Our First Dinner and Game Night!

After working hard to get the house in order, we finally reached the "good enough" point at which we felt comfortable having people over. The office was still a disaster zone, but that story will be for another day.

Anyway, we feel extremely fortunate to have been able to finally welcome friends into our home for dinner, drinks and games! John busted out our new Ninja blender to make margaritas and the group enjoyed Mexican-themed cuisine focused around slow-cooker (Jennifer is still afraid of our oven) chicken chili and honey-cinnamon bananas with vanilla ice cream for dessert (recipes below). Yum!

Karen, Jerry, Marilyn and Justus were fabulous company and even joined us for some board games! Now, moving is sort of like Christmas morning in that you're opening all sorts of boxes and usually love what you find since its stuff that already belonged to you. That being said, we teamed up and played The Perfect Ten, a trivia game that John brought to our marriage and recently re-discovered while unpacking. It requires an interesting balance of calculated risk and answering trivia questions as each team adjusts its answers in a series of rounds with the goal being to get all ten questions correct before the opposing team. Wonderful, aggravating fun :-)!

Cheers to many more good times and dinner dates with our new wonderful friends :-)!

P.S. - Since Jennifer is mildly obsessed with her slow cooker and non-oven based cooking, here are a the recipes from our game night that proved to be simple and delicious. Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Chicken Chili
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn kernels
16oz tomato sauce
28oz diced tomatoes
1 packet taco seasoning
1 tablespoon chili powder
3 boneless chicken breasts (or if you're feeding John, as many will fit :-))

Simply put all of the above ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 10 hours. Shred chicken when done. Voila!

Cinnamon Honey "Fried" Bananas
1 banana
1 tablespoon honey
cinnamon to taste
cooking spray

Slice banana into coins, about 1/4 inch thick. Mix honey and 1/2 tablespoon water and set aside. Coat non-stick pan with cooking spray and add bananas. Turn bananas over when they start to brown. Add honey mixture, watch it bubble and stir in the goodness. Add cinnamon to your liking. Delicious over vanilla ice cream!