Oct 3, 2022
Written by: Crove Food Co.
On September 4, we traveled down to the BIG EASY! Our third stop of 11 on the Tailgate Tour, was in downtown New Orleans, LA with LSU Tigers taking on the Florida State Seminoles. We set up on the corner of Lafayette St. and O’Keefe Ave. one block away from Caesar’s Superdome.
Since we had two tour stops behind us, this third one is when we started to feel like we were finally getting in a groove. We had figured out how to get set up quickly and get food off the grills and in people’s mouths ASAP!
After we got the trailer unhitched and unloaded, it was time to start cooking! We set up our spot with our Traeger, Big Green Egg, and Weber Kettle. Today’s recipe lineup includes Buffalo Chicken Sliders, BBQ Chicken Lollipops, and Honey Garlic Porkchops.
Our food stayed cold in all three of our ORCA hard-side coolers. They are the perfect on the go “refrigerator”. We used these coolers all weekend long and they have been thrown around, sat on, and packed full. We can’t say enough good things about these coolers.
The first thing we started prepping were the BBQ Chicken Lollipops. BBQ Chicken Lollipops are a great tailgating food. They are delicious, so juicy, and are easy to hold and eat…BUT they take a lot of time to prep. They get their name because, well they look like a lollipop, with the chicken bone acting as a lollipop stick once it has been trimmed. We got all our ingredients out of our ORCA Coolers and started trimming the chicken drumsticks to turn them into lollipops. To trim the chicken drumsticks, you need a very sharp knife. You are going to make a cut completely around the lower end of the chicken leg and pull the skin down away from the meat end, until the bone is exposed. You will also need to use kitchen shears to cut the tendons. This is very tedious work, but so worth it in the end! We dusted the lollipops in our Crove Food Co. Poultry Rub & Seasoning and put them on the smoker. The poultry rub has the perfect ratio of mouth-watering seasonings in it plus it gives the chicken a beautiful color. The lollipops should sit on the meat end with the stick pointing up. We smoked them on the Traeger using Cowboy Charcoal Applewood and Charcoal Pellets. I love these pellets because it gives the meat that perfect smoky flavor. While those were on the grill, I started prepping chicken breasts for the Buffalo Chicken Sliders.
The lollipops and chicken breasts cooked together at the same temperature on the Traeger, and I had enough room for both.
Recipe for BBQ Chicken Lollipops:
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I love serving sliders for any occasion. Sliders have everything you need… bread, meat, yummy sauce, and toppings. They are easy to eat and are so delicious! The chicken lollipops have a sweeter BBQ flavor, so I wanted to make something spicy to change up the palette. Buffalo Chicken Sliders were the perfect choice!
I coated chicken breasts in our Crove Food Co. Fajita Rub & Seasoning and put them on the smoker with the chicken lollipops. I love our Fajita Rub because you can get mild, medium, hot, or FIRE flavors with it! The more you use, the spicier your food will get, so use with care! For these sliders we made a delicious buffalo sauce and a spicy ranch using two of our rubs. We used pepper jack cheese and Hawaiian rolls to finish them off!
Recipe for Buffalo Chicken Sliders:
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We now had two delicious recipes to start passing out for FREE- BBQ Chicken Lollipops and Buffalo Chicken Sliders. A lot of people had never tried or even heard of chicken lollipops, and everyone went crazy about the sliders! We passed them out to police officers and to parking garage employees who were working hard on game day to keep everyone safe in traffic.
We played some games on the Tennessee River Jam corn hole boards and handed out prizes for those that could score before me! We also asked questions like “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” and since we were in New Orleans, “Is gumbo a soup?” Both of those are still up for debate! We were finally ready to cook our final recipe of the day which was Honey Garlic Pork Chops. We chose bone in pork chops for this recipe. We marinaded them in one of our favorites, Allegro Marinade Honey Garlic and paired that with our Crove Food Co. Pork Rub & Seasoning. Both of those flavors together are out of this world! We preheated our Weber Kettle with Cowboy Charcoal Briquet’s with our custom fitting GrillGrates for our Weber Kettle. We love using GrillGrates because they give the meat the most perfect grill marks and keep the porkchop extra juicy. Cowboy Charcoal Briquets provide long-lasting, even heat while adding the authentic, smoky flavor of hardwood with no chemicals!
Recipe for Honey Garlic Porkchops:
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The bone-in Honey Garlic Porkchops were beautiful. The grill marks from the GrillGrates make them stand out and the flavor from the charcoal combined with our rub and Allegro Honey Garlic make this a recipe that you just can’t beat! It was so juicy, perfect color, and was packed full of flavor. Once again, the day flew by, and we had finally made it to the end of our first weekend of the Tailgate Tour. Thanks to our sponsors GrillGrate, Tennessee River Jam, ORCA, Cowboy Charcoal, and Allegro Marinade we were able hand out FREE samples to friends, family, and strangers who stopped by to visit all weekend long.
Once again, we loved getting to show off the products from our sponsors at this stop: GrillGrates for our Weber Kettle, ORCA Cooler Hard side to keep all our food cold, Cowboy Charcoal and Applewood Pellets, Cowboy Charcoal Briquets, Allegro Marinade Honey Garlic, and Allegro Original BBQ Sauce. We also got to showcase and cook with our new line of Crove Rubs & Seasonings which include Beef, Fajita, Poultry, and Pork and are available to order online. Shop at crovefood.com
We packed up and headed to HOME SWEET HOME. Our next stop on the Tailgate Tour is in Arkansas when the Arkansas Razorbacks will take on Missouri State on September 17th. Make sure you are following along on our social media platforms where we will announce exactly where we are set up! Stop by to tailgate with us and try out samples, play games, and hang out with our team!