Life-Changing Ice Cream

When I heard about the new Ben & Jerry's flavors Peanut Brittle and Boston Cream Pie, I remember thinking to myself, "Eh, they sound fine, but I'm in no rush to get a pint. They don't sound like life-changing ice creams to me."

Then I tried them. Peanut Brittle is about a million times better than I ever expected it to be and I highly recommend it, but Boston Cream Pie is over-the-top. It will change your life. Here's the breakdown:

1.) The main ice cream flavor is actually Boston Cream Pie- it's not just some vanilla or sweet cream ice cream with a bunch of mix-ins. It's SO much better than that. It's BOSTON CREAM PIE FLAVORED ICE CREAM!!!! Brilliant.
2.) The cake chunks are denser and chewier than the cake typically used in a real Boston Cream Pie. This is an improvement. Holy cow. They are they perfect consistency- any softer and they wouldn't stand up to the ice cream and any harder and they'd feel dried out and old. Instead they are perfectly chewy, perfectly moist, just perfect.
3.) The custard-y filling is soft as if it was in the cake, not in a freezer. How do they make it stay soft and not get all hard and frozen? I don't know how they do it, but it's completely AMAZING!!!

Put all of those together and you have LIFE CHANGING ICE CREAM. No joke. Try it, you'll see.

Central Market, I heart you.

I love Lancaster, PA's Central Market- it's the oldest farmer's market in the country, open year-round and offering an enormous selection of produce, meats, cheeses, and all sorts of prepared goods. It's fun just to walk around checking out the wares. This week, I had several incredibly simple and delicious meals thanks to the market. For starters, I made this delicious salmon:

The recipe was so simple, I'm not sure I'd even call it a recipe. I bought a half-pound(ish) fillet of salmon from Kathy's Seafood. Then I purchased a jar of Long's Cranberry Citrus Horseradish Relish (say THAT five times fast!) I preheated my oven to 450 degrees, then slathered half the contents of the jar of relish onto the salmon. I roasted the meat for 9 minutes, then turned the oven off and let it continue cooking for another 2 minutes. I pulled it out of the oven, portioned off enough for my dinner, packaged the rest in tupperware and then sat down to the feast pictured above. The rice is the Uncle Ben's boil-in-a-bag and the veggies were from one of those frozen steamer bags (both of these sides were given to me by friends who were moving and didn't want it to go to waste- yay for free food!) The thing about horseradish is that when you cook it, the stingy harshness goes away completely, but the tangy flavor remains. I have one word to describe this dish: YUM!

The following day I made a delicious lunch for myself that was a feast of flavor, in my opinion. I bought a fresh kaiser roll from Willow Valley, as well as smoked honey turkey ham and Canadian supersharp cheddar cheese (aged 4 years) from S. Clyde Weaver's, and finally horseradish mustard from Long's. It was a simple sandwich just bursting with amazing flavor. The ham was salty and sweet, the cheese was the sharpest I've had and the mustard added that extra kick that took the sandwich over the edge. A-MA-ZING.

I dipped some of the left-over cheese slices into the mustard. Delish!!! If you haven't tried Long's products, then get your booty over to the Central Market and do it. He grinds the horseradish on the premises at market. When you walk by his stand, the pungent aroma slaps you in the face and sometimes is even strong enough to make your eyes water just a bit.