Klondike Chocolate Choco Taco Review

[New for 2012, only seen at walmart after that through 2015]
As promised, here is the first new treat review of 2012, the might choco taco has become the CHOCOLATE choco taco. It's genius I tell you! hehehehe, I'm glad this is in the 2012 line up because I've been wanting to buy more choco tacos for awhile, but I always feared the shell would disappoint... come on, let's say it together a few times before we start: Choco Taco - Choco Taco - Choco Taco (I think I just made my head spin)

Ahhhh, a pretty box on a pretty day.

2012 New Frozen Treat Product Guide

Below is a chronological guide to the 2012 frozen treat season as discovered in my neck of the words. Not all stores carry everything, many have very few of these new products, but keep searching!

So Ben & Jerry's got a slight head start on everyone (at least in my area), but everyone else is quickly catching up for a spring which begins in a few short weeks.

Let me start with this one because my wife adores Peppermint Patties. We've got Peppermint Light Ice Cream in a Dark Chocolate Flavored Coating. 6 pack, 3 fluid ounces. I'm debating what grocery store near my house might have these so I can bring them home today. Made by Good Humor. My York Review is up

I can't believe vacation is over

Well, that was a quick 9 days. I can't believe my vacation is already over. Bummer, that's all I can say. Between my new job and back when my old company got bought, life has just been crazy. We shut down for Christmas week 2009 and I haven't taken any serious time off since then. I didn't even take off time between jobs since I carry the insurance and didn't want to risk something happening.

Oh well, it is what it is. Time to recap the week, watch a little tv, and then rest up for tomorrow. My hope for vacation had been to play with my kids, do some cooking (baking), get caught up on some chores, and other misc stuff. Nothing too fancy really. My wife has only been at her new job a month (it's not usually the best time to ask for a week off), so we didn't plan any trips or anything.

The weekend started off with these cinnamon swirl pancakes. Yes that's a stainless steel pan... and yes, I realize it's a terrible way to cook pancakes. This was made painfully clear when I flipped over this pancake and the cinnamon swirl started burning. Sometimes it's the dumb mistakes that make for the quickest lessons in life.

Lesson: Buy a griddle


Monday was another lesson. My buddy came down from New Hampshire with his two little girls. It's been awhile since they've seen my daughter, but things clicked back into place after 15 minutes and all was going pretty well. After lunch, I explained to his kids that we have like 12 different ice creams in the freezer, and all they need to do is tell me what they want. "Do you have vanilla?" How quickly my ice cream castle comes crumbling down by the simple question of a first grader. Oh man. So, I got creative and made a sampler plate of Black Raspberry, Double Cookies n' Cream, Cookie Dough, and Chocolate Nougat Crunch. Thankfully that did the trick and I wound up scooping out bowls of Black Raspberry and Cookies n' Cream.

Lesson: Can't go wrong with simple (i.e. Plan Ahead)

So I was cooking dinner this week ofcourse, had some nice corned beef and stuff like that, but Friday it was time to cook a nice breakfast treat. This is an A.P. Cake, a breakfast staple from my childhood (recipe is here) You may notice it looks kinda puffy, well.... both my kids were talking and I kind of lost my scoop count... Yeah, I wound up with an extra half scoop of flour in the mix. Whoops!

Lesson: Pay attention

Ok, time to finish up the week with a little early morning cooking today. My daughter was sad we didn't do more baking this week so this morning we made double chocolate cookies for her (recipe from Mrs. Fields cookie cookbook). The first tray came out looking like they did 3 years ago. On the second tray, I doubled up my scoop size and flattened them a bit to create the giant cookies you see. Hmmmm, what to do with all these cookies?

Mmmmm, Black Raspberry ice cream sandwich, so tasty

or the slightly more traditional cookie dough version

for our non-fruit-loving friends

and my final secret is....

FREEZE 'EM!

They froze surprisingly well last time, so the only real difference here is that I used a thinner cookie. I also put these individual sandwiches in a big zip-lock so they are double wrapped. They will last a long time and should be great for whenever the mood strikes me. It's not like we could have finished 4 dozen cookies anyway, so it's a win win.

I was thinking about this and I don't know why scoop shops don't all sell these. Easy to do, lots of possibilities, and should have a good profit margin. Something to keep in my for my shoppe someday.

Ok, I'm off for a little TV time before my day is done. Good night!

