Couch Potato Party

As of this writing, our family is deeply into watching the World Series on TV. It’s amazing to me how my wife and daughter, who aren’t remotely even sports fans, have embraced baseball and the Shohei Ohtani effect. Who knew?

We have a dining room TV that we’ve been using just because a lot of baseball games are telecast around dinner time. It’s become our entertainment this season while we eat, which is great because we’ve come to cheer our Dodgers together as a family; and I never, ever thought that would happen. I’m really the only sports junkie left since my son went to the other coast to live. But I’m sure a lot of you are into sports and become couch potatoes this time of year.

So we made this mouth-watering chili in our electric skillet and kept it on the dining table during the game, which is what you guys can do. I’m sure you all have your own recipes you can go to, but this is ours.

Of course, we had ours over hot rice like any self-respecting Asian-American would do. I mean, I never understood why chili is always treated like a soup and is always categorized that way on restaurant menus. Then it’s served with crackers? Or at best corn bread? If you’ve never had chili on rice, try it our way once and tell me this isn’t the best way to eat chili.

What about Kalbi Korean BBQ short ribs for your party? If you have your own marinade figured out, be my guest. But otherwise, you can buy it at the Korean markets already marinated. It’s a cool way to satisfy everyone’s meat cravings without having to serve steak; but still treat them to something beyond just hamburgers!

And believe me, there’s nothing like the smell of Korean BBQ to get everyone’s appetites going.

Be sure to get some scissors and cut them up between the bones so it’s easier to eat. It’s a little messy for finger food, but that’s the point of barbecue! I mean, you can’t resist this if you’re a meat lover—so juicy good.

To make it easy on yourself, I would suggest lining the bottom tray of your electric grill with foil so that you can take it right off after you’re done. Otherwise, you’ve got some scrubbing to do. The grill itself is nonstick on our Zojirushi Grill, so that wasn’t a problem washing off.

And since we’re so close to Thanksgiving, here is our Hasselback Scalloped Potato dish that we make all the time. You can find recipes for this online everywhere, but what makes this an attractive side dish are the thin slices that make for a nice presentation.

If you line the slices up like this in a casserole dish, you get browned crispy bits with every slice while the rest of it is creamy and tender from the cheesy garlic sauce. Sounds good, right? We have this every year for Thanksgiving.

And finally, let me introduce you to a Hawaiian snack that would always show up at my family gatherings. It’s called Furikake Chex Mix because it’s your basic Chex Mix snack but with the addition of soy sauce and furikake rice sprinkles. Does that sound local enough for you?

Ours is based on a pretty standard recipe: a half-cup each of butter, sugar, honey and vegetable oil; plus 1 tablespoon of soy sauce. Mix and heat everything in a sauce pan while stirring. Make a mix of one box each of Wheat Chex, Rice Chex and Bugles. We also added a package of pretzels, a cup of peanuts and goldfish! This is enough to fill about 2 of those disposable foil pans. Pour the seasoning over the chex and fold everything together while also adding the furikake sprinkles (3/4 cup). Then you bake it all at 250°F for an hour, but make sure you check it periodically and mix it up so it doesn’t burn. Just get all the syrup to dry into a nice crispy coating on every piece of crunch.

There it is—put it out on the table during the game and watch it disappear. And whatever’s leftover, split it up into smaller baggies and bring it work or school. Did you know furikake has umami?

Have fun, fellow couch potatoes!

Products used in this post: Gourmet d’Expert® Electric Skillet EP-PBC10, Indoor Electric Grill EB-DLC10, Micom Toaster Oven ET-ZLC30

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.

All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2024