Pillsbury Fudgy Ice Cream Sandwiches - Yum!

I got on Pillsburys email list, and every once in a while they send me something I HAVE to try. Look slike this is tonights project. Seems simple and the kids will have a blast helping me put them together. I'll post the results.

SEE THE PILLSBURY PAGE HERE

I will put their recipe here, as I'm sure at some point the link above will not work.

INGREDIENTS

1	roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated chocolate chip cookies
1/2	cup hot fudge topping
1	pint (2 cups) vanilla ice cream, softened

DIRECTIONS

1.	Heat oven to 350°F. Line two 8-inch square pans with foil. In each pan, place half of cookie dough; press evenly in bottoms. Bake 14 to 17 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pans completely, about 20 minutes. Press edges flat.
2.	Remove cookies from pans by lifting foil. Invert cookies onto work surface; remove foil. Spread each cookie with fudge topping. (If topping is too firm to spread evenly, warm slightly to soften as directed on label.)
3.	Return foil to 1 pan; place 1 cookie in pan, fudge side up. Spread ice cream evenly over fudge topping. Top with remaining cookie, fudge side down. Place pan in freezer for at least 1 hour or until firm.
4.	Remove cookie sandwich from pan by lifting foil; remove foil. Cut into 12 sandwiches. Wrap each in foil. Store in freezer. Let stand at room temperature 5 minutes before unwrapping.

Home Made Pizza - Make it fun!

Last night we made "home made" pizzas for dinner, and the children loved it! A lot of the fun for 4 year olds is just getting to aprticipate in the process. I should have taken pictures, but the camera was tied up at the time with our newest baby (less than a week old!) so I didn't think it was worth stealing the camera for a blog.
Simple ingredients are best. For the sauce, we've had great luck (and found great flavor) from a (oh, I'm about to say it) GENERIC Kroger brand Pizza Zip. It's pretty darn good! We've tried a lot of different ones, and this one seems to fit our taste the best. If the kids like it, it's hard to protest.
We use rolled sausage, just cooked up (browned) well before we throw it on. The dough was premade a while back by mom. She made enough for 4 crusts and froze them in balls. We can now thaw them out whenever we want pizza and it works great. We also bought a package of Pepperoni, not brand specific. We made 2 cookie sheet size pizzas out of all of this. For Cheese, we use (again generic!) Kroger brand shredded cheeses. Mozzarella, cheddar, whatever we have on hand. We are not cheese specific.
The children love being a part of spreading the sauces, meats (pepperoni and sausage), cheese, and miscellaneous extras. We added chopped mushrooms and pineapple tidbits this time. It also teaches them that actual WORK goes into making dinner, and they seem to realize how much effort mom and dad put into keeping them fed!
We baked them at about 375 for approximately 20ish minutes, until the cheese had melted and the dough was good an fluffy.
Cut into squares about 3x3 the children loved it. Our 16mo old ate 2 pieces, and each of the 4yos ate at least 3 pieces. That's pretty good eating for children! Add a cup of Apple Juice and they are happy as clams.
Total price I would put at under $15 for all of our ingredients. This meal fed 5 adults and 3 children. That's tough to beat for a process that involves the children and gives them a sense of accomplishment.
Give it a try! Make your children an active part of making the food, and you'll be amazed at how much they enjoy saying "Daddy, I made this pizza!". The smiles on their faces make the meal 100 times more rewarding and tasty.

Subway - South Side Indianapolis (five points and emerson)

With all of the hype around Subways $5 footlongs, this store is doing it right. EVERY footlong on the menu is only $5. Can't ask for much better than that. My wife and I usually split one, then get a couple kids meals for the little ones. With drinks and a bag of cookies it all comes out to less than $20 to feed the family. That's a darn good deal in my book. Kids meals are healthy, as they can get a juice box and apples as a side. Very handy. They also get the typical "kids meal" extra, this time it was a very neatly packaged MLB towel (washcloth size). Entertained the little ones enough to be worth it.
Very clean and very friendly staff. A fast food restaurant that does it right!

Food : 4.5/5 - excellent as always
Service: 4.5/5 - Fast and efficient as expected.
Price: <$20- Cheap. Excellent value

Bob Evans with children, Greenwood, Indiana

Normally I have excellent experiences at Bob Evans. Yes, we do the typical "Sunday after church" lunch trips out to eat, probably more often than we should, but I had an excellent weekend and was looking for a little rest (I didn't want to do dishes!).
Service at this location is typically top notch. Kids meals are in the $1.99 - $2.49 range, very respectable. We fed the whole family for under $27. Tough to beat. Problem was, the service (I think it was just this server) was HORRIBLE. This is really the first bad review I've written, so I'm not that good at it.
We arrived and waited over 10 minutes to even get to put our drink order in. Children don't wait, and it really wasn't that busy, so we were confused. We ordered out food at the same time, thinking she might not make it back the same day to take that order. Drinks took at least another 5 minutes. Seemed excessive for the partially empty section we were in. Food came about 2 minutes later. That was nice. We had asked for an extra plate, as we usually steal some off of everyones plate for the baby. She doesn't eat that much. That never came.
When we were asked how everything was, we again asked for the plate, and drink refills. None of them ever came. As we were packing up to leave, I was asked if I wanted a to go cup. I asked "for what?" "Oh yeah, " she said, " I forgot to get you all refills! I'm sorry." At that point we just wanted to leave.
The food was excellent. The service was not. I'm sure we'll be back. Either the waitress was new or having a bad day. As we'd never seen her before, I'm guessing new. I'm also guessing by the tip I gave her, if it's similar to what others would get service wise, she'll be looking for a new job soon, or getting a LOT better at her job.

Food : 4.5/5 - excellent as always
Service: .5/5 - Didn't really happen.
Price: $27 - Cheap to inexpensive range. Excellent value.