Greetings and hello from the lovely planet Venus, where it’s cloudy and rains all the time. For our purposes, Venus is also known as Michigan.

For this month’s Foodbuzz 24×24 event, I hosted a Game Night — that’s with a capital G and N — and made oodles of easy-on-the-expensive-games snacks. I’m here to show you just how easy it is to have people over and serve amazing finger foods like tropical trail mix (above), asparagus frittata bites, blueberry-vanilla goat cheese on polenta dolce, cantonese roasted vegetables, and much, much more!

Err…just try not to make these foods all at once. These dishes dirtied themselves for your benefit in testing all the recipes out. I wouldn’t recommending doing this all at once!

At the end of this post you’re also getting the easiest recipe of them all: tropical trail mix.

planning board game night snacks

1. First of all, people aren’t picky. If you put out grub, they’re going to be happy. Chips and thick dips work for game night, as long as your guests aren’t clumsy Neanderthals. So do trail mixes of all kinds. Right here with step number one you’ve got savory and sweet already covered. But that’s just too easy. Keep reading if you want to get all fancy like.

2. Serve real food in bite size portions that can be skewered with a toothpick. You don’t want grubby hands mucking up your copy of Settlers of Catan hexes, do you? Well, I would, but then, I hate Settlers.

See that asparagus frittata there? It’s nice and dry and in little pieces.

3. Someone, let’s just call him He Who Shall Not Be Named, thought chocolate covered strawberries would be a good idea. After making them, Zach — er, He Who Shall Not Be Named — pointed out they were a bad idea, due to juiciness and instant garbage made by not eating the leaves. We ate the strawberries anyway, of course (duh!), but they weren’t allowed near the Dominion table.

4. All parties need an ice bucket and drink station. We can’t have the host sneaking drinks, now, can we?

“let” your guests bring food

5. Make sure your guests know you’re doing them a big favor by letting them slave away for you. They’ll be happy to bring things like really yummy seven layer dip with avocados on top instead of guacamole. Resist the urge to cackle evilly at your brilliance until you’ve ushered them out the door later.

6. Soft cookies > crunchy cookies when it comes to game night. Crunchy cookies will splatter crumbs all over your precious pieces and cards! Soft cookies hold their shape.

I was this close to making bite size cookies. But I didn’t. Instead I “let” Debi bring these cookies (as well as the dip above).

7. You can still be seasonal! This asparagus tart Linda brought, as well as the frittata bites above, have asparagus from my patch in them. Awesome!

8. Cut vegetables a bit bigger than bite size, and roast in flavory stuff. They’ll shrink to bite size and people can eat with toothpicks. See, these began bite size, so they got a bit small to be eating like that, but you know what? We soldiered on and still did!

9. Use timesavers, aka pre-made foods like hummus or polenta. Look at this. Blueberry-vanilla goat cheese. Sam’s had it in one-pound packages marked down to $4.81. I bought some prepared polenta — well, it was called something like “Billy Bob’s Corn Mush” — and cut it about one-quarter inch thick and fried it, then sprinkled some sugar on it.

OH. MY. GODS. These polenta slices were like fair food. Fair food, I tell you. And the goat cheese was just creamy, slightly sweet and slightly tangy and loads of blueberry-infused flavor smeared on top.

10. “Let” guests style your food for you. Debi arranged these strawberries, cheeses and wine. And did a great job! I might even “let” her do it as much as she wants in the future!

this is why we can’t have nice things

Bad Fang! Bad!

break out the skeezy cheeses and spicy mixes

I lied. Only one of these cheeses was skeezy. But I’m not the most adventurous cheeseophile. Linda picked them up at Whole Foods in Ann Arbor. That speckled one? That has mustard seeds in it. If you can imagine a mustard cheese, that is it. *Homer Simpson drooling noises*

There are also two goudas, a manchego, and one or two others I can’t recall.

Debi and Andy also brought this wasabi trail mix. More spiciness!

get down to business and play games

Armed with plates of relatively clean finger food and drinks of our choice, we settled in for some Serious Gaming. The cards in this game, Dominion, go through constant use and lots of shuffling, so we’ve already sleeved them in protective clear plastic.

No, I am not crazy. Every Dominion owner does this. Really. Trust me.

We got two games in, with a break in between for even more snacks, and I didn’t win either time! Take that, all you people who gang up on me saying I win all the time. I didn’t win.

list of the finger foods

Here are the finger foods I served at game night. I went overboard for purposes of this post, and recommend making one, maybe two max of the cooked items so you can spend more time relaxing instead of working and cleaning up!

• tropical trail mix
• roasted vegetables – cooked
• asparagus frittata bites – cooked
• roasted tofu cubes – cooked
• hummus and pita chips
• polenta crostini with blueberry-vanilla goat cheese — polenta was store bought but still cooked (fried)
• chocolate-covered strawberries – not a clean finger food after all!
• bread and cheese

Mini anything works too. I debated making mini pizzas, mini cookies, even quesadilla bites.

tropical trail mix recipe

Make this with unsalted nuts to keep guests’ hands clean. I’m a salt fiend and didn’t miss it. You can find unsweetened coconut flakes at natural/health food stores.

