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The New Orleans Saints went home last year as losers of their wildcard playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks. The Green Bay Packers are making sure they go home as losers in the 2011 NFL season opener.  New Orleans is famous for jambalaya, gumbo and Po-boys.  The Packers are planning on stuffing the Saints much like those overstuffed po-boy sandwiches.

No time for fussing and fancy cooking when the game starts on the West Coast at 5:30 PM.  Grilling and chilling is about the most complicated it gets.  Traditionally po-boys are made with breaded and deep fried shrimp or oysters.  But not everybody likes seafood and fried foods are high in fats. Offer a choice of grilled chicken po-boys and fried shrimp.

Start the menu with a kickoff of gumbo, a rich intensively flavored soup that’s more like a stew.  At half time, lay out a spread of goodies for fan to make their own po-boys. Finish with smothered beignets.

Gumbo can be time consuming with a long list of ingredients but not if you do it this way.  Purchase a commercially-made soup such as Campbell’s Grilled Chicken and Sausage Gumbo.  Add additional andouille sausage slices.  Heat and serve.  Throw away the cans and no one will be the wiser.

Grill the chicken ahead of time.  When the game is on, the grill meister occasionally forgets to keep an eye on the food, especially during tense moments.  Charcoaled chicken does not a good sandwich make. An alternative is to buy a whole roasted chicken.  Remove the skin and bones.  Shred the meat.

Use prepackaged heat-and-serve breaded shrimp.  No sense making a mess in the kitchen while the game’s on. Deep frying takes concentration like grilling does.  Plan on eight shrimp per sandwich, po-boys are overstuffed remember.

Lay out the shredded chicken, shrimps, chopped lettuce, tomatoes, pickles both sour and sweet, and toasted crusty rolls sliced in half but still hinged together.  Offer a selection of spicy mustard, plain mayonnaise and chipotle mayonnaise — add 1/2 tsp of chipolte powder to 1 cup of plain mayonnaise. Chipotle mayonnaise is similar to remoulade sauce and easier to make. Fans build their own sandwiches and enjoy until the game resumes.

Add a few salads such as hoppin john, which is simply cooked black-eyed peas with bacon, celery and onions.  To each can of peas, add two slices of cooked crumbled bacon and their grease, 1/2 cup of celery and 1/4 cup of onions. Mix well.  Purchased potato salad rounds out the offering.  Add a raw veggie platter and you’re done. And so are the New Orleans Saints.

Read Brian Blog about the <a href=”http://www.packers.sportsblog.com”>Green Bay Games</a>

Spicy pork sausage, sweet shrimp and chunks of  succulent chicken all wrapped up in a zippy tomato-based sauce and served over rice.  Take the traditional jambalaya out of the pot and onto the grill. This recipe is fast, easy and pretty low fat.  There is some fat in the sausages but each person only gets half a sausage. Recipe makes four servings.

2 cooked Andouille sausages or any spicy sausage, cut into four pieces each.

16 shrimp – the 13 to 15 per lb. size

2 chicken breasts cut into 1 inch cubes.

1 cup tomato juice combined with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1 to 3 tsp. red pepper flakes, 1 tbsp. each dried thyme, black pepper, dried onions and three minced garlic cloves.  Divide into three zip lock bags. Add each meat to a separate bag.  Marinate for two hours.

Slice one red and one green pepper into eight equal sized chunks.  Slice two small onions into eight equal sized chunks.  Put in the bag with the Andouille sausage.  It’s cooked so you won’t be contaminating the raw vegetables.

Thread the vegetables, chicken, sausage and shrimp onto skewers.  Baste with the marinade from the sausage and veggie bag while they’re grilling.  Discard the marinade from the shrimp and chicken.  Chicken should be grilled until no traces of pink remain.  The shrimp is cooked when the shell turns bright pink and the flesh is no longer translucent.  If you use the 12 to 15 per lb. shrimp and 1 inch chunks of chicken they should both be cooked and ready at the same time.

If you don’t want to use skewers, grill the chicken breasts and sausages whole and the shrimp in a fish basket.  Keep the shells on the shrimp to keep them moist. The shrimp will cook faster than the chicken so put it on when the chicken is about 10 minutes away from being done. Cut each sausage and chicken breast in half.  Each person gets four shrimp, half a sausage and half a chicken breast.

Serve over seasoned white rice. Add chopped scallions, parsley, salt, pepper and butter to hot cooked rice.  Finish the meal with a crisp green salad to offset the heat from the Jambalaya.

Jambalaya on a stick makes great little appetizers. Remove from the skewers after they’ve been grilled. Cut the chicken and sausage chunks in half.  Serve a shrimp, chicken chunk and sausage threaded on a smaller skewer.