Superbowl Party…and the Best, Easiest Crab Dip EVER!

How ’bout them Ravens, hon?! (For those of you who aren’t fluent in Baltimore-ese, we like to say ‘hon’ a lot). What a game last night! Needless to say, it’s a good day to live in this town, and we couldn’t be prouder of our boys. Since we have parties pretty much every Sunday during football season, the Superbowl was no exception. Thought I’d share some of our fun with you!

My oldest daughter woke up to start decorating the house with Ravens signs (seriously, if there were ever a mini-Liz, it’s her – the girl LOVES to decorate!)…

And that girl can draw. I can’t freehand a Raven to save my life, but she does an awesome job! The whole family got in on the fun, so I decided to hang some black yarn and attach our artwork with clothespins.

My friend Holly gave me this next idea – great use for all the jerseys we weren’t wearing!

Looks like we have some very important guests coming to dinner! 😉

Paul went out to clear the snow off the sidewalk and decided to have a little fun with the yard…

Then it was time to start gettin’ our purple on…

…and doing our best Ray Lewis impressions…

(Please pardon the lovely chipping nails – I did paint them purple after this pic;)
All you do is stuff something (the Today show used ping pong balls, I used other napkins) in the corner, tape it, and you’ve got your own penalty flags to throw when you’re getting heated during the game. Fun, right?

Another easy way to add some fun to your football party is with just a little white icing. I made brownies, cut them into football shapes, and just made some stitch marks with a tube of white icing and pointed tip.

Easy way to add some festive fun to ordinary brownies. Although, those stitch marks are harder to make than they look!

Speaking of food…

I have to tell you – I found this recipe on Pinterest for Pulled Pork Sliders, and oh. my. word. Best pulled pork I’ve ever made. Three ingredients – couldn’t be easier! It’s from Table for Two, and you can check out the blog with the recipe here. I used mini slider buns and they were the cutest bite size pulled pork sliders ever. Huge hit.

Another recipe that is sure to be a hit is my family’s crab dip recipe. This goes waaaay back – so much that I felt like I needed my mom’s permission to post about it. Her response: “Of course! The way I see it is, if you’ve got something so delicious, share it!” Thanks, Mom:).

If I could choose my last meal, I would want this pan, a baguette, and that would be it. I mean, it’s that good, people. Couldn’t be easier – you just need these four ingredients:

– one pound of Jumbo lump crab meat – gotta go jumbo on this. I mean, of course it’s still yummy with lump, or even backfin, but the jumbo lump is what really makes it somethin’ special. It’s not the most budget friendly appetizer;)
– 3 large Tablespoons of mayonnaise
–  8oz Velveeta
– Old Bay to taste

This is all you do:
– Spray an 8×8 (or similar sized oven-safe dish) with cooking spray – Mom and I aren’t 100% positive you need to do this, but we always do, so I’ll put it in here.
– Pick through your crab meat to make sure there are no shells – with jumbo lump, there rarely are, but might want to just pick through it anyway.
– Place the crab meat in a bowl, and add 3 heaping spoonfuls of mayo.

Can you see the 3 heaps? Sorry, we never measure;)
– FOLD (!!!!) the mayo in – do not stir. You want to keep those huge lumps in there!
– Add Old Bay to taste. In our opinion, you can never have enough Old Bay, so we put a good bit in.
– Place mixture in the pan, and cut thin strips of Velveeta to cover it.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, take a spoon and swirl everything around gently, so the melted cheese gets distributed in all that crabby yummy goodness!

Serve with yummy bread and/or crackers – to me, sliced baguette is the best, but some love crackers with it. Can’t go wrong with either one.
This lasts oh, about 5 minutes if we’re lucky!

Ok, back to the party….now that the food’s out, it’s time for all of us to take our seats, eat, and watch some football! I love to add a long folding table behind our couch for football – we set up everything on there, even the drinks, ice bucket, and crockpots – now there’s no reason to have to walk more than 5 feet for the next several hours;)

Lots of high fives and hugs going on!

And with 4 seconds left, we called the kids down to witness the Baltimore Ravens winning the Superbowl!!!!

Let’s hope they don’t have to wait another 12 years to see this again! Something tells me they won’t.

Thank you Ravens, for entertaining us (and giving us a few heart attacks in the process!) week after week – what a season! Last night, it truly was our destiny…

Can hardly WAIT for next season! CAW!