Killer party

J and I get together at least once a month with two of my dearest childhood friends and their husbands. We rotate houses or activities and host dinner and/or game nights. We seem to inherently mix it up without discussing it, and somehow during our scheduling for February, the idea of a murder mystery party came up. I took no issue with showcasing my glee at this prospect, as the goob in me has always wanted to try one but I've never had the opportunity. Since the get-together was scheduled for two days after my birthday, I pulled brat duty and insisted on the murder mystery party. That was that.

As most of our plans center around food, we snagged a murder mystery kit that did the same. Our scenario was based on a family-owned Italian restaurant in NYC. The owner, in which all of us were related to by blood, marriage or business, was murdered and we had to devise whodunnit. Basically, you read through a script and are fed clues to accuse each other, so it's best to have people who aren't afraid to ad lib, while staying true to the facts, or embellish (read: make a fool of themselves.) Fuddy duds need not apply.

(Caleb in full character in the background of this picture. Someone was clearly accusing him of something ridiculous.)

Kayla and her hubs have extensive experience in murder mystery parties and did a great job of orchestrating the scenes and assigning characters. (My boyfriend J, for example, was my brother in the script. Awkwardly fun.) Michelle and her hubs did a great job of hosting the soiree, complete with chicken lasagna with vodka sauce and cheddar garlic biscuits. J and I did a great job of showing up with booze. (Ok, salad too.)

Kayla and Caleb also had a great spin on the events that made for hilarity to wrap up the evening. Instead of going around the table sharing our suspicions on whodunnit, they brought a video camera and one by one, we went to a separate room, Real World Confessional Style, to reveal our theories. We then watched them and the real killer, Michelle's real-life husband and my character's fiancee, revealed himself.

We didn't take a ton of pictures, as we were busy accusing each other of murder and revealing each others' dark secrets, but we had a lot of fun. (Note: I was supposed to be in mourning, as my father was the murder victim, wearing a short black leather skirt and gaudy gold jewelry. But I did my thrift store shopping before we chose the kit, and I made the executive decision to dress my character 20s/30s-esque. Oops.)

My ridiculous "vivacious" pose, Michelle's general cutery and Kayla in mourning for her husband's murder.

Back to our real-life cuteness.

And my brother, I mean boyfriend, being adorable.

I would definitely recommend a murder mystery party if you're looking to do something different with a group of fun friends. (As opposed to lame friends?)

Have you ever participated in your own live action Clue?

Will Shovel for Soup

Kansas City's blizzard of 2011 aka Snowmageddon aka SnOMG aka Snowpocalypse aka Snowtorious B.I.G. gave me the unwanted opportunity to do something I've never done before ... shovel the sidewalk. J's back was hurting from shoveling on blizzard day one, so I decided to have a go. Mostly because I felt awful for the mailman, not because we were going anywhere. I didn't do a very good job, but I did a job, darnit.

Pretty clear, though not completely straight. Apparently I was SUI ... shoveling under influence.

Hahahaha, my attempt at clearing a path for the mailman from the neighbor's yard. Not good.

To reward my meh-worthy efforts, I made some delicious soup. Recipe courtesy of Epicurious (passed on by my stepmom), this Wild Rice and Sausage Soup is definitely making its way on a recipe card. It was delish! (I halved the recipe and had 2 or 3 bowls of leftovers. The full would be great to freeze or for company ... or I guess for a family. Cooking for 2 is hard!)

The stuffs to make it

12.5 cups (whoa) of chicken broth, low-salt if you don't want to get puffy

1 1/4 cups (girls gone) wild rice

6 1/4 cups frozen corn kernals, thawed

2 tbs veggie oil

10 oz fully cooked smoked sausage, cubed

3 carrots, peeled and diced

2 medium onions, chopped

1 1/2 cups half and half

Chopped fresh chives or parsley (I used chives)

Make the stuffs into soup

Bring 5 cups broth to simmer in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add wild rice and simmer until all liquid evaporates and rice is almost tender, stirring occasionally, about 40 minutes. (Note: J did the grocery shopping for this recipe and came back with Rice a Roni wild rice. Don't make this mistake, as a) it's not enough rice 2) it adds some major salt that I didn't account for when seasoning. Oops. I also "skipped" this step and used a rice cooker. Holla!)

Meanwhile, blend 3 3/4 cup corn and 1 1/2 cups chicken broth in processor 'til thick, a smooth puree forms. Heat veggie oil in heavy large Dutch oven (ha) over medium-high heat. Add sausage and saute until browning starts, about 5 minutes. Add carrots and onions and stir 3 minutes. Add remaining 6 cups chicken broth and bring soup to simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer soup 15 minutes.

