Reviewed By: Mom and Brandi

First Thoughts: Crunchy, spicy.

Dialog: “It’d be cool if they put pumpkin seeds on the top!”  ”Oh… there ARE pumpkin seeds in it!  Very unique.”

No Surprise: Brandi liked it as well!

Creamy Curiosities: You’ll notice in the picture that there’s this little white dollop on top … we couldn’t quite figure out what it was.  The employee at Tim Horton’s said it’s probably filled with cream cheese or something, but clearly the employee isn’t being paid to know what’s in their products or anything.  They were very wrong.  Still unsure what the purpose of it is, but it’s on all the muffins (see exhibit B below).

Reviewed By: Lori and James

The Narrative: “Smells like a donut.”  *bite*  ”Now it smells like pumpkin.”  

Spoilers: That also went for the Timbits too.  The donut was noticeably sweeter though.  Still had some good pumpkin flavor.

The Tip-Off: I actually went and hunted this one down after a tip-off from fellow pumpkin fanatic Ann a couple of weeks ago.  I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised that Archer Farms went down this road because they’re probably the single-most prominent brand in terms of pumpkin experimentation, although personally I would’ve liked to see Quaker make a slight tweak to this variety of theirs in the spirit of the season…

Nostalgia: I honestly haven’t had oatmeal in a really long time – like, maybe back when I was in the Boy Scouts as a teenager and we would plan instant oatmeal for breakfast because it was quick and easy and didn’t require the cleaning of a lot of pots and pans afterwards!  Earlier before that, I recall eating a lot of cream of wheat for breakfast as a kid, mainly because my parents would pour mounds of brown sugar on-top until you could barely see the cereal peeking out between the clumps of sugar!  It always tasted the best if you could eat it before it all dissolved into the hot cereal, which normally wasn’t much of a problem in my spry youth!

Back to Present Day…: As for the new-fangled pumpkin variety … well, first and foremost, I don’t think I made it very good because the picture on the box most definitely looks more appetizing than my bowl to the right!  I didn’t want to make it too soupy, so instead I kind of held back on the water probably a little more than I should’ve, thus resulting in a significantly chunkier version of oatmeal than I ever recall eating in my distant past.  Flavor-wise, I’m not gonna say that I was blown away by the pumpkin-y goodness, but it was in there … sort of.  The aroma was actually kind of dull, whereas I was expecting the energy of a brown sugar cinnamon flavor (that was always my favorite), but instead delivering more of a sweet pumpkin flavor than cinnamon in each bite.

Conclusion: Archer Farms tends to be sort of hit-or-miss when it comes to their pumpkin products, but like I said earlier, they also happen to put out considerably more products than just about anyone else.  That said, I wasn’t particularly thrilled with this one, but I certainly appreciate the effort – it seems like a warm bowl of pumpkin oatmeal to wake you up on a chilly morning should be a no-brainer!

Initial Reaction: They listened!  They really listened!!!

Admission: Ok, well maybe not, but still – whatever works to get us more pumpkin, am I right?!

Delivery on Expectations: Extremely well, actually!  I was a little concerned that frozen waffles may not carry as much flavor as I tend to prefer from pumpkin particulars, but in fact, Eggo’s contribution to our autumnal morning feast actually fared quite impressively, bringing a strong nuance to the table that blended quite well when slathered in syrup in a manner such as you see above!  Just as yummy as the picture implies, you’ll enjoy many a delicious morning with this easy favorite…

Gift: Along with a frying pan to prove that they actually read my weekly humor column, this year my in-laws also included a pumpkin bread mix that they found in one of their grocery stores up in New York. This is the review of that bread mix…

“Additional Ingredients”: I couldn’t help but chuckle when I started reading through the instructions on the back of the box, though … eggs – check, vegetable oil – check, water – check, canned pumpkin?! Wait a minute … so if I’m adding the pumpkin myself, what’s left in the box that actually makes this a pumpkin bread mix???

Then again, I suppose just calling it “Small box of flour that I guess you could make pumpkin bread, or banana bread, or really just about any kind of bread out of” might not be the best approach from a marketing standpoint!

The Results: Not too impressive, actually – definitely ranks lower than the Pillsbury version. I mean, there’s a vague pumpkinicity, but you really have to squint to find the flavor, and I prefer my pumpkin bread a bit more moist than Dassant’s turned out to be, too. It was fine bread, but nothing very special from a pumpkin perspective…

But then again, I suppose all of that’s actually really my fault, now isn’t it?! Seeing as I’m the one who brought the pumpkin to this party and all!

Next on Deck: Dassant Premium Apple Pie Kit, just add your own apples and you’re golden!

Programming Note: I had actually wanted to feature these little bad boys last year when I had first gotten tipped off to their sudden appearance on grocery store shelves around the country, however there was a misunderstanding and by the time I circled back to them, I couldn’t find them anymore.  So needless to say, you can’t even imagine my joyous surprise when I found a couple boxes of these hidden at the back of the shelf when I was perusing my local Target the other day!

