It Was A Murder Mystery Night

Murder Mystery Dinner

This was definitely a night I’ll never forget.

Let me start by saying, a friend and I decided to go to a murder mystery dinner since we had never been to one before.  I love trying things I’ve never experienced before so I was all for it.

The first thing that threw us off guard was the location of this place.  We didn’t really pay much attention to it until after we purchased the tickets.  The cross streets threw us off a little because neither of us could figure out what was in that location other than old buildings in the “rough” part of town.

Come to find out, we were right!  Omg.  I’ll never know how they can get people to come to this location in the first place other than the fact that these people don’t all know about this part of town—until they get there and it’s too late by the time they realize it.

Homeless shelter.

There’s a homeless shelter across the street one way and there’s a park across the street the other way where the drunks and crack-heads mingle.  It’s definitely a part of town I wouldn’t think to go to for a dinner theater.

On the night of the dinner, the amazing part was when I pulled into the parking lot behind the building where the dinner was held and saw the cars and people all fancied up in suits, ties, and dresses—but look directly across the street and you see a complete contrast.  WHAT?!  Two different worlds side-by-side.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not opposed to the homeless shelter—and the drunks and crack-heads have a right to mingle where they want to.  I just didn’t expect to pay so much for a dinner ticket to a play in this area in an abandoned building turned into a dinner room that looked like a big warehouse of a bingo hall.

When we arrived there, we all waited in line to get our picture taken in 1950’s-style accessories they dolled us up into since it was a 50’s-themed play.  But they weren’t going to charge us 50’s-themed prices for the pictures though!!  They seriously were selling the photos for $20 a piece after the show was over.  I could have had someone take a picture for me with my digital camera for free!

And don’t get me started on the food!

I don’t have a clue almighty what in the world I was eating.  (Anything you see in quotes is strictly because I still don’t know if you can even call it that!)

  • Let’s start with the “bread basket”—a loaf of generic bread sliced down the middle.  Seriously?!   Did we really just pay for this?!

  • Let’s move on to the “second course”—the “salad & dressing.”  First of all, the dressing was in packets.  Packets, I say!  Where am I??????  To top it off, my favorite dressing only came in fat-free and the other two options didn’t look so appealing.  So I grabbed the fat-free Ranch and toppled it onto my salad.  Let’s just say the entire thing tasted like grass with water.  So I only ate one bite and I pushed it to the side.  Done.
  • By now I’m scared to see what the “main entrée” looks like.  A person came to “take our order” at our table.  I ordered “chicken parmigiana.”  CAN YOU SEE THE SLOP THEY BROUGHT OUT ON A PLATE TO MY TABLE!!  No way!  I can make a dinner plate at home better than that!  It tasted just like it looked, too.
Me
The bread and salad I couldn’t bring myself to finish.

During this whole time, the “play” was going on.  I was completely lost as to what was happening at all.  We could barely hear them talking on the microphones.

This was an interactive “dinner theater.”  Each table was a team of 10 people.  I refused to be our team captain because I was so baffled as to where we were in the first place!  Someone else volunteered.

We were supposed to get up and ask questions and discuss the play with the other diners and the actors to find out “who dunnit.”  We could “bribe” the “actors” with fake money, too, for more information.

I didn’t get up to interact with anyone since I didn’t know what to ask anyway because I could barely hear anything that was going on or keep up with it all.  Come to find out—one clue was that the “killer” did not even know they were the “killer.”

My friend and I only stayed for two hours because we just couldn’t take it anymore.  We had no idea how long this play was going to last—so, needless to say, we never did find out who the “killer” was since we left early.  AND WE LEFT HUNGRY!!!

My friend and I did have some good laughs throughout the entire thing though because we just couldn’t believe the entire experience we just encountered from beginning to end.  All we could do was look at each other and laugh.  Let the good times roll!

So, if you have nothing else to do today, give a murder mystery dinner a try if you’ve never been to one before—especially if you like the interaction of trying to find out “who dunnit.”  You may come across a pretty decent one—and, if not, just laugh your way through it like we did.  At least it gets you out of the house.

Take-Away Life Lesson:  You never know what life is going to throw at you next, so try to find the humor in it all.

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Prosciutto & Asparagus Strata

Proscuitto & Asparagus Strata

Made with multigrain bread, eggs, milk, white wine, dry mustard, fresh grated nutmeg, salt & pepper, extra-virgin olive oil, onions, leeks, minced garlic, asparagus, scallions, Virginia ham, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, fresh parsley, fresh mint, and lemon zest.

I’m not sure what the difference is between a strata, frittata, and quiche but they’re all the same to me—gunk baked inside some eggs.  Once again, I used Virginia ham instead of prosciutto in this recipe.

And I really love those round doohickies of fresh nutmeg, too.  I like those suckers so much better than the already-ground nutmeg.  Talk about FRESH and POTENT stuff.

Recipe for—Prosciutto & Asparagus Strata

So, if you have nothing else to do today, make a nice strata, frittata, or quiche of sorts and buy some fresh nutmeg just for the sheer fun of grating it.

