Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream

 

Dear Ben (and/or Jerry), Thank you for instinctively knowing that I love Boston Cream Pie and making a new ice cream flavor based on it!  This new Ben & Jerry's pint is packed with: "Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream with yellow cake pieces, fudge flakes, and swirls of pastry cream".  Side note: When I was younger my favorite ice cream flavor was French Vanilla- I couldn't get enough of that rich, egg-y, bright yellow, smack your face vanilla flavor.  This could be the very reason why I enjoyed this ice cream, haha.  The dominant flavor is a v. sweet vanilla flavor, with bits of cake added.  The fudge flakes seem like more of an afterthought, they could've definitely put more of them in the pint.  

Now, it doesn't REALLY taste like a Boston Cream Pie mainly due to the obvious texture differences and the lack of real custard, but I still really like it for what it is.  I hope this new flavor sticks around in the rotation!  

Lunchtime Links for January 5th, 2011

• Serious Eats: Bodum Chocolatiere.
• Cakespy: Top 50 recipes. 
• Bakerella: Cute little milk men.
• The Kitchn: Five soup recipes.
• Just Bento: Thermal bento sets and lunch jars.

Godiva: Chocolate Lava Cake and Green Tea Truffles

 

If you aren't already a member, I'd highly recommend that you all sign up for the Godiva Rewards Club.  It's free, and you get a few perks, the big one being that you get a free piece of chocolate in the store every month!  I recently went for my free chocolate and picked up the Chocolate Lava Cake (left), and bought one of the Green Tea truffles from the Top Chef Just Desserts collection.  

 The Chocolate Lava Cake was super rich and lava-licious on the inside, as you might expect from the name, haha. It was probably a bad idea to bite into it, because the insides were really liquidy, so I'd recommend carefully biting into it, or just eating the whole thing in one bite.   

The Green Tea truffle was also v. sweet, but a little more complex in flavor than the Chocolate Lava Cake truffle.  It has a: "Matcha tea mousse center in a white chocolate shell decorated with green stringing".  Despite the inside of the truffle being a pretty green shade, it smelled and tasted overwhelmingly of white chocolate over anything else.  I like white chocolate so it wasn't really a problem, per se, but still pretty disappointing that there wasn't much of a green tea flavor to the chocolate.  It's v. pretty to look at though, if that helps, haha.  

Lunchtime Links for January 4th, 2011

• Serious Eats: Peanut butter fondue.
• Kirbie's Cravings: Soft sugar cookies. 
• Vulture: Cute Pixar movie stamps.  
• Cute Overload: Cute koalas.
• Top Chef All-Stars: Recap from TVGasm.

New Year's Resolutions

New Year's resolutions seem to be v. polarizing- either you love them and make a ton, or you hate them and actively profess your disdain towards resolutions and those that make them, haha.  I for one like having a list of things that I'd like to complete throughout the year- might as well start in January when we're all feeling renewed and motivated!

You might notice that my list is pretty specific, maybe overly so.  I do this on purpose so that it's a tangible statement that I can either say I did, or didn't do.  On the other hand, if I said something vague like "Read more", I wouldn't really have anything to evaluate myself against, since it's too general of a resolution for me.  Now I'm not saying this is how it should be for everyone, but more that this is what I know works for me.

I'm posting these on my blog mainly as a way of holding myself accountable.  That's the other thing about my resolutions- I have to tell people to make it seem "real", like I actually have to follow through on them, haha.  Here's what I've got so far, although I'll prob wind up adding some more later:

- Continue to do my nails once a week.  I actually liked this one from last year and I could do it so I'll keep it, haha.

- Eat mostly only homemade (by me or someone else, aka Georgetown Cupcake still applies) desserts/treats unless it's something I really want.  Clearly exceptions will be made on a situational basis, but for the most part this applies to me not eating the random storebought cookies that someone brings in to work because it won't really be that good/worth it anyway.

- Make at least two dishes from Cooking Light magazine each month once the new issue arrives.  More is always better but hope to try at least two each month.

- Along that note, make at least one more recipe from one of my 9238749237492384 cookbooks each week.  I cook a lot at home but not really a lot of new recipes, more just throwing stuff together that I have. 

-  Be more thorough with my skincare, using all the products I have, especially at night.  Right now I always do face wash, eye cream, and lotion in the morning and night, but I have all these other products that I use only occasionally, so I'll try to make sure to use them every day. 

- Use the kettlebell I bought at TJMaxx a few days ago for at least 30 minutes while watching tv every night.

So there you have it, my completely random and not-quite-life-changing list of resolutions, haha.  Anyone else care to share what resolutions they have?

Lunchtime Links for January 3rd, 2011

• Serious Eats: Chocolate chile icebox cake. 
• Tasty Kitchen: How to open a pomegranate. 
• Cute Overload: Eight-week old Pomeranians. 
• Unpluggd: iPad cases.
• La Fuji Mama: Ho Ho cake.

Hello 2011!

I hope everyone had a great end of 2010 and we're all set to start 2011 off right!

I try to come up with a handful of resolutions, most of which aren't exactly super important or life-changing (one of them last year was to do my nails once a week, haha), but still good to have in mind, it being a fresh start and all.  I still haven't come up with my complete list yet, but hope to by the middle of January- maybe coming up with the list can be the first resolution on the said list, haha.  Anyone have resolutions that they'd like to share?