Coffee Ice Cream Taste Test

February 9, 2019 11:28 AM

Remember how I said most of my impulse purchases are seafood? Well the rest of them are ice cream. I'm not a huge dessert person, but I absolutely love ice cream, and I especially love coffee ice cream.

I love it so much that I get super angry at Giant Eagle for having 15 versions of vanilla and barely any coffee.

Now I'm on a mission to find the best coffee ice cream.

We sampled four different brands: Edy's, Trader Joe's, Haagen-Dazs, and Graeter's. Here they are, ranked from worst to first.

4. Graeter's Vienna Coffee

I don't know why, but I had higher hopes for this brand. Out of the four scoops of ice cream, this was definitely the one with the least flavor. It was also incredibly air-y. My sister said it was more like foam than cream. As of right now at Giant Eagle, a pint costs $5.49 (on sale). I don't think I'll ever buy it again.

3. Edy's Slow Churned Coffee

This was the most mainstream of all the ice creams. It was also, by far, the sweetest. This is the brand of ice cream that I've usually gotten, but I wish their coffee had more of a coffee flavor. Good texture though. While I wouldn't go out of my way to get Edy's coffee, if I see a 1.5 quart for $3.50 (on sale), I'll still grab it.

2. Haagen-Dazs Coffee

I've always liked Haagen-Dazs, but rarely bought it because of the price. What I noticed about this scoop was that it had a more subtle flavor, less coffee and more toffee or caramel. It was $3.99 (on sale) for slightly less than a pint. Even though I thought it tasted better than the scoop of Edy's ice cream, I'd probably still buy Edy's over it because of the price.

1. Trader Joe's Coffee Bean Blast

The first time I tried Trader Joe's coffee ice cream, I was really surprised at how good it was. It is the most coffee-y coffee ice cream I've ever had, and the texture is amazing. Incredibly creamy. Compared to the other three brands, it absolutely stands out. I mean it even stands out in the picture because of how much darker it is. One quart is $3.99, and it's the only reason I ever go to Trader Joe's.

I know I ranked them and criticized them, but they're all still coffee ice cream so they're all still delicious. Maybe we'll try some more brands and have another taste test.

Ice cream tub pictures are taken directly from the ice cream manufacturer's websites, since we forgot to actually take pictures of the containers.

Tomato Basil Pasta

February 8, 2019 7:00 AM

I actually make pasta a lot when I'm on my own, but my sister isn't a huge fan which is why I haven't posted any pasta dishes yet. Pasta is a go to dish for me if I'm feeling lazy.

Which is kind of crazy, because if you think about it, pasta dishes at restaurants will cost close to $20, whereas something like pho costs $7 and pho requires lots of ingredients, and is incredibly time consuming.

Anyway, I decided to make Budget Byte's Fresh Tomato Basil Pasta with Ricotta since I had most of the ingredients on hand already. I really only had to buy pasta and tomatoes. This was a super easy dish to make, so it's good for a quick weeknight meal.

Meatloaf and Brussels Sprouts

February 7, 2019 4:30 PM

I bought a loaf pan last month, so I've been meaning to make meatloaf for a while. I found this Thai Turkey Meatloaf recipe from Budget Bytes. And I know we just had ground turkey last week, but for some crazy reason all the recipe sites I look at exclusively make meatloaf with turkey.

She put rice inside of the meatloaf! Maybe that's what makes it Asian. We cut the recipe in half because 2 whole pounds of turkey seemed like a bit much.

For the most part we followed the recipe, but I probably used five times as much ginger as the recipe called for, and I used red onions instead of green. Can you believe Aldi was out of green onions?! This is the fourth time this has happened this year!

To go with the Asian meatloaf, we also made these Sweet and Spicy Brussels Sprouts from How Sweet Eats. I liked the flavor, but I think the sauce needs some adjustments. Next time I'll only use 1 tablespoon of chili garlic, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and I'll cut every other sauce ingredient in half.

Overall, it was very Asian American. I found the meatloaf to be very sweet and the brussels sprouts to be very soy sauce-y, but the flavors worked well together.

Happy New Year!

February 5, 2019 4:52 PM

I know we had fish tacos yesterday, but our official new year's celebration happened on Sunday, making and cooking dumplings.

Our dumpling filling consisted of ground pork, onions, and chives. We actually had to look in three different grocery stores just to find ground pork. Giant Eagle only had a pound left and Whole Foods sells pork for $5.99/lb! It's a good thing I have a lot of grocery store options.

My friend also made a filling with ground turkey and carrot. It kind of reminded me of shumai.

We pan fried the pork dumplings and boiled the turkey dumplings. Everything was delicious. Next time I think I'll up the ratio of chive to pork. I love chives.

All in all, it was a successful dumpling party. I definitely want to have more of these in the future.

Fish Tacos

February 4, 2019 5:50 PM

Happy Chinese New Year! Today we celebrated by making tacos.

I've always thought Blue Apron was a huge waste of money. I have to pay $8+ for a meal that I need to prep and cook myself. I actually like going to the grocery store, and I don't like cutting vegetables, so why would I ever pay extra money to cut veggies?!

However, all of the Blue Apron recipes are available online for free! And they have a pretty great cookbook with useful pictures. My favorite of their recipes is Spiced Catfish Tacos with Roasted Sweet Potato and Coleslaw.

Except I use tilapia because even though I don't know how much catfish costs, I know it costs way more than tilapia.

Tacos are always delicious. I'll have another new year's post coming soon!