Friday night we made plans to have a movie/pizza night with our dearest friends. Since this is what the day was shaping up to look like:
It was going to be the perfect night to stay in with friends. And, since it was forecast to be a dark and stormy night we decided to watch Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (not with the little ones in the room, of course!)
Since we were feeding 4 adults, 2 teenagers, 4 elementary aged kids, and 1 toddler and I was the only dairy free person in the crowd, I had to come up with food that would please everyone.
The menu for the night looked like this:
Make-Your-Own Pizzas
Peanut Butter Cookies
Chocolate Brownies
And the usual "junk food":
(All of it is dairy free!)
We had our 13 year old nephew visiting us for a couple days, and his Dad is a professional chef, who has taught our nephew a lot of culinary tricks. I took him and our oldest daughter to the grocery store to get the much needed supplies for our pizzas and snacks. He convinced me to make the pizza dough from scratch rather than buying premade ones- and I am so glad I did! He also picked out some toppings I never would have- fresh pepperoni from the deli (I usually get the stuff in a bag but not anymore!), fresh ham, and jalapenos. I wanted green peppers and mushrooms as well. We also grabbed regular cheese for all the cheese eaters who were coming.
As the afternoon wore on and the rain came down harder, I got to work in the kitchen baking.
First up were the Peanut Butter Cookies (I will share the recipe soon)
Then came the double chocolate fudge brownies:
While I was busy in the kitchen, my girls spent some time painting rainy day pictures.
Meantime my husband and nephew spent some quality time playing video games.
About 45 minutes before everyone was set to arrive I got to work on the pizza dough. I will post this recipe at the end of this week. I did not take many pictures (mainly because I was covered in flour).
I made 4 crusts- 1 pizza for the kids, one for my husband and nephew, one for Aimee and Adam, and one for me.
We made sure to keep the cheese far away from my pizza- setting up two areas to assemble the pizzas.
This was the "Non-Stephanie-Friendly" area:
And here's the "Stephanie Friendly" Area:
If you have an allergy to Casein, do not use Veggie Shreds. I recommend using a completely Dairy Free cheese such as Dayia instead.
(I prefer to make my own sauce, but was lacking time to get that done so we opted for the easy way out and just bought the stuff in a jar. I had a bunch a homemade sauce in my freezer, but Hurricane Irene took care of that for me a few weeks ago.)
We all got to work building our pizzas, while Aimee put on a pot of "Pecan Pie" flavored coffee from The World Market. Between that and the pizzas baking my house smelled heavenly!
I put my pizza in last so I took my time building my masterpiece.
Sauce, mushroom, green pepper, red onions, fresh pepperoni. I will definitely be making this one again!
Once all our bellies were happily full of our homemade pizzas, we settled in with the rest of the snacks to watch our movie, while the younger kids got to watch a movie in their room.
We all had a great time, and we are looking forward to our next get together.
People always ask me what do I eat for "fun" food if I can't eat food with dairy in it. Well, this movie night was just one example. There are still a lot of options out there for the dairy free crowd, you just have to go searching and be creative. A lot of the time we have to bake our own goodies using dairy free subsitutes. But in the end most of us like to eat the same things everyone else does, we just have to be a little more creative.
When having people over, what do you serve that pleases a crowd but is still dairy free?
As a person who can eat cheese I have to admit that the Veggie Shreds (Mozzarella flavoured) that I tried tasted amazing. All of the baked items and snacks were satisfying. Everyone was happy.
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