My Mom has teased me many times over the years—well not recently because I’m over 60 and she’s over 80—about one of my favorite things when I was real little.
Seems like when I was 3 or 4 years old there was an old-fashioned (at least by today’s standards) ice cream truck that would cruise through our neighborhood in Ardmore, Oklahoma. (Mom’s going to read this and she’ll let me know if it was some other military base town in the mid-50’s).
Anyway, a lot of evenings I was already in bed when the truck would come cruising through. But I could hear the bell on the truck from a block or two away. According to my Mom, I would start hollering out “Geegoogie man, geegoogie man!” at the top of my lungs until my father would head out to buy his obstinate youngest son a treat—in order to get me to shut up and go to sleep.
There was a truck like that which would cruise our neighborhood in Tampa when I was older. And know what? There’s trucks like that right here in Vista, California still drawing the kids and their parents out to the curb on a hot evening for a frozen treat. When I hear the now electronic music (for some reason “Turkey in the Straw”) I’ll turn to Carolyn and get a slightly goofy smile on my face and say: “Geegoogie man!”
So what does that have to do with cooking, recipes and the Cheap Bastid? Simple. I can make a tasty frozen ice-cream sandwich for about ten cents. One that’s only 150 calories. And it’s good. Chocolaty good. Interested? Read on.
Recipe: Homemade Ice Cream Sandwich
Summary: When it’s really hot, nothing’s better than a frozen cold ice cream sandwich. It’s fun, easy and cheap to make your own.
Ingredients
- 24 chocolate covered shortbread cookies (I get ‘em at Dollar Tree)
- Ice Cream (your choice of chocolate or vanilla or any flavor you want)
- Plastic wrap
Instructions
- Get out a cutting board and a tablespoon.
- Tear off a dozen hunks of plastic wrap about 3-4 inches wide. I stick ‘em to the counter out of my way but so I can get to them.
- Get out your ice cream.
- Put a dozen of the cookies down on the cutting board. (They’re about 2 ¼ inches wide)
- Scoop a nice amount of ice cream on the spoon (it’ll take a couple of practice cookies to get the amount right). Scoop enough to cover the cookie with about 3/8” of ice cream.
- Get the ice cream pretty level on top. The put another cookie on top.
- Work quick and do the rest of the cookies.
- Wrap each ice cream sandwich in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer.
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time:
Number of servings (yield): 12
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
It’s as easy as that. I checked it out. Each chocolate covered cookie is 55 calories. And the ice cream we use is about 42 calories for a 1/8 cup scoop—about the amount used. Total 152 calories each.
They’ll freeze hard in the freezer in just a hour. What we find is that just one of these homemade ice cream sandwiches will take care of our dessert craving rather than the 3 scoops of ice cream we’d typically down in the evening. It’s satisfying, tasty, cold and brings out the kid in you.
The Cheap Bastid Test: Like I mentioned before, these are less than a dime each to make. The cookies are 32 for $1 or about $.03 each. The rest of the “math” is that the 1.75 quart container of ice cream costs $3. There are 14 half cup servings which literally means that I can get more than 50 portions of ice cream for ice cream sandwiches. That’s $.06 each or a total of $.09 per ice cream sandwich. And you can make them in about 5 minutes.
It’s hot and muggy. Wouldn’t you like a nice, chocolaty, crunchy, cheap, ice cream treat right about now? Just call me “the Geegoogie man”! Get the kids to help make them too—they’re going to eat ‘em!
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
Thank you Jo Ellen. I have fun doing this and it almost becomes obsessive. My biggest worry is what’s going to happen when the next round of food price increases start to come our way this fall and winter. But–I hope you and the grandkids enjoy these super simple ice cream sandwiches and hopefully you’ll find some other things you and they will like in Cheap Bastid Cooks.
i think this is marvellous. i’m passing it along to all my friends, we all count our calories, and to be able to eat an ice cream sandwich? heaven!
Dot, thanks for your comment. This isn’t a very big ice cream sandwich but we surprisingly find that it’s more than enough to satisfy that nighttime “dessert craving”. I hope you enjoy them.