Kicking off Football Season with SNICKERS® Brand NFL Minis #SNICKERSMinis

Football season is about to begin! Strange that this excites me as I’m a newbie when it comes to football – I just never had an interest. Then I started my first job after college. A group of my co-workers always had an outside-of-work football pool.  All just for fun, we’d simply pick winning teams each week.  It was my entry into the world of football and fantasy football.

Back in my younger, working days we had a blast during football season. There were some die-hard football fanatics and others, like me, who hadn’t a clue.  I remember one season when the person who picked the most correct winning teams was the person who picked completely based upon the color of the team’s jersey. However, more often than not we’d all root for the Philadelphia Eagles.

A few years after my coworkers peeked my interest in the sport, I met my husband and found myself also cheering for the Dallas Cowboys (his favorite team). Unless you do not follow football, you know that in Eagles territory one does not show favor for the Cowboys. In fact, I’ve heard my cousins on more than one occasion refer to them as cowgirls. We’re now a family (football-season) divided, but it’s all in good fun!

Fantasy Football Party

More recently, we were lucky enough to move into a fun neighborhood that loves to get together. Often these gatherings center on having our kids burn off some energy, but this weekend we all got together to celebrate football season! I was all set to prepare a pulled pork recipe that I love, only to have pork be on my list of recent smells that I cannot tolerate with this pregnancy. So, pizza and beer (for the non-preggo’s) it was! For some football-worthy snacks I headed to Walmart for chips & dip and, as a scrumptious treat, we added some SNICKERS® Brand NFL Minis.

It was such fun getting the house ready to watch football with friends. I found a football shaped dish that was perfect for our SNICKERS® Brand NFL Minis. What a fabulous centerpiece for the table! It took so much restraint for me not to eat all the snack foods before our guests arrived!

How to Start “The Draft”

After the kids had dinner, we moved them over to the playroom and the adults had fun talking in the kitchen with the Eagles game playing in the background. One of the ways we discussed picking Fantasy Football picks was to put all our #SNICKERSMinis in a hat and take turns drawing a SNICKERS Brand NFL Minis.

The idea behind this was that we each draw a SNICKERS Brand NFL Mini and then whomever picked the team name that began closest to the letter “A” gets to go first in the draft. Then the next person and so on. Quite a few SNICKERS were eaten during this!

Slow Cooker Pork Recipe
(source)

And just because my hormones are all out of whack doesn’t mean I won’t share that awesome pork tenderloin recipe with you! We’ve used this recipe as our usual pork dinner with rice and veggies for a few years now, but just recently decided it would be fabulous on a bun too!

Ingredients:
1 (2lb) pork tenderloin
1 (1oz) envelope of onion soup mix
1 cup water
3/4 cup red wine (I use burgundy, the cheap stuff is fine)
3 tbsp minced garlic (this will smell like ALOT at first, but it’s not that strong when the pork is done)
3 tbsp soy sauce
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:
Place pork tenderloin in a slow cooker with the contents of the soup packet. Pour water, wine and soy sauce over the top, turning the pork to coat. Carefully spread garlic over the pork, leaving as much on top of the roast during cooking as possible. Sprinkle with pepper. Cover, and cook on low setting for 4 hours*. Serve with cooking liquid on the side as au jus.

*note – I usually put the slow cooker on the low temp timer of 10 hours, but turn it off after 5 hours and let is sit for 30 minutes covered in the crock. Seems to make it more tender/juicy than if it were on the higher 4 hour setting, in my opinion.

It’s such a great recipe and perfect for a cold night, and especially during football season!

You can also check out SNICKERS Brand on Twitter and Facebook.

I can’t wait for pre-season to end and the “real” games to being! What are you favorite football memories? Do you play Fantasy Football?

*Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™. All opinions are my own #SnickersMinis #CBias