Turkey Hill Simply Natural Strawberries & Cream

--- At the end, we'll talk about the "Simply Natural" rebranding ---

[New for 2020 or 2021] So I went to Market Basket for the first time in a very long time a few months ago. I had only been there once or twice during the pandemic, and that was to grab an item or two, not stare at the ice cream aisle. Well, I finally made it back and spied something I had never seen before. You know I love this lineup, so let's dig in to.....

Turkey Hill Simply Natural Strawberries & Cream Ice Cream

strawberry ice cream with sliced strawberries

Alden's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ok Alden's, I'm giving you one more chance to impress me. I always have bad luck with picking freezer burned pints from them, but maybe, just maybe, I'll have luck with....

Alden's Strawberry Ice Cream

Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Cookie Swirl Ice Cream

[New for 2020, discontinued] It's been a pretty quite year for turkey hill, but they do have two new all natural flavors (and that limited bourbon vanilla flavor that caught some people's eye).

Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Cookie Swirl Ice Cream

mint flavored milk chocolate ice cream with a chocolate cookie swirl

Talenti Oak Aged Vanilla & Chocolate Mousse Gelato

[New for 2019] One thing that has been on my to do list is to finish trying all of the organic flavors from Talenti. I only snuck one in last year but I'm not sure that I got the greatest of pints (aka bit o' freezerburn). Well, fast forward to now when I stumbled upon...

Talenti Oak Aged Vanilla Gelato #55 -- Talenti Chocolate Mousse Gelato #56
Madagascan vanilla gelato with notes of oak -- dark chocolate gelato swirled with fudge

Maxine's Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

Sad news today... Three Twins is shutting down (as announced by CEO Neal Gottlieb on social media today). I know they tried to expand with Slim Twin and Maxine's, but it will be their good old fashion pints that I will miss the most. I'm sorry I didn't buy more of them. They weren't crazy, they were just classic done right. The only disclaimer I will throw down here is that I've tried to pick up their Madagascar vanilla bean flavor from two different stores recently and both times it was just a disaster of a pint (completely mishandled in shipping & stocking). Was that part of the downfall? Who knows, but I'm sad that I may never have another pint of theirs again.

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[2017-2020] Way back in the summer of 2017, Three Twins debuted their more budget friendly lineup called Maxine's. Named after two of the founder's mom, it came out in six flavors. Clocking in at $7.99 for 1.5 quarts, I just never got around to trying it. One because it's really only been at Whole Foods until last year when it hit Market32, and two, it carries a cross contamination warning... but then I saw it for 75% off and I thought "ok, I'll give it a shot". I checked all the containers for their production dates and discovered the freshest option was...

Maxine's Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

Organic Madagascar Vanilla ice cream
with Chocolate sandwich creme cookies

Alden's Double Dutch Chocolate Ice Cream

[New for 2019] Did you know that I have a three year old Alden's post that I never posted? It's true. I bought a big container of their Cookies & Cream ice cream and it was badly freezerburned (at least I think it was, but maybe it sucks in general). I think I tried them one other time too with similar results. I figured I just wasn't meant to grab anything fresh from them. Then, about a month (or so) ago, their new 2019 pints popped up at Stop & Shop and I brought one home.

Alden's Double Dutch Chocolate Ice Cream

"always double down on chocolate and ice cream"

Whole Foods Butter Cookies & Sweet Cream Gelato

[New for 2019] Hey, for the record, I am not ice cream hunting right now, it's just not worth the risk of bringing germs home. That said, we can still try to have fun, like this catchy looking pint of Whole Foods gelato. Yes, I still hate Whole Foods in general, but this was too tempting.

Whole Foods Butter Cookies & Sweet Cream Gelato

(sweet cream gelato, salted caramel butter sauce, butter cookies)

Turkey Hill All Natural Cookie Dough Ice Cream

[New for 2020] That bad news is that I have two tubs of all natural Turkey Hill ice cream that need to go back to price chopper because they let them melt and go bad. The good news is that I found a replacement for their spot in the freezer.

Turkey Hill All Natural Cookie Dough Ice Cream

All natural brown sugar and molasses flavored ice cream
with chewy chocolate chip cookie dough pieces and chocolate chips

Humboldt Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Alrighty, just a random quick post here. I wasn't sure what I really wanted a couple weeks ago, but then I spied this pint for a measly $2.50. Cheap snack time!

Humboldt Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

cookie dough and chocolate chips in vanilla ice cream

Talenti Organic Brown Butter Caramel Gelato

[New for 2019 - Retired] You know what? I keep forgetting that Talenti put out those four organic flavors this year. I just rarely ever see them. Do you see them? I want to say Stop & Shop has/had them briefly, and maybe Hannaford was the other place? Well today I splurge $5.99 for...

Talenti Organic Brown Butter Caramel Gelato #57

organic caramel gelato swirled with buttery dulce de leche

Big Dipper Cookie Dough Company

Did I just spend 20 minutes taking pictures of free cookie dough samples? Why yes, yes I did. Sure, Bigger Dipper Cookie Dough Company's edible cookie dough may look like ice cream, and the flavors sound the ice cream, but it's actually spoonable egg free cookie dough and I didn't have to worry about it melting all over the place. Let's take a look at what arrived this week.