Add cooked rice, corn puree and remaining 2 1/2 cups corn kernels to soup. Cook until wild rice is very tender, about 15 minutes more. Mix in half and half. Thin soup with more broth if you wanna. Season soup with salt and pepper.

Garnish with chives/parsley. (This really adds something nice!)

What's your favorite soup recipe? (Please share ... I do love me some soup.)

Nailed It

Confession: I've been a nail biter my whole life. (Not at all a secret to those who know me.) In the past few years, I've had whopping month-long spurts of sans-nervous nibbling, but something always sets me back to start from the beginning. (Because once I start biting, there's absolutely no stopping me. Ugh, it's even more gross when I see it in writing...) Boredom is typically the demise of my "lengthy" nails. But somehow I got super OCD about them, too. So if one snags and I don't have a file handy, it's, "Ta ta talons!"

So with my stubby nails, I can honestly say that I have never painted my nails. (I might have when I was a kiddo, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that I didn't paint them even then.) Anytime I've tried in my adult life, I've either felt like a kid playing dress up, or a hot tranny mess. (I don't do well with girly things. As a recovering tomboy, ruffles, pink and general primping beyond good hygiene still feels odd.) But since the emergence of the short nail trend, I've acquired a new obsession: nail polish.

I finally realized that most nail polishes look just fine on my short nails. Ok, maybe not when they're gnawed down to the cuticle, but when they're "normal", polish looks good! So the floodgates opened, and I went nuts. J made fun of how many bottles of polish I purchased in such little time. But luckily this new love was also fueled by a fabulous promotion by a fabulous company: Zoya.

Zoya ran a promotion, giving three free bottles of polish if they hit a certain Facebook fan milestone by a certain date. Word spread quickly and they reached their numbers and then some. So I got six bottles (J bought me some, too) and just had to pay for shipping. Not only was this a great chance to try new colors, but a new company, too. (Zoya, I have to add, has great customer service and runs awesome promotions quite frequently. I've also been really happy with the quality of the polish and when you go to the site, you'll see that selection is not lacking. At all. Thanks for tipping me off, Allison!)

So my something new sometime in January was that I not only painted my nails, but I painted my nails pink. (A hue that does not touch me often.)

(Sorry, all the pictures I took are really bad. They don't show the color well. It's Zoya Kate, though, and I do love it!)

I've been dabbling in pretty much every color ... gray, navy, sparkles, red. I feel like a new woman!

What's your favorite polish brand/color?

Nautical Knows

Lessons learned on a cruise vacation:

• You are capable of packing the "just right" amount of clothes.
• As fab as they may be, wearing large sunglasses gives you a funny tan.
• You still hate bananas, even if they're fresh off the vine.
• Do research on all of your stops otherwise you'll never escape all that tourist crap.
• Ocean waves ruin cameras. Oops.
• Your obsession with fresh passion fruit begins in St. Lucia and ends never.
• You will need to go back to St. Maarten. Stat.
• Hearing UB40 20+ times a day will have the opposite effect you think it would: you will love them even more than you already do.
• Don't worry ... you'll still get a tan if you wear sunscreen (and reapply it many times throughout the day).
• On a related note, heat rash probably resembles some sort of STD even if it is on your hands. (Which makes it even more suspicious.) Put the sunscreen everywhere, dummy.
• Canadians do not wash their hands after using the restroom. This nation could have saved themselves some embarrassment by being more conspicuous. But ALL of them were toting maple leafs so I am not jumping to conclusions here, people.
• If you're going to go on a booze cruise, don't do it on the last day of the vacation. Remember that 4-hour flight followed by a 2-hour flight you have tomorrow? Yeah.
• It's probably not cool to ask that guy with dreadlocks if he's "irie."
• Buzzed is better than drunk.
• It will never get better than watching March Madness on a giant screen and poolside. With a mojito in hand.
• It is possible to crave healthy food. After a week of grease, all you'll want is some freaking lettuce.
• You are blessed.

A Lotta 'Ladas

Hey there howdy. Here's another food-related "try new stuff" endeavor. We're entering January's backlog, so slowly but surely I'm catching up to myself!

I'd never made enchiladas from scratch. Probably mostly because I don't love enchiladas that much. But I think the sauce is growing on me — not literally, that would be messy. But J wanted something Mexican and I wanted to cook, so I gave it a whirl.

