Bread Bowls and Cheese Soup and a Very Silly Game

This week, good friends of ours had to be out of town, so we had their four children over for dinner Monday and Tuesday night along with the young lady who is staying with them. We had a great lasagna dinner one night, and we tried a new recipe the next - bread bowls with cheese soup. I have been looking for a good bread bowl recipe and finally found this one. The recipe made enough for 8 normal sized bowls and two smaller ones. We had a total of 11 people, but the one year old didn't need a bowl - I just put bits of bread from inside the bowls in his soup. One mistake I made was not giving the rolls quite enough room to grow. The small areas where a few of them grew together as they were raising made weak edges and the soup seeped out. But, overall, this is a wonderful recipe for breadbowls - or for regular dinner rolls too. They had a great consistency.

For the cheese soup, I sauteed finely chopped onion, red pepper and celery in butter, seasoning with salt and pepper. Then I added about 4 cups of chicken stock and a tall carton of half and half. I threw in the remainder of a carton of heavy whipping cream which I needed to use up (not necessary) and later decided my soup wasn't going to go far enough, so I added milk - maybe 2-3 cups. I don't know. I never measure anything when I'm making soup. I seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, onion powder, dry mustard, dry parsley flakes, celery seed and probably a few other things ;) until it tasted good (sorry I can't remember exactly) and then added shredded cheddar a little at a time until I got the consistency I was looking for - probably 2 pounds or so. The key is to keep everything simmering without ever boiling - especially once you add the cheese. That will keep your soup smooth. If I had been cooking for our family alone, I probably would have added chunkier veggies and maybe some ham and corn ... but then it wouldn't have been cheese soup, would it? Broccoli would have been a great addition too, but I had heard that the kids we were having over didn't love broccoli. They were a great hit. I meant to take a picture of the filled bread bowls, but we were so busy at the time that it never crossed my mind. I sprinkled shredded cheddar on top after filling the bowls.

I had too much kitchen help :)

So after dinner, we played a new game. I found this game online and ordered it because it sounded hysterical. It is called Quelf, and is perfect for teen groups though we had to throw out some of the less appropriate cards (ie - pretend you are a showgirl...) By the end of the game, my daughter (pictured above) was wearing a tie, a kleenex turned into a bib, and had created a mask from household items which she had to make before it was her turn again, and then wear throughout the game. Another player had to end every sentence he said with "isl" and if one player laughed (which it is impossible not to do) he had to snort like a pig ... every time. The premise of the game is to complete tasks that are guaranteed to embarrass you, and if you can't or don't complete them, you move backwards. There are quiz questions which are intentionally next to impossible to answer, and some have tasks assigned "if you were unable to answer the dog food question, act like a dog and fetch a piece of wood, carrying it back to the table with your mouth." There are "classified" cards in which you act out something and then people have to guess what you were doing, or act like a stand up comedian and tell a joke - if anyone laughs you get to move ahead one and they do too. I had a card where I had to repeat a square dance chant three times in my "best western twang" which included the lines, "Swing your partner round and round, put 'em in the toilet, flush 'em down" - if anyone danced, we both got to move ahead. Overall this was an absolutely hysterical game, but should be played with older kids. We had one player who was 12 and wasn't really able to participate as well. He did have fun though, so I guess that's the point. It really helps the game move along if you can get everyone to listen and not be talking when it's not their turn.