Dubba's Bumpy Road Ice Cream

Ok, actually I was taking a shot at making one of my favorite flavors, Rocky Road. Unfortunately, I hit a few 'bumps' along the way, and so I call my creation Bumpy Road instead. Actually, it's good, though I still haven't nailed the right consistency ...probably because I haven't cooked my ice cream yet, I'm still doing the cheater method.

Dubba's Bumpy Road Ice Cream Recipe

2 cups of half and half

2 tablespoons of cocoa

1/2 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of honey roasted peanuts

2/3(?) cup of melted marshmallow

**1/2 cup of 2% milk

**several squirts of Nesquik

I started off with the half & half, cocoa, and sugar. It wasn't tasting as sweet as I had hoped, so i added a few squirts of Nesquik and poured into into the Ice-20. After several minutes I realized the taste was not where I wanted, so several more squirts of Nesquik balanced with a half cup of 2% milk. I have the nagging feeling I've been adding too much sugar, so that's why I didn't head straight for the sugar (of course, Nesquik is just cocoa and sugar, so, not sure why I bothered going that way). While it was spinning, i split the peanuts into halves (when necessary) and prepped the marshmallow. Basically, you mix marshmallow with water and gently heat it in the microwave. I added too much water. I tried compensating with more marshmallow, but quickly ran out. At a while, I added in the peanuts and stopped the ice cream maker. At this point, I attempted to add the marshmallow but it just went everywhere. So I just mixed the whole thing together by hand to spread out the flavor.

Overall, I'm still pleased with the result. It grabs you as a nice chocolate with a smooth marshmallow aftertaste. As always, it gets my daughter's approval, and she's now working on her second serving (no worries, a serving is about 2/3 of a Dixie cup). I do love playing with marshmallow, and I will try it again 'til I get it right.

On Second Scoop: Yeah, I made a giant bowl of frosty again, didn't I? Oh well, live and learn. This batch didn't freeze well at all, but it gave me a thought: Maybe I should be using marshmallow in place of the sugar, not on top of it. So look forward to a marshmallow flavored ice cream with a peanut butter swirl, could be good!

Nutrition: 240/125/0.5/5

Now I Remember....

Now I remember why I like my in-laws so much: We went over to babysit our very cute little nephew and my wife's sister said we were welcome to snack on whatever we saw. Well, what do they have in the freezer? Not one, but **TWO** big boxes of Snickers Ice Cream Bars. Oh man, talk about flashbacks to high school and raiding my best friend's freezer for one of the ultimate freezer treats. That Snickers bar tasted as fantastic as the first time I ever had one. Oh, I love these things.

Love of ice cream must be genetic or something, it runs through the whole family on my side and my wife's.

Incase you are wondering: Yes, we would still like them even if their freezer wasn't full of ice cream :)

Get those camels some ice cream, stat!

Those camels look hot, especially the one on the top left, better get them some Ice Cream! We finally made it to the Southwick's Zoo, which is kinda sad considering it's only a half hour away.

Honestly, we weren't impressed. I mean, they had some animals, but considering it was only 80 degrees at most, I expected the animals to do a little more than sleep. Whatever, it's a zoo, let's go try that new Sky ride. Oh wait, it's $5 a person ...but we ride it anyway. Camel, pony, or elephant ride? yeah, another $5 a person. Nevermind. How about a kiddie ride? wait, $2.50 a ride ...hmmm, I'm noticing a pattern.

Anyway, let's see if we can't add a high point to the afternoon with some ice cream before we go check out the muttville comix. Nice, they serve about 8 Hershey's ice cream flavors along with some other stuff. My daughter goes chocolate, my wife goes cookie dough, and I set my sites on Peanut Butter cup. Oh the anticipation! Oh the excitement! ...Oh My....the freezer burn! Man that's a lot of ice crystals. Apparently no one else has ordered ice cream today.

Thankfully, it wasn't all that bad. My cone had the most freezer burn but I ate it anyway, it would be a shame to waste ice cream on such a nice day. In retrospect, I could have asked for another, but there was a nasty line behind us and so I decided to make due for the sake of the sanity of all the other parents. The ice cream was decent, nothing too fancy or exciting, old ice cream can only do so much. It was basically peanut butter chunks in chocolate ice cream. Funny, since peanut butter cup usually implies peanut butter cups, guess I should have ordered moose tracks instead. I'm sure I'll run into Hershey's ice cream again, I'll just make sure it's fresh next time.

Treat of the Week Part 4: Minis Mix Snickers

Snickers my old friend, you are as tasty as ever, even in your miniature form. The fact you didn't injure me makes you all that much sweeter. Yes, Snickers is the king of the ice cream bars, now, and forever!

"Great Value" Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

So, how can mighty Walmart sell a tasty, quality all natural 1.75 quart container of chocolate chip cookie dough? Ummm, they can't. They tried, and the effort is appreciated, but it just doesn't cut it. We are talking about a very bland vanilla, low quality chocolate chips, and the cookie dough is near nonexistent. Besides pulling off all natural, there's just nothing here even remotely interesting. The nicest thing I can say is that I'd rather eat this than something from Blue Bunny.

