As football season approaches we continue with our new regular feature for you here at Sporting Life Arkansas – Arkansas Game Day Grub. Our friend John Haman provides us and you with some of his best recipes for your tailgating and game-day-game-watching fun.
In this space we will outline what John is cooking up, with amazing photos, and for the full recipes and how-tos, visit his site: RazorGumbo.
This week, John brings us cheese dip and cocktails. What a combination for any game day.
Bon Apetit!
This week’s pre-season party starts with a flavorful, authentic cheese dip that doesn’t include any processed cheese food in the pot. I like a good veeta dip as much as the next guy, but for you, I wanted to make something without synthetics. I also wanted a deeper flavor profile and a chance to use some of my garden-raised produce in the recipe.
Little Rock is the epicenter of cheese dip culture in the South, and I’m a little sad that the World Cheese Dip Championship has decided to take a year off this fall to regroup. So I offer up this recipe to keep your Sterno burning for another year until the championship resumes.
Next, we have a truly original summer cocktail that caught my attention a few weeks ago on a food site’s twitter feed: a Honeysuckle Melon libation featuring Cathead Honeysuckle Vodka from Mississippi. Honeysuckle vodka? A thousand times, yes.
Finally, we offer a touch of Thanksgiving with a chocolate-bourbon pecan pie bar that will be nice to throw into the Tupperware and take to October/November Fayetteville games, or maybe even to please your Ole Miss Friends at the Grove in Oxford.
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Killer No-veeta Cheese Dip
I like this queso because it involves a white sauce or instant roux. The recipe calls for Longhorn cheese — yes, I hate Longhorns, too. But this is actually an American variety of Colby and it isn’t BURNT orange. It might be hard to find Longhorn, which comes in a wheel shape, at your grocery store, so we decided to use a shredded Colby Jack mix and it turned out great. Colby and Monterey Jack are both good melting cheeses, but don’t use cheddar for this, as it has strange melting properties.
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Honeysuckle Melon Cocktails
This recipe comes straight from Southern Living (July 2012) and it was the best of a bunch of new drink ideas I found featuring the new Cathead Honeysuckle Vodka. Run an internet search and you will find some great recipes on Pinterest for this product.
The chilled watermelon juice in this recipe provides instant relief from summer when combined with the honeysuckle hooch. The soda just smooths everything out and gives it a punch-like quality. The only thing missing from this drink is liquid firefly to make it pulse with light in the dark. Um, someone get on that. Make an extra pitcher for the kids without the vodka and they will probably be very pleased with the unique flavor.
For all of the instructions and ingredients list for these recipe, check out this link.