GISHWHES 2013 recap

As I am typing this, GISHWHES 2013 is in it's final moments. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little sad that it is over. I have had such an amazing time this week. Some items took me far out of my comfort zone and some just further showed people how big of a goof I am. There are a few things I am certain of - I am ending this week with more friends and more confidence in myself and humanity as a whole.

Harry the Humanized Muscular Unicorn Man
Picture credit to our team artist, Bailey

Just over a week ago, I received my first e-mail from one of my teammates, Hannah. No time was wasted in creating a team Facebook page for Unicornassbutts. Many of us joined in on Skype team calls as we nervously awaited the revealing of the list. Seven days ago, our little team of 14 strangers began the journey of being involved in the greatest international scavenger hunt the world has ever seen. The United States, Canada and Mexico had to deal with our shenanigans. We enlisted the help of friends, family and strangers to complete list items. In seven days, all participants of GISHWHES collectively broke two more Guinness World Records, bringing the GISHWHES world record count to five. Not bad for something that has only been around for three years.

Team UnicornAssbutts

Just for funsies, here is a list of the records held by Misha Collins & GISHWHES:
1. Largest media scavenger hunt (2011)
2. Broke their own record for the largest media scavenger hunt (2012)
3. Most charitable pledges for random acts of kindness. Nearly 100,000 pledges (2012)
4. Longest safety pin chain.. unofficial (2013)
5. Largest online album of hugs.. unofficial (2013)

Item #28 "Dress up as a robot and go to work"
Our personal team robot, Silkia

I am having a hard time summing GISHWHES up. There is not a proper amount of words to do so. Our team not only did some amazing things, but did them so well that battle wounds were acquired. Allergic reactions, burning eyeballs, possible surgery for an ankle injury. Really, guys. GISHWHES is intense in so many ways.

Item #114 "Create a portrait of Chris Hardwick out of dried fruit"
Made by Cristina

I've gotten permission from my teammates to share about our experience. We had to wait until after the hunt to post any images or videos for the public to see. That was to protect us from other teams being cheater cheater pumpkin eaters and stealing ideas.  Some of us had some lows with being told "no" when asking for help or permission to do items, but team UnicornAssbutts takes that with a grain of salt and came back more determined. Out of 155 items, our team completed  90 of them. I thought it would be fun to see what items were favorites among the team.

Item #130 "Find a dog named Castiel and take video of you calling him"
Team dog finder, Hannah

Favorite personally submitted item
Amber - #25 "Stealth act of kindness/capture reaction secretly on video"
Megan - #154 "Change a life/veteran housewarming gifts""
Bailey - #88 "Marching band playing Carry on my Wayward Son"
Claudia - #1 "GISHWHES attempt at breaking the world record for album of hugs"
Hannah - #130 "Find a dog named Castiel and record a video of you calling it"
Melissa - #42 "Document team throughout week"
Silkia - #45 "Strike up a convo w/ homeless person and get them lunch"
Olivia - #44 "Theory of Relativity"
Cristina - #114 "Portrait of Chris Hardwick out of dried fruit"
Laura - #1 "help GISHWHES break world record for biggest album of hugs"
Brianna -  #1 "help GISHWHES break world record for biggest album of hugs"
Marley - #23 "Car Prom"
Shannon - #121 "Eat a burrito in front of laser warning sign in laboratory"

Item #60 "Create a safari animal out of feminine hygiene products"
Team artist, Bailey

Favorite overall team submitted item
Amber - #154 "Change a life/veteran housewarming gifts"
Megan - #28 "A Day in the Life of a Robot"
Bailey - #19 "Spin class in scuba gear"
Claudia - #149 "sit in a cage within a cage staring down an animal"
Hannah - #96 "Flash mob of Carry on my Wayward Son"
Melissa - tie between #45 "strike up convo w/ homeless person and get them lunch" and #24 "wooster destroying cardboard city"
Silkia - #42 "Document team throughout week"
Olivia - #40 "Cas saves souls at cross walk"
Cristina - #41 "Trash can pool party"
Laura - #42 "Document team throughout week"
Brianna - #60 "Create a safari animal out of feminine hygiene products"
Marley - #19 "Spin class in scuba gear"
Shannon - #120 "Dramatic interpretation of Death by Chocolate"

Item #25 "Stealth random act of kindness and secretly record reaction"
Credit to Amber

GISHWHES 2013 in one word
Amber - Fantastic
Megan - Abnosome!
Bailey - Hellacious
Claudia - Abnosome
Hannah - Abnosome
Melissa - FAST
Silkia - Unforgettable
Olivia - What?!
Cristina - ??¿¡¡
Laura - guilt-ridden
Brianna - Amazed
Marley - Exhilarating
Shannon - Insane

We did so much, that it's hard to choose what to show on here. Here is a massive collection of pictures from the items we did this week. More videos can be viewed on our Youtube channel here: UnicornAssbutts Youtube Channel

I hope you enjoyed seeing all of the shenanigans that Team UnicornAssbutts was up to this week.
Until next year.

keto friendly: feta stuffed bacon wrapped meatloaf

There is no introduction to this. Just look at the picture.

