Just posting this as an aside since I’m elbows deep in cooking for the holidays . . .
But one of my favorite ice creams for the holidays - you do need an ice cream maker, I just have one of those spinning frozen bowl types - just buy some Egg Nog from the grocery, pour it in the ice cream maker, churn, freeze . . . super easy, way better than you ever expected egg nog ice cream.
I have a Zeroll scoop, and they really are the best. When I lived in NYC, there was an ice cream shop near one apartment that had black raspberry chocolate chip, and I always ordered it. Now I’m wishing I could find that here…
We happened upon a branch in Brooklyn after a lovely dinner with friends, but were too stuffed to have any. I’ve had a few of their flavors. The pistachio was decidedly unimpressive, tho.
Beating your kid with marshmallows just isn’t the same, though.
Bahahahaha, true!
For us, for what we have available here, Tillamook is one of the best choices at the supermarket—depending on the flavor, I also like Brighams (they have peppermint stick year round) and Giffords (the campfire smores is the rare “smores flavored” ice cream that uses a graham-flavored ice cream for the base, instead of just treating it as a Chunks n Swirls flavor).
Whole Foods has Jeni’s, which I have mixed feelings about; they’ve become a lot lazier over the years, but I guess there’s a lot of context that makes that make sense. The standbys are still good, it’s the variety of flavors that’s become so constricted and safe (they don’t even make the lime cardamom yogurt anymore, and that was a year-round flavor for many years). WF also carries Bart’s, which is cool for me just because I used to live next to one when I lived in Mass.
We also get Haagen Dasz’s strawberry ice cream, specifically.
If I want peppermint stick ice cream, I have to make my own. No one has it here, anymore.
H-D peppermint bark scratches a similar itch for me. I buy a couple pints every December bec it’s not avail year round.
It’s so weird how it seems to have become less popular! It seems to be seasonal at most of the ice cream stands here, and one of the few local ice cream makers that makes it year round … I want to support them because it’s a farm stand that started making their own ice cream after they stopped carrying a different brand because of sexual harassment complaints … but their peppermint stick has no peppermint candy in it. It’s just a mint-flavored ice cream.
And I buy it almost every year because I keep forgetting that.
My favorite is Umpqua, lots of crunchy bits of peppermint candy. I always buy a carton for Christmas dinner dessert. Unfortunately not available in Montana, closest is Idaho.