"From scratch" ... let's talk about that. I didn't make the sauce, something I might try someday. I didn't make the tortillas, something I'm 97% sure I'll never do. But I did find a great Tyler Florence enchilada recipe to try. This is something new in and of itself, as T Flor is generally outside of my realm of cooking comfort. I'm a begintermediate cook. Skills past an amateur but definitely no expert. I'm also a tad impatient. (Understatement.) So as much as I love being in the kitchen, cooking for more than 60-90 minutes definitely sends me into grumpy pants mode.

Anyway, here's the recipe. It was super flavorful and tasty. We froze half of the filling to make another batch later. The leftovers (from the initial batch) were just ok but I think that could be fixed by not completely covering the tortillas in the enchilada sauce ... maybe just one side? I'm just not big on soggy bread/tortillas.

The stuff to make it:

3 tbs. veggie oil

1.5 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast

Salt and pepp

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp Mexican Spice Blend (Google the recipe if you prefer. I couldn't find it at my store and didn't want to make a trip to a specialty store. Nor did I want to buy all the stuff to make it. So I just used fajita or taco seasoning. Recipe was not ruined.)

1 small red onion chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

1 cup frozen corn, thawed (I believe I omitted this. For no good reason...)

5 canned whole green chiles, seeded and chopped (I used pre-chopped chiles because I'm smart like that. Or lazy.)

4 canned chipotle chiles, seeded and minced (I kept some, not all, of the seeds to add some heat.)

1, 28 oz. can stewed tomatoes

1/2 tsp all-purpose flour

16 corn tortillas

1.5 cups canned enchilada sauce (though reviewers of the recipe will have you sent to the stakes for using canned. Snobs.)

1 cup shredded cheddar and jack cheeses (believe we just used Mexican blend cheese)

Garnish: chopped cilantro leave (obviously left out ... I'm 'lergic) chopped scallions, sour cream, chopped tomatoes. (We only used the sour cream.)

How to make it:
1.) Coat large saute pan with oil. Season chicken with salt and pepp. Brown chicken over medium heat, 7 minutes each side or until no longer pink. (Just say no to salmonella!) Sprinkle chick (the food, not that girl over there) with cumin, garlic powder and Mexican spices before turning. Place chicken on a plate/platter and let cool.

2.) Saute onion and garlic in same saute pan (no need to rinse it out). Add corn and both kinds of chiles. Stir to combine and add tomatoes. Saute 1 minute.3.) Shred chicken breasts with hand or fork. Add chicken to pan and mix it well with veggies. Dust the mixture with flour to help it set
4.) Microwave tortillas for 30 seconds. Coat the bottom of 2, 13x9 pans (if you're making the whole recipe) with ladle of enchilada sauce. Using a large shallow bowl, dip each tortilla in enchilada sauce to lightly coat. Spoon 1/4 cup chicken mixture in each tortilla. Fold over filling and place in pan, seam side down. Top with remaining enchilada sauce and cheese. (We also added some shredded cheese to the inside of the enchiladas. What can I say, we're cheesy like that.)

5.) Bake for 15 minutes at 350 or until cheese melts. Garnish to your heart's desire. Optional: serve with Spanish rice and beans. Required: serve with Corona. See?

OG AG

I like to tell people I'm part of the original class of the American Girl generation. OG AG, if you will. The company started in 1986, two years after I cried my first cry. But there were inevitably some start-up years, so by the time I was of fancy doll age, American Girl had taken off.

I've told you of my nostalgic memories/obsession with this company and its products. So it should come as no surprise that when I finally got to step foot in an American Girl store for the first time last December, I was a lotta bit excited. And since that flagship trip was at the age of 26, I had to suppress said excitement to inner monologue (and by "monologue" I mean "freaking out squealing") in order to appear the mature woman I've become.

You see, my niece was to receive her very own American Girl doll for Christmas. So naturally, I insisted on fueling what's sure to be a doll trunk full of clothing and accessories. The fad with this era of AG'ers is to get the dolls made that look like you instead of flocking to a pre-selected character, complete with story books, era clothing and accessories. To each her own. (I think we all know what I'd pick, though.)

I was blown away with the selection, and prices, of all things American Girl. I mean, I understand that wearing headgear is a traumatizing period in life, (actually I don't, because I never had it. And actually, do they even do that anymore?) But asking mom and pops to drop $40 so your doll can be humiliated with you? Wow. I shouldn't be so judgmental. There were some awesome accessories, too. But there's something about the classic three — Molly, Kirsten and Samantha — that just begs to be restored and supported.

I hope if I have a daughter that a) American Girl is still around, 2) She'll have the sense to choose a character instead of a doll that looks like her. Said sense may or may not be egged on by her mom, just saying.

Therein lies something new I did. In December. (Whoops.)