Recipes Used:
- Dinner Rolls
- Potato Salad
- Blackberry Pie Bars
Products used in this video (Affiliate links)
Video Summary
Hey everyone! Today we’re having game night with somewhere between 6-9 people total, and I’m making a bunch of food from scratch. I’m making three different kinds of sliders (meatball, sloppy joe, and ham and cheese), potato salad, squash salad, and two desserts. I’m starting with my favorite fudgy brownie recipe and I was planning to make cherry bars but I realized I must have already used my cherry pie filling, so I’ll figure out another dessert later. I’m also making homemade rolls from scratch for the sliders – they’re rising in the microwave with a cup of boiling water to keep them warm. As I work through the day, my plan gets easier and easier – I end up deciding to do buffet style build-your-own sliders instead of pre-making them because there were gaps between rolls and I didn’t want to deal with the mess. I also switch from ham and cheese to pulled pork using canned pork and barbecue sauce in a crock pot. For my potato salad, I’m using potatoes from last year’s garden that I peel while they’re still dirty (easier to wash after peeling!), and I’m refrigerating it for six hours so the flavors come together. I double the recipe but skip the hard-boiled eggs because I don’t feel like making them. For my second dessert, I make a blueberry blackberry bar using frozen blueberries and sugar-free blackberry jam that I didn’t particularly like (too much ginger) but it works great when mixed with everything else! My cat gets locked in a cabinet which was quite the surprise. For the meatballs, I use ground beef with breadcrumbs and tons of spices, and I set up my triple crock pot for the three different meats. Tonight’s game night is a Beat Saber VR night – everyone brings their wireless headsets and plays against each other in the basement where there’s lots of room, and it’s a quiet game so those not playing can chat. I love Beat Saber because it’s almost like a workout without feeling like working out! I’m really happy with how this buffet-style setup turned out – everyone can choose what they want and leftovers will be easier to store without soggy sandwiches!
Video Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back. I’m Kari and this is Keep It Simple DIY. Today we are actually having a game night later this evening. We’re having somewhere between six to nine people at the house total, including us. And so I am going to be making some food.
So what I’ve decided to make is I’m going to be making three different kinds of sliders: a meatball, a sloppy joe, and a ham and cheese. And then I am also going to make some potato salad, a squash salad, and I’m going to make two desserts.
So right now I have one of the desserts in front of me. This is going to be fudgy brownies. It’s my favorite brownie mixture. The other one’s going to be a cherry bar. I figure you can have a little bit of both and they go together really well. And if there’s leftovers, I won’t complain because I really like both.
And I’m also making the rolls from scratch for the sliders. So I did that a little earlier and here they are. They’ve actually risen, so I need to get this batter together and in the oven so I can get those rolls rolled out.
I like to put my dough in the microwave to rise, and I don’t turn the microwave on. I just set it in there because it’s a nice warm area. I also got some boiling water in this cup just to help make it a little bit more warm. So I’m going to let that double in size and then we’ll roll them out.
So I’ve already melted the butter and I’ve let it sit here for a minute so it wouldn’t be too hot when I put my eggs in. So for these brownies, let’s start. So two eggs are going in. You know, I didn’t grab any measuring utensils. I need a tablespoon of cooking oil. We’re gonna call that a tablespoon. Some vanilla. Don’t worry, I will use a measuring cup at some point here. Quarter teaspoon of salt. These are my favorite. They’re just so good.
All right, and then I’m going to need a half cup of flour, a half a cup of cocoa powder, and one and an eighth cup of sugar. Two half cups and then an eighth of a cup is a little under half of the half. Why? So these measuring cups, actually I’m showing you before, let me show you again in case you didn’t see that video. They have lines in the middle, so I can tell where the quarter cup line is. And then if I just go halfway below that, that got me to my line.
For an eighth cup. Half a cup of flour. You know, I need to mix that first. I’m trying to hurry because I don’t want to over-proof my dough. Okay, half a cup of flour, half a cup of cocoa powder.
I got a pan right here because I’m going to grease it. We’re not making that mistake again. And I will link all of the recipes that I’m using down below today.
We’re losing our last little bits of vanilla in that bottle to the sink. Luckily it was closed, so no harm no foul.
350 for 25 minutes. All right, let’s get this dough turned out. Beautiful. And now I have a greasy hand, so I don’t know how much I want to get out of this dough.