Take-Away Life Lesson:  Fresh nutmeg can be some powerful stuff.

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Scrambled Eggs With Tomato Bruschetta

Scrambled Eggs with Tomato Bruschetta

Made with Italian bread, extra-virgin olive oil, salt & pepper, tomatoes, fresh basil, butter, eggs, and Pecorino cheese.

This was my first time making my own bruschetta and I absolutely LOVED it!  This recipe also gave me a reason to bust out my grill pan as I hardly ever use it.

I had a good time making the grill marks on the bread.  Then I got to spread all that tomato goodness across the top of it and finally feel all that love inside my mouth as I took my first bite.  Crunch.

And to smell the fresh basil………..ahhhhhhh.

Recipe for—Scrambled Eggs with Tomato Bruschetta

So, if you have nothing else to do today, try making your own bruschetta while having fun making grill marks along the bread.

Take-Away Life Lesson:  Sometimes a grill pan can be more fun than you expect it to be.

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Pumpkin Bread From The Farmers

Pumpkin Bread

Freshly made City Market pumpkin bread.

I just love going to the City Market on Saturday mornings.  If I don’t get anything else, I’m definitely coming home with a loaf of pumpkin bread.

Those lovely Amish farmers make it fresh for me every Saturday morning and I just love them for it.

As you can tell by the pictures, I devoured the entire loaf in a matter of minutes.  I put it on the computer desk for the obvious reason of multitasking—to eat and work on the computer at the same time.

But for some reason I just couldn’t quite get that last bite down.  I had to wait a while on that one.

So, if you have nothing else to do today, get yourself a freshly made loaf of pumpkin bread from the farmers at the market on Saturday mornings.

Take-Away Life Lesson:  Nothing wrong with eating an entire loaf of pumpkin bread for yourself every once in a while.

Tomato-Basil Bread Pudding

Tomato-Basil Bread Pudding

I’m prepping the ingredients here to add to the baking dish for this delightful Tomato-Basil Bread Pudding.  Look at that mound of fresh cheese!  I always throw in more cheese than what any recipe would call for.  Who are we kidding?

Tomato-Basil Bread Pudding

Made with multi-grain bread, shallots, chopped garlic cloves, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, parmesan cheese, eggs, milk, salt & pepper.

This turned out to be a pretty good dish.

Recipe for—Tomato-Basil Bread Pudding

So, if you have nothing else to do today, try making this dish just because it’s so easy to do.

Take-Away Life Lesson:  Always throw in extra cheese than what any recipe says to do.  You can never go wrong.

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And The Desserts Just Don't Stop

Coconut Cream Pie
Coconut Cream Pie

Made with gingersnap cookies, sweetened shredded coconut, melted butter, half-and-half, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, pure vanilla extract, and whipped cream.

I love a good coco pie!  Who, in their right mind, doesn’t?  Now, I’ve had some great coconut cream pies in my life before—like at The Capital Grille, for instance.  Needless to say, theirs was so good I decided to try and make my own homemade coco pie to see how it’d turn out—and, I have to say, I’m proud of myself.

Let me tell you, I definitely deserve this kind of lovin’ in my life.  When you have a hard time getting the kind of love you want from a decent human being—go straight to the coco pie, my friends!  It’ll make up for it many times over.

Try making yourself this uber coconut cream pie and just set it on your lap and eat it while you watch a good action flick.  And if you didn’t already know, I’m a big believer in—if you’re just going to go back for a 3rd and 4th slice anyway—just eat straight outta the pan and save yourself some time.

Recipe for—Coconut Cream Pie

Monkey Bread
Monkey Bread

Made with canned biscuits, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter.

I still haven’t figured out why this is called Monkey Bread, but whatever.  All I can say is—it’s sticky.  It’s just one big doughy, sugary, cinnamony (probably not a real word, but I can’t be worried about it) mess.  Help yourself.

Recipe for—Monkey Bread

Special K No-Bake Cookies
Special K No-Bake Cookies

Made with butterscotch chips, crunchy peanut butter, peanuts, and Special K cereal.

You really need yourself some milk with these cookies—they are that sweet and good.  But, once you have your milk in hand, you can easily just eat one right after the other back-to-back.  Next thing you know, you look around and realize you probably should have tripled the recipe to begin with.

The simplest cookie you could ever make with only 4 ingredients:

  • butterscotch chips
  • crunchy peanut butter
  • peanuts
  • Special K cereal

That’s it!  Aaaannnnnnd, we’re done.  No baking, no nothing.  Just warm, mix, shape into cookies, let them sit a couple of hours, then devour them.  How hard is that?

So, if you have nothing else to do today, stuff that hole in your face with every one of these desserts after you’ve made them and make sure there’s ice-cold milk nearby.

Take-Away Life Lesson:  Everyone at least deserves some coconut cream pie lovin’ in their life many times over.  Ooooo and aahhh.

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