Calling a Food Audible for Super Bowl Sunday

The Super Bowl is much bigger than just the game itself. There are the parties, commercials, the betting on everything from the outcome of the coin toss to which team will score first, and of course, there is the food.

As a traditionalist, I tend to stick with the basics when it comes to what to eat on Super Bowl Sunday. Pizza, hoagies, wings and ribs and egg rolls from one of the Chinese restaurants in my area are all good options. And of course, there is my current obsession; cheesesteaks.

Decisions.

After having such a great cheesesteak at Goomba’s the day before the game, I decided against going in that direction; at least in the traditional sense. I did consider making a cheesesteak stromboli after seeing a very enticing photo of one online. But I drifted from that notion and we decided to make pizza with dough made by my wife. 

That plan changed when we went to the supermarket to pick up a few things, including pizza toppings, around noon on game-day. I spotted packages of chipped steak for cheesesteaks. That was all it took for me to call an audible and switch back to the stromboli plan. I grabbed a package of meat and another of shredded Mozzarella cheese. We already had an onion at home and the pizza dough had been prepared that morning. Everything was in place for my first effort at making cheesesteak strombolis.

A couple hours before the game was scheduled to begin, I chopped and sautéed half a sweet onion, then fried up the chipped steak.

It turned out I had more than enough meat for two fairly small strombolis. Thankfully, there was enough dough for that. 

My wife rolled out the dough into the desired shape, then I sprinkled on some cheese and topped that with meat and onions before topping it off with more cheese. My wife then closed it up. She has a lot more experience than I do working with dough.

And actually, there were some problems at this point. The dough my wife made is great for thin and crispy pizza crust, but isn’t really intended for strombolis. I also may have put a bit too much meat and cheese in each rolled out piece of dough. It was a bit of a struggle to wrap the stromboli into shape, with all sides of the dough tucked into place. A few little holes opened up. Thankfully, there was some extra dough that my wife used to patch those up.

I brushed each stromboli with a beaten egg and cut a few thin slits on top before sticking them into a 400-F degree oven for about 20 minutes.

While the result wasn’t exactly a traditional stromboli because of the type of dough we used, it was still wonderful. The proportion of meat and cheese in there was perfect and the crust nice and crispy. We had a little bowl of good tomato sauce for dipping on the side.

Other than possibly using a different type of pizza dough that is more suited to strombolis the next time I make one of these, I’d probably spend a little more to get an actual ribeye steak and hand chop it, or maybe go to a butcher and have them slice one thin for me. The pre-chipped beef that I bought was okay, but not nearly as good as fresh ribeye, which is what most of the better cheesesteak shops use. 

Of course, Super Bowl Sunday’s eating festivities wouldn’t be complete without dessert. I was thinking of making a milkshake, but my wife – without telling me – thawed out some chocolate chip cookie dough she had made and frozen at some point and surprised me with a couple divine cookies right out of the oven. There aren’t many things I like more than fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.

Always looking for ways to spruce up a dessert, I topped the warm cookies with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, chopped almonds and whipped cream.

I rooted for the Bengals, so I wasn’t happy with how the game turned out. But the stromboli and cookie sundae were more than enough to put me in a “who cares” mood when it came to football.