I highly recommend sliding 2 Freezers down and picking from a decent selection of Breyer's 1.5 quart containers at the exact same price.

Nutrition: 160/70/0/3

Injured in the Line of Duty Treat of the Week - Minis Mix Part 3

Never ...ever in my life ...have I been injured eating a frozen dessert. Short of biting one's cheek, it's unheard of. Well, we were running out the door because of a last minute change of plans, and I decided to treat myself to a quick Twix mini ice cream bar. It's a choice that I've come to regret. I took a small bite and found the Twix to be quite tasty. It had a more noticeable flavor then the previous minis I tried. Encouraged, I went for a second bite. I discovered what I believe to be frozen caramel chunks. Seems straight forward enough right? Well, it slipped towards my big back teeth, but when I went to bite, it slipped, and my top tooth wound up slamming that rough frozen chard into the gums where my wisdom teeth use to be oh so long ago. I immediately let out an "Owwwww!". I was in disbelief. It's an ice cream treat, it's not suppose to hurt!!!

Now let's be honest, you think I'm exaggerating don't you? It's ok, I'm a very skeptical person. It's was still sore, and I felt a rough patch, so I grabbed a flash light and headed for a mirror. Sure enough, my gum was bleeding!! I'm mean physically cut and bleeding. Who in the Sam Hill decided to put mini daggers in my ice cream bar!!

It's been five hours now and I'm still sore. Even the soft chewy meatloaf we had for dinner was too harsh when hitting the sore spot. Now, hopefully this was some bizarre fluke and everyone else is ok, but if it happens to you, don't say I didn't warn ya!!

Blackberry Ice Cream

Wasn't shooting for anything fancy this week, just wanted to see if I could improve on my last foray into fruit based flavors. I had made a mental note to cut back on the sugar ...and then I forgot. Oh well, that's what too much TV as a kid will do to you.

Dubba's Blackberry Ice Cream

2 cups of (organic) half & half

1/2 container of seedless all natural blackberry spread

1/2 cup regular sugar

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

1/2 cup of 2% (organic) milk **added later

Pretty straight forward. Add the spread and sugar to the half & half. Blend it together (the spread didn't want to break up). Put it in the Ice-20 and let it rip. Tasting it as it went lead me to believe it was a bit to strong, so i added a bit of 2% milk (probably could have added a whole cup really). As with the red raspberry, it never quite solidified, so i guess it wasn't the high fructose corn syrup. Maybe it's just too much sugar in general.

Now, the funny thing is, if I gave this to someone, I bet you a dollar they would swear it's black raspberry. Came out good and everyone enjoyed it. It was nice not chewing on seeds this time. Still learning, but we definitely have progress.

side note: I went to the other Shaw's on Sunday and discovered they have a GIGANTIC selection of fruits and spreads. I know where I'm going next time I want a fruity flavor.

Nutrition: 152/72/0/3

Meola's Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Twirl

I'm a nice guy, and I believe in second chances. Sure, you don't get 37 chances, but still a couple is fine by me. I'm in one of our other buildings today and I haven't gone for ice cream all week, so time to give Meola's another try.

I headed out a bit before noon, thinking of what I wanted. I got there and started to peruse the "menu". They have a regular menu, but they also have pictures/drawings of about 15 flavors lined up above the service windows. There's a German Chocolate Cake that sounds good, until you see it's made with chocolate coconut ice cream (sorry, don't do coconut). Down near the end I spy Graham Ma Meola's Ice Cream. It's graham flavored ice cream with chocolate covered graham bits. Now that sounds very different, and potentially very tasty. I happily ask for a small in a sugar cone.

"Sorry, we're all out"

Ooooooohhh. Bad Form Meola's. I say it sounds really good, and the scooper agrees that it's her favorite flavor. Back to the menu ...ok, I'll try chocolate chip peanut butter twirl. The description is a vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate chips and a peanut butter twirl. Sounds like it might taste like a sundae, let's find out.

I take my first few bites and realize that maybe I was too hard on Meola's last time. I try to find a spot down to enjoy my discovery but the benches are covered with spills. The ants are doing their best to clean it up, so I guess I'll sit in the car today. Hmmmmm, It's not bad, got a couple of small peanut butter chunks and chocolate chunks on top. I continue further, the peanut butter chunks have disappeared and the dark chocolate seems to be multiplying. No, not liking these dark chocolate chunks. If you stop eating, they have that unpleasant dark chocolate aftertaste you find in some dark chocolates. Eventually, i hit another peanut butter chunk and it's gigantic. It will also be the last one I hit. So much for a "twirl". The vanilla is also bland. To be honest, I don't even want to finish this boring ice cream, but I paid $3.35, so I'm gonna finish it.

So, Meola's is 0 for 2, and besides maybe going back for Graham Ma Meola's flavor, I think I'm done for the summer with them. It's a shame really, at least the texture isn't so far off like last time.