Game Night and Recipe Reviews

Last night's game night was a hit! All the food turned out pretty well and everyone seemed to have fun.  Guests left around midnight.

See my prior post here for links to all recipes.

Pulled pork - well Walmart (don't even get me started on my Walmart rant) only had ONE type of pork - so I had to work with it - it was a bone in pork shoulder - 10 pounder.  Unfortunately it didn't yield a lot of meat and it wasn't the most tender meat making it a PITA to shred, but it tasted fine.

Tim's ribs turned out pretty well, but may have been cooked a tad too long.

The chex mix was the only thing I didn't love. It was a little too sticky. Although it tasted okay, the stickiness made it less appealing.

The fruit kabob and dip was scrump (yep, my own abbreviation for scrumptious).  The dip was absolutely divine, I could eat it plain with a spoon.

The punch was marvelous.  Even the pregos enjoyed it and the non-pregos enjoyed adding the little extra vodka.  It was so tasty that you couldn't even tell that it had vodka in it - making for a lovely headache today.

The upside down pineapple cake shots were a perfect touch.  They were spot on so a big THANK YOU to my coworker for that suggestion.

The macaroni salad turned out really well.  I don't usually enjoy macaroni salad but I really liked the addition of bacon - let's be honest, how can anything with bacon be bad?

The upside down pineapple cake was good as well, although we barely had enough for everyone - it really serves 9 and we had 15 people.  It could have been cooked a tad longer (it was a little moist) but everyone gobbled theirs up and we served it with vanilla ice cream.

I did find the recipe for the appetizer I mentioned in my previous post, pineapple wrapped ham with cherries on toothpicks - all displayed in a pineapple.  I thought it was a great touch to my Hawaiian themed night.  Check out the recipe here.

Here a couple photos of the food and layout.  Thanks for reading :)

 macaroni salad

pulled pork

ribs

drink station

appetizers

drink and appetizer table set-up

Menu Planning for Friday's Game Night

I am hosting a game night at my house on Friday (a group of my friends and I are in a group and we take turns monthly hosting a game night, it's quite fun really). 

I have decided that my theme will be Hawaiian.  Yes, I know this theme has been done before, but mine is only loosely Hawaiian based, and we're running out of available themes goshdarnit!

Yesterday I worked on the proposed menu (which is of course subject to change at any time).  Here is what I have so far:

1) Pulled Pork with Hawaiian Rolls (pulled pork recipe courtesy of my lovely friend Kim's mom). This recipe is the easiest and tastiness thing ever.  You just put your pork roast in a crockpot, pour a liter of orange soda over it and let it cook all day.  Afterwards you take it out and shred it and combine it with your choice of BBQ sauce (I use Kraft original as it's gluten free).  I know it sounds strange, but it's marvelous.  Trust me, try it.

2) Ribs (Tim is in charge of not only finding a recipe but also cooking these). 

3) Macaroni Salad found at Buns In My Oven's blog here. Note I will use rice noodles for the macaroni to make this a gluten free dish.

4) Fruit kabobs with pineapple dipping sauce from General Mills found here.

5) Maui chips and dip (haven't quite nailed down the details of the dip yet and this is pending my review of the chips to determine that they are gluten free).

6) Pineapple Upside-Down Cake for dessert from Betty Crocker found here (using Betty's fabulous gluten free cake mix).

7) Pineapple shots for my signature drink which consists of Stoli vodka mixed with pineapple juice and a tidbit of grenadine - this is a recipe from my coworker, so we will see how it plays out. 

8) Volcano punch with no alcohol, you can find the recipe here.  I will be putting the vodka on the side as two of my friends are pregnant so I want to have an option for them.

9) Tropical chex mix also from General Mills found here.

I had also seen a cute appetizer idea that involved sticking toothpicks into a pineapple but for the life of me I cannot find the link.  Hopefully I printed out the recipe and can add it later. 

Oh and for our game we will be playing "What's yours like?". 

Should be a fun night.  A review of the aforementioned foods and the night overall to come sometime this weekend.  I will try to remember to take pics as well!