I should have looked to see how many it typically makes, but we’ll just go with it. I think I usually get like 20 out of it, so I would cut each of these into five. But I want them a lot smaller, so then I should cut them into eight. So, hmm, well, we’ll just start cutting them I guess.
I did spray my pan already. Okay, so that’s into two, and this would be into four. Or should I do them even smaller? I kind of want these to be cutesy, not really appetizers. I mean, it’s still going to be basically a meal, but it’s not like a fancy thing.
I also don’t know how many I need for how many people are coming. I am, I’m not great at guesstimating the amount of food needed for that. Okay, so these would definitely be huge, so I think I’m gonna cut each of these in half. This one’s kind of on the small side and this one’s kind of on the big side. I don’t care if I get an even amount. I just don’t want these to be too big.
So what do I have? Somewhere around 32? Is that good? What do you think about the sizes? Hmm, I think we’ll stay close enough. Now the question is, how much do I care about the perfection? Probably not much. These will rise, so I’m wanting to make sure to not make them too big. We’re gonna go with that. Little teeny tiny rolls.
I think what I’m really going for is the Hawaiian roll size, but not, this isn’t a Hawaiian roll style bread. All right, oh, those are totally different sizes. Hmm, where’s the big one? I guess this one is the big one. We’re just going to pinch them off the bottom.
So tonight we’re having game night. We’ll have a handful of people over. I always like to have food for our game nights because this is what I find fun. This is probably one of the most fun parts of before game night.
What’s cool is everybody will come over and we have a VR headset that plugs into the computer, and everybody else has the ones that are wireless, so they bring theirs over. And then everyone plays Beat Saber against each other in the basement where there’s a lot of room for everyone to be. And it’s just a good time. And it’s also a quiet game, so for those who were kind of sitting around not playing, because I think there’s usually around four headsets, we can hook it up to the TV and everyone can kind of watch. But we don’t have to have the volume super loud, or if you don’t want to have it on the TV or the volume, you don’t have to. So that’s kind of neat.
I feel like video games have come so far since, you know, when I was a kid. And I’m not big into video games, but I love Beat Saber. So that was one thing I will, I will play. It’s almost like if I don’t want to work out, which when do I ever want to work out, I’ll play Beat Saber and that’s like a workout for free. It’s like, get my workout in, but really I’m playing a game and dancing almost. That’s neat.
Questioning if I should have doubled this recipe. It was something I was thinking about, you know, and I decided against because I always make way too much food. And probably good, probably more than enough.
I also went to look for my cherry pie filling and I must have already used it, so I’m not going to be making those. We’ll see if I decide to make another dessert or not. It might just be that the brownies are enough.
We have symmetry now, at least, because that mattered. It didn’t matter. I’m going to get these covered and we’re going to let them rise for a couple hours.
These are potatoes from last year’s garden. And what I’m doing right now is I’m peeling them before even washing them, so they still have dirt on them, which is fine. I’m going to, well, that looks a little funny. Some of these have had a weird texture from the potatoes that have grown. I don’t know why. Let me think on that.
All right, anyways, what I was saying was I’m peeling them while they’re dirty because cleaning them off is just another step that takes a while. And if I’m peeling them anyways, I can wash them off after the peel is gone and it’ll be a lot easier.
I also have a bowl of water over to my left, and I am going to stick the potatoes in there while I’m peeling them so they don’t turn brown.
I think I just figured out why some of these have such a weird texture. This seems frozen. So I’m wondering if, oh, I bet I have had them in my fridge because they were going bad. Not in the fridge, but I think the fridge is too cold. Hmm, okay, that makes a lot of sense.
Now that I have these washed and peeled, I am going to get started on making them into the right size for the potato salad. It’s still early. It’s only 11:15 and people aren’t coming until like seven o’clock. But this potato salad really should be refrigerated for a while before it’s served, so I wanted to get it done early.
Trying to figure out the size pieces that I want. I think I figured out what I’m going to do.
I took the brownies out of the oven a while ago. Our potatoes actually are still cooking. They weren’t anywhere near being done. But I just re-preheated my oven and I am going to get these rolls in there.
The potatoes are ready. I’m going to rinse them in some cold water because I don’t want them to cook too much. And then once they’ve cooled off a little bit more, we will make our potato salad and get it in the fridge.
All right, I think I have all the ingredients out for the potato salad. It does call for hard-boiled eggs to be in it, which would be fantastic, but I didn’t look at that earlier and I don’t really feel like making hard-boiled eggs. I might change my mind, but for now that’s what I’m doing.
