray (I used glass Pyrex 11″ X 9″). Cover bottom of each pan with a layer of crescent roll dough. Bake for about 6 to 8 minutes. Pull out of oven and let cool.
  • Cook the sausage in a frying pan, breaking it up into a crumbly consistency. And here is where I would like to experiment with this recipe more: this would be a good place to throw in something like a can of drained green chilies (as the original popper recipe called for) or onions, other vegetables, whatever. I did add a little garlic powder and black pepper.
  • When sausage is cooked and drained, with pan on a lower heat setting (actually, we cooked sausage and refrigerated at night. In morning I reheated) add in all of the cream cheese. Cutting the cheese into chunks helps it melt down faster.
  • Stir, stir, stir! Don’t burn or brown the cheese, but blend it in with the sausage. You’ll end up a creamy, thick paste.
  • Then spread on top of baked dough. Spread it to all corners, right up the the edges. Then cover with another sheet of crescent roll dough, and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, until dough is light brown.
  • Let cool slightly and cut into whatever size servings you want. Since we had 17 at the tailgate, I made small squares that could be picked up and eaten as finger food or cut with fork. I liked mine with a bit of Frank’s Red Hot sauce on top. The little we had left over and reheated in microwave for about a minute and a half, were excellent, so I think this is a recipe that could be made and then frozen for future use.

The finished casseroles — along with two pans of cheesy potatoes — were dropped in the patented Pound Family Tailgating Box (a large cardboard box with beach towels to insulate whatever stuff we’re bringing) and served, still warm, to our fellow KNTers.

kntbreakfast

This one is a keeper, boys and girls. Ethel was dead on when she said it tasted like Bob Evans biscuits and gravy. I was surprised that there was anything left over, although I was pretty happy about it Sunday morning.

Fred and Ethel are taking over for this Saturday’s game in Columbus against San Diego State. Can’t wait to tell you about what they make!

And … LET’S GO BUCKS!

19
Sep
12

we punted.

By Uncle Crappy Leave a Comment
Categories: Recap and Recipes
Tags: , ,

Yes, we’re late. That’s mostly my fault, as a cold has kept me nailed to the couch for most of the week; Mrs. Crappy did her part, filing this on Monday. Whoops. As always, my comments are in italics. -UC

Week three of the 2012 season found the Buckeyes on a beautiful Saturday playing not-so-beautiful game against the California University at Berkley, who came very, very close to winning, but I’ll leave the game analysis to Uncle Crappy.

Just win, baby.

As for the food analysis, Sept. 15 proved to be an odd day, as the Crappy parents were out of town all week and I had to work late Friday. So early on in the week, we decided to let someone else do the cooking, an option that most of our tailgaters picked as well.

By Friday, we had a count of 15 for the party (very glad to have Aunt Mary up and around again!), so Uncle Crappy had to up our takeout order from City BBQ in Columbus with their “Pig Up and Go” party packages. Our preferred location is on Henderson Road and you can check out the menu here. We got the BP7, which includes, 5 pounds of meat, two 2 1/2 quart sides, sauce and buns. Pulled pork, beef brisket, cole salw and baked beans were the fixings we picked. Crappy Dad looked at it all and told Uncle Crappy there would be tons left over. Yeah, he ended up with enough meat for a sandwich of each. We love our barbecue!

We are thankful to have excellent barbecue options in Pittsburgh; I think City holds up to any of them.

The vinegar-based cole slaw, however, was not a favorite of the crowd and we ended up bring a whole quart back to Pittsburgh, where we plan to make grilled Rachel sandwiches for dinner Tuesday night (Thanks to my illness, we waited until Wednesday night. Totally worth the wait, by the way). Since no one cooked this weekend, and grilled Rachels are easy to make on a Coleman griddle at, say, a tailgate, here is the recipe:

Grilled Rachels, aka the Roasted Turkey Reuben

  • Use either deli turkey or leftover roasted turkey, say after Thanksgiving
  • Deli or marble rye bread, although Martha Stewart recommends sourdough (Martha Stewart would be wrong about that one.)
  • Butter or margarine
  • Coleslaw, whatever kind you like — creamy or vinegar-based (But the vinegar-based one we had was excellent.)
  • Thinly sliced Swiss cheese
  • Russian or Thousand Island dressing

Butter one or both sides of each slice of bread. You pick how much butter you want. Heat frying pan or griddle, like you would for making grilled cheese sandwiches. Spread schmear of dressing on one or both slices of bread. Put one slice butter-side down, on griddle or pan, layering Swiss cheese, turkey and cole slaw on slice. Top with other slice of bread, butter side out, and grill until cheese is melty and the bread is as toasted as you like. Avoid burning bread and feel free to mush down on sandwich with a spatula or to use one of those weights used to make bacon cook flat. You could also use a panni or George Foreman grill. Cut in half and serve with additional dressing if you like extra (and I like extra!)

Deeeelicious.

We also had Suzanne’s cheese dip, potato chips and, this week’s bonus recipe, pumpkin roll.

