Ice Cream Sandwiches!

One of my favorite treats is an ice cream sandwich.  When I was in high school in the early 1970s (how long ago????!!!!), lunch was 45 cents.  That meant, if I didn't want what the lunch ladies were serving, I defaulted to the ice cream sandwich/milk lunch.  (Milk was a nickel; ice cream sandwiches, a dime.) At the time, I was a mere whisp of the woman I am now, though that lunch habit may have launched other nutritionally unsound behaviors resulting in the challenge I've had with the scale ever since reaching true adulthood (you know, when  soup or a sandwich are preferred lunch options). 

Anyway, I love the inexpensive, standard, paper-wrapped chocolate-wafered-vanilla-ice-creamed sandwich, 12 to a box.  You know, the kind where the softened chocolate wafer sticks to your thumbs and there's no really polite way to get it off?  They were/are the best.  However, I do get inspired to reinvent the wheel now and then.  I have made really great home-made ICSandwiches.  There is a trick to it. I use freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, two (of course) to a sandwich.  I spoon about 2 heaping tablespoons of really good vanilla ice cream (Stewart's Philly Vanilla!) between the baked and previously frozen cookies.  Gently squeeze until the ice cream reaches the edges of the cookies, and the ice cream middle is about 1/2 inch thick. Wrap in plastic wrap and put back in to the freezer until they are frozen hard, at least a couple of hours.

I have another great idea for an ice cream sandwich.  I haven't made it yet, but I will soon and will absolutely post the recipe.  Here's a hint:  baked 4" pie crust circles filled with softened vanilla ice cream that's been marbled with some apple pie filling.  Made the same way as above, and frozen.  It's the Apple Pie ala Mode Ice Cream Sandwich! If there's another one out there, I haven't heard of it.  It'd be nice to think I have an original idea!  Actually, I have a lot of ideas about the variations this dessert could take.  Let me know if you have any favorite ideas!

Photo credit: http://familyfun.go.com/Resources/Features/Food/famf0600icecream_sandwiches.jpg