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Post by stevejaros on Nov 5, 2013 19:57:39 GMT -5
Jeez, let the man live! haha sounds like a pretty good day of eating to me! ENJOY IT and ignore the "concerned"(hater) talk Thanks man! But I don't consider "the solution" to be a hater, and I enjoy his ice cream reviews very much. He is just somebody a bit too invested in reiterating his advice. FWIW, I plan to eat a 1/2 gallon Blue Bell Spiced Pumpkin Pecan tub this Friday, and then a 1/2 gall tub of their Birthday Cake flavor in the morning and another 1/2 tub of their Christmas Cookies at night. Looking forward to the fun.
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Post by stevejaros on Nov 5, 2013 12:29:16 GMT -5
The soft serve is ok, but could be a lot better. the mix-ins are what make the blizzard shine. No question, a blizzard will only be as good as the mix-ins. The soft-serve is fine on an ice cream cone on a hot summer day but as a cup flavor it is just basic vanilla, nothing special. Fortunately for this particular blizzard, it's hard to beat a Reese's peanut butter cup as a mix-in.
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Post by stevejaros on Nov 3, 2013 18:40:51 GMT -5
Growing up in the Midwest I always enjoyed Dairy Queen's soft-serve ice cream, but since moving down to the deep south it's a treat I've been missing. Thankfully, Baton Rouge recently got a new DQ brazier, so I decided to sample a blizzard. And since it's been awhile since I had one, rather than going with one of the new holiday mixes, I chose an old favorite, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Blizzard. This blizzard doesn't look like much, as you don't get the big swirl of whipped cream sitting on top like you do with the newer designer flavors. But what you do get is pretty impressive to the taste-buds, because the name of this treat doesn't lie: It's DQ's good soft-serve vanilla base with a generous helping of real Reese's Peanut Butter Cups blended in. It's a pretty basic concoction but one that is hard to mess up, and DQ hits the mark: The blending process is neither to rough nor too fine. It is rough enough such that you get real chunks of the peanut butter cups to sink your teeth into, but also fine enough that much of the peanut butter centers get thoroughly blended into the vanilla base, giving an overall affect of eating chunks of these delicious cups in a peanut butter base ice cream rather than a vanilla one. This effect was enhanced by my requesting that the server add some of the peanut butter sauce DQ uses for other concoctions into my blizzard. This probably added 100 calories to the 740 listed for a medium-sized version. I was also tempted to pay more for extra peanut butter cup mix-ins, but was glad I didn't, as the standard concoction was served to me with more than enough peanut butter cups. The net result was about 10 minutes of bliss as I downed the tasty blizzard. Where I Got It: Dairy Queen, Baton Rouge Grade: B+
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Post by stevejaros on Nov 1, 2013 18:38:29 GMT -5
In the past, I have loved Blue Bell's Christmas season offerings, and when I noticed that they added a new one, Fudge Divinity, well, I just had to try it. The Informant's official review was complimentary, which piqued my interest, and I was especially intrigued by what a "marshmallow ice cream" might taste like, as i could not recall every having eaten this flavor of base, from Blue Bell or any other ice cream company. Combine this with the promise that Fudge Divinity contains roasted pecans and a milk chocolate swirl and I was primed to dig in. Opening the lid, I noticed what looked like a typical vanilla-fudge type ice cream: An off-white colored base with a few swirls of chocolate syrup. Digging my spoon through the mix did reveal the pieces of roasted pecan and more milk chocolate swirl, which improved the visual aesthetics of the ice cream, but for someone who craves big chunks of mix-ins, not very impressive. However, what turned out to be quite impressive was the taste of Fudge Divinity once i got around to transferring some from spoon to mouth. The roasted pecan pieces were plentiful, as were the ribbons of milk chocolate. Even better, the milk chocolate ribbons blended very well with the ice cream and nuts, achieving a taste synergy I doubt could have been achieved had Blue Bell used one of their thicker, chewier fudge sauces instead. Best of all was the base: I am not a very big fan of marshmallows, as i find their taste too sweet and their texture too sticky and fluffy for my palette. And, I feared Blue Bell might try to pass off a vanilla base with a hint of marshmallow flavoring as a "marshmallow ice cream". But my goodness! Blue Bell has managed to create a base that is definitely marshmallow through-and-through, and yet has the rich, creamy texture of an ice cream, not the fluffy stickiness of actual marshmallow. From the first spoonful, I