Steelers game day grub: Liquid gold fried mac and cheese

It’s finally time for some Steelers home cooking. The Steelers make their season debut at Heinz Field on Sunday afternoon against the San Francisco 49ers and you’ve got to be ready with some tasty food to satisfy your tailgate or home-gating crew.

There’s something just so natural and right about football being played on a Sunday afternoon as opposed to a Thursday night. This Sunday the Steelers take on Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers in the hopes of getting their first victory of the season.

When I think of San Francisco the first thing that comes to mind is how their fans beat the crap out of visiting fans in the parking lots so to think about something more appropriate I went to my happy place. There is bacon and macaroni and cheese in my happy place.

Last season I gave you a recipe for Bacon Mac & Cheese, which is an excellent recipe to use for this if you want to go 100% homemade. If you’re looking for short cuts, there are some excellent pre-made mac & cheese products available at your local super market. Just cook it up according to the directions, add some chopped up cooked bacon and cool it completely to harden.

You’re going to make some balls again this week. I may have a fixation on balls; I may just be super hyped for football season; that’s for me and my therapist to work out. Either way, form the cooled mac & cheese into balls and roll in flour.

Bacon Mac & Cheese Balls

Let the flour-coated mac & cheese balls sit in the fridge for a while to let the flour adhere better. At this point you can start heating up the oil to fry these babies in. Get it to 350 degrees, standard frying temperature. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can throw a crumb of bread in the oil to see how quickly it browns to figure out how hot your oil might be.

Then you’ll prepare an egg wash to dip them in combining about 3 eggs with water or milk, whatever your lactose tolerance affords you. In another dish you’ll pour some breadcrumbs. I like panko bread crumbs for this, for the extra-crunchy factor.

Roll the balls in the egg wash and then panko and then give them some more resting time, they’ve just been through a lot. Once your oil is ready to go and your balls are all coated with panko fry in batches till golden brown.

What you have is some liquid gold mac & cheese balls, my friend. Aren’t they delicious? Dip them in any sauce of your choosing; you’re the boss of your own sauce.

Enjoy the games and the grub!

Here we go Steelers! Here we go!

Next: Steelers players trending for week 2

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