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So last week Tim had an eye infection that we self-diagnosed as a stye. Since he’s a big boy, so he can deal with a little discomfort; no big deal. Only we realized it WAS a big deal when our 2-year-old woke up Saturday morning with what was so very obviously pink eye. Then we realized that Tim was dealing with a mild case of pink eye all along, and he inadvertently gave it to the little one, who got a rather nasty case of it in both eyes. All this on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Good times.
My girls were already only going to be in school on Monday and Tuesday of this week, and I had a to-do list that was beyond what would be possible without bending the space-time continuum. Whatever your profession might be, most women seem to have such a list during Thanksgiving week, so I’m guessing you can relate. I am fortunate to not be hosting Thanksgiving at my house, but we will be doing some traveling, and I am preparing 3 dishes for the event. Let me tell you this right now: those 3 dishes will be pretty much all I will be making this week in the kitchen from scratch. For our family dinners, I’m going to be getting some help from Nestle.
I had already planned for one dinner this week to consist of a yummy DIGIORNO® RISING CRUST® Pizza, and now that I need to scrap my old set of plans for how this week would go and operate in triage mode, I’m headed back to the store today to buy another one. Thank goodness that desperate times don’t have to call for desperate measures when it comes to feeding my family something delicious. All I need is a hot oven and 25 minutes, and dinner is served.
Gotta love that original sauce made with California tomatoes, and that topping of Wisconsin cheese. It was scrumptious!
As I strip down my list of items that need to get done and remove everything that isn’t absolutely critical (hello gift wrapping…you are going to have to wait another week), one thing I am mindful of is that this is a holiday week, and that means that my kids should have some fun opportunities to celebrate the season. I do truly believe that this is the most wonderful time of the year, and if I am too busy to take a moment for fun, then I’m setting a poor example. So along with our delicious DIGIORNO® RISING CRUST® Pizza that we’ll be having today, we are also going to have a very kid-friendly dessert: ice cream sandwiches.
Is the ice cream homemade? Definitely not. How about the cookies? Nope! Do I feel even slightly guilty about cutting corners? Not a chance. I simply don’t have time to take on either endeavor, so the only way to have a fun special treat this week, outside of the pie I’m going to make for Thanksgiving Day, is to get a little help from my friends at Nestle.
Look at what I found while shopping at Walmart last week! First, I found the pizza I knew my family would love.
Then I headed over to the refrigerated dough section where I saw many wonderful things from Nestle, but one item, in particular, really caught my eye.
I could hardly wait to tear into NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Pumpkin Spice Refrigerated Cookie Dough; good thing we were about to eat DIGIORNO, or else I might have broken the house rule not to have sweet treats soon before dinner.
I so appreciate that these cookies come ready to be placed on a baking sheet. For cookies that cook the most evenly, I highly recommend using parchment paper. I will never forget a cooking experiment I did at the Reynolds test kitchen where we made cookies on all different types of surfaces (ungreased baking sheet, greased baking sheet, all different types of aluminum foil and parchment paper). The cookies baked on the parchment paper looked the very best! 🙂
Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream Sandwiches
- 1 package NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Pumpkin Spice Refrigerated Cookie Dough
- 1 carton of ice cream (I recommend butter pecan or vanilla)
Directions
Follow the instructions on the back of the cookie dough package. When the cookies are done, give them a few minutes to cool down. If serving immediately, add a small scoop of ice cream in between 2 still warm cookies and enjoy! If saving for later, allow the cookies to cool completely before adding ice cream on top of one, and then add the second cookie on top, give it a little squish, and wrap in plastic and place in a freezer bag.
Since the cookies had a pumpkin spice flavor, I thought a great ice cream pairing was butter pecan. It was an outstanding choice, if I do say so myself! I think you also can’t go wrong with good old-fashioned vanilla.
The very best tasting ice cream sandwiches do require a still-warm cookie, so if it is at all possible to make and eat these soon after they come out of the oven, that’s the path I recommend. Your cookies can be baking while your family is eating their pizza!
Having a sick one on Thanksgiving week has caused me to take a good, hard look at my task list to determine what really matters and what is just going to have to wait. I have to say, I think I prioritized correctly. Layah had one of these right after lunch, and as soon as she went down for a nap, I got a treat, too (though my ice cream wasn’t as firm as hers…mamas always get the leftovers!).
If you’d like more ideas about great ways to use Nestle products so you can get through the holidays with less stress, there are some great ideas on the Flavorful Moments website, as well as on the Nestle Pinterest boards.
