Half Baked...

This morning was one of those mornings where I thought to myself…you know what, this is going to be a great day. I know, how giddy. So there I am standing in the checkout stand and the guy in front of me is asking about getting cash back. I heard $120.00, and thought he must have some good plans for tonight. Then after he gets his money back I hear the change machine drop change…I was a little confused… the cashier then preceded to hand him a dollar. This fool wanted a $1.20 back in cash. I was just speechless and dumbfounded. Now it’s my time to check out and the teller tells me, you’re the first to buy ice cream this early in the morning…. It was 7:20am and it was ice cream, not alcohol. I could have a worse addiction.

Half Baked Verdict:

Thinking back about the incident at the checkout stand, and eating this ice cream, I don’t think I was the only one “half baked” this morning.

Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Creams with Fudge Brownies & Gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Half Baked puts a twist on the traditional Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough…Well I love the new twist of an outdated combination. I enjoyed CCCD, but I will officially be divorcing the “old” and be adapting to the new version of a classic. And I am not going to lie; I favor brownies in a lot of different desserts, and it’s necessary to include brownies with a name of Half Baked. And the cookie dough, it ACTUALLY tastes like the cookie dough that I use to eat out of the bowl when my mom made homemade cookies.

Once again, I find myself praising a great flavor. The one thing I have to say about Ben & Jerry’s is that they don’t skimp on any incidents. When they say brownies, they mean BROWNIES, and when they say cookie dough, they put chunks of cookie dough in there. After having ice cream that includes good-sized portions of incidents, I may never go back to that crap that makes you salvage through the ice cream looking for any form of chunks. This carton may find itself in my freezer when I am in times of need and stress.

Oh and before I forget…. this carton may NOT make it home tonight. I am not making any promises to my family members who wait patiently for me to bring home my newest flavor.

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Chunky Monkey

Well this week I had a mission when I walked into that grocery store…and it was my next victim of the Ben & Jerry’s family. This weeks flavor was recommended from my friend Veronica. And knowing Roni so well, I was a little surprised when she recommended this flavor. To know Roni you would know that she has amazing taste in food and desserts, but her likeness to Banana is VERY limited. Banana, Peanut Butter and lemon all have that love/hate relationship with her.

Chunky Monkey Verdict:

I like all the ingredients in this carton…I like bananas, fudge and walnuts…it’s kind of like an ice cream Sunday in a 1-pint jug. And who doesn’t love the All-American Sunday?

Banana Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks & Walnuts

First, and foremost, I can’t complain about this at ALL. The texture, flavoring and just simplicity of the whole idea was a home run. Banana can sometimes be extremely overwhelming, but the tone of the flavoring was kept to a minimum and it truly tasted like you were eating a banana. And once you added in the fudge chunk and the walnuts, it tasted just like you were eating banana nut bread. And I know banana nut bread; my mom makes amazing banana nut bread. We will sometimes let the bananas get too ripe to eat just so she has to make some. She is a smart woman, I am sure she has caught onto our schemes by now.

If you are looking for a refreshing cold treat on a hot summer night I would recommend going to your local grocery store, walking directly to the freezer section and picking up a carton. But do use caution, all those flavors may spark a little bit of curiosity and you may be walking out with multiple flavors.
Thanks Roni for a great selection this week. And I should have known not to be surprised when you suggested this flavor. After all, you have good taste. But then again, I wouldn’t expect anything less from an amazing baker. I have been fortunate enough to have MANY of her creations over the years, and lets just put it this way…THEY’RE AMAZING.

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S'mores

Sometimes I want ice cream on Fridays, and sometimes I want to indulge on Thursdays. Well this week I wanted to start my weekend a little early. Yes, I still have to work tomorrow, but we are almost there. When I saw this flavor my first thoughts flashed back to my visit with my cousin Jen and her AWESOME family in Swansea, Massachusetts…Literally a jump and a skip across the Rhode Island state border. Even though I was only there for the night, and the following day, they sure did treat me to a lot of delicious treats. I do have to say that my favorite memory was when we were roasting marshmallows and making s’mores with my little cousins James and Lukas. Lukas kind of abandoned the whole s’more making process and just attacked the chocolate while carrying a marshmallow in his hand. I think he figured, if I have parts of the s’more in my hand I could eat all the chocolate I want. Lol. But even when Jen went in the house to clean up she specifically told Steve, her husband, no more chocolate for Lukas. Well your secret is safe with me Steve, and I wont tell her you allowed him to have more.

S’mores Verdict:

Where to start? S’mores are a universal campfire treat…Just the basic ingredients of a marshmallow, a square of chocolate slammed between two graham crackers halves. Roast the marshmallow to your own preference of tenderness and let the chocolate melt….MMMM good. It’s gooey, messy and just a remembrance of childhood.

Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks, Toasted Marshmallow & a Graham Cracker Swirl!

I LOVE Chocolate so when I opened the container to find that it was chocolate heaven I was super stoked to jump in. I do have to give a fair warning, if you aren’t fond of chocolate, on chocolate, on chocolate I would pass this in your freezer section. And after a previous flavor, Karamel Sutra, which was truly “chocolate overkill” this was over board too, but I LOVED it. Was it the flavor that we have all grown to love? Sadly it wasn’t…It was missing the marshmallows and the graham crackers. I know they were in there, because the labels said so. But give me a break; those fools need to put more marshmallows and graham cracker swirl in. Occasionally I would get a taste of the graham cracker within the chocolate, and I enjoyed it, but the marshmallows were completely absent. MORE MARSHMALLOWS & GRAHAM CRAKERS!

Minus the “missing” ingredients, I would allow myself to get lost in this carton anytime I needed chocolate in my life. Ok I lied, I would allow this carton a home in my freezer anytime it found its way into my grocery cart.

Thanks Jen and Steve for the great memories. And even though I know Lukas probably doesn’t remember who I am anymore…. and I know this because after his nap and bedtime I had to treat the kid like he had amnesia. He acted like he had never seen me before. So we would start with a high-five and go from there. And I am sure James remembers who I am, because he got to camp out in his brothers room when I took over his room for the evening.

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Pistachio Pistachio

Well this week marks a special week in the office world at work because it marks our managers ump something birthday. The only stipulation with the flavor this week was that it COULDN’T include chocolate. She doesn’t eat chocolate. So I had a flavor in mind and handed over the list of flavors to my co-worker to choose the flavor of the week. And go figure, the flavor I had picked she picked too. SWEET!

Pistachio Pistachio Verdict:

I have been anticipating this flavor because I fell in love with the pistachio flavor when I was 14 and went to Italy for the first time. I realize that NOTHING compares to pistachio gelato, but I always love trying to find something that comes close. My addiction is luckily limited due to the lack of gelato creameries in Southern California. If there were I would be in BIG trouble, because when I was there a few years ago we had no issues have gelato multiple times a day. And yes, I would always include a scoop of pistachio on the pile of goodness. I think I need to make a trip to Italy just for it now. And we completely know where the gelato creamery is in Roma…. right down the alley from the Trevi Fountain. If you are ever in the area it is called Blue Ice.

Starting this week I am going to include the description on the carton because a few weeks back when I did Karamel Sultra, I mistakenly stated it was vanilla ice cream, when in fact it was caramel flavored…. My bad.

Pistachio Ice Cream with Lightly Roasted Pistachios…. I was sold at lightly toasted nuts. With the first bite I was in heaven, and wanted more. The mixture of the pistachios, which were full and not chopped, was great. I wanted more, but the more I ate the more overwhelming the pistachios came. I luckily only had a regular size scoop of it this week. I am not discounting the flavor because the nutty flavor was a tad much, I would actually like to try it with a mix of vanilla. I think the mix would calm the nutty taste and be a great compliment for my pallet. Hell, I will even just eat the pistachio flavored ice ream without the pistachios. It was so good. Will I be having this again, yes! I love pistachios, so I will be returning to this again.

Upon final review, it doesn’t come close to pistachio gelato, but it’s a good find for the need to fill that void. My heart still belongs to the gelato version. It has had a hold of my heart since I was 14 and hasn’t let go yet. I love you pistachio gelato, and we will meet again.

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Cherry Garcia

We are back to our regular blog day of FRIDAY! This weeks flavor was a request from my cousin Kathy from East Providence, Rhode Island. I was fortunate enough to have met the Moniz family last month on my East Coast vacation. My cousin Taylor (Kathy’s son) introduced me to Hot Wieners and Kathy has now introduced me to Cherry Garcia.

Cherry Garcia Verdict:

This week I went in with low expectations because I am not a fan of maraschino cherries. And another reason why I started with low expectations was because the last two weeks flavors were just not up to par. And honestly, when I get comments like, “It’s the best!” I tend to not believe it anymore. Yes, “It’s the best!” is way less extreme as, “I would leave my husband for this flavor” from Michelle, but I just couldn’t grasp the idea of this flavor.

The one thing about having no expectations is that you are not left disappointed. I just opened this carton and took a deep breathe before taking my first bite. The first words out of my mouth were, “This is refreshing”. The combination of the cherry chunks and the chocolate chunks were just PERFECT. When you first bite into this ice cream it is just like AWWWW. My biggest issue, and yes I have a lot, was that distinctive flavor that I oh so love of the maraschino cherry. I NEVER eat the cherries on top of banana splits, if they happen to get into alcoholic beverage and DEFINITELY not out of the jar. I sadly went into this today with all the hopes of hating this flavor. Not going to lie, acted like a 5 year-old who was having broccoli for the first time. After having my portion-sized scoop of ice cream I wanted seconds. Did I go back? No. But it honestly crossed my mind to just grab my spoon, the carton and just go to town. Lesson learned this week; you truly can’t judge an ice cream by its carton.