I added some celery and green onions that I had in the freezer. I’m hoping that those thawed out well. I’m also going to add some salt and pepper, garlic powder, paprika. Garlic powder’s out. I have more paprika.
All right, so we need a tablespoon of yellow mustard. I am, I don’t know, I think I’m doubling this recipe. So one tablespoon, two tablespoons.
It said about five medium potatoes is three pounds, so I think that’s that much. A half a cup of pickled relish. How big is this jar? 10 fluid ounces. So half a cup is going to be like, hopefully sweet relish will be okay in this. That’s what we’re going with, at least. All right, if it’s not good, oh well.
Two teaspoons of vinegar. I’m gonna do four teaspoons-ish. I think that’s good. And then two and a half cups of mayonnaise. And how much sugar? Two teaspoons of sugar. I need four teaspoons of sugar. We’re just gonna go, okay, four teaspoons of sugar. And a whole two and a half cups? This is 30 fluid ounces and I need 20. No way, is that really how much mayonnaise this needs? Two and a half cups, that’s 20 ounces. That’s two-thirds of this jar. Oh gosh.
I might start with less than that, at least. This is light mayonnaise. I’m gonna start light-handed and see where we go from there. Going to at least put in the one and a quarter cups that it called for. This might be more than enough ingredients on the center. Maybe I might not, I don’t know. I’m thinking it through.
Grab a fork. Hmm, that’s good. How do I think about mayonnaise? I think we’re pretty good, but it’s a little more on the not mayonnaise side. So I’m not going to add the entire amount that I was thinking it was going to need. I think this will be good.
I need to mash up a little bit before I go too far. Now I don’t want this to be like mashed potatoes, but I want them to be a little smaller than they are. I always like the little bits. They’re potatoey, but not like a huge piece of potato-ness.
That’s my time to check on my rolls. But it is about one o’clock, so if they’re not coming over till seven, this gives it six hours to be in the fridge and kind of all come together. So that’s perfect. That’s good.
So this bowl came from Sam’s Club. It was a pack of four, all different sizes, and they have lids that fit perfectly. I love them. Okay, in the fridge this goes.
I said I was gonna wait a minute to pull these out of the oven, but then I thought about it and I’m going to be cooking them again when I put them in the oven with whatever I put on them. So it makes sense to pull them out now.
All right, it’s been a few hours. I’ve really had some time to think about exactly what my plan is, and I really couldn’t figure out how many of each type of roll I should make. So here’s what I’ve decided.
What I’m going to do right now is just brush some garlic butter on the tops of these and just throw them in the oven for a little bit and get them nice golden brown, buttery, delicious. And then I am going to stick them all in this bowl and it’ll kind of be like a buffet style, build your own.
I figure that will work out a lot better than me trying to make them all into like sliders. The main reason that I was thinking that was because there’s a lot of gaps in between and it would just make a mess. And I didn’t really want to deal with the mess. So I figure everyone can just choose and make them how they want.
And instead of doing the ham and cheese ones, I am going to do pulled pork because I have some canned pork and canned barbecue sauce that I can just throw in a crock pot. And I think that’ll work out really well. And then people can choose between the meatballs, the sloppy joes, and the pulled pork.
Oh, you’re also probably wondering why there’s this huge mess. And the reason I have all of this stuff out is because I figured out what I’m going to do for another dessert. So I did want to have more than one dessert, and I’m going to do basically exactly what I was going to do. But since I don’t have cherry pie filling, I do have some blueberries that were frozen, and I have this blackberry, mule, sugar-free jelly that I didn’t particularly like. The ginger is just too much ginger for me. So I’m going to use that instead.
Heat this up and, yep, one of the rolls disappeared. One of the brownies disappeared too. I cut them up into squares. Here, I’ll show you. I cut them up into squares and put them on one half of this plate, and one just disappeared, I guess. Is that why I really cut them up?
Okay, since I took those brownies out of the pan, I can just use the same pan. And this needs the inside bit and the outside bit. I’m going to throw in all the jam, actually. This knife will be just fine. It was just butter that was on it.
It’s a great way to use up the jam I didn’t really like. Hopefully out of all the people here, they don’t all despise the amount of ginger. It’ll be not as gingery when it’s with everything else.
So we need a little bit of lemon juice in here, and then cornstarch. Should I grab that out? Yep. Okay, the recipe calls for half a cup of sugar in this mixture, but it also didn’t call for any jam. This is a sugar-free jam, so it’s a little sweet. So I’m gonna do like maybe a quarter of a cup of sugar in here, and we’re gonna call that good.
