The time has come to don every remotely Carolina blue piece of clothing you own and bond with your fellow Tar Heels by screeching at the TV with all the mighty force of a thousand students stampeding to Walmart for a case of water. Every good watch party needs a solid selection of snacks to fuel the rivalry, so here’s a list of recipes from snacks to desserts.
1.Turkey Sliders a la Allen: your daily dose oftrip-tophan
Enjoy some delicious sandwiches from your favorite foul (I mean fowl…). Go for a turkey burger or make these sliders with deli turkey, provolone, caramelized onions and roasted red peppers. The important thing is the pun. You can even get artsy and use food dye to turn the buns into basketballs.
No Carolina-themed
anything is complete without Michael Jordan. Thankfully, you can find Jordan Almonds in just about any color, and Carolina blue isn’t too hard to find because of its similarity to baby blue. Trail mix is an easy snack to make and is totally customizable — try pairing almonds with walnuts, M&M’s, dried cranberries, raisins, sunflower seeds or chocolate chips. If you want to make your own Jordan Almonds, check out this recipe.
3.Barbecue Pizza Tar Wheels
Add some strategic lines to these pinwheels with any sauce, and they instantly look like basketballs. Boom. Pinwheels are delicious and extremely versatile since you can make them with just about any ingredients. You could even go for cinnamon dessert pinwheels if you're looking for a sweeter alternative.
These chocolate shell spheres are gorgeous. Decorate it any way you want, or make a candy version of the Dean Dome inside. You could also use one of the basketball cake pops sans stick. This may be better suited to a game day date, but if you have a determined group of friends, you can make several before your watch party starts.
6.Carolina Basketball Cake Pops
Cake pops are actually surprisingly easy to make — you essentially crumble up a cake, mix it with frosting (without squishing the crumbs), roll it into balls, freeze them, stick a candy stick into each and coat with chocolate or candy melts. Then, make them look like basketballs, add swirls to the sides and a face in the front to make them look like Rameses, or do the abstract thing and channel that Carolina argyle.
OK, so this doesn’t look exactly like Rameses’ horns, but watch parties
need French fries. This one’s easy because you can buy them frozen, but if you’re really feeling it, you can learn to make them yourself here. These would make a good side to the turkey sliders.
