On the big game day, nothing kicks things off like my pre-game snacks. White bean and cilantro dip with toasted pita chips, sweet and spicy popcorn and bacon and pear bites.

Okay this is how you do my bacon and pair of bites. I first start by toasting some walnuts when on a dry pan that I chopped them up add them to a bowl then right after that I sauté and sprinkle up some bacon until it’s nice and crisp, get it in the bowl. And then in that fat of the bacon I sauté some onions, salt and pepper is really nice, get that in the bowl and then sauté some pears that are diced up in the same pan and get that into the bowl. So all together, a little bit salt and pepper and everything is mixed and good and I just toss in some raisins and this is what I’ going to fill into my little mini filo cups here. All right, get all the extra little pieces right back into the cup and it’s good time right now to hit him with them with the syrup.

This is a really simple syrup as well. What I did was some honeys, some OJ and just some white granulated sugar. It’s okay if some of this is left over because as soon as I get this out of the oven, we’re getting a nice little drizzle of these honey-orange goodness again. All right so this goes into the oven.

All right now it’s time for my sweet and spicy popcorn. What I would like to do is pop my own popcorn straight from the kernel but if you want to go ahead and get the bag and put in the microwave, you can do that as well. To me it’s all about the drizzle. So what I like to do is setup my baking sheet here with a wire rack and then just go ahead and put your popcorn over now. If you really don’t want to clean up the oozy stickiness, go ahead and put some parchment paper on the bottom of your baking sheet here so when everything is done you just kind of take up the parchment paper and maybe all you have to do is wipe the edges of your pan and put it right back in the cabinet.

So I’ve got some butter here that’s it’s nice and melted and one of those syrup goes in for sweetness and then I’ve got a really cool spice blend, of course starting with some salt, some chili powder, some cinnamon, cumin and a little bit of heat from some cayenne pepper and give it just a nice little stir and time for a nice slow drizzle.

That’s it. All I’m going to do is just let this sit for a second while I’ll show you how to make my quick bean and cilantro dip your guest that come over and want something slightly healthy because we’re going to be eating pretty heavy today and it’s a full-on eat fast. So what I like to do is get started with my food and processor here. I’ve got two cans of cans of Cannellini beans or white beans, just throw them right then. To that, I like to add some sour cream, Now in here I like to with some cayenne pepper for heat, a little pinch of salt, a little pinch of pepper and then I’m going to take a bunch of cilantro most of it just kind of man handle it and get some of the leaves in there and then I’m just going to go ahead and get some of the lime juice in as well.

Now when I’m talking about trying to plan for your party or pre-game strategy, maybe making this the day before or a couple of days before is a really good idea because flavors really start to melt after they sit in the refrigerator a couple of days.

All right, a couple of cloves of garlic go in as well. My line is down and that’s it, just want to go ahead and cover this up and then I’m going to pulse while slowly drizzling in some olive oil until I get it to a really nice texture.

There we go. This is it and all we got to do now is just get into my serving bowl and it’s time to feast on the appetizers.

Now all I have to do is get my pita chips out, oh yeah, little did you know, I made some in the oven, just took some pita pockets, halve them, slice them into some wedges. A little salt and pepper, olive oil drizzle and it’s good to go once you toast them up in the oven.

We’ve got one with our dip and chips, two with our pear, bacon bites and then of course got to have popcorn in the party.