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I just made some beef barley soup. Seems a good match to a Soooper Bowl party. You can make it ahead (in fact, it is better if you do). It is stick-to-your-ribs good, filling, hearty, aromatic, easy to save if there's leftovers. It fits in your soup bowls. And like Sara Lee cakes, nobody doesn't like beef barley soup!
Name the soup somethng that goes with your team (like maybe Eagles Nirvana Soup).
You can accompany it with any kind of sandwich you want. Better yet, get a cold cut and cheese platter and let them make their own sandwiches. Nice bread assortment, some condiments, lettuce and tamaters, maybe even some cole slaw ......
Here's an easy soup recipe. You'll need a big, big pot - 16 qts (4 gallons) at least. The measures are approximate and honestly do not matter all that much ..... its just sooop, yanno!
I am assuming seconds for everyone and 8 oz per serving and 25 people - that's 50 servings or 3+ gallons of sooop:
3 or 4 large sweet onions (like Vidalias)
1 to 1-1/2 heads of celery (including the leafy tops)
1-1/2 lbs or so carrots
1 large whole head garlic
Large dice (maybe a 1/2 inch or a bit smaller) the onion, celery, and carrots. Chop or crush the garlic. Sweat everything in olive oil until just starting to go transparent.
Add 3 cans of peeled tomatoes (1-lb/12-oz cans). Use San Marzano tomatoes if you can get them. If not, use Italian plum tomatoes. Crush the tamaters with your hands before you add them (don't use canned crushed tamaters, they're not the same and you want big, recognizable tamater chunks in your sooop)
Add 2 cups of red wine
Add beef stock to bring the volume up to about a quart shy of the 3 gallons.
Season as you want. Here are some suggestions (but you can adjust both the quantities and specific seasonings to suit your own sensibilities). Use fresh herbs if you can find them:
Basil, oregano or marjoram, parsley, thyme, chili powder or better yet chipotle powder, liquid smoke, crushed fennel seeds (under the side of a knife blade or in a grinder or rolled over with a wine bottle or the best way - in a mortar and pestle), salt and pepper to taste.
Let this simmer to cook the veggies until soft. Maybe an hour.
Grill or broil about 2 lbs (or a bit more) of chuck steak to no more than medium. Let it cool enough to where you can handle it. Cut the steak into cubes and trim off any fat, bone, or gristle. Add to the sooop. Allow this to be in the soooop for as much of the one hour simmer as possible.
1-1/2 cups of pearled barley. Add to the sooop after the one hour simmer and allow to simmer another 45 minutes or until the barley's done. Adjust the seasonings and cool.
When done this will look like a cross between a soup and a stew. Very hearty with lots of solids.
Store in the fridge. Simply reheat for service.
A note about cooling this volume down ... do not put the hot soup in your refrigerator. You'll be putting a huge load on it and it will warm everything in there. Put it outside to cool (assuming you're in a cold clime) or just allow it to cool to room temp on the stove. Whatever you do, try to get it from hot to less than 45 degrees in less than 3 hours. Shouldn't be hard, but if you must, put it into smaller containers for the cool down. That three hours is the window of safety for bug growth in foods. This is not a particularly worrisome food item (high acid from the tomatoes) but careful is always better, yanno?
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