Sports | Baked by Rachel

Buttermilk Chicken Fingers

Posted by Rachel | Posted on 20-01-2011

I’m always on the hunt for a fun and yummy dish that is also kid friendly. What’s more kid friendly than chicken fingers, right? I mean there’s of course pizza and mac n cheese, but I don’t think I know a single kid that doesn’t enjoy chicken fingers. If it gets them to eat, then so be it. Plus, these are a perfect game or party type food as well. Kid and party friendly - double score! With the superbowl just weeks away, you might be starting to consider what kinds of items you’ll want to have for yourself or at a party. Chicken fingers and a handful of dipping sauces is an easy and fun option. Grab some ketchup, mustard, buffalo sauce, etc and you’re good to go.

The best thing about this particular recipe is how little hands on time it really requires. You prep the chicken the day before, letting them soak overnight in a bath of buttermilk and seasonings. The day of, you coat and fry those suckers up. These can easily be whipped up before the party or game. Toss cooked chicken fingers in an oven safe container and kept warm using your oven’s lowest setting. Usually it’s the mid to high 100′s. Continue Reading

Baseball Jalapeno Nachos

Posted by Rachel | Posted on 04-05-2010

Category : Snacks

Tags: baseball, cheese, party, spicy, sports

This is it, the final baseball food item. A while back, I asked friends what food came to mind when thinking about baseball. My own personal response was Cracker Jack and nachos. There is something different and so good about baseball nachos. The cheese is perfect. Lightly warmed. It doesn’t get hard or chunky and it leaves this lingering spice in your mouth. So good. I went in search of some good nacho recipes. Most seem to be your basic just melt the cheese and go. That’s not gonna do it. At the very least, I needed some spice to the cheese. Just a bit of kick and I’d be happy.

I tried this once and the cheese itself was good. It was a nice basic nacho cheese. So as Josh and I stood in the kitchen tasting, processing and discussing the options, we’d add in some more hot sauce. And a bit more. It wasn’t making sense. Why wasn’t the hot sauce adding any kick to the cheese? Our mouths should be burning. It dawned on us that milk helps in time of crazy heat. You eat something crazy hot and spicy, drink some milk and the pain will go away. So adding kick to a milk prodcut may prove to be harder than though. But even with that realisation, it still didn’t make 100% sense. This was some serious hot sauce (see picture below). The heat scale is pretty serious. It’s not your run of the mill grocery store hot sauce. You can’t buy this kind of heat just anywhere, as I mentioned in the Jalapeno Wonton recipe. I decided to table this recipe until I could try it again.

Soft Pretzels

Posted by Rachel | Posted on 08-04-2010

Category : Snacks

Tags: baseball, party, sports

Baseball season or not, pretzels are a tasty treat. Warm soft pretzels are the best. If you’ve ever had one at a game or even bought the frozen boxed variety, you should definitely make a fresh batch. I was shocked how easy this dough is to work with. It’s not sticky at all and rolls very well. There is very little I will change in the future. The great thing about making your own pretzels is you can make as many or little as you wish. You also get to decide how big you want your pretzels. They can be mini or huge! I went with the puffy jumbo size but they could still have been much larger. They turned out to be salad plate size. Just right for a snack, not too big and not too small.

I did a half batch but will give you the full recipe. I occasionally cut recipes in half when trying things. I’d rather be sure the end result is good before making a full recipe. Wasting ingredients would be a shame.

Frozen Lemonade

Posted by Rachel | Posted on 06-04-2010

Category : Drinks

Tags: baseball, lemons, party, sports, Summer

Warm weather is coming and a few good drink recipes are a must for those lazy summer days. If you’re having a backyard barbeque or a party to watch your favorite baseball team, this is a drink you should absolutely make. It’s seriously simple and amazingly delicious. I couldn’t get over how tasty it was. I really had my doubts especially with how little went into making this. A total of 4 ingredients. That’s it!

Homemade Cracker Jack

Posted by Rachel | Posted on 05-04-2010

Category : Snacks

Tags: baseball, caramel, party, peanuts, popcorn, sports

It’s spring! Okay it’s been spring for a while now, several weeks easily. But it doesn’t really begin until baseball kicks off. Sure there is spring training but that’s just a little teaser. That is a sign of wonderful things to come. We go all winter waiting for the months to go by until it’s baseball season again. Six wonderful months of baseball. It’s truly exciting! So since baseball season has started, it is now officially spring.

I posed a question to my friends, asking what food came to mind when thinking of baseball. The overwhelming majority answered hot dogs. I’m not about to make my own hot dogs. The other answers were right up my alley and already on my mind… pretzels and cracker jacks. I had a few other ideas of my own.

I decided to ring in baseball season in a new way this year. I may just have to make this a tradition because it was a super tasty week! I figured why not make several items that reminded me of baseball. My two favorite ballpark food items have always been nachos and Cracker Jack. Mmmm my mouth waters a bit thinking about those two delicious treats. Caramel covered popcorn and peanuts. Yum! There is something super tasty about the peanuts and of course there is never enough. Just a few peanuts in comparison to the amount of popcorn pieces you get in a box.

After doing a bit of research, I realised caramel popcorn or cracker jack… whichever you prefer to call it, is pretty darn easy to make. Sure it’s a bit time consuming but in the end it is totally worth it. There isn’t a downfall to this recipe at all. You must… I repeat… MUST make this if you are a fan of cracker jack. Do so and you will thank me.