Text Adventure Party

May 1, 2013 By Tara in Parties, Recipes 4 Comments Tags: Doritos, gaming, Hot Pocket, Mountain Dew, nostalgic, old-school, Parsely, parties, Recipes, text adventure

Last week, I gathered some of my gaming-loving friends together for a Text Adventure Party. Yes, a party based on those text adventure games from the 80′s. The activities of the night centered around playing Parsely, a live-action game based on the text adventures. We started with Action Castle, which is their recommended beginning game, and ended up graduating onto some actual text adventure games on our main computer (including one Mr. Geek whipped up that focused on the players going through the rooms in our home!). Want to throw your own Text Adventure Party? Take a look below for pics and tips!

Activities
As mentioned above, you’ll want to get your hands on at least one Parsely game (they’re available online for only $5 each!). If your friends are experienced with text adventures, you may end up going through more than one.

Want to make your own text adventure game like Mr. Geek? You can use Quest, a free online program that makes it super easy!

Decor
Print out descriptions of your rooms in the text-adventure style. If you want that old-school font, use Press Start 2P. Mr. Geek wrote ours, as you could probably tell from the description of the kitchen, above. Don’t forget to label your food items as well!

I continued with the retro gaming theme with these fun Space Invaders drink markers and integrated some bright colors to match up with the Mountain Dew Bar.

Food
Food and drink is my favorite part of any theme party, and it’s the part I give the most attention to. I wanted to take nostalgic gamer food and make it a bit more “grown up.” I did this by creating a Mountain Dew bar with a variety of mix-ins, baking my classic Mountain Dew cupcakes, and making homemade Cool Ranch Doritos and Hot Pockets. They were a hit!

I chose mix-ins I thought would be delicious with Mountain Dew and would allow my guests to make their own versions of Mountain Dew “Code Red”. What else should I include for my next Mountain Dew bar? Let me know in the comments!

I revamped the Mountain Dew Cupcakes frosting recipe a bit by adding in some orange flavoring in addition to the lemon and lime. It tasted much more like Mountain Dew!

Cool Ranch Doritos
I had never fried my own chips before, but it was much easier than I expected. These chips were being munched on all night, and guests seemed to love them! They’ll turn out a bit thicker and greasier than your average CRD, but they’re pretty tasty. I used a recipe from Macheesmo.com and it was fantastic. Sure, eating Doritos straight out of the bag is easier, but these are cheaper, most likely somewhat healthier, and MUCH more impressive to have at or bring to a party.

Homemade Hot Pockets
Homemade Hot Pockets are pretty much just tiny calzones. Tiny, delicious, rectangular calzones. The ingredients you put inside are all interchangeable based on your tastes; I went for a classic Pepperoni Pizza Hot Pocket experience.

Ingredients:

Uncooked pizza dough (I made mine from hand with the instructions off of a packet of Pizza yeast, you can also buy some pre-made dough from the store.)
1 cup marinara sauce
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Thin-sliced pepperoni, diced (I used around 30 pieces)
Seasonings to taste (I used a dash of oregano and dried red pepper flakes)
1 egg
Shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prep a cookie sheet with a quick spray of cooking oil.

Divide your pizza dough into 16 equal sections and roll them into their own individual balls.

Roll the balls out as thin as you can while still maintaining some structure (around 1/8 inch thick). Keep in mind that the dough will fluff up considerably!

Mix the sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, and seasonings together in a small bowl to make the filling. Using a small spoon, scoop out a bit of the filling and place it in the middle of the rolled out dough.

Using a burrito-method, fold in the sides of the pizza dough and roll it up to create a small hot pocket-shape. Press the edges lightly with your fingers to make sure everything is closed tightly together.

Carefully place the “hot pocket” onto the cookie sheet. Continue with the 15 others.

Whisk one egg, and brush the egg onto the tops of the hot pockets. (This will give it that browned top). Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool slightly (we all know what happens when you bite into a hot pocket first thing!) and serve!

Any other suggestions for hosting a text adventure party? Leave them in the comments!

Ask Your Doctor About Tacos

Apr 9, 2013 By Tara in Fun Food, Videos No Comments Tags: Doritos, Pleated Jeans, tacos, video

Depressed that it’s still not quite Spring yet? Taxes are due in a week? Allow me to introduce you to tacos. Also, it’s Taco Tuesday (get it, because it’s an alliteration), so that’s more of an excuse than I normally need.

BRB, tacos.

(Don’t have time for a whole taco? Grab a new bag of Doritos Locos Tacos Doritos. Or something. It’s some sort of scary, delicious loop that I am ready to try.)

Troy’s Bagel Bites Casserole

May 17, 2012 By Tara in Recipes 9 Comments Tags: Bagel Bites, casserole, Community, Doritos, Hot Pockets

Looking for a meal to make with your friends while watching tonight’s back to back to back episodes of Community? Make Troy’s Bagel Bites casserole, as featured in last week’s episode (Curriculum Unavailable)! For those who missed it, he described his dish as “Bagel Bites in a deconstructed Hot Pocket reduction with a Doritos glaze.”

For ease (and to more accurately match the image of the casserole he was holding), I took some liberties with the Doritos and made a Doritos bread crumb topping instead of a glaze. I tried my best to stick only with the ingredients he listed, but found that I needed a bit of marinara sauce to make the Hot Pocket reduction work. If you like the processed foods that go into this dish, you will probably love this. It tastes essentially like a large, crunchy Hot Pocket. Mr. Geek’s reaction was “This is…” and then he proceeded to eat his serving, mine, and then go back for more. He still can’t seem to describe it to me. I’d love to know what you think of the recipe if you try it!

Troy’s Bagel Bites Casserole

Ingredients:

18 Bagel Bites (2 boxes of 9 each, I used pepperoni)
9 Hot Pockets (I used pepperoni)
1 1/2 cups of marinara sauce
1/2 bag of Doritos

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray.

Line Bagel Bites on the bottom of the casserole dish, fully covering it.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.

While the Bagel Bites are baking, start heating the Hot Pockets in the microwave. Don’t heat them for the full time or use the crisping sleeve–you just want them to be warm enough to separate the filling. I put three Hot Pockets on a plate at a time and microwaved them for 3 minutes.

Carefully separate the Hot Pockets and place the filling in a saucepan with 1 1/2 cups of marinara sauce. Simmer until cheese is melted. (Hint: Hot Pockets cheese is not… natural. It takes forever to melt.)