Easy Pumpkin Roll

  • 3 eggs or 3/4 cup egg substitute
  • 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie mix stuff)
  • 1 cup boxed spice cake mix (preferably a kind with pudding or that says super moist)
  • powdered sugar
  • 1 can creamy style cream cheese frosting at room temp or little warmer

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with a mixer on high until they are thick and yellow – about 2 minutes (or just shake the container of egg substitute really well). Mix in the pumpkin. Mix in the cake mix.

Spread in a 10 x 15″ jelly roll pan lined with greased wax paper or foil. Bake for about 10 minutes at 375.

Remove from the oven and turn out onto a cotton kitchen , not terry cloth, towel well dusted with powdered sugar. Roll the cake up in the towel and let it cool on a wire rack for around 1/2 hour with seam down. Unroll and spread with the cream cheese frosting. Roll it back up without the kitchen towel this time. Sprinkle with more powdered sugar, roll in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator. Chilling helps to keep the roll shape.

Or you can make your own cream cheese spread:

  • 1 (8-oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
  • 1/3 cup real butter, softened
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Blend cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; add remaining powdered sugar and vanilla, blending well.

So here comes University of Alabama-Birmingham at noon on Saturday. Uncle Crappy and I are going camping and leaving Crappy Dad in charge of tailgate. Will report back on the game and the food next week. Until then — Go Buckeyes! P.S. — I hope we learned how to tackle during the week! (Yes, that would be good.)

10
Sep
12

sweet and hammy.

By Uncle Crappy 1 Comment
Categories: Recipes
Tags: , ,

Mrs. Crappy returns for the second installation of what it was we ate on Saturday. These things were freaking delicious and easy to make, so thanks to her for finding the recipe. As was the case a week ago, I’ll add some notes in the photo captions and the text in italics. And finally — bonus points to whomever gets the reference in the headline. -UC

The second week of the 2012 season versus the University of Central Florida Knights gave us a chance to try out a recipe I’ve had my eye on for a while. I found these Hawaiian Sweet Roll Ham Sammies on Pinterest, as all things are these days, by way of beyerbeware.blogspot.com.

Uncle Crappy’s mom Pat has a similar recipe using regular grocery store sandwich rolls instead of the sweet sandwich rolls; Uncle Crappy made them for us years ago. They were very good, making individual sandwiches that are then frozen for future use, but the recipe makes like 40 sandwiches and there were only two of us. Sort of like the first time we went skiing in Snowmass and Uncle Crappy took me to the top of the mountain after four skiing sessions in a county park with a hill (Whiner.).

Anyway, here’s the recipe for Hawaiian Sweet Roll Sammies:

1 package of 12 King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (Distinctive orange packaging. Uncle Crappy found ours in the deli section of the grocery instead of bread section. After much searching.)
1 onion minced
1 stick of butter
3 tablespoons of Djion mustard
2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce
3 teaspoons of poppy seeds (Remember, these can sometimes trigger false positives in urine drug tests, so leave them out if this is something you need to worry about.)
3/4 pound shaved ham (We used Giant Eagle Market District Ham Off the Bone. Good, not overly salty to counter the sweet rolls.)
8 slices of Swiss cheese

Sweet merciful crap, did this smell good.

Melt butter in a small skillet and add onions. Medium heat. Let saute for a few minutes to soften onions, but don’t brown the onions. Mix mustard, Worcestershire sauce and poppy seeds into onion and butter. Simmer for a few minutes, until the onions are soft.

Note that there are a couple different kinds of rolls in those pans. I couldn’t find three packages of sweet rolls in the two stores I visited, so I did some improvising, using the sweet deli buns as well. Didn’t notice a difference at all.

Slice rolls as a slab (not individual rolls) lengthwise, and place bottom in an aluminum foil lined 13′ x 9″ baking pan. Spread 3/4 of onion mixture on roll bottoms, then layer ham and cheese on top. Place top of rolls on the pile, spreading the remaining onion mixture over the top of the rolls. Cover with foil and refrigerate until ready to bake.

This is the butter/mustard goop spread on the bottoms of the buns. Make sure you hold back enough to coat the tops, too.

The finished sammiches, ready to be baked. Under the bun tops are layers of ham and Swiss cheese. Note: I got three packages of bread for two casseroles. I also fudged the amount of ham and cheese upwards a bit.

Bake covered with foil for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

And they’re done. A little sweet, and meaty and goopy with cheese. This recipe is a keeper.

Uncle Crappy put two of these casseroles together on Friday and then we baked Saturday morning before going to tailgate. Refer to last week’s entry about how we transport hot things to the tailgate. We were warned when we got to Columbus that we might have six additional tailgaters, so we whipped the Eggless Sausage Casserole from last weekend out of the freezer and cooked it too. Good thing, too — with 15 very hungry people, we came away with about a quarter casserole of the sammies, which Uncle Crappy and I ate for dinner Sunday.

Not the most artful shot of the cake — sorry ’bout that — but hooboy, was it good.

