We have a weekly gaming group that plays various role-playing games on the weekend, from D&D to Call of Cthulhu to Toon and just about everything in-between. One week we decided to mix our love of cooking with our weekly gaming and do a murder mystery dinner. The game was Italian themed, so of course we had a delicious pasta dinner.
The first course was an appetizer commonly found in Italian restaurants that's both easy and fantastically tasty. Take a garlic bulb or two and cut off the top section so the cloves are just sticking out of the top. Pull off the excess layers of skin off the sides of the bulb. Either put the bulbs in tin-foil, or in a terracotta garlic baker (you can see the bottom half of ours near the top of the photo below), and then top the bulbs with a drizzle of olive oil and a handful of salt and pepper or any other spices that strike your fancy.
Bake the bulbs for around 40 minutes until the cloves get soft. You'll know when they're ready because the cloves easily slide out when you press a fork against the bottom of the bulb. Mash up the cloves a bit with a fork inside a shallow bowl or pasta plate and then pour in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh ground pepper. Tear up pieces of French bread and dip it into the garlic mixture for an amazing appetizer.
The cast for the murder mystery required an extra female character we couldn't leave out in case she ended up being the murderer, so we had Jacob play a male version of the character. Things got, um, weird as the story progressed and it was revealed he was in love with Matt's character, who also had a monkey named Coco.
For the main course we put together a spinach and ricotta cannelloni, taken from the cookbook "Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone." Unfortunately we couldn't find fresh pasta sheets and didn't have time to make our own, so instead the dish ended up being manicotti instead of cannelloni.
Fresh herbs do actually make a difference here, so if at all possible get fresh basil and thyme to take this dish from good to extraordinary.
The finished product is made up of three layers: a tomato sauce on the bottom, the middle ricotta filling in the manicotti, and the bechamel sauce on top. Each layer can be made separately and put together at the end, so for instance you can make the tomato sauce well ahead of time and keep it refrigerated.
For our desert Cristal put together a spectacular tiramasu complete with lady fingers, which was a sweet ending to our bloody murder mystery.
After a less than satisfactory experience at a local pretzel shop we decided to try putting together our own pretzels. Megan found a fantastic recipe online that results in soft and delicious pretzels far better than what you'll pay for in mall food courts. The pictures below are of pepperoni pretzels, which we dipped in marinara sauce. These are easy to modify in any given direction, and you could even make them more of a desert by using cinnamon instead of salt.
After making these pretzels a few time it dawned on us that the soft texture and intense flavor would be great for a sandwich roll.
We turned them into pretzel themed Philly cheese steak sandwiches with roast beef, caramelized onions, and the same cheese sauce we'd normally use for dipping.
In the last blog I mentioned making kebabs with sausage instead of chicken, and here's the fruit of our labors. We really enjoyed going this route as the sausage didn't need to cook nearly as long as raw chicken, so all the veggies and meat were perfectly done at the same time. For the veggies we used mushrooms, green and red bell pepper, red and white onion, and potatoes and carrots (be sure to microwave or bake the potatoes and carrots briefly before hand, or they wont get soft on the grill). A white wine marinade was brushed over the vegetables repeatedly during the grilling process.
That's it for now, check back soon for more of our adventures in cooking!
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