2 cups unsalted dry roasted peanuts
1 cup M&Ms
½ cup unsweetened coconut
½ cup banana chips
¼ cup Craisins^®

Crumble banana chips in hand to approximately bite-sized pieces. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl with a tight-fitting lid. Cover and store until serving.

Sis and Mom were thrilled with the dinner party. “You can do this anytime,” they cooed conspiratorially, and they began plotting holiday schedules. “Thanksgiving, Christmas…no, Mom will still do Christmas…Easter….”

I hadn’t hosted an event of this magnitude before. A bit over a month ago my sponsor, Foodbuzz, contacted me with the offer to host a pasta and wine-pairing dinner party using free coupons supplied by Buitoni Riserva. That shit’s expensive, so I jumped at the chance.

the asparagus mistake

I picked up 5 packages each of fresh pasta agnolotti, which is is a jumbo half-moon shaped ravioli. One was wild mushroom, and I planned to toss it with roasted asparagus and chives, drizzle it with olive oil, and top it with freshly ground black pepper and goat cheese. Unfortunately, I didn’t consult my sister the asparagus roasting expert, and left it in the oven about 20 minutes instead of the 5 she said was correct, and the asparagus came out limp and mushy.

My aunt, Linda, brought over a bunch of chives she snipped from her patch, some blooming with crunchy-oniony flowers atop them. They were too pretty to ignore, so they got put out on the table.

The guest list: Mom and Dad, Jennifer and Dale Javier (he said he wanted to be called Javier), Mom’s best friend Leeann and her daughter (and my friend) Angie, and Linda. I asked Leeann which wine she wanted to drink. “Oh, I love all white wine,” she said, so I poured her the La Noble chardonnay I’d picked up and a teeny glass of fino. Fino is very dry sherry that I drank a lot in Spain and it always makes me think of briny olives, tapas, dancing sevillanas, and walking home through the Parque de María Luisa at seven in the morning.

Not everyone was into the wine thing, though. Dad and Javier mixed themselves up some massive bloody marys.

Check out this spread! Angie made that vibrant salad, Mom brought the relish tray, and there’s the wild mushroom agnolotti along with the four cheese (Quattro Formaggi) agnolotti, and the red sauce I mixed up for the latter.

where’s my two dollars?

There’s Linda and the view from the other side of the tablecloth. That’s right, tablecloth. Cloth napkins. Frawnch fries. Frawnch bread. Kwissssmassss. Pardon me, I’m channeling Better Off Dead.

The top is the wild mushroom agnolotti with the asparagus/chives/black pepper/olive oil/goat cheese topping I mentioned. The left/bottom is the four cheese agnolotti with a roasted red pepper and kalamata olive sauce, topped with fresh basil. And supposed to have grated parmesan on top, but I forgot to get it on there for the pic. That sauce was the bomb.

Jennifer posed for an action shot! You can see a glass of red wine, which would be the shiraz Angie brought. I’d originally planned on cabernet to pair with the wild mushroom agnolotti, but we ended up breaking that out later. The red paired really well with the four cheese as well. Personally, I drank a little of the chardonnay and the shiraz and liked them both with both pastas. Maybe I’m just easy. Don’t answer that.

Dad warned Javier early on, “You’re not going to be getting any meat here tonight.” Of course they were going through that theater to tease me, but their little plan backfired. They chowed down and made happy noises just as much as everyone else did.

Notice how I ran out of serving dishes and dug into the storage containers. I’m so not prepared for this big party thing.

bring out your desserts

Linda made the coolest. Dessert. Evar. Think peanut butter pound cake. Slice it. Spread with peanut buttercream and blackberry jam. Top with another slice of pound cake.

That’s right. Linda made pound cake pb&j. Awesome.

Jennifer dipped strawberries in chocolate and served them on an appropriately-themed playing cards plate. Did I mention this was dinner and games night?

Mom and Leeann have been best friends for like 40 years, since Leeann moved in next door to Mom and Dad. <suckup>Did I say 40? I meant 20, because they couldn’t be a day over 40 themselves.</suckup>

euchre tournament!

Time to get our game on. With 8 of us present, and everyone liking euchre, we drew numbers, paired up, and had a little euchre tournament. To my chagrin, I was paired with Dale Javier, but he only fucked up once so I didn’t get to yell at him.

Jennifer and Mom were the winning team (never put people with shared DNA on the same team) and suddenly when it was over people began joking, “Where are the prizes?”

“Prizes?” I said, and a light bulb went on. An opportunity to divest myself of some excess goods! I got out some packaged rice/pasta sides I’d been planning to hand off to Linda, some product samples I’d received randomly in the mail, and some decks of playing cards from an estate sale I went to last week. Jennifer chose this lovely rice side dish to take home with her.