Taste of Inspirations Black Raspberry Greek Frozen Yogurt Review A Hannaford / Food Lion inhouse brand

You know, I complain alot of froyo, I understand this. Oh I say it's too light, it's too bland, it's too tangy, it's too fatty, it's got too many calories, it's too this, it's too that... I don't mean to be overly critical, I just can't help it. Well, fellow ice cream lover Nick tipped me off that Hannaford's actually has a respectable in-house brand of Greek frozen yogurt. Hey, for a $1.99 a pint, what's there to lose?

This is the Taste of Inspirations Black Raspberry Greek frozen yogurt. There were four or five flavors in my particular store, all fairly standard. I bought this and also the Strawberry. Note that Hannaford's is owned by Delhaize (a Belgium company) that also owns the mighty Food Lion (well over a thousand stores), Sweet Bay, Harvey, and Bloom.

Ben & Jerry's introduces new Greek Frozen Yogurt

Well, well, well... Am I in a terrible mood now. First, I offend all of you by not releasing pictures last week of Ben & Jerry's new product line (currently being introduced in NYC as we speak). In classic karmic retribution for putting corporations in front of fans, my special greekin' delivery ain't showing up. I swear, I felt guilty last week for being a jerk and now I've willed the universe to give me some payback. Oh well, ignore me, let's check out the big announcement.

When I blurred that shot last week, I didn't have to add much blur to the original. What you see before you is Raspberry Fudge Chunk (which I bought) and Strawberry Shortcake (as reviewed by junk food guy). RFC is Raspberry Greek froyo with Fudge Chunks. SS is strawberry greek froyo with shortbread pieces.

The other two new flavors are Banana Peanut Butter and Blueberry Vanilla Graham. BPB is Banana Greek Froyo with Peanut Buttery Swirls. BVG is Blueberry and Vanilla Greek Froyo with a Graham Cracker Swirl. One of them sounds excellent, the other one has banana in it. These are the only four flavors I found so I'm pretty shocked that one of them is banana flavored. I've never seen banana froyo in the grocery store. Sure they are trying to be different, but... iunno, I guess they wanted to mix the peanut butter swirl with something other than chocolate.

Astronaut Ice Cream Review

My apologies to John Glenn, Alan Sheppard, Gus Grissom, and all the other characters that I can't remember from the awesome movie "The Right Stuff"... no, seriously, why did Scott Glenn play Alan Sheppard but Ed Allen Harris played John Glenn? That's just confusing....

Oh, alright, I do love that movie, but my real point is that I wanted to do a special post for the 50th anniversary of the mighty John Glenn circling this little dirt ball of ours (yesterday). That was a mighty day for science, one that led to me growing up watching shuttle launches and playing with my collection of space Legos. Heck, I even thought I was going to be an aerospace engineer when I grew up.

hey, I'm trying to take a picture here

Turkey Hill Stuff'd Double Cookies n' Cream A Frozen Dairy Dessert Review

I adore Turkey Hill all natural ice cream,

I love their regular ice cream,

I like their light ice cream,

....I just can't get into their frozen dairy dessert.

Let's dig in and see if we can figure out why.

Turkey Hill Stuff'd DOUBLE Cookies 'n Cream. How can you go wrong with a name like that? It's vanilla frozen dairy dessert stuffed with chocolate cookie pieces and crunchy chocolate cookie swirl. That's right, cookie swirl, which sounds like the fantastic swirl found in Turkey Hill's light Extreme Cookies 'n Cream. Do I need to describe how excited I was when I saw this flavor?

Turkey Hill Stuff'd Strawberry Cheesecake Half-Review

[Discontinued] That's right, a non-review because we opened this back in November and the review was never done, mostly because I didn't like it at all = mostly because it was too cheesy and so I had no urge to do an in depth review. My wife actually ate 97% of this pint and she says.... she doesn't remember either. Sorry. I think it was at least decent in her mind (she had no problem finishing it, so that's positive).

Turkey Hill Stuff'd Strawberry Cheesecake Light Ice Cream

Mild Cream Cheese flavored light ice cream with cheesecake pieces and a strawberry swirl.

Poll Results

Doh, I never posted the results to the last poll question. It was brought on by Zagat's saying that the DQ shake is better than Ben & Jerry's & Coldstone. Really Zagat's? That's like saying a Chevy Cruze is nicer than a Mercedes. Sure, the Cruze might be a fine vehicle, but it isn't even in the same league as the Benz. To prove this point, I did my own informal survey.

Poll Question:
Who really makes the best shake?

Ben & Jerry's  73 (27%)
Coldstone  55 (20%)
Dairy Queen  48 (17%)
McDonalds  36 (13%)
Sonic  33 (12%)
Wendys  19 (7%)
Burger King  5 (1%)

 269 votes total

Shocking! Sure, DQ got a respectable 48 votes, but there's no way it's better. Cheaper? Ya. Less bad for you? probably. But tastier? Not even close.

Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Nougat Crunch An Ice Cream Review

[2012-2013] While we all anxiously await the latest news from Vermont, why don't we take a nice lunchtime break with one of Ben & Jerry's official new flavors for 2012.

Behold the simplistically named Chocolate Nougat Crunch. It's Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Wafer Cookies & a Chocolate Nougat Swirl. It sounds interesting enough.

Ben & Jerry's is starting spring early

You see, I just ran into the store to see if I could find one thing...

Chocolate Therapy has arrived in Pints as promised!

Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Cookies & Swirls of Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream

I've had this at a scoop shop and it's really good.

Then I saw this sitting next to it: Chocolate Nougat Crunch!

Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Wafer Cookies & a Chocolate Nougat Swirl

(see my review here)

Sure, I would have grabbed it, but then I saw this....

OH MAN!!! Ben & Jerry's new product line that isn't supposed to launch until next week!

If you want to see the reveal, check out my post on 2/22

Oh man, why do the ice cream gods have to put me in this position? On one hand, I'm so excited that I want to buy all four flavors and post them immediately before anyone else does.... On the other hand, Ben & Jerry's has always been cool to the blog and I hate to mess with that relationship. I don't think they would do anything terrible, but I'm guessing they might stop putting me on the invite list for special events.

Gonna be good... gonna be good... gonna be good... must not talk about it

oh this is tough

Ok, one more for the road my friends.

Sorry for the blur, but two new flavors from Talenti -- WOOHOO!!

Bananan Chocolate Swirl (someone else can review that one)

and Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip (this one is all mine!)

Stay Tuned: I'll probably do a Hannaford's Greek Frozen Yogurt Review next.

Crackin' Open the Oven Cookies & Cream Cupcakes

Ok, I was going to write you all a nice long story, but after two nights of even less sleep then usually, we're going to make this short and sweet. Please read below and give these a try!

Our allergy friendly ingredients.

No nuts, no dairy, no eggs.

put the cream side of the cookie in the cup

put the dry side in a bag (and break them up a bit)

do up the yellow cake mix

and then throw the cookie wafers in at the last minute

that's it! 

Cookie and Cream cupcakes and they are excellent.

These were crazy simply to make yet totally delicious. We've added a nice cookie flavor to the cake but the secret is the crunch added by the cookie on the bottom. Once before I put thin mints in the bottom of my grasshopper cupcakes, but it wasn't perfect. However, these cookies here are perfect. I'm so glad I found this recipe. Genius, just genius. Tastes great, super easy to do, the crunch to cake ratio is perfect, and they don't even need icing... heck, they don't even need ice cream!

Happy a great day everyone, no matter what your plans are.

Stonyfield Honey OIKOS Organic Nonfat Greek Frozen Yogurt Review

[Discontinued] Oh, being a blogger is so tough some days... hehehe, just kidding, but there are times when I try a smidge too hard, as is the case with Oikos.

Wait, first, let me use my mastery of the obvious to state that 2012 will be the year of greek frozen yogurt. I mean, come on, greek yogurt is steadily gaining market share, in part due to the protein content, so there's no reason greek frozen yogurt won't take the same trend now that Ciao Bella is jumping in the ring. Heck, even Hannaford's has a housebrand of greek froyo (review will be up later this week).

Ok, I'm all over the place here, so let's introduce Oikos. Stonyfield is pretty proud of Oikos as it is the only "nationally available" organic greek yogurt. Now Stonyfield doesn't mess around a ton with ice cream and froyo, but you can find them in some stores. Seeing a chance to get ahead of everyone else, frozen Oikos came out at the end of the 2011 summer.

Here it is, Stonyfield OIKOS organic nonfat greek frozen yogurt, the honey variety. Some on you might be thinking "wow, a honey flavor, that's so unique!". Others might be going "Rodzilla loves the blueberry, why not start there?". Well, both of those statements played into it. I knew it should be good and it's a fairly new product, so I thought I would spice things up a little. I mean, come on, I've had vanilla honey granola froyo from Haagen-Daz, Turkey Hill, and Pierre's Yovation (and that's in order of decreasing honey flavor), so why not try this one.

Talenti Gelato Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup #20

[New for 2012] When annoucing their limited edition holiday Eggnog flavor, Talenti mentioned their newest flavor, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, would slowly be rolling out and should hit all of us by Spring 2012. Well, lucky for me, I went out to find something for National Chocolate Day and found my kind of chocolate treat.