Ingredients:

1lb ground beef

1/2lb Italian sausage, out of casing

one onion, finely chopped

olive oil

1/4 cup feta cheese, cubed

2 eggs

1 cup finely riced cauliflower 

3 Tbsp thyme 

1 Tbsp hot sauce

salt and pepper to taste

6 slices of bacon

Preheat oven to 380F. Put foil on a baking sheet and on a cooling rack. Poke holes in the foil on the cooling rack. The rack goes on top of the baking sheet, which will catch the grease. Saute the onion and garlic in some olive oil. Let cool. While letting it cool, place all ingredients except feta in a large bowl and mix together. Add feta in center and form meat into a loaf around it. Move the loaf to the cooling rack. Take 2 pieces of bacon and lay them horizontally on the loaf. Weave the other 4 pieces vertically. Tuck in the edges under the loaf to prevent curling. Bake for at least an hour or until the meat thermometer reads 160F. 

Keto Spaghetti

Recently we discovered the goodness that is the spaghetti squash. The first time we made it, we used a sweet sauce. None of us were a fan of that sauce. This time around, I went for a more "spaghetti" feel, using a recipe for Bow Tie Pasta (and just substituting the spaghetti squash for the pasta). The outcome was fabulous. Kid and husband approved. The only thing I couldn't add in was tomatoes.

Ingredients:

spaghetti squash

1 lb of sausage

1/3 tsp of red pepper flakes

1/2 cup diced onions

3 cloves of garlic, minced

28 oz Italian tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1.5 cups heavy cream

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbsp fresh parsley 

To cook your spaghetti squash, preheat oven to 375F. Cut squash in half, lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds and pulp. Bake rind side up for about 35 min. I like to brush some butter on before baking. While your squash is baking, cook your sausage. Stir in your garlic and onions and cook until onions are tender. Stir in tomatoes, cream and salt and simmer until the mixture thickens, about 8 minutes. While that is simmering, pull out your squash and use a fork to separate strands. Cover your squash with the sauce and enjoy.

Keto Pork Chop Bake

Oh hey, so if you haven't heard yet, we're trying this new clean eating thing. More specifically, Keto. High fat, low carb lifestyle change of lots of fats and bacon. Did I mention bacon? Mmm. I'm in a group on Facebook for Keto and wrote down a ton of recipes to try out. Our first go was the Pork Chop Bake.

Ingredients:
thin cut pork chops (we used 8)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
14 pepperoni slices, torn into pieces (I have no idea why 14. just because)
4Tbsp butter
6 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup broccoli, cut up
coconut oil
garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste

First things first, you need to cook your bacon. I cook mine in the oven. Line a baking sheet with foil, place bacon on it, set oven for 400F (DON'T PREHEAT) and pop the bacon in for 25 minutes. Lower the oven to 350F. While you wait for the bacon to cool, add a few Tbsp of coconut oil into a pan and fry up the pork chops. Place the cooked chops on the foil covered pan you just cooked the bacon on. In a medium bowl, mix the crumbled bacon, pepperoni, cheese, broccoli and butter together. Spread mixture over the chops and place in over for 10 minutes. Done!

another stuffed pepper recipe

We like experimenting with stuffed peppers. We've done traditional ground beef, mexican style, pizza style, philly cheese steak style and now... the "Amber" style. I had some cream cheese mixture left over from the bacon wrapped stuffed turkey tenderloins and no idea what to do with it. My plan was to make traditional stuffed peppers, but uhhh, I forgot ground beef. I put my thinking cap on and, tadaaa! Amber style stuffed peppers. I apologize that I had already started devouring the pepper before snapping a picture. It's that good. It looked a lot nicer before I started cutting it up lol.

Ingredients:

green onion and chive cream cheese

red bell pepper, diced

green onions, diced

2 green bell peppers

4 slices of canadian bacon

Parmesan cheese

chicken broth

Preheat oven to 350F. Cut the tops off of the green bell peppers and clean the ribs and seeds out. You can slice the bottoms to sit flat in the baking dish, if needed. Pour just enough broth to cover the bottoms of the peppers. In a bowl, mix your green onions, red bell peppers and cream cheese. Start with a slice of canadian bacon in the bottom of the pepper. Put a decent size scoop of the cream cheese mixture on top of that. I used about 2T. Put another slice of canadian bacon on top of the cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Put in oven, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

healthy peanut butter cookies

Healthy enough, anyway. I have an addiction to peanut butter cookies. This could possibly be because WIC gives you so many jars of peanut butter and I can't possibly use them all on PB&J's. I wanted to make some cookies for dessert tonight and realized I was out of eggs. Darn! However, I've had this scenario before and used applesauce. Guess what? I was out of that, too. However, I do have bananas. Thank you, bountiful baskets! So here is a recipe I found over at The Daring Gourmet. I tweaked it a tiny bit, but they deserve the credit. These are SO good!

Ingredients:

1/2c solidified coconut oil

1/3c honey

1c natural, unsweetened peanut butter

1 egg (or in my case, 1/2 of a banana mashed)

1t vanilla

1c whole wheat flour (I used almond flour)

1/4t salt

1/2t baking soda

1/2t baking powder

1T gound flax seeds

2T oat bran

Preheat oven to 350F. In one bowl, cream the solidified coconut oil, peanut butter, vanilla, honey and banana (or egg). In another bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Add in the oat bran and flax seeds. Stir the mixtures together until just combined. Form dough into 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Press criss cross pattern with a fork. Bake 7-10 minutes (7 minutes makes them PERFECT for me). Allow to cool for 5 minutes before enjoying!