Cookies and Cream Oreo Ice Cream Cake

By

-

January 17, 2021

This Cookies and Cream Oreo Ice Cream Cake is an easy, no-bake dessert that combines creamy vanilla ice cream, crunchy Oreo cookies, and a rich chocolate topping. It’s a crowd-pleaser perfect for birthdays or summer gatherings, building on the indulgent flavors of our other dessert recipes like Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies and Strawberry Frozen Yogurt.

Cookie Crust

- 25 Oreo cookies (or any chocolate sandwich cookie)
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 2 1/2 cups of your favorite chocolate ice cream, softened (homemade or store bought)
- 2 1/2 cups of your favorite vanilla ice cream, softened ( homemade or store bought)
- 12 Oreo cookies (crushed)
- 8 Tim Tam Chocolate Biscuits, crushed (optional)

Topping:

- Whipped Cream Frosting or Cool Whip
- 8 Oreo Cookies
- A handful of crushed Oreo cookie crumbs
- sprinkles, optional

For Whipped Cream Frosting:

- 2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
- 1 cup sifted icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Make the Cookie Crust

- In the bowl of a food processor, add the entire Oreo cookies (no need to remove the cream filling) and pulse into fine crumbs.
- Add the milk and melted butter and blend until well combined.
- Press mixture into the bottom and sides of a 6″ springform pan.
- Place in freezer for about 1 hour to set.
- Take out the chocolate ice cream to soften (about 20 – 30 minutes) and stir occasionally until smooth and spreadable.
- Stir in half of the crushed Oreo cookies.
- Spread chocolate ice cream evenly over the cookie crust using an offset spatula if needed.
- Top with crushed Tim Tam biscuits if desired.
- Place in freezer to harden for about 20 minutes while taking out the container of vanilla ice cream to soften.
- Once softened, mix in the other half of the crushed Oreo cookies.
- Spread evenly to make the top layer.
- Return to freezer and allow to set for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
- When ready to serve, let the cake sit at room temperature for about 3 minutes, and run a knife around the inside of the cake pan.
- Open the springform mold gently; it should release easily from the slightly melted cake.
- Before serving, spread a layer of whipped cream frosting over the ice cream, pipe on rosettes if desired and arrange Oreo cookies in a circular design.
- Crumble any leftover cookie crumbs in the middle of the cake and place an Oreo cookie on top.
- Top with sprinkles if desired.
- Return to the freezer to set up for about 15 minutes or serve immediately.

Make the whipped cream frosting

- In a chilled bowl, beat the cream until frothy.
- Slowly add the powdered sugar and vanilla while beating.
- Whip until light and a thick enough consistency to spread as an icing.
- Use immediately.

This dessert is particularly praised for its simplicity in preparation, making it a go-to for celebrations or hot summer days.

It combines the beloved taste of Oreos with ice cream in a way that’s both easy to make and visually appealing, perfect for Oreo enthusiasts. However, remember that it’s a calorie-rich dessert, so enjoy in moderation or as a special treat.

Notes

**If you want to make a 9″ cake instead, just increase the amount of ingredients by 1 1/2.

Musical Starstreams & Missoula

By

Alan

-

January 16, 2021

Years ago when I lived in Missoula, I used to listen to KUFM. Public radio from the University of Montana.

Every Sunday night at about 9 o’clock for a few hours, KUFM would broadcast a program called Musical Starstreams. It was an interesting mix of quasi-electronic cross ambient New Age music that was somewhat unusual considering the other genres of music played locally on the radio at the time.

I was first introduced to New Age music on a channel over in the Seattle area during post grad studies at the time called KNUA (tagline: music for a new age). After college and upon my return to Montana, I landed in Missoula. After living in Missoula for a number of years, I began listening to public radio and that’s when I discovered Musical Starstreams.

During those years I had grown increasingly tired of the standard genres of Rock and Country music — Stations in Missoula and other communities here in Montana served up the same music to be played over and over and over again in an endless mundane cycle of redundancy that might drive anyone looking for something new out of their ever loving minds. You can only listen to the same songs over and over again, so by the time I found the quirky programming of KUFM, I was quite ready for a change.

Musical Starstreams is owned and operated by Forest and according to his website:

Forest is the producer, programmer and host of MUSICAL STARSTREAMS, the USA’s first (December, 1981) syndicated, electronica based commercial radio program. Over the years, Starstreams has been heard on over 200 commercial and non-commercial stations including a majority of the Top Ten USA markets, daily on XM satellite radio, DirecTV, radioIO.com, mixcloud.com and iHeart.com.

You can listen to Musical Starstreams programming below in the footer of this page. I hope that you might find the program as interesting as I have.

Happy trails.

