A Super Bowl For The Super Bowl

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Super Bowl LIV was last night and while I could have chosen to not watch it and spend the night alone. Which, the introvert part of me would have been just fine with. Some times in life you just need to go and experience things.

When I Was Younger

I’m not a big fan of football at all. The house I grew up in was really into football. They watched the Sunday, Monday, whatever day of the week football was playing they were watching. For those that are not in the states, I am talking about American Football.

They also use to go out to massive family gatherings when we lived up north and watched that states team play. It was always this massive undertaking the host of the game would take on. I recall an almost endless amount of snacks, food, candy, and yes the adults drinking a lot. If they could pack fourth people into a two-bedroom house for the game they would. Sometimes it was outdoors with a tv in the garage as the kids would run around the neighborhood if the game was mid-day.

When I think back to those memories of childhood I ended up having a fun time during those gatherings. I almost never watched much of the football game. The adults in whatever room the tv was set up in were always full of screaming and shouting adults. They were usually a lot louder than the kids so we left them to enjoy their game while playing board games, out in the yard, or whatever else we could get ourselves into.

Current Day

Now a day since everyone lives so spread apart those big game days never happen anymore. Even the couple of family members I have in the area almost never do much. They might catch a game or two a week. Having a Super Bowl party, however, still means a lot to them.

While I’m always invited to watch the different games throughout the year with them which I almost always decline. I find watching paint drying more entertaining. I’m just more of an Esports kind of person. The announcers and all the rules with how slow the football game moves and endless commercials are a major turnoff for me.

I do make an exception to this and that is when the Super Bowl is playing. I’ll join in on the “fun” of watching. In the past, the Super Bowl commercials were a big part of why I even wanted to watch it all. Over the past couple of years, commercials seemed to have gone more and more “woke” and frankly boring as heck. As I grow a little older I just don’t care about 99% of what they are trying to advise anyways.

This year the only Super Bowl commercial I even enjoyed was Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. Where he started every day like the classic Groundhog Day movie with many of the characters cast in an iconic scene. He then rode off in a Jeep with the stolen groundhog and had some fun. I don’t care for Jeeps but they made it entertaining to watch.

Thankfully this year I expected the commercials, for the most part, to just be boring. I still wanted to enjoy the game with some family so I found a different role that would allow me to get a break from being bored and still be there. I cooked dinner and served some appetizers.

Cooking for the game was far more entertaining for me. People could go and enjoy the game and I would not have to try and appear interested when an interception took place for a referee got a call “wrong.” I also got my own private quitter area for cooking when I needed an excess for a break if needed which worked great.

Changes In 2020

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In 2020 one thing I wanted to work on from a personal level is cooking new things and enjoying the experience they can bring. For whatever reason as people get older, they get quite stuck in their ways. I know people who will find something they did not like eating and never again go near it.

With taste buds changing over the years I never want to trap myself into a corner with a giant list of things I’ll never eat again. Not too long ago I ended up getting an Instant Pot pressure cooker and the recipe book for it. Quite a lot of the things in there I have never gotten the experience to eat in my life.

As a result, I’ve just been going thought the book trying out a number of recipes here or there. I do in fact have a spice rack that I almost never use. During the summertime, I’m hoping to have a better understanding of these recipes of what I want to try if possible to grow in my area.

The other day I had Italian short ribs. The only kind of ribs I’ve ever eaten in my life has always been BBQ. If you would have told some people in my family that you had ribs without BBQ sauce they would think you went mental. It ended up having quite a lot of olives which is something I don’t normally eat in a meal and some other ingredients that were not very familiar. I liked it more than BBQ ribs and it has even changed my mind about not likening ribs.

A couple of days from now I’m going have Meatloaf for possibly the first time. Perhaps I’ve had it when I was younger and just don’t remember. It is also going be made in the pressure cooker and I’m quite excited to see how the flavor profile is. Everything so far has been amazing and bursting with flavor to the point I’m finding a lot of new favorites. This includes the meal I made for the Super Bowl.

Shrimp Jambalaya

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For the Super Bowl, I ended up making Shrimp Jambalaya for the main meal served on a bed of rice. This was the first time I ever even had this. It was amazing and I’m hoping to have it again in a few weeks. The fun thing about cooking is once you have eaten something you can make a little tweak to it for next time to see if you enjoyed it more or less.

I liked that I doubled up on the amount of celery in it for my first time making it. I don’t usually eat celery and I didn’t want a bunch of it to go to waste either. Next time I just need to cut it a little thinner so it does not add so much of a crunch to the dish.

I might also add just a dash less of Tabasco sauce to please people who don’t enjoy spicy things. While I lack a reference point of what Shrimp Jambalaya is supposed to taste like. Something tells me without it having a bit of a kick along with all the garlic this would not have been Shrimp Jambalaya.

All the other spices in such as parsley, oregano, and thyme I felt where decent amounts used. I can’t wait to have them fresh from my garden in the summer instead of dried spices. Since this is from a cookbook I won’t be listed the exact amounts despite I could claim I made it my own by changing a few amounts. It’s not like it’s hard to find a similar recipe to Instant Pot’s Cookbook anyways I doubt it’s that original.

It took about an hour in total to make and plate. Between me chopping up all the ingredients to be used in the dish such as red bell pepper, onion, celery. Removing the tails of the shrimp and checking to see if they needed to be cleaned up a little more. Along with waiting a few moments for the cooker to pressurize before the cooking time starts. It’s also fun watching all the steam escape for a few moments when you slide the pressure valve open.

The most interesting part of the process is since shrimp cook rather fast you don’t end up pressure cooking them with everything else. You end up sautéing the Shrimp in everything else that has been cooked down from being pressure cooked.

I ended up having Shrimp Jambalaya with and without rice. I have to say it’s almost a must to have it with rice. The rice in a way soaks up the entire flavor that would have otherwise pooled at the bottom of the plate from the juices as you are eating it.

The rest of the night at the Super Bowl Party was decent. I ended up being rather tired from it and went to bed around one or so in the morning. This is a bit early for me. I do find certain things to be draining and I’m ok with not getting anything else done for the night. I’m glad I went to the Super Bowl party even though most of the commercials sucked and it did not matter to me which team won.

What My Night Would Have Been Instead

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If I had not gone to the Super Bowl party I would not have known better since it’s hard to miss an experience you don’t know about at least to a certain degree. I would have made Shrimp Jambalaya anyways just not that night. It would have been just been another night.

Instead, I would have just worked on my game till three or four into the morning. I took the above photo a week or so ago. It was intended for another post that I never made and don’t plan on making. I would have been just fine spending my night as I did from the one in the photo above. Working on one of my many projects in life that I do in my spare time.

Sometimes it’s just good to go out and enjoy things you would not have normally. While it would not have been a major deal if I had not. It would have been like not getting a pressure cooker a try this year. You don’t miss it if you don’t know better. It can surely add some spice to life when you do.

Information

Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar.



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