Pumpkin Tart (not mass produced)

The favorite restaurant of Mr. & Mrs. Fido L. Pumpkinboy is a little French Restaurant called Saint Emilion in Fort Worth. We try and visit at least a couple of times a year. The service and atmosphere are wonderful and the food is fantastic.
We went last Saturday to celebrate our anniversary. They make a fabulous pesto gnocchi and were surprised by how good the New England Skate Wing (as in one of those ray-fish things) tasted.
The best part was when they told us the desserts. Normally I get a Brandy Alexander, but tonight, they had a pumpkin tart. And since I was eager to forget the Archer Farms Pumpkin Tart from last year, this was an easy decision.

The tart came out on a plate covered in a light raspberry glaze. At first, I wasn't sure the raspberry glaze was needed or even wanted, but it really added to the dessert. The crust was light, not to thick, and practically melted away in your mouth. The tart was a bit tart, but not very much, and it was a very creamy pumpkin flavor with a strong yet not-overpowering pumpkin spice flavor. The raspberry glaze really did enhance the entire thing as did the rich whipped cream. This cream, I'm sure, was made from scratch in the kitchen and did not come out of a spray bottle or plastic tub. I can honestly say that this tart tasted better and better with each successive bite.

Fabulous! 5 out of 5 pumpkins.

Pumpkin Chocolate

Another Central Market find, this is Bissinger's Pumpkin Bark - Milk Chocolate Swirled with Real Pumpkin. All Natural no less.

It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. It tastes like chocolate, it tastes like pumpkin... all swirled together. Verrry Tasty! It's not perfect though... it has this odd aroma and initial flavor, kinda chalky. But it's not bad and the taste of this confection more than makes up for it. It's smooth and has a creamy pumpkin flavor that isn't forced or fake. Love it!

It's also available for purchase direct from Bissinger's website if you don't have a Central Market. This one really is a can't miss.

Odwalla Pumpkin Protein Soymilk Drink

I'm not big on crazy protein drinks. I like to chew my protein, normally. But, since I am contractually obligated to try ANYTHING and EVERYTHING made with pumpkin or tasting like pumpkin, I had to give this one a shot.

Odwalla makes all sorts of crazy produce and protein liquids. I don't know how any of them taste, and I don't think I'm interested in trying any of the others. The Pumpkin Protein honestly wasn't bad, but I am not a soy person. If you do like soy, rock on.

I gave this a shot before a soccer match. Not having had a soy drink before, I didn't know what to expect. The front end wasn't very good. The weird thing is, the AFTERTASTE had a fairly nice pumpkin flavor. Once you got past the kinda chalky soy taste, there was a surprising pumpkin treat.

I don't know if it helped my soccer game or not (we lost).

Final Analysis: If you just like pumpkin, this probably isn't recommended. If you like soymilk, you'll probably enjoy far more than I did. 2 out of 5 pumpkins.

Pumpkin Gingersnaps Parfait

If you don't have a Central Market near you, then you should move to a place that has one. CM rocks. They have a great selection of organic, natural foods, fresh meats, fish and produce, a massive wine and beer section that outdoes most liquor stores AND they cook delicious foods on site. The bakery is no exception. Forget Wal-mart... those low wage lard frosting cake makers have nothing on CM.

Among the already numerous things I've found already this year at CM is this parfait is fanamatastic. Imagine a pumpkin pie, whipped into light, fluffy goodness and layered with whipped cream. Now imagine that that pie had a gingerbread crust and the crust is mixed in with the pumpkin. Awesome! 5 out of 5 pumpkins!

Now, I will have to experiment with trying to make an actual pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust.

Homemade Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin bread might be second only to pumpkin pie as the most common pumpkin treat. Typically, I'm not going to review every pie and bread that I find since they are most likely (unless I'm told otherwise) going to be slight variations on the same recipe, if not made from a kit (Hello, Libby's).

However, when I'm at Richardson's Health Foods in Fort Worth buying my latest batch of raw meat for the dogs and I see a small ziploc bag at the counter with a price tag of $1.50 and the bag contains pumpkin bread, I must say I am intrigued. The employee who was ringing me up told me it was all natural and made by some woman who brought it in the day before. Fresh, all natural, homemade pumpkin bread. I don't know what exactly is in this or if it's fresh pumpkin (not from a can), but it was pretty tasty. Very moist with a solid pumpkin spice flavor. I never felt like I needed milk or beer or other liquid to wash it down. It wasn't sticky... it just melted in my mouth. Well worth $1.50.

Ring the bell! It's Pumpkin season!

Welcome Fall!

Today being the first day of Autumn, I'm finally getting off my rear end and adding a new entry.

Last week, a friend of mine alerted me to the newest in pumpkin flavored tastiness:

Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses! Yum!

Lately, Hershey's has felt the need to make their signature kisses in a variety of different flavors (the neopolitan ones are better than they sound) and so this time around, they've captured the flavor of pumpkin pie in a tiny confection and wrapped it in foil.

These kisses are soft, as opposed to the solid chocolate original kiss, and Mrs. Pumpkinboy thought they were melty and so we've been storing them in the refridgerator. They have a pretty good color (a orange/tan blend... thankfully not some bright orange color that just screams "PUMPKIN" at you).

They have a lot of flavor for such a small piece of candy. They're fairly rich too, so if you aren't head over heels in love with pumpkin flavor, it might be a tad overpowering. I loved 'em, however; it's like a little pumpkin pie you can eat anywhere.

A few of us at work have decided that these would be fantastic in a shortbread or sugar thumprint cookie. It would really seem like a mini-pumpkin pie or pumpkin tart. Perhaps I will try that.

4 1/2 out of 5 pumpkins

Doritos Collisions: Pizza Cravers & Ranch

I love Doritos and will try almost any flavor they put out. Lately, they've been throwing out these "Collisions" where they put two flavors in one bag. It's interesting, but also disappointing since if you are only interested in one flavor, you have to go through a bag with a second flavor. Most of the time, the flavors start running together anyway so it's not really 2 flavors in one bag, more like 1 weirdo flavor in 1 bag.
I first tried the collisions because that's the only way I can get my beloved Taco flavored Doritos (collisioned with the uninspiring chipotle ranch).
Now they have Pizza Cravers/Ranch.
The Pizza Cravers are essentially the old Pizza Hut flavored Doritos from around 1996. They're fine, but largely taste like a combination of almost all of the available seasonings in the Dorito arsenal. Then there's Ranch. Not "Cool Ranch" or "Chipotle Ranch"... just "Ranch." Who at Dorito Central said "Ya know, we've done every kind of 'Ranch' we can think of... except 'Ranch', so let's just do that!" Plain ol' Ranch differs from the classic Cool Ranch in that it lacks some punch. It tastes like a mild ranch and just kind of sits there on your tongue waiting for something else to happen. Much like High School, the Cool kids are far more interesting than the plain ol' kids.


Not overly impressive at any rate. I think I'll stick to the Taco chips. Perhaps I'll start eating the Taco only and sending the Chipotle Ranch back to Frito Lay with a note saying "These could have been Taco in my bag instead of this uninspiring blah!"