For her parting gift, Angie selected “stars of country music” playing cards and some instant coffee samples.

Then we played Perudo, or Liar’s Dice, and after that midnight was approaching, so the parent types and Jennifer and Javier left before they all turned into pumpkins. This left Linda, Angie, Bill, and me, and we broke out the Pictionary.

how to draw siamese twins in pictionary

how not to win at ingenious

Even with the adults gone, the wine kept flowing. We finished the La Noble and the Oak Leaf shiraz. Then we finished the Red Truck varietal red, and broke into the Clos du Bois chardonnay and Ravenswood cabernet, and Linda finished her Funky Llama chardonnay.

Wits and Wagers made an appearance, and then we closed out the night with Ingenious. Angie couldn’t remember if she’d played before and Bill was new to Ingenious, so I played with a handicap — I picked my tiles to play randomly. I got trounced as the newbies quickly picked up on the strategy and scored one Ingenious after another. I’m never believing Cranky Angie again! (Cranky Angie: I don’t think I like this. I don’t know if I want to play this. I know and understand Cranky Angie, because Cranky Amy always makes an appearance with new games too.)

what did i learn from all this?

I can put on a grownup party.

I can sip wine without getting too drunk.

Having smokers around leads to more smoking.

The Buitoni Riserva pastas are really good. The Quattro Formaggi Agnolotti was the hands-down favorite.

Good wine goes with anything.

Euchre needs to be more than a regional game.

roasted red pepper and kalamata olive pasta sauce

This sauce was the hit of the party. Salty, piquant, and complex, it goes well with simple pastas like cheese ravioli or agnolotti. I hesitate to post it as a recipe because it’s so simple, but it’s so good that it must be shared.

1 (28 ounce) jar red pasta sauce, like marinara
1 small (7 ounce) jar roasted red peppers
¼ cup kalamata olives

Purée the roasted red peppers and kalamata olives in a blender. Pour sauce and pepper/olive purée into a 2-quart pan and warm over medium heat. Serve over pasta.

Blueberry pie ranks right up there. Number two after sour cherry pie, for sure. I’d always had blueberry pie that was baked, but the blueberries this year are so fabulous — large, and the perfect sweet-tart combination — that I wanted to do one that was more strawberry pie-style.

In other words, blueberries mixed with a thickening agent and set inside a prebaked shell of some sort. So the flavor of the fresh berries would burst through.

KAF came through! That’s the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book. Remember that, because I’m not going to repeat it.

The original recipe in KAF called for 1 cup of sugar. Based on scientific evidence — Mom had just made a fresh blueberry pie using another recipe calling for 3/4 cup sugar and turns out is was JUST. TOO. SWEET. — I cut it to 1/4 cup. I don’t know why you’d want more, unless you’re some kind of stereotypical sugar-loving animal whose name escapes me at the moment. Plus if you use the walnut-oat crust, you’re getting some more sugar there.

why is there no picture of the entire pie?

Because I was madly baking it, and cookies, and zucchini bread, before going to Gun Lake. And I didn’t get a picture of it before we half-demolished it. It was chilly, and dark, and rainy. Poor light for food porn anyway.

These were truly the best I could do. They do not do the pie justice.

How about some lakeside fun distraction before the recipe

G & B hurtling towards icy lake water. Have fun, guys.

Yeah, that looks fun. And warm, judging by that windbreaker. And not at all so windy there are whitecaps on the lake. Newp.

When the windsock is horizontal, that’s a clue.

It was sunny like this for the five minutes each day between when the sun lowered between the cloud cover and the trees in the west. Yay.

But we got to play games! Like this one, Last Days of Pompeii, and Ticket to Ride: Europe, and Ghost Party. I liked TtR:E more than I thought, particularly because I kicked ass and totally won our second game. J thought Pompeii was “mean” just because you throw people into a volcano. Hmph. (Side note: Becky is coming back to town very very soon, bearing games like Citadels, Diamant, and Power Grid, none of which I’ve played and all of which I’m drooling to play. So. Excited.)

Oh, yeah. You came for pie.

fresh blueberry pie

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, aka My Favorite Baking Cookbook Ever. Reprinted with permission.

prep: 20 minutes
to table: 90 minutes
servings: 8

1 prebaked pastry shell or walnut-oat crust
4 cups (1-1/4 pounds) fresh blueberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (1 ounce) cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine 2 cups of the blueberries with the sugar in a large saucepan. Mix the cornstarch with the lemon juice and water, stirring till smooth, and add to the blueberries.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened. The liquid will quickly turn hot pink, and then deepen as the blueberries release their juices. This cornstarch mixture thickens really quickly and well. Remove from heat, and add the remaining uncooked berries, stirring to combine. Stir in the vanilla.

Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Spoon the blueberry filling into the baked pie shell. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Variation: You can make this with frozen blueberries instead.