Rocky Road Ice Cream

I was ordering Romio's pizza the other day and they offered a free pint of Haagen Daz ice cream. Now, you all that know me...I am not no saying no to free ice cream, especially decadent Haagen Daz. I asked what flavor were available the person on the other line mentioned a bunch of flavors but when they said one of the choices was Rocky Road, the world stop and I was taken back to the 80's, the last time I had Rocky Road ice cream.

All of a sudden...I had memories of smooth chocolate, pillowy marshmallows, nutty "walnuts". I'm pretty sure the Rocky Road I had came from a rectangle box carton, the kind you undo the paper enclosure tab. The kind that probably cost .99 cents from Safeway. I said I'll take Rocky Road before he could tell me other flavors.

The Haagen Daz Rocky Road was good but it wasn't the Rocky Road I remembered. It was almost too "fancy" from the one that I remembered. There was no pillowy marshmallows, but marshmallow cream and it was a bit too sweet and too gelatinous. The chocolate ice cream was great though, it had that nice rich chocolate and high butter fat creamy ice cream. However, no walnuts, it was toasted almonds. I couldn't recall almonds from the past, it was walnut, that not too dense, kinda soft nut. It didn't hit the spot like I remembered...

Well, I was at the grocery store today and checked out a bunch of Rocky Road flavor ice cream. :) I started at one end with the fancy ice creams from Ben and Jerry's who didn't have it, to Breyers, Dreyers, Tillmooks, to all the rectangle box brands and you know what? They all have almonds. No walnuts! Where did I imagine the walnuts? I swear I had walnuts! I started to think...could almonds been an expensive ingredient in the 80's that they replaced with walnuts? I don't know???

I did buy the Safeway premium cup size Rocky Road ice cream and topped it with walnuts. It was so much better the than Haagen Daz. The real miniature marshmallows give it that chewy texture compared to the gelatinous cream stuff. The almond was there, but my addition of the walnut, that light nutty flavor balanced well with the chocolate ice cream. So good!

Why am I talking about Rocky Road? I don't know...it was on my mind and I literally looked at all the Rocky Road ice creams at Safeway and was baffled that all of them had almonds instead of walnuts. I'll have to make my mine own.