was taken aback by the rich flavor of this base, so much so that I actually preferred scoops that were almost all-base to ones that were mixes of the base and the nuts and chocolate sauce! Overall, Fudge Divinity is a tasty treat. You really do get the experience of eating a good piece of fudge divinity candy. That said, I do have some qualms that prevent a top-level grade. Since the pecan pieces are small, they don't really add much flavor, rather they serve as a kind of crunchy experience in the mouth. Blue Bell should have used larger pecan chunks, of the kind they use in their Pecan Praline flavor. Also, I'm not sure why this flavor is in the Christmas lineup, as it doesn't seem to have much seasonal relevance. I couldn't help but notice that Fudge Divinity has taken the place of their awesome Gingerbread House flavor in this rotation, and it suffers by the comparison. And finally, I still prefer ice creams that are loaded with mix-ins, and this isn't one of those. For those reasons, I will eat several tubs of their A-graded Christmas Cookies before i revisit this flavor. Still, well worth the 3200 calories I gained by eating the tub. Where I found it: Walmart Grade: B-
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Post by stevejaros on Nov 1, 2013 10:08:01 GMT -5
Sounds better than Blue Bell's "Red Velvet".
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 24, 2013 13:48:05 GMT -5
My attitude is that there are many ways to achieve a goal. Mine is to maintain my ideal weight while still occasionally indulging in seriously tasty food in high quantity. So far my method has worked for me. I have kept the weight off for 15 years without pills or surgery and my blood pressure and other vitals are in great shape.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 23, 2013 19:19:48 GMT -5
You will not burn 1500 calories on an elliptical even if you were on there for an hour. im sorry dude. Mike Phelps does not burn that many calories. Your eating 10,000 Calories, that is not a cheat meal brother, that is a binge. thats over 400g of sugar and probably a good 100g of satutrated fat from a large pizza. That is not going to be smart at all. learn moderation. You need to really take care of that habit, FWIW, the elliptical machine says i am burning those 1500 cals. Takes about an hour and thirty minutes.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 23, 2013 7:26:31 GMT -5
I still cant believe you eat 3,360 Calories in ice cream in a sitting and over 200g of sugar. That is just not smart man... I do it twice on Saturdays. E.g., this past Saturday I had a half-gallon of BB's Chocolate Peanut Butter at 7AM, that was about 3520 calories. Then at 10PM I had a half gallon of BB's Krazy Kookie Dough, that was 3200 calories. In between, at around 2PM, I had a 16" pizza with double-extra cheese, pepperoni, and sausage that i guesstimated at around 4500 calories. I exercised for about an hour and fifteen minutes on an elliptical machine that day, burning 1500 calories. Basically, I like Saturday to come in at around 11,000 calories, plus or minus. It does keep the weight off. My doctor said I should weight about 210 pounds. I am right at that and do not vary more than a pound or so from week to week. Over the course of a year my weight fluctuates only within a very tight window of about 5 pounds either side of that (for special occasions, like around Christmas, I give myself permission to have multiple 10k calorie days in a short window, and that can cause me to gain 3-4 pounds in that week, then I diet it off quickly). This week, because I had the Christmas Cookies already, on Saturday I will only have one half-gallon tub (it will be BB's Birthday Cake) and the pizza.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 21, 2013 17:45:03 GMT -5
REVIEW: Blue Bell "Christmas Cookies" Ice Cream (Seasonal Offering) When it comes to the holidays I'm old school, which in my book means that Christmas season doesn't start until Black Friday after Thanksgiving. But Blue Bell must think otherwise, because passing by my local Walmart freezer today I noticed their "Christmas Cookies" flavor staring back at me. Being a lover of Christmas and cookies, I just had to try this! Blue Bell describes "Christmas Cookies", part of their Holiday Favorites lineup, as a sugar cookie flavored ice cream with chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and sugar cookies with red candy cane shaped sprinkles and a green icing swirl. Peeling back the lid, I noticed the presence of just about all of these elements, especially the green icing swirl and the red candy sprinkles. Digging in, my spoon quickly encountered resistance as it collided with unknown cookie pieces and the feast was on! A half-hour and an empty container later, I concluded that Christmas Cookies is a wonderful ice cream. The base itself is both a bit creamier than Blue Bell's vanilla and sweeter too, much like a good sugar cookie. The green icing