Big Dipper Cookie Dough Company - Edible Cookie Dough

Galatic Fusion - Rocket Chip - Super Cluster

Humboldt Cookies & Cream Ice Cream Humboldt Mint Chip Ice Cream

I've been meaning to get the Humboldt pints on the blog for awhile now. You might remember the short lived 2016 40oz containers that could be found at Walmart and Trader Joe's (see my chocolate and mint chip reviews). I wasn't terribly impressed back then but maybe I'll have a bit more luck with their pint form factor. There are seven flavors in all, including...

Humboldt Mint Chip Ice Cream   --   Humboldt Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

organic dark fudge chips in mint ice cream --- chocolate cookie chunks in vanilla ice cream

Turkey Hill Chocolate Raspberry Bliss Trio'politan All Natural Ice Cream

[New for 2018, discontinued] If you follow me on twitter than you may have noticed that I try to encourage Turkey Hill to add more all natural flavors. I feel a little like a broken record but their all natural line up is basically my nighttime snack for about 85-90% of my evenings. I love old fashion ice cream and nothing reminds me of good 80s mainstream ice cream like Turkey Hill All Natural does. I wish more companies would move this way rather than messing with sugar replacement.

Turkey Hill All Natural Trio'politan Chocolate Raspberry Bliss Ice Cream

vanilla bean, chocolate & raspberry chocolate chip

Halo Top Pancakes & Waffles Light Ice Cream

[By Nick] Welcome to 2018, everyone! Are you planning on cutting back on your ice cream intake this year? For better or (more than likely) for worse, there’s a scary amount of low calorie options on the market right now. It seems like “good for you” ice creams have become all the rage with Talenti recently jumping on board. It’s been awhile however since we’ve taken a look at the brand that pretty much started this trend.

Halo Top Pancakes & Waffles Light Ice Cream

Pancake flavored light ice cream, waffle cone crunch
and a maple syrup swirl (Educated guess)

Three Twins debuts Maxine's Ice Cream

Now it's been too long since we've had a Three Twins ice cream review on the blog, but that doesn't mean I don't keep my eye on them. Well, rather than trying to dive in to gelato or non-dairy or some fad market, they've taken their philosophy on super premium ice cream and applied it to their new mainstream lineup.

This is Maxine's ice cream and as you can tell, it's still organic. The big difference will be that it's lighter in texture which will make it more like a mainstream brand.

They are starting off with six flavors: vanilla, vanilla bean, chocolate, coffee, mint chip, and cookies & cream. That last one makes me happiest of course.

 I don't know when this will hit your area, but I'd love to do a head to head against all natural Turkey Hill at some point. TH has more flavors but Maxine's still has eggs and locust bean gum in the mix which will provide a different texture from TH.

There's more info here if you are curious.

Turkey Hill Blueberry Ice Cream

[New for 2017, discontinued] Disclaimer: blueberry ice cream is not my thing. Ok, I say that about a lot of things, but it's just not something I gravitate towards unless there is an x-factor like pie crust bits. That said, I wanted to try at least one more of the new flavors in Turkey Hill's all natural line up. (Note: this line up is what I eat when I'm not eating/reviewing something new).

Turkey Hill All Natural Blueberry Ice Cream

blueberry ice cream

Turkey Hill Raspberry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

[New for 2017] To my great delight, I was excited when I heard that Turkey Hill was adding four new flavors to their All Natural line up. I do love this entire product line and am happy to see it grow. Now I won't be trying the new Mango or Mocha Chip flavors because those just aren't for me, but I am pretty excited about the new...

Turkey Hill All Natural Raspberry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

raspberry ice cream with chocolate chips

Coolhaus Salty S'mores Ice Cream

Coolhaus isn't new to the blog, but all of the past reviews have been written by Nick. In the fall I realized that Shaws was starting to carry their products and now Wegmans and Price Chopper is too. PC only had four flavors Friday night, but one of the them was just too hard to resist.

Coolhaus Salty S'mores Ice Cream

aka Julia S'more-gan
salted Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream,
graham cookie butter marshmallow swirl & dark chocolate squares
(new 2017 name is Campfire S'mores)

Mr. Green Tea Ginger Ice Cream

As I (sadly?) pace back and forth down the freezer aisle trying to discover something that catches my interest, I realize that I have been playing it safe recently. While this blog has always been about encouraging you to try new things, I couldn't help but find myself reaching for the safest of the Mr. Green Tea flavors... Madagascar bourbon vanilla ice cream which apparently isn't even on their website. The MGT site does list chai latte, ginger, black sesame, green tea, red bean and fortune cookie. I really wanted fortune cookie but it was the only flavor Stop & Shop (Giant) didn't have.

Mr. Green Tea Ginger Ice Cream

ginger ice cream bursting with candied ginger

Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

[New for 2015] You've heard me confess my love for Turkey Hill all natural ice cream on multiple occasions right? It's my go-to 9pm snack nowadays. I just want something clean and simple to end my day. My only real problem with it is that there aren't a ton of flavors for me to choose from based on both availability and me not bringing home any of the 5 nut based flavors.

Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

chocolate chips in mint ice cream