Additional food included: Chilled Cajun shrimp, which I’ll get the recipe for, and My Grandma’s of New England Coffee Cake, which is honestly the best coffee cake I have ever had and will be ordering for Christmas presents this year! We had the plain coffee cake, but we all want to try the other flavors too, especially the blueberry. Interested? You’ll find all the info here.

And the bonus recipe this week is for Suzanne’s Jarlsberg Cheese Dip — 2 cups chopped red onions, 2 cups mayonnaise, 2 cups shredded Jarlsberg cheese, mix together in a dish. Chill and serve with crackers. Now, in looking up this recipe, I found that it is meant to be baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes and served warm. I have never had it that way and it is one of those that you can’t stop eating cold, so I wonder what the warm version is like. My cousin also makes it cold, but loads it with fresh cracked black pepper, which is yummy. Someone out there, bake it and report back what its like warm.

Now looking forward to Saturday’s match up with University of California Golden Bears, and wondering what we’ll eat! Go Buckeyes!

06
Sep
12

hold the eggs.

By Uncle Crappy 4 Comments
Categories: Recipes
Tags: ,

Mrs. Crappy promised over the summer that she was going to be a Killer Nuts Tailgating contributor this season, and I’m awfully pleased to see that she’s keeping her promise. -UC

As an added feature this year on Killer Nuts Tailgating, we will be providing a few recipes from each weekend’s get together. This past week for the Buckeyes home opener, we chose a traditional eye opener, an eggless breakfast casserole. As some in our crowd H-A-T-E eggs in any form, we found this casserole a few years back, that makes everyone happy — unless you look at the calorie content, which we don’t. Quick, easy, very tasty, filling, and if you remember to put the leftovers in a cooler with ice, it reheats well the next day too!

Eggless Breakfast Casserole with sausage

• 1 pound ground sausage. (I always double this recipe; for the version with more heat, use a mix of regular and hot sausage.).
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 (10 ¾ oz.) can cream of chicken soup
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 (8 oz.) container of French onion dip
• 1 cup chopped onion
• ¼ cup each green and red bell pepper
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 (30-oz.) package frozen hash brown shredded potatoes, thawed

In a skillet, cook the sausage until browned. Drain well. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sausage (or cooked bacon or ham or veggies), cheese, chicken soup, sour cream, French onion dip, chopped onion, bell peppers, salt and pepper. Mix in thawed hash brown potatoes. We have found the best method for really getting this mixed well is to just use a LARGE bowl and your hands. Spread in a 9 X 13-inch greased baking dish. Bake at 350°F for about one hour or until casserole is golden brown.

I usually bake for about 45 minutes with casseroles covered with foil and then uncover and continue to bake until I think they are done. This tends to keep them moister than if baked completely uncovered.


With a crowd of nine, we made two casseroles, one with mild sausage and one with hot (We had enough mixed up for an additional small casserole, which we froze for a future breakfast, lunch or dinner). To the hot casserole, a diced jalapeno was also added. The hot went faster than the mild, and we ended up with a large chunk that would have been two servings, if we had remembered to put into the cooler. Oh well. (Totally my fault. -UC)

As for keeping casseroles warm, you can either bake before going to tailgate, or, as we did, bake them the night before and then reheat thoroughly in the morning. Cover with foil. Then we take a sturdy box about a foot deep and line the bottom with beach towels, wrapping each casserole in a towel, stacking them in the box and then covering with another towel.

I know some people have those nifty hot food carrying cases, which are awesome, but we have found the towel method is pretty easy to deal with when it comes to spills, as spilled chili in a carrying case can result in a long scrub to get it out of all the nooks and crannies and stitching. With the towels, you just throw in the washer, and if the box get bad, throw it out and find a new one. When it comes to seriously cold weather games, we have several old pizza delivery carriers that help insulate the food even more, and we leave the box in the car until its time to eat.

Something is wrong with this picture. Come back on Thursday to find out what.

The rest of Saturday’s menu, provided by the rest of the crew included fresh Caprese salad (tomato slices, slices of fresh mozzarella, roughly fresh basil chopped, olive oil), fresh fruit salad, cheese and crackers, cookies and pound cake, as well as Buckeye donuts from Tim Hortons — chocolate glazed donuts with a dollop of peanut butter in the hole!

Check back next week for this coming Saturday’s menu for the OSU v. University of Central Florida.

Go Buckeyes!

(Note: You now have the recipe; tomorrow morning, you’ll learn about my track record of screwing it up. Besides forgetting to put the leftovers in a cooler, I mean… -UC)

2017 schedule

Aug. 31: vs. at Indiana, 8 p.m.
Sept. 9: Oklahoma, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 16: Army, 4:30 p.m.
Sept. 23: UNLV
Sept. 30: at Rutgers
Oct. 4: at Maryland
Oct. 7: Maryland
Oct. 14: at Nebraska
Oct. 28: Penn State, 3:30 p.m.
Nov. 4: at Iowa
Nov. 11: Michigan State
Nov. 18: Illinois
Nov. 22: Indiana
Nov. 25: at Team Up North, noon
Dec. 2: B1G Championship, 8 p.m.

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