The wait is over. It’s now officially football season, and like all good Americans should do on game day, it’s time to tailgate. Tailgating is all that is good about college football. Northerners think they invented it in the sub-zero parking lots of professional football stadiums, but we, as Southerners, know that the Southeastern Conference is the king of all football tailgating. Once more, since our university has such a dynamic baseball field that encourages tailgating, we get more practice in the tailgating “off season.” So as the Tigers are at our gates, let’s get grillin.’
First, we have to get something straight about tailgating. You don’t have to spend gobs of money to have a decent meal on game day. So in this column I’m going to show you some easy and fairly cheap recipes to make sure your tailgate comes off without a hitch. Excuse the pun.
The centerpiece of your tailgate meal is the meat – meat on the grill. Of course, to grill something, you need heat.
Some folks say gas; some say charcoal. I say whichever floats your boat is the best one. If you’re going to use gas you’re going to need some woodchips.
Woodchips are pretty cheap – about five dollars a bag – and you get a lot. Most of the time your choices are going to be either hickory or mesquite.
I personally like mesquite, but around here hickory is really easy to get. The day before grilling, soak your chips in water.
If you are feeling a little frisky you can pour some bourbon on your chips and let that soak in before you soak them in water.
Make a bowl out of aluminum foil and poke a few holes in the bottom. Put your chips in the bowl and put the bowl on the grill a few minutes before putting your meat on to get some good smoke going.
If you are using charcoal, I suggest purchasing Kingsford mesquite briquets charcoal. It’s not expensive, and it makes a world of difference in taste.
OK, we’ve got the grill going. It’s time to put on some meat. I’m going to give you two easy recipes for pork and beef.
The easiest thing to grill is a pork loin. You can buy one from a butcher, or you can buy a prepackaged and preseasoned loin in the meat department. Either way, you want a nice, lean pork loin.
Once you have your pork loin, you’re going to need a good marinade.
Buy a bottle of Allegro marinade and a bottle of Italian dressing. If you have a little garlic powder at home that can come in handy.
A quick and really good grill food is what I call beer sausages. I call them that because, well, they go great with beer. Buy a pack of link sausage, Conecuh sausage is by far the best for this recipe.
Cut the sausages into about four-inch links and split them about halfway open. Get a jar of sliced jalape¤os and stuff the sausages with the jalape¤os.
Use some toothpicks to hold them together and put on the grill. You can make this for about five bucks.
Take your pork loin and make cutlets about 1 1/2 inches thick by cutting across the length of the pork loin. Put all your cutlets in a baking dish or pan, whatever you have available.
Once you have the pork loin in your dish sprinkle a little garlic powder on the cutlets. After that, pour in the bottle of Allegro and the bottle of Italian dressing. Both bottles are just enough to marinate a whole pork loin.
Cover your pan with aluminum foil and let it marinate overnight.
For this next recipe you can use either venison or beef. Either way the meat needs to be something like thin round steak, sirloin, flank steak or even backstrap if you’re using venison.
The meat just needs to be kind of thin so it will cook quickly.
You want about 4-inch by one-half-inch to 1-inch strips for this recipe. Marinade the meat if you like, just some worchestshire sauce if you like.
Get some cream cheese, mix in a few jalape¤os and stir it well. If you don’t like jalape¤os get some canned green chiles, they have great taste.
Next, melt a little butter along with brown sugar for some simple syrup. Now, get out some bacon and toothpicks.
Lay out your strips of meat and dab a little of the cream cheese mix in the middle. Roll up the strip and wrap it in bacon and stick a toothpick through it.
After you’ve finished all of your wraps drizzle a little of the brown sugar syrup over everything.
Save some of the syrup for after the wraps get off the grill.
The trick now is to grill the meat and not melt off all the cream cheese. To do this right, the meat needs to be thin. Just keep the wraps moving and cook the meat evenly.
After the meat gets off the grill, drizzle a little more of the brown sugar syrup on the wraps.
The main dish is now done.
The next thing we’re going to make is the grilling standby, baked beans. This a dirt- simple recipe that was my great-grandmother’s. First, dice up some onions, you can even use green onions if you want to. Then, slice up some bacon.
Simmer the onions and bacon together for a while.
Be careful not to overcook the onions, and the bacon doesn’t need to be fully cooked. It needs a good brazing.
You can use cheap store brand baked beans that work best with this recipe. Pour the beans into a pot. If you’re using a normal size can of beans add about four to five tablespoons of ketchup and about a tablespoon of brown sugar.
Stir it all together and put on low heat and add the simmered onions and bacon. Voilá, baked beans as if you got the recipe from Duke the dog himself.
Now you need another side dish. This next one is easy for any college student.
Cut about five or six potatoes into about one inch cubes. Grease a baking dish and put them in. Mix in a bottle of ranch dressing until they’re well covered and cover with grated cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted and the potatoes have browned some. Take the dish out, and add some more cheese and you’re all set.
Now sit down, enjoy and let your friends brag about your cooking. You can enjoy knowing that you didn’t spend a whole lot on great tailgating food.