Ice Cream is Back Baby

Well, although the weather has not always been playing along, I am getting very hungry for ice cream. I like it when I am hot and sweating from working outside, and I think it is such a great treat to have. Seeing that hot and sweaty are not entering the picture in my world (more like winter these days) I am just going too have to fool my brain. It is very obvious that I do not have to fool my mouth. 

So, where does one go to get a nice treat? My favorite ice cream is pistachio, nice bites of nuts and that really cool color green on a sugar cone. As my dad use to say—that’s the ticket. I used to enjoy going to places like 32 flavors. However, they’re no more. When I lived in Minneapolis, I purchased all my ice cream at the local hangout after school in Richfield at a place called Bridgeman’s. Then, I was into banana ice cream. Now, living here in Fargo, there are many places around town to go and get whatever treat you might want.
The first place that usually comes to mind for most people is the Dairy Queen, specifically, the one in Moorhead on Main Avenue. It is, after all, a tradition in the town. In fact, it seems that it makes the TV news every year as a rite of passage for us to start eating ice cream again. 

But also in Moorhead there is the Tasty Freeze. Mike wanted to stop there the other day, on Mothers day, and we just kept right on driving by because the line was very long. That actually made us both happy because, well, it has been here a long time, and it is a small business that needs to stay around.

Now, both of these places have the soft serve and make up some great malts and shakes as well as sprinkle cones, which happen to be another favorite of mine, but there is always the hard serve, too. In Fargo we have the Metro Drug downtown. It too has been here for some time—serving up many other items—but ice cream being one of its big hits.

Well, the new kid on the block is Charlie’s Ice Cream Parlour, also in downtown Fargo. Named after the owners son, it is one of the cutest places I have had the pleasure of having a scoop in, and it is totally kid friendly. There is even a room for kids to play in and one really cool thing about it is that the music is played on a real record player! Remember those vinyl records?

Although this is about ice cream, we also have to talk about frozen yogurt. This is one of the best alternative and healthy (gosh, if I should even use that word here) treats known to man! You can have it swirled or plain, add a million toppings and even get it with this wonderful hot walnut caramel topping!

OK, I have lost all the health part of this. Ah, but isn’t that the idea of eating some of these treats? We still need to have those simple pleasures in life that I was talking about. As adults, I believe eating ice cream also let’s the kid out in us in other ways. We smile more, we don’t get mad if it drips down our face, at least we shouldn’t. We just go to that Zen place.

Lastly, there are those other many choices we have in the store. I will just mention two that caught my eye. The first one were those ice cream dots. You know the ones that look like little pellets of pink, blue and white. Usually you get them at the street fair. Whoever came up with that idea was and is, as they say, smiling all the way to the bank! What little kid does not want that threat! Well, now you can get it in the grocery store and have it at home to eat in all your guilty pleasure. I just realized that I keep using the word guilty; I need to stop that. After all, it is really about making you feel good—never any guilt in that. 

So, the last one that caught my eye was when I was with my sister-in-law at the store for some impulse buying. We did a midnight run after being out and went to Breley’s. My pleasure at that time of night was sushi—another story—and hers was this new product by Kemp’s that she said she just had to try: frozen yogurt parfait with granola topping. As we sat and ate our treats of choice, she commented on how hers was everything she liked and on how she wasn’t disappointed. We both knew we would sleep really well that night. 

I know there are many other cold treats to talk about, or if you have something else that is fun and will make us smile, let me know. Until then I will leave you with a very simple, tasty treat to make at home. This recipe comes from the Kemps.com site. That just happened to be the one I was looking at. I know there are many other places to gather from. Whatever works for ya. Enjoy this one. Until next week, eat well and stay safe.

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Lemon - Ginger- Blueberry Sundies
INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon grated gingerroot
1 pint (2 cups) fresh blueberries
1/2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 pints (3 cups) vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt

 

DIRECTIONS
1. In medium saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch; mix well. Gradually stir in water until smooth. Add gingerroot and 1/2 cup of the blueberries; cook over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens, stirring constantly.
2. Remove saucepan from heat. Stir well to break up berries. Stir in lemon peel, lemon juice and remaining 1 1/2 cups blueberries. Serve warm or refrigerate until serving time.
3. To serve, scoop ice cream into individual dessert bowls. Top each with blueberry sauce.