And then we’ll put a couple teaspoons of, a couple tablespoons of cornstarch. We don’t need nearly as much either because we do have the jam. So that’s how much I’m going to do there. I’m already not really watching the recipe too much.
I forgot baking powder, some salt. Okay, I did three-quarters cup sugar. I think I’m three-quartering this recipe is what I’ve kind of worked out.
Rest of the vanilla. And I’m putting everything in a very weird order. We’re just going with it. Teaspoon, so we’ll do like three-quarters of a teaspoon. Yep, that’s good. Maybe a little over.
Two cups of flour. This is going to make a really, it’s been a total of five minutes that those rolls have been in the oven. I’m gonna take them out.
Look at those. It does say it’s just supposed to be crumbly, so I think we’re perfect. Throw most of it in here, and then we’ll leave a little bit to put on top. Hopefully this turns out okay with my non-recipe following. 375 for 45 minutes.
It is much later in the day. I now have a pound and a half of ground beef and one egg in my mixer. I’m going to add some breadcrumbs. These say panko, but they’re actually just regular breadcrumbs. And then I’m going to add quite a bit of spices. I’m going to add salt, pepper, Italian seasonings, basil, garlic powder, and onion powder. And I am just going to mix this until everything’s combined. I don’t want to mix it too much because then we will have the meat be too stiff.
All right, you’ll see behind me that I did get my triple crock pot out. I am just going to use that. So as it seems to go throughout the day, my plan got easier and easier. So I think this will work out really well because everybody can kind of choose what they want.
I’m not going to make the ham and cheese today, but I will make that for some like on-the-go meals.
Okay, I just heard something in my cabinet. I’m quite sure it was my cat. Are you in there? Get out. Get out of there. Yeah, sorry, I didn’t know you were in there. I locked you in, huh? That crazy cat.
He had some good seals on these. Also going to add this barbecue sauce in there. And then I do have some canned onions. I’m going to drain the onion stock right into the rest of the stock. That’ll be just fine. Yeah, that is definitely going to need more barbecue sauce, but I want to tend to the sloppy joes first.
This needs salt. That could use some salt, just a little bit. Pepper, garlic powder. I got out some more barbecue sauce. We’ll put that over here. And I did get out some spaghetti sauce and some tomato paste, and I’m going to use this sauce for the meatballs and for a little bit of the sloppy joes.
Our sloppy joes calls for a little bit of sugar. And I also always like to put a little bit of sugar in my sauces, to our spaghetti sauce. It was already seasoned, well, the part that was canned was seasoned. But I’m going to add a lot more spices because I’ve had a lot of this batch and I just didn’t have enough for me.
So garlic, onion, basil. Basically all the same stuff that we put into the meatballs. Italian seasoning and oregano. Two different kinds of oregano in there. And I do have some baking soda here with me just in case we need it.
That’s perfect sauce. All right, I’m not worried about the little bit of liquid in there. That’s because the onions had liquid. I am going to put a little bit of this sauce in here, but not too much. Maybe a little over half a cup. Okay, some white vinegar, just a splash. Worcestershire sauce and ketchup.
I just reduced my heat to low on my sloppy joes. I’m going to let these simmer for a while and then I will give them a taste test. I’m gonna try some. I’m gonna try some more with a spoon because we’re gonna need our forks tonight. So we’ll use the thing, actually. That’s good. It has a kick, but it’s good.
All right, I’ve got all the food put in where it goes. We’ve got the rolls here. I was pretty impressed with how I was able to get them out, still all stuck together. And then I have the meatballs next, the sloppy joes, the pulled pork. This is just squash and corn. The background noise is my husband getting home from work. But squash and corn with honey and butter and salt.
And then we have our potato salad. I also have some mozzarella out for anyone who wants that on their meatballs. And then over here are our desserts. And these actually turned out very good. I have the extras here because they just didn’t fit.
All right, it’s about 6:10. We have still about 50 minutes before people come over. I need to finish cleaning up the kitchen a little bit, but otherwise we have our spread ready.
I’m very glad that I went with this idea of more of an assembly line because people can just choose what they want, and it’s easier to put the leftovers away. Otherwise I was worried I would get soggy sandwiches if we had leftovers the other way.
So if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe, and I will see you in my next video. Bye-bye!
