BUNKO (Girl's Night Out at my house)

Last Thursday, I hosted BUNKO at my house. There are 12 of us in our group that meet monthly and have a great time playing bunko. I've been in this group 5 years now and I always look forward to bunko night. We each take a turn hosting. When it's your turn, you make the dinner and pick out the prizes. Bunko is a dice game that you play with teams of 2 and keep track of your points. A bunko is rolling 3 6's.

Here's Stephanie, Kim & Jessie (all great friends & neighbors):

7 of the 12 of us: Stephanie, Donna, Jessie, Angie, Janene, me & Stephanie. Kristy took this picture before everyone left. Someone said, "Since when do we take pictures at bunko?" That's what happens when you have a blog, I guess. I'm finding myself taking so many pictures.

Here's the prizes I picked out. A friend of mine sells rustic home decor. She's clearancing out her inventory so I was able to pick out these great prizes. We have $60 to spend (each person pays $5 each).

I found these cute napkins & plates at Target.

Just a picture taken before everyone came and the action began. This is what happens when you don't read the owner's manual of your new camera like Jason does. A few of these pictures are out of focus because I had the setting on "panoramic" instead of "auto."

And I won "biggest loser" of the night for having the least amount of wins, so I won the cute LOVE letters.

Thanks Missy, my sister-in-law, who truly is an amazing cook, for sharing the recipe to this delicious pumpkin trifle. It was a HUGE hit with everyone and I had so many requests for the recipe. Once again, this is another picture out of focus, but if you have a trifle dish & you want a dessert with amazing flavor, try this one. Also, you can just make the pumpkin bread, it really is so good! I also made my garlic chicken farfalle (see recipe below), breadsticks, salad, apples with carmel dip (carmel, sour cream & heath bar pieces), and we had sodas (rootbeer & fanta orange-halloween colors) in a black witch cauldron.

Grand Champion Pumpkin Bread
From “Farm Journal’s Complete Home Baking Book”

3 1/3 cups sifted flour
2/3 cups cooking oil
4 tsp. pumpkin spice
4 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1 (1-lb) can mashed pumpkin (2 cups)
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup water
1 ½ tsp salt
2 2/3 cup sugar

Sift together flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Beat together sugar and oil in bowl until light and fluffy, using electric mixer at high speed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin.

Add dry ingredients alternately with water to sugar mixture, beating well after each addition, using electric mixer at low speed. Pour batter into 2 greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pans.

Bake in 325 degree oven for 55 minutes, or until cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on racks. Makes 2 loaves.

Whipped Topping
Whip 2 pints heavy whipping cream until it stiffens. (I whip mine in my Kitchen Aid mixer and I really whip it a long time on a high speed. I make it a bit stiffer then you would usually do it if was just going to be a topping.)
Gradually add 1 ½ cups brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla.

**This recipe will make enough for one trifle dish- plus you will probably have some left over.

For 2 trifle dishes, I use 3 pints of heavy whipping cream, 2 ¼ cups brown sugar 1 ½ tsp vanilla.

Pumpkin Trifle
Cut one loaf of the pumpkin bread into cubes. Place half of the bread in the bottom of the trifle dish. Next drizzle caramel sauce (I used Smuckers caramel topping for ice cream) over the pumpkin bread. Next sprinkle Heath toffee bits (the Heath brand are chocolate and toffee pieces) over the bread and caramel. Spread a generous layer of the whipped topping over the pumpkin bread. Repeat all of the above for the second layer.
The pumpkin bread and the whipped topping can easily be made a day or two ahead and then just assemble the trifle right before you serve it.