Special Agent Lazer Grid

This game was named by my friend's six year old nephew: Harrison. I got the idea from watching the guys on the show "Big Bang Theory" play a lazer grid mission impossible game. Obviously, I do not have access to lazers...but I do have access to string.

I decided it would be fun to tape lengths of string across the narrow hall of our apartment to make a simulated lazer grid obstacle course. Using different heights, lengths and angles could increase the difficulty of the lazer security grid.

Each child (in our case, the one child and 2 clumsy but childish adults) goes through the "security grid" without knocking over any strings. Knocking a string off the wall meant you had been found out and thus, caught red handed!

It was a lot of fun. Harrison went through twice and was only detected by one lazer. Alan and I both completely demolished a string each, but we still made it through relatively unscathed. Then we let a 2 year old try it. He had some great technique, systematically ripping every string off the wall and just walking straight though the hall way...well played...and poor Harrison still wanted to play and spent some time playing "Imaginary Pretend Special Agent Lazer Grid" which is really just acrobatics in a hallway.

Invent Your Own Scattergories

Have you ever played that game Scattergories? It's a party game. If you haven't played it - You should. I grew up on these kind of games. I'm not much for Monopoly or Risk. I always end up giving stuff away out of guilt. I can never win those games. I am in social services, not economics! I love these kind of games where everyone works together or has to use their brains, be imaginative or creative. I also love when we have to think of something like "a city that starts with A" and someone answers Arkansas.

That's how Scattergories is played. The game gives you categories like "type of drink" or "things on a beach" and you roll a letter of the alphabet and come up with something in that category that starts with that letter. So if you got the letter "T", you might say "Tea" for type of drink or "Towels" for things on a beach. Apparently it turns your head into this:

'Brain may not be full of confetti.'

Well with only 2 people, especially 2 people who live together or know each other very well, that game isn't much fun. When you get "School supplies that start with P" you know you both are coming back with pencil. So here's what we did. We created our own categories. We each came up 5 categories that meant something to us.

Here's some of Alan's:

• Songs we've heard
• Streets in our County
• A family Memory
• Something in our home

Here's some of mine:

• Something from the wedding
• Past Date locations or memories
• Something the other person owns
• Partner's annoying habit

I say only some because some (most) of our categories are not suitable for all audiences...but this was couples night in! One of our more PG-13 categories included "things that can interrupt bedroom time"-just to give you an idea. But use your imagination! This was a really fun way to spend a night in without spending a nickel! We were entertained for hours.

Sorry this activity doesn't lend itself to nice aesthetic imagery... but I promise you it's fun.

Playing Chopped

Since the husband and I have found cause to trim our budget down to the minimum, we've had to find ways to keep ourselves busy. Last night, we played scrabble with the catch that we could only use words we could use in a factual sentence about ourselves. (It got goofy quickly)

Tonight's game: Chopped. Alan (husband) LOVES the food network show Chopped . I'll admit, it is entertaining, even if I'm not as into the foodie shows as he is. To bring those of us up to speed, basically each chef opens up a basket that contains 4 mystery ingredients to make a delicious dish. His challenge is dinner. Here are the ingredients I chose for him:

His "basket" (it's actually my sewing kit, but for effect, it's there!) includes:

• What I've been calling "Beef Strings". Basically strips of inexpensive steak. 
• Greek yogurt (plain flavored)
• Naan flat bread
• Green cauliflower

So I've basically given him meat meant for stir fry, and bread designed for Indian food, Greek yogurt, and a mutated hybrid veggie. To meet his challenge, Alan fried the "beef strings" in some Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, garlic, and onion powder. He made a tzaiki type sauce with the greek yogurt, Worcestershire sauce, honey, salt and pepper, and butter. Steamed green cauliflower and toasted the naan with olive oil. He ended up with this:

Well played, Alan. Then it was my turn. Dessert! My ingredients were the following: 

Yes, Alan went far easier on me.

• Nilla wafer coookies
• Marshmallow Creme (fluff)
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Dark Brown Sugar

So, I could easily make some kind of sauce with sweetened condensed milk, but with brown sugar, I almost certainly had to bake... so this is what happened: 

1. I crushed about 1.5 cups of Nilla wafers. Which did give me an opportunity to use my meat tenderizer, which is always fun:

2. I used that as the basis of a cookie recipe. Added to it 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour,1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla and beat until it seemed like cookie dough consistency. Baked at 325 for about 15-20 minutes. Turned out like this:

So 2 ingredients aside, I made a sort of fudge topping by heating up the sweetened condensed milk in a small saucepan. I immediately added 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and when they melted completely I added a "healthy dollop" of fluff. Then I poured it into a lightly sprayed (Pam) muffin tin and popped in the freezer to cool and set. I also made a marshmallow frosting (going for a s'mores type of flavor) but I will not post those instructions because the frosting was far too sweet and, in my opinion, ruined the whole dessert.

Once I scrapped the overpowering frosting off, the chocolate topped nilla-remake cookie was phenomenal. I do think Alan won this edition of Chopped even if he won't admit it. Also, I highly recommend playing Chopped with a partner or two. We'd be making dinner anyway, so it was just a fun way to spice that up.