is not a mint flavor, but more like a rich and creamy birthday cake icing, similar to the kind my mom would squeeze out of a tube onto her cookies, while the red candy sprinkles combine with the green icing to provide a cheerful Christmas-like aesthetic. Best of all, the three mix-ins are each delicious and are generously distributed throughout the container. I would say the snickerdoodle and sugar cookie mixes are more plentiful than the chocolate chip, but all three are in abundance, and we are not talking little pieces but rather nice size chunks of each! Also, this ice cream has great synergy. As good as the ingredients sound separately, they gel together even better. Once the ice cream starts to melt a little, the creamy base, swirling icing, and cookie chunks melt into one bodacious mass of ice cream flavor, and because you get three different types of cookies, different combinations of these chunks produce different flavors, so the taste-buds are continuously stimulated in different but always delicious ways. I'm grateful that Blue Bell thinks the Christmas season starts in late October, because that means we get this great flavor now rather than later. I advise all ice cream lovers to get this while it lasts! Where i found it: Walmart Grade: A
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 21, 2013 17:41:15 GMT -5
Passing through my local Walmart today I noticed that Blue Bell has released four of their holiday seasonals: Spiced Pumpkin Pecan, Peppermint, Banana Nut Bread, and best of all, the AWESOME "Christmas Cookies"! Get them while they last.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 12, 2013 6:07:25 GMT -5
That ice cream looks sickly good! Can it be bought outside of Pittsburgh?
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 11, 2013 19:01:14 GMT -5
Wow! Those chunks look like honest-to-good real chocolate chips and real cookie dough! I gotta get me some of that.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 10, 2013 16:12:51 GMT -5
Great idea for a thread right here! Granted I haven't had any bad ice cream recently, I was a bit let down by Blue Bell Rockslide Brownie. I was hoping this one would be a home run and even though I gave it a B, it could have been much much better. If we're talking of all-time, I'd go with Blue Bunny's 24 Karat Carrot Cake and Red Carpet Red Velvet Cake. Hated both. Rockslide Brownie was a disappointment to me too! It was basically their Rocky Road with some (for me) annoying marshmallow bits tossed in. Very underwhelming.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 2, 2013 18:17:24 GMT -5
Added! Your first layer looks much better than mine did! Thanks again! The first layer was indeed a treat for the eyes, and mouth.
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Post by stevejaros on Oct 1, 2013 10:01:50 GMT -5
Steve's Review of Blue Bell "Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream" The second half of my Saturday ice cream ritual is a half-gallon of Blue Bell in the evening. This weekend it was Blueberry Cheesecake. Having had mixed experiences with Blue Bell's fruity cheesecake flavors (Cherry is excellent, but Strawberry was a big disappointment) I didn't have any particular expectations about how I'd like this flavor. Peeling off the top, my mouth began to water as I observed the thick ribbon of blueberry and the off-white color that is the tell-tale sign of Blue Bell's cheesecake flavored ice cream base, which I have always enjoyed. To my delight, Blueberry Cheesecake has all of the elements that caused me to enjoy Cherry Cheesecake so much: (1) A thick, almost jam-like ribbon of blueberry that wrapped its way generously throughout the container, (b) a creamy base ice cream that tastes quite a bit like real cheesecake, and (c) best of all, an abundant supply of chunks of what tasted like real cheesecake! What's more, these chunks came in different varieties. Some of them are pure cheesecake filling, while others are a combination of this filling with what appeared to be and tasted like crumbly graham-cracker crust. So the chunks themselves offered different, but always delicious, flavor experiences. The overall effect was quite impressive, as a typical bite included a swirl of blueberry, a chunk of cheesecake, all embedded within the tasty cheesecake flavored ice cream base. And importantly, Blueberry Cheesecake lacked the thing that, in my opinion, almost ruins Blue Bell's Strawberry Cheesecake flavor: It did not have any chunks of frozen fruit. The blueberry presence took the form of the ribbon-swirl only. And you get all this for an astonishingly low 170 calories per serving! Where I found it: Target Grade: B+
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Post by stevejaros on Sept 30, 2013 21:51:25 GMT -5
Just added. As far as eating a ton of calories in one sitting, as long as it's not affecting your goals (whatever those may be), keep on keeping on. Thanks for adding this to the blog!
