Battlestar Galactica

Game night!  

First, some Smash Bros. to get things going.

Then, chicken nachos!  No recipe here - just chopped stuff and cheese on top of chips.  Also, no picture.  Sorry!  You know what chicken nachos look like, and if you need a reminder, go make some!  

At last, Battlestar Galactica!  

See that hand?  That's the hand of a cylon!

No television show experience required.  We had 5 players, which is the perfect number according to boardgamegeek.com.  

Premise:  

You and your fellow players are trying to get across space in a series of jumps.  Why?  Because there are evil robots called cylons trying to kill you!  They are also super sneaky and have cylons that look exactly like people, and they have infiltrated your group.  At least one of you is one of these super sneaky cylons and is subtly working against you.  There is only one way to win: to reach your destination.  There are many ways to lose.  At least if you're human.  Flip that if you're the cylon.  

Things I like:

It's cooperative - yay teamwork!

It's sneaky - secret roles are awesome.  

There is a lot of player interaction.

There are many opportunities to make "pew pew" shooting noises! Pew pew pew!

Also, it's about 3 hours long and fairly complicated - just so you know what you're getting into.

Wrap up:

The humans were doing very well for most of the game.  We were ONE JUMP away from winning when the 2nd cylon revealed himself and damaged the ship beyond repair, ending the game.  Cylons: 1, Humans: dead.  

PS:

Astute readers will notice that this game is not in our game library.  Thanks for sharing your game with us, Alan!

Lighter Pasta with Vegetable Sauce

Lighter than what?  Who knows?  But I think it means the sauce is lighter than a standard tomato sauce.

Here's what it looked like in real life:

Beautiful!  Except for, you know, the labels all over it.  I'm not really sure who to credit for this.  The watermark says "Photo by Carl Tremblay."  It's definitely the official America's Test Kitchen photo.  I know this because it's the same photo that's in my cookbook.  

Here's what our pictures looked like:

Shadowy, blurry...oh yeah, I'm awesome.  First, fix the blurry.  No more phone pics.  Use the tripod.  Yeah, I have one of those.  Second, I was going to say fix the lighting, but the "enhance" button in iPhoto mostly fixed that problem.  

The recipe itself turned out to be pretty good.  It's a nice veggie pasta when you're not too hungry.  But!   It involved browning zucchini in the pan, then transferring to a bowl whose sole purpose in this recipe is to hold the cooked zucchini, and browning more veggies in the pan.  I'm against extra dirty dishes.  

Here's what needs to happen:

Just skip the zucchini.  Save time and dishes.  Plus, the recipe only calls for half a zucchini.  What are you going to do with the other half?  

Double the noodles, because noodles are awesome.  

Remember to add the basil.

Note: Fresh basil is awesome.  The so-called "living herb" basil that comes with its own little clod of dirt is not awesome.  I got some once and it was mostly dead after two days.  I swear I followed the directions and watered it correctly, but alas.  Someday we'll have a magic garden (magic because it will have to garden itself) and grow herbs and peppers and other delicious gardeny vegetables.  

Here's the brilliant plan for the left over half zucchini, half red pepper, and half onion:  Nachos!  

What:  Lighter Pasta with Garden Vegetable Sauce

Results: Pretty good

Where: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2009

PS - This is similar to another veggie pasta thing I do where I cook whatever vegetables are around in a mixture of butter and olive oil and then mix it up with noodles.  Yummy!  The biggest difference is that this recipe adds tomato paste (and no butter), which makes it *taste* healthier, but I do *really* like the tomato paste-less version a lot.  

Tortilla Casserole

This recipe was AMAZING.  I started with high expectations (tortilla casserole, hello)  and I had some doubts that it would be worth it at about the time I was trying to peel the chicken off the pan (why you stick to pan, chicken?) but in the end, WOW.  Bonus - no canned soups!  Or cream of X as one of my friends would call it.  Maybe she stills calls it cream of X.  We haven't talked about canned soups in many years.  

I completely forgot to take pictures.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I forgot about taking pictures until I served it, at which point I looked at the pile of goopy, lumpy, mostly brown looking mush, and I knew that no picture I could take at that point would do it justice.   

But, because blogs need pictures, I found some on the internet, just for you.  

This pic comes from The Lazy Housewife Cooks

This one comes from Surly Kitchen

You see the challenge.  

The only question left is what to do with most of a can of chiles in adobo sauce?  Look out - that stuff is HOT!

What: Tortilla Casserole

Results: Yummy!

Source: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2009

Welcome

Welcome to Pots and Pawns, our new blog about cooking and gaming!  We've been cooking at home more and wanted to keep a record of our more adventurous dinner endeavors.  We have also been getting more into gaming and we are currently acquiring about one new game each month.  Usually it's just the two of us, but we've been trying to get a group together for games about once a week.  So, in addition to new and exciting dinners, we'll also be posting updates about our gaming experiences.  Hence the title, Pots and Pawns, because we're witty like that.