I can't tell you how excited I was to see this. Talenti always does things a little different and I can't wait to see how they bring their top notch skills to the combo of combos: Chocolate and Peanut Butter.

State of the Freezer Address The Still Kickin' Edition

Ok, let's jump right to the pictures.

You know what's funny? After the frustrating 3 day loss of power, the basement freezer sat empty except for two bags of ice... and then the Rice Creams came and it all started back up again (Thanks Drew!). I try to control myself but I am such a sucker for things I've never seen before. I'm a new product junkie. At least you know what's in store for the next week or two. We've got (new to me) Stuff'd flavors from Turkey Hill which I am looking forward to, plus I still have two pints from Wegman's to cover. You'll see a couple of low fat treats in the middle there (the one in red is hiding). What's in the white bag you ask? Just some Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream Sandwiches (still trying to figure out how to work them into my new portion controlled eating habits... I'm thinking they might get eaten on the way to work)

Funny, I thought there was more ice cream upstairs, it's mostly just breakfast stuff and veggies right now. Most of this stuff you'll recognize from recent reviews, except maybe the Oikos which hopefully I will post this week.

Looking Forward

What's in store before we hit our 4th anniversary? Well, my goal right now is to start sleeping again, and thankfully those wheels of change are finally in motion. To be honest, I haven't slept good in about two years and it really starts to take a toll on you after awhile. Once sleep happens then maybe my brain can clear enough to final change the design on this site. That's something I've been meaning to doing since the 3rd anniversary. You know, technically I could roll out this one design I have for a few days to see what you guys think. If you like it, I can finish it off. If not, well, I can go with Plan B which is a much less drastic change.

I also need to give in and get this site on facebook. I already have an account since I needed it to help test drive consmr, but I never made an official fan page for the blog. I'll admit I was resistant because I keep waiting for facebook to implode like myspace, but after discovering that little is going on over at google+, well, it's time to give in and make this site a bit more accessible..... and by the power of magic, I give you a facebook page. Oh the excitement! Hey, if it doesn't go well I can always retire it and go play with pinterest. I wonder if you can tie it together so that facebook comments and blogger comments come together and show on the blog and vice versa, that might be pretty slick and help drive some discussions. I really do love feedback, especially when it's descriptive, though just so you know, "tastes like poop" isn't exactly a meaningful description.

One More Thing

So, when an ice cream addict like myself works to lighten the load a bit, you might wonder how I keep the old addiction going without packing on the pounds. Well, I say live vicariously through others.

shake for the wife, sundae for the daughter

Just because I shouldn't eat so much ice cream doesn't mean I still can't have fun with it.

Weight Watchers Smart Ones Chocolate Fudge Brownie Sundae A low fat ice cream treat review

Did you know that Weight Watchers low fat sundaes now come in four packs? I didn't, but I do now. It's been awhile since I tried the chocolate chip cookie dough sundae and the peanut butter cup sundae at the end of 2010, so I was kind of glad to see the untested Chocolate Fudge Brownie Sundae 4 pack below (hmmm, it now clocks in at 4 PointsPlus value as opposed to the old 3 Points value of the other two... uggg, and now there's a PointsPlus 2012)

nothing too crazy, just a little 140 calorie pyramid

Jon Donaire Ice Cream Cupcakes A Superbowl Treat? - Review

Well well well, if it isn't already another Superbowl Sunday. My oh my how time flies... I don't know about you, but I've resisted the temptation to watch the commercials before hand, I want to be surprised (and hopefully not bored). Do you have your food prepped already? My daughter wants to make cookies for the game, but I've been saving something special for this day as well. You see, I might have something as a neat frozen treat for your party tonight.

These are Jon Donaire's Ice Cream Cupcakes, the chocolate kind." Deliciously moist chocolate cake filled with rich, creamy vanilla ice cream with whipped topping ". Never a big fan of when a company tells you it should be delicious, but considering how past Jon Donaire products have faired during my reviews, I'm not too worried.

Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie A Frozen Yogurt Re-Review

With all the portion control going on recently, it struck me yesterday that I should revisit Ben and Jerry's Froyo. No, they don't have any new flavors... and yes, I blew $5.49 on this pint because I didn't have the stupid shoppers card (oh I despise those!). It's just that a lot has changed over the years so I'm wondering if my opinion will have changed.

It's been almost 3 years since I've had Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Froyo. It's Chocolate Low Fat Frozen Yogurt with Fudge Brownies. Sure I could have went with Half Baked or Cherry Garcia, but I haven't had much chocolate these past two weeks so I think it's time for a break... that and I love brownies and was drooling just thinking about them as I checked out.