Football season has begun!

In honor of the beginning of NFL football last night, we decided it was only appropriate to make football related dinner.  So for dinner last night, I made 4 different kinds of sliders with spinach and artichoke dip and an arugula salad.  Due to the variety, I hope y'all are ready for A LOT of pictures!

To begin! The first thing I started on was the spinach and artichoke dip since it had to bake for a bit.  The ingredients were as follows:

mayo

parmesan

garlic powder

cream cheese

salt

pepper

sour cream

artichokes

spinach

First, I chopped the artichokes then put them in a bowl with the spinach and parmesan cheese. In a separate bowl, the rest of the ingredients were mixed together.  Remember to soften your cream cheese or else you'll have the issue I had with mixing...not being able to. So either take it out of the fridge a bit to let it soften or you can just nuke it for a few seconds. 

Next, I mixed everything together in one bowl and then put it in a baking pan.  Once the oven was preheated, I tossed it in there and let it cook for about 25 min.  When it came out, I put some in a cup and ripped up some Hawaiian bread rolls. Yum! 

So let's get into the sliders shall we?? 

The first of the 4 is Reuben sliders.  The ingredients were:

saurkraut

thousand island

corned beef

swiss cheese

To make, I put some kraut in a frying pan and cooked it for a bit.  I cut the corned beef into quarters and cooked that in the pan after removing the kraut.  The assembly process was taking Hawaiian rolls and putting thousand island on each side.  The order of assembly was corned beef, saurkraut, cheese. 

Next, we will discuss the BBQ chicken slider.  I hate to say that I really didn't make any of this stuff.  It's mostly premade things that I just bought and then put together.  The ingredients were:

chicken

onion

colby jack cheese

bbq sauce

So I chopped some onion and put it in a pot and cooked for a bit.  A few minutes later, I added the BBQ sauce.  I bought the chicken from Whole Foods since it was chicken wednesday and deboned it earlier.  I chopped some up and put it in the sauce and let it all cook together for a bit.  

To assemble, I took a Hawaiian roll, spooned the chicken mix onto it and topped it with colby jack cheese.  This one was definitely the messiest to eat. 

The "philly cheese" slider used leftovers from last night.  We had some leftover tri-tip so I wanted to use it.  The ingredients were:

tri-tip

onion

horseradish cheddar

With the other quarter of the onion, I sliced it and cooked it in a frying pan until almost cooked through.  I cut up the steak and then added it to the pan and let it cook for a couple of minutes.  To assemble, cut up a Hawaiian roll and did my best to stack the mix on top without it all falling off.  Then quickly added the cheese hoping it would all stick together. 

The burger slider took the least amount of work.  I bought some ground beef and formed patties earlier in the day so they could sit in the fridge for a bit to cool.  I was going to cook them on the grill but figured it'd just be easier to make everything inside.  I kept these simple so the ingredients were:

ground beef

avocado

pepper jack

ground mustard

paprika

salt

pepper

garlic powder

I cooked these in a pan for a couple of minutes per side.  Then for assembly, took a Hawaiian roll placed a patty topped with cheese. The avocado was put on after the cooking. 

 OK! So now you have it! Four different kinds of sliders.  I'd definitely suggest making these in bigger quantities than just 2 of each b/c it was a lot of work for 2 tiny burgers of each kind.  Once they were assembled, I put them in the oven to let them heat and for the cheese to melt.  This is what they looked like after the oven before plating:

 While these were cooking, I put together the dressing for the salad.  By salad, it was really just a bunch of arugula in dressing.  The ingredients I used for the dressing were:

dijon mustard

olive oil

balsamic vinegar

salt

pepper

honey

garlic powder

I whisked all the ingredients together minus the olive oil and then streamed in the oil while whisking.  

So we can FINALLY get to the finished products! 

So there they are! I thought they turned out pretty dang well and yummy.  The BBQ was REALLY messy but it was good.  It just tasted like generic bbq chicken but I did buy the sauce and the chicken wasn't actually cooked in the bbq so I'll take it.  The Reuben was pretty good.  The Philly was ok.  It was good for leftovers though so I'm glad I made it b/c there wasn't enough meat for an actual leftover meal.  The burger was Eric's favorite.  I probably agree.  The meat was cooked nicely so it wasn't overdone and chewy.  The avocado was a nice touch with the salt on top and dipped in ketchup it was perfect! The dressing turned out nicely with the arugula.  It was a little sweet but paired well!

This is the first of our football meals!! I have a feeling there will be some tailgating food and pizza in the future for sure!