CCHD Mask Mandate

By

Alan

-

January 8, 2021

Recently, a co-worker, who just a few days prior had tested positive for the Corona Virus asked me if I was concerned about his positive test. I told him that I was more concerned about forgetting to wear my belt to work that day. Pulled my pants out of the dryer that morning freshly laundered and they fit so well that I had overlooked putting my belt on before heading out the door.

Anyone with a good used pair of Wranglers can most certainly relate.

The whole business of our County Health Departments across the state pre-emptively calling for and/or maintaining mask mandates on their own without any accountability and outside of any new future recommended policies regarding such at the state level is a bit of a stretch.

County Health Department recommendations on various infectious diseases is all fine and well, but since when is it the place of that same County Health Department to “mandate” that the general public do anything?

Analogy

Wearing a mask might protect me from illness, just like wearing a coat might keep me warm.

My wearing a coat won’t keep everybody warm just like my wearing a mask won’t keep others from becoming ill — (I’m not ill in the first place, so at least there’s that).

The only person the mask protects is the person that’s wearing it.

But yet, here we have the County Health Department, in essence, saying that you have to put your coat on so others can stay warm. Never has there been such a level of absurdity, as the argument that says putting your coat on will keep others warm. Our local health directors are pretty good at doing a lot of things, but they fail at any semblance of making a convincing argument when it comes to coercing the masses.

Virtue signaling is about as nonsensical as it gets, and shame on our health departments for falling for it.

You aren’t protecting 10 people when you wear a mask — you’re protecting you, and only you, and your protection is contingent on if and when you come into contact with a sick person who’s too stupid to stay home.

The only way you can protect 10 people is to stay home when you’re sick. Wearing a mask in public when you’re sick does “nothing” — the germs are on your hands and on your clothes and even on your cash or debit/credit card. If you’re sick, you will absolutely infect others regardless of whether you wear a mask or not.

Searching for the Montana Blogosphere

By

Alan

-

January 4, 2021

I think I might have spent the first few days of this happy new year perusing the internet trying to find out what happened to Montana’s once vibrant blogosphere. I happened across an article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that talked about just how the Montana bloggers are making noise.

The article touched on a few points with regard to how important blogging could be as an augmentation to big media and journalism.

The article talked to a few once fellow bloggers — David (GreaterFalls.com) Sherman, Rob (Wulfgar “A chicken is not pillage”) Kailey, Matt (leftinthewest) Singer, Craig (mtpolitics.net) Sprout, among a few others, and discussed some of the reasons why they might blog. We all blog for different reasons — some serious, some not so serious, and still yet, some others between the two.

I guess I was mainly trying to come up with some sort of blog roll this weekend as I spent seemingly countless hours in the internet archives.
My time away since 2009 saw me in Texas working on FEMA housing after hurricane Ike, and later in Seattle re-starting my web development business.
Along the way I had the chance to catch up with Craig Sprout in San Antonio for a visit, and at other times I never really ever quit looking at our Montana blogs (though I wasn’t actively blogging at the time).

With the exception of a few remaining hardy souls, like David In Great Falls (formerly greaterfalls) , most of those, or us, in the once thriving Montana blogosphere don’t blog, or haven’t blogged in quite a while.

Even still, I managed to scrape together, albeit a rather minimal, blog roll.
Doug (Montana Misanthrope) Dodge and Alan (The Raving Norseman) Tooley are both gone (they are still around, they just aren’t blogging) — 4&20 blackbirds hasn’t posted since 2015 and Wulfgar hasn’t posted since 2018.

All was not lost in my quest to scrape together a blog roll however. In the course of my search I might have discovered a few other quite interesting bloggers who weren’t around in Montana’s blogging heyday.

One blog I found that was somewhat intriguing is Reptile Dysfunction, and I think I might be inclined to continue giving it a read. I lived in Missoula for just under 20 years before claiming refugee status here in Great Falls back in 1989.

At any rate, This new blog of mine is called Cookies & Cowpies … I have wide ranging interests and a pretty good number of even more varied opinions on those interests. I’ll pretty much post what might suit me depending on which interest might speak the loudest on any given day.

Greg Gianforte to be sworn in Jan 4

By

Alan

-

January 3, 2021

Gianforte, currently a representative for Montana’s at-large House district, won 54% of the vote in the November election, and he won with the largest margin for a non-incumbent governor since 1920, according to KULR8. According to state data, Gianforte received more votes than any candidate for governor in Montana history.

Republicans gained control of every statewide office after the November election and hold majorities in the Montana House of Representatives and Senate.

Gianforte will face the immediate challenge of tackling Montana’s COVID-19 response. He has signaled a willingness to reverse outgoing Governor Bullock’s mask mandate, but in an interview, said he would be wearing a mask to set an example for Montanans.

“I trust Montanans with their health and the health of their loved ones,” Gianforte told KHN. “The state has a role in clearly communicating the risks of who is most vulnerable, what the potential consequences are, but then I do trust Montanans to make the right decisions for themselves and their family.”