Best Breakfast Pasty Ever: What can I say?  I grew up on Pop-Tarts, so this was an incredibly easy sell for me!  My all-time favorite was always the chocolate fudge kind, but I was also partial to the cinnamon sugar and frosted cherry ones … and also s’mores, and chocolate graham cracker, and well, you get the idea!  There are just so many awesome different flavors of Pop-Tarts, it seemed obvious that there should eventually be a pumpkin variety amongst the frosted masses, and thankfully as of last fall, the fine folks at Kellogg’s finally came to their senses and gave us pumpkin people what we all so passionately wanted!

The Actual Taste: A sweet breakfast treat that will leave you longing for even more pumpkin deliciousness throughout the day, these Pop-Tarts were very true to living out the pumpkin pie flavor which the box depicts in such a whimsical, happily autumnal manner!  It’s like they took an entire pie and just crammed it into each individual pastry, and very similar to how strong the flavors in my also beloved cherry Pop-Tarts are, I was quite pleased with the flavor and only wished that they could fit more than two of them into one of the silvery wrappers…

Be Prepared to Search Far & Wide: If there’s but a single downside to these awesome pumpkin offerings, though, it’s simply that when they say Limited Edition, they’re not kidding around with these ones!  I’ve scoured the Pop-Tart shelves of pretty much every one of our local grocery stores and both years I was only able to find them at Target, so keep that in mind when you’re out hunting for a box of your own.  It got to the point where I was almost thinking about ordering an entire case of them from a seller on Amazon, but thankfully they did turn up eventually and it didn’t have to come to that!

Admission of Guilt: I’m a little reluctant to post pumpkin seed products these days because admittedly they can’t really be expected to carry the same pumpkin-y flavor as their cousin that are actually made from the meaty part of the pumpkin, and I’m sure there’s an argument in there somewhere that I may have given somewhat less than stellar reviews of such items here in the past.  Still, for sanity’s sake in that old review and even this new one, too, I guess I wish that they would be more direct in saying pumpkin seeds vs. just pumpkin ________, but I digress…

Acknowledgement of Taste: Now that said, I actually did enjoy this granola from the same people who made the aforementioned granola bars for what it was worth.  Of course, it didn’t actually taste like pumpkin … which is still a hole that I firmly believe could be filled if the granola powers that be actually wanted to … however it had a nice crunch to it and I could actually see having a bowl for breakfast in the morning.*

* Except that I don’t really eat cereal for breakfast anymore these days.  When I did, my go-to varieties were Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, but I’ve yet to see pumpkin options for those two sugary snacks, either…

*ahem*: Just for the sake of saying it, if one of you big granola-making companies would just get it in gear and actually make me a Pumpkin Spice Chewy Granola Bar already, all of this could finally be over with!  I’m looking at you, Quaker Oatmeal Man…

Preface: These next couple of posts are something a little different I wanted to try in continuing my efforts of posting a little more during the pumpkin off-season. All of these recipes were found over in the Libby’s section of Nestle’s VeryBestBaking.com website, and were selected because they all boasted a super-quick turnaround time.  In fact, I was able to whip up all three of these recipes in about an hour last night, so I thought it might be interesting to see how these just add pumpkin-style recipes really stood up!

Quick Review: Although the muffins were probably the most fun to make and looked beautiful both going in and coming out of the oven, the pumpkin honestly wasn’t really even noticeable in this one.  The muffins were nice and moist, and had a faint, orange glow to them which was promising, but aside from just being really good corn muffins, this recipe fell short…

Recipe: Corn Muffins + Pumpkin (via VeryBestBaking.com)

Quick: From dry ingredients in a box to cooking in the oven in less than 5 minutes, I’d say that’s pretty quick!
Bread: My wife even liked it, and considering that she’s not exactly a fan of pumpkin … I don’t know – maybe that says something?  It was alright, but not great.  Arguably on par with the classic Pillsbury version, but not exactly comparable to a Bob Evans or something…
How Do You Pronounce “Krusteaz”?: I have absolutely no idea – the only way I even managed to spell it was because I had the photo right there to copy from!

Color: a nice, attractive golden orange – not nearly as dark as the last one of these that I tried
Fragrance: like a sweet pumpkin puree
Taste: I really enjoyed this one, and even though the maple wasn’t really distinct, if anything I think it served to add just a hint of sweetness and that ended up working really well.  I was a little concerned just from the name that the maple flavor would overwhelm or even just compete with the pumpkin, but instead it actually complimented the flavor nicely.
Where to Find It: Not with the jellys, but actually over in the bakery section on one of the racks with all of the pre-made cakes and breads and stuff that always look really good, but end up tasting like sweetened cardboard.