Mexican Pizza and Simple Chocolate Ice Cream

I was happy that Friday’s work day kind of flew by!  I started out with my classic bagel thin classic: 1 bagel thin, 2 slices cooked bacon, 1/2 ounce habanero cheese, 1 egg, handful of baby spinach and a sliced orange on the side, which was really juicy! 😀

Lunch was more leftovers:  1/2 cup Ronzoni pasta from the grilled chicken parm from the other night, 3/4 cup Steak N Shake chili, 1/2 ounce of cheese and chopped baby spinach – this was so filling and good!  Oh, I may have added some pickled jalapenos! 😀

I actually stopped by my local grocery store to see what was in their discount bin for meat that needed to be sold that day.  I picked up two big New York strip steaks for $9, and some white corn!  I didn’t think Tony would be up for pizza, but I was wrong!   Sadly, he had a cheeseburger or taco pizza in mind – I had leftover meat from my taco salad, but I accidentally left it on the stove and had to throw it out the next morning.

I had some chicken in the freezer and thawed that and cooked it with 1 tablespoon taco seasoning and then diced it up.  I made enough dough for one pizza:

Mexican Pizza Recipe (printer friendly version here)

Makes 2 servings (1/2 of 14 inch pizza – 679 calories, 30.6 fat, 57.4 carbs, 3.4 fiber and 42 protein)

Ingredients

Directions

1. Toss cooked chicken with 1 tablespoon of taco seasoning.
2. Mix flour, water, yeast and salt to form dough.
3. Roll out to 14 inch pizza. Add pizza sauce and grilled chicken. Top with chopped cheddar cheese. Bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes.

Of course, I had to identify my side with the pepper to make sure Tony got the right half!

My piece (x2!)

I hope everyone is sitting down for this.  Um, I may have a new favorite hot sauce!

I knew this Tabasco existed, but it was never in any of my local stores, and I couldn’t justify ordering it from McIlhenny directly.  It’s smokey, yet still vinegary  – the perfect flavorful heat! Let’s just say I had a good two tablespoons of this stuff on my pizza! 😀

So you know I got me an ice cream maker for Mother’s Day. Here it is all put together!  I only have nuts as a topping – I need to find mini m & m’s 😀

The first recipe I tried was actually from Mark Bittman – it called for quality cocoa powder, unsweetened chocolate, agave nectar and egg yolks.  I was excited because Hannah got me a bottle of Irish Cream Agave Nectar, fat free half-and-half,  so my ice cream was actually going to be Irish Cream Chocolate Ice Cream!

It was an epic fail.

I thought I followed the directions exactly, but after 30 minutes of churning in the freezer bowl it was watery and never even began to firm up.  Even though he said to refrigerate the ice cream mixture for only 30 minutes, we made the decision that next time we would chill the mixture overnight.  The verdict? Success!

And I went with a simple recipe out of the recipe booklet that came with the maker.

Simple Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe (printer friendly version here)

Makes 10 ½ cup servings (148 calories, 7.2 fat, 21.1 carbs, 1.9 fiber and 3.4 protein)

Ingredients

Directions

1. Place the cocoa powder andsugars in a medium bowl; stir with a whisk to combine and remove any clumps. Add the whole milk and using a hand mixer, mix for 1 to 2 minutes on low speed, until combined well. Stir in heavy cream.
2. Cover and refrigerate at least 12 hours, preferably overnight.
3. Turn on ice cream maker and pour in ingredients. It will be soft serve at around 15 minutes, firm serve at 30 minutes. It will be full ice cream stage after removed and put in freezer.

Pour into ice cream maker:

After 15 minutes, its really like soft serve:

You can’t store the ice cream in the freezer bowl – remove and put in container in the freezer.   After it had been in the freezer for an hour, I brought Tony a spoonful, and he likened it to Haagendas! 😀  It is smooth, not grainy at all!

Um, you may see Chipotle Chocolate Ice Cream soon!

Tony and I are off to go out to breakfast – enjoy your Saturday!