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…

Can you believe that it’s that time again already?!

I realized that the time was near when I came across this perky display of orange smiles adorning an entire aisle at Target earlier this evening … after eight long months of pumpkin-sparse grocery shelves, finally we’re entering back into that all too short couple of months when yours and my own personal seasonal favorite will be popping up in various shapes and forms once again!

And it’s because of this that I need your help…

As you would imagine after writing about pumpkins for 4 years and just over 150 posts, sometimes it’s a bit tough to find new items that I haven’t yet reviewed before.  Because a good number of companies tend to re-use the same products year after year, the search becomes more demanding each year, and that’s why here in year #4 of this goofy, little blog of mine, I come humbly asking for your assistance to help me make 2011 the most unique and unusual pumpkin year ever!

It’s pretty simple, really – just keep an eye out for anything pumpkin like you read about on this site, and if you come across something that I haven’t written about yet, drop me a line via this convenient form (or even hit me up on the Twitter!).  For a regional reference, I live in Central Florida, so there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to find what you found, but hey, at this point frankly I’ll take any leads that you’re able to give me!

And by the way, that also goes for stuff you may find online as well!  I do find myself having to turn to mail order on occasion when I simply can’t locate a particularly sought out item here locally, so as long as the shipping costs aren’t absolutely crazy, mail order is most definitely fair game, too.

I’ll take whatever you can find – chocolates, teas and coffees, brownies, pies, cakes … you name it!  You guys should know by now that if it’s even slightly orange and mentions the word pumpkin on the label, I’m happy to post about it in the name of all things pumpkin, so help a fellow aficionado out and let’s make 2011 the best pumpkin year ever!

Manly Caveat: Guys, you ever find yourself walking around one of those scented soap and body lotion stores without a single electronics store nearby in sight to take refuge in?  Once we’ve made our rounds and giggled at all of the peculiar-flavored scents there’s really not much left to occupy our wandering minds … that is, until we find something that interests us for a change…

The Choice: So as you can see in the picture, Basin actually had two different pumpkin shower soaps here for me to choose from – on the left, shampoo bars, and on the right were conditioner bars. I ended up choosing the former merely out of curiosity as to how one would actually wash their hair with a bar of soap!

The Shower: Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad and lathered up pretty nice, filling my shower with an avalanche of pumpkin spice that made waking up slightly easier than normal!  Giving it the old college try, I used it for about a week straight, ultimately stopping because it honestly got hard to tell if it was actually cleaning my hair or not.  That, and it was kind of a pain to rinse out, in that on my last day I somehow managed to lather up all over again outside the shower upon putting my hair gel in, despite thinking that I had gotten it all out.  Oops…

FWIW: I’m pretty sure there are supposed to be some all natural benefits to using this shampoo as well, but hey – I was a guy in a soap store, so some of that stuff may have gone a bit over my head!  I did later notice some other pumpkin hand soaps at another Basin location (the shampoo was from the Downtown Disney location, however later on in the weekend we also visited the one in the Grand Floridian), so we’ll see if I happen to wander by there again while these things are still in season.  It’s fairly likely – my wife does adore their bath bombs…

…and body lotions, and bath salts…

I wonder how long it’ll take Cleo to chew her way through this collection of Halloween delights???

We were over at Disney World yesterday evening and amidst a billion other pins in Pin Traders at Downtown Disney, I was a little surprised to come across a whole slew of these…

Granted, they also had some random Christmas pins, so it was tough to tell if these are preemptive for this year or just random strays from Halloweens past, but still … any pumpkin sightings at all in July are a rare thing!

Simplicity: These are just a little something I came up with on a whim when I was making all of those other simple pumpkin recipes a couple of weeks ago and ended up with a little leftover pumpkin – I basically just scooped up about a dozen or so tablespoon-sized clumps of pumpkin into a tupperware dish and then froze them overnight, and Cleo absolutely loves them.  Granted, she loves just about anything that she can fit in her mouth, but it’s nice to have something a little different to treat her with every now and then, and something that’s actually healthy for her to boot!

Caveat: One thing I discovered early on with these is that as much as she tries not to leave anything behind, they do tend to want to stain our nice white carpet if she sets them on the floor while she’s licking them.  I try to give them to her in a bowl, but she’ll almost immediately pluck them out if she can and move over to the carpet because they won’t slide around as much there!  Probably best to make these an outdoor treat unless you’re willing to follow behind diligently with the bottle of stain remover…

Quick Review: This one, on the other hand, was my least favorite … and not just because it more resembled the guts inside of a pumpkin when I took the cover off the pot on the stove!  I’m not sure if it was the particular kind of rice that I used, but while tasting pumpkin-y, it was also very dry and grainy and I honestly only ate a couple of bites before pitching the rest and grabbing another muffin instead…

Recipe: Brown Rice + Pumpkin (via VeryBestBaking.com)

Quick Review: Now as far as pumpkin representation is concerned, this one was by far my favorite.  I’ve been eating a lot of applesauce with my lunches lately in an effort to lose some weight and I could definitely see making up a jar of this variety to enjoy as my fruit serving each day!  I actually ended up using Mott’s Cinnamon Applesauce, with complimented the pumpkin nicely and gave an extra sweetness to the combination.

Recipe: Applesauce + Pumpkin (via VeryBestBaking.com)

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)

(I won’t do posts for every single kind of these because I’m pretty sure I’ve already said everything that a human has to say about them, but I did find it kind of neat to see an entire line of puppy treats centered around pumpkin!  If only us humans were so lucky…)