Whataburger Fried Pumpkin Pie

Today's pumpkin entry is the Whataburger Fried Pumpkin Pie.
Whataburger makes some tasty food that will make any dietitian or nutritionist fly into an uncontrolled rage. The line of fried pies is no exception.
You can typically get apple or maybe cherry and sometimes they have lemon. For the fall season this year, they have pumpkin.
I was quite excited when a co-worker told me about them. So, we went to Whataburger for lunch, mostly to try the pie.
Well, the pie was.... okay. It was fried, it was hot, and it was not quite what I was expecting. The pumpkin pie filling was not so amazing... it was too liquid-y and didn't have a strong flavor. Plus, it was still way to hot, even after a good 15 minute cool off period while I ate the rest of lunch.
Still, if you are at Whataburger, it's worth trying. If you are driving around and need pumpkin, it'll do. Is it the greatest dessert invention ever. No.
3 out of 5 pumpkins.

Creamy Pumpkin Curry Soup

Today's pumpkin thing is actually a recipe I got from some stupid calendar they gave us at work. It's Creamy Pumpