Super Bowl recipes and food ideas: Bringing New Orleans to you

Because of this, you’re going to watch the game from the comfort of your couch, enjoying the comfort of your own food, yes? Well, there’s one thing you can do to help bring the action to you, and that’s capturing the essence of New Orleans in your kitchen.

For those of you who are just catching up, Super Bowl 47 is being played at the Superdome in New Orleans. Just so you know.

So what makes good New Orleans cuisine? Lots of calories and lots of sodium, that’s for sure. It’s Louisiana’s own brand of comfort food, and it certainly is high on comfort, at least until you hit the scales the following morning. But who cares about that? Things like weight gain and a negative body image are problems for future you.

I know I don’t care about future me!

Now, about those recipes. You can’t talk about New Orleans cuisine and not mention the famed po’ boy. It’s a sandwich which usually has fried seafood or roast beef, and it’s usually on a New Orleans French bread. Also, it’s usually delicious.

What you should do is make yourself a po’ boy. The Food Network has a shrimp po’ boy with horseradish remoulade, which is what fancy folks call tartar sauce. They describe the recipe as “intermediate” but smart money is on it being worth any and all trouble.

Then, once you got your po’ boy, you really, urgently need to make jambalaya, or do what I did and get engaged to a professional chef and politely request that they make it for you. Jambalaya is a popular Creole dish, put together with Spanish and French influence and it basically is a bunch of rice, stock and meat all put together with the finest of spices.

It’s hard to mess up jambalaya. You can throw a bunch of extra crap in and you’re fine, so long as you cook said extra crap to perfection. If it has the basic makings of a jambalaya, adding your own touch isn’t a party foul, but if you need some guidance, there’s a good recipe for some “easy” jambalaya here.

Lastly, you’re going to need some chili. Preferably a chili with multiple kinds of beans, and some pasta in there as well. That’s what makes it New Orleans-y. This black and red bean chili with wagon wheel pasta is a pretty good start, though it could certainly use some more spice to it. So do that, and then add more spice.

And there you have it. That’s some quality New Orelans-style food there, and that’s without even including things like bananas foster for a desert. All Recpies has some great recipes to follow to help bring New Orleans to you as well, so be sure to check that out if you’re not feeling chili, a po’ boy, or jambalaya.

But if you’re not feeling those things, then you’re crazy. Absolutely crazy. So make them, eat them and be merry.