I can see why Kathy enjoys this flavor so much now. I imagine Kathy eating her ice cream on the couch zoning out to a tropical beach somewhere. The only person that I am not sure that is on that island is her husband Dave. This flavor finally brought hope back to me with this experiment. Thank you, Kathy.

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Late Night Snack

This week I decided to mix it up and do the tasting on a Thursday. Ok, so I didn’t mix it up on purpose. I did it because I do it at work and my co-workers enjoy the journey with me and they will be gone tomorrow. And I know eating ice cream alone is not like drinking alone, but I just couldn’t do it. So this flavor was recommended to me from my friend Jeanette. She has raved about it before so I thought, she knows the type of guys I like, the food I will and will not eat and what I like to drink, she must now what kind of ice cream I will enjoy too.

Late Night Snack Verdict:

After last weeks debacle of having such high hopes for a flavor I decided not to get so crazy over flavors anymore. Thanks Michelle you have ruined the excitement for me. But don’t think I am letting you off the hook for my plane ticket at Thanksgiving. I may forgive you, but I won’t forget what was already promised to me.

So as I was reading the description I was like….YES…this is going to be good. I like the mix of Salty & Sweet just like I like the mix of Jack & Coke. Then I read chip clusters and I thought, like potato chips? So here I am about to eat this thing they call a chip cluster and I scoop it up and just go for it. I should note that I have texture issues when it comes to food and can’t eat certain foods that I deem as texturally damaging. So I bit into this cluster and all my childhood fears came rushing back to me like it was the first time I ever ate raisins. It was salty (guys get your thoughts OUT of the gutter), is was soggy and just tasted like a stale chip. And once I hit that wall it was over, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that someone thought this salty soggy cluster was a good idea. I say we petition to have the cluster removed from the flavor and all would be well in the world. I am going to call the cluster the appendix of this flavor because it’s just sitting there waiting to burst. And once it bursts we all know you then need to be rushed to the hospital, put in emergency surgery to have it removed then you need to heal. Well I need to heal from the pains that all came back to me from when I was a child and raisins, this is not a good feeling. But if you remove the clusters and just keep the remaining flavors it’s a grand slam.

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Karamel Sutra

So this week kind of snuck up on me and before I knew it, it was Friday again. I again went to the same store, same time with the same routine. But the only difference was the flavor of ice cream had already been chosen. A few days ago I got a comment on Facebook from my cousin Michelle in Rhode Island; “So I tried the "Karamel Sutra" yesterday....I couldnt wait for you to get to it anymore! Let's just say that I would leave Scott Lewis & marry it if I could....SOOO GOOD!!!! :)”

After reading this post I had one BIG concern…Her current husband Scott, the one she would leave for Karamel Sutra, told me while I was there in June that if Michelle didn’t have her regular freak out that she had around the holidays for the BBQ she had in my honor, he would fly me out for all the holidays. Well I must have had some good karma, because she was calm, collective and didn’t burn the house down. And me spiking her drink with some Jack probably didn’t hurt either. So thank God she can’t leave Scott for this ice cream, because I will be there for Thanksgiving when he buys my ticket. And even though Facebook had technical difficulties when I checked into the Ben & Jerry’s plant for our tour, and some how it didn’t include him in the check in, he still likes me.

Karamel Sutra Verdict:

To be honest, I had high hopes for this flavor. When I first opened the carton, which I had to pry apart because of the caramel, it looked promising. I first looked at it and thought out loud to my friend Veronica, where do I start? It was split down the middle, chocolate on one side, vanilla on the other with a funnel of caramel shot right down the middle. It was the perfect storm of chocolate, vanilla and caramel…well the perfect storms sometimes are not so perfect with a closer inspection. It’s hard to explain how I felt about this flavor. It was like a threesome that looked great from the outskirts, but when you put them all in the sack together, they just didn’t know how to function with one another. The chocolate over powered the vanilla, with is flavor and the surprise of chocolate chunks in the middle. I love chocolate, but it was OVER KILL. Here I go only taking about the chocolate and vanilla I nearly forgot about the caramel. Easiest way to explain the caramel, some are just meant to have threesomes and caramel is one of them with this combination. I am sorry caramel, but you were totally out of place.

Thankfully Michelle can pick a better husband then ice cream flavor. See you guys in November. I will send you my mailing address so you can have the airline ticket sent directly to me.

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