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Post by stevejaros on Sept 29, 2013 17:05:06 GMT -5
Eating a gallon of ice cream and a large pizza is just not smart, and not to mention about 300g of sugars and full of saturated and bad fats.. You should really clean that up, and bump up your overall calories Duly noted. Thanks for your input.
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Post by stevejaros on Sept 29, 2013 9:52:20 GMT -5
What does your Sunday-Monday look like? Sounds more like a binge (no offense) going from 6500 calories instead of having say a pint as a cheat meal. instead of a Cheat day which is not really beneficial. Just my 2 cents. The rest of the week I average about 2,000 calories of consumption and exercise off about 600 calories on an elliptical machine plus weight lifting each day. Saturdays are no exercise and about 10,000 calories between the ice cream and pizza. This keeps me at a steady 205 pounds (I am 6'2"). I know it is not healthy to have these binge days but it works for me in that I do not gain weight. In 1997, I was 415 pounds, and in a little over a year lost 200+ pounds to get down to current weight (actually, lost 250 lbs, about 30 pounds too much, and was almost hospitalized for anorexia). Did not have any kind of surgery to do so, just went on a 1200 cal a day diet, and have never been more than 210 since.
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Post by stevejaros on Sept 28, 2013 16:23:47 GMT -5
Probably the best rating yet Saturday ritual eating a half gallon? God damn.. thats a lot of kcals!Believe it or not, I do the same thing in the evening as well. Tonight I'll eat a half-gallon of the Blueberry Cheesecake. So a gallon of ice cream in total, about 6400 calories. Plus a pizza in between. Saturday is my "Faturday", the rest of the week is diet and exercise.
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Post by stevejaros on Sept 28, 2013 11:03:17 GMT -5
Steve's Review of Blue Bell "Chocolate Peanut Butter"My Saturday morning ritual involves eating a half-gallon of Blue Bell ice cream. This week, it's Chocolate Peanut Butter.I'm a sucker for the chocolate and peanut butter combination so was eager to try this out. First thing I noticed was that there are no chunks in this ice cream - no chocolate chips, peanut butter cups, or anything else of the sort. All the way to the bottom, it's a chocolate ice cream riddled with ribbons of peanut butter. To my eyes, it seemed kind of bland, because (a) I love chunks, and (b) I like my chocolate and peanut butter combinations to be heavy on the peanut butter, but this appeared to be a whole lot of chocolate and just a little peanut butter. But can looks ever be deceiving! I chose my word carefully when i said this ice cream is "riddled" with ribbons of peanut butter, because these ribbons permeate the entire container. Thus, Every single bite had a heavy peanut butter flavor to it. What's more, this wasn't merely a superficial peanut butter flavoring. Blue Bell uses ribbons of pure peanut butter, so the taste is rich and creamy! Almost as if you took a spoonful of chocolate ice cream and and then smeared peanut butter on it. At 220 calories per serving, this is the richest Blue Bell flavor I've yet encountered, and it's all because of the peanut butter! The result? This is what the container looked like 26 minutes after i cracked open the lid: Verdict: Blue Bell Chocolate Peanut Butter is an addictive treat for anyone who loves this classic combination. Highly recommended. Where i found it: Target (Baton Rouge) Grade: A-
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