Cooking With The Wolfes

The weather continues to swelter here in Florida, so there hasn't been a lot of cooking going on. It's like the heat is sucking out my creativity! My cousins did visit for the weekend, however, so for dinner Saturday night we made personal-sized pizzas. I mixed up a 2-pound ball of whole-wheat pizza dough, then divided it up and rolled them out. We all put on our own sauce, cheese, and toppings:

Rachel and April's: green peppers, onion, and pepperoni (for April).

Mine (pepperoni) and Mike's (green peppers, onions, and pepperoni).

Rachel putting together her pizza.

The pizzas were great - you can't beat homemade pizza! We used Newman's Own Vodka Sauce for the pizzas, and it was delicious. The girls seemed to enjoy picking out the toppings and putting together their own pizzas.

We also made homemade vanilla ice cream in my ice cream maker. I received it as a wedding gift, but it didn't get much use in our small apartment because I had no storage space and couldn't put it in an accessible place. I had forgotten how good homemade ice cream is. I used the clear vanilla extract I have for cake decorating, thus the pretty white color.

We've all heard of the "double-churned" low-fat ice cream, and I wondered what would happened if I tried it myself. So I used low-fat milk instead of whole and let the ice cream maker churn for 40 minutes instead of 20. I plan to do the same thing next time, because it was delicious! It was the most like store-bought ice cream I've ever made, as far as texture goes. Yummmm.



Onto tonight's dinner: chicken and broccoli stir-fry with Pillsbury dinner rolls. I've never been into making stir-fries, but I found a neat chart in a cook book that lists all the different meats, veggies, and spices you could use. It also includes some cool stir-fry tips, like freezing your meat for 30 minutes to make it easier to thinly slice (it works!).

I used chicken breast, broccoli florets, black pepper, soy sauce, and lime juice. It turned out well, but I was surprised at how quickly the broccoli went from firm and bright green to pale and a little limp. They had to sit for a few minutes while the rolls finished browning, so next time I will be more careful to finish everything at the same time. I also realized when I was dishing everything up that I should have made rice to go with the stir-fry! Rolls were the only carb I could think of when I was planning dinner. Like I said, the heat is taking it's toll on my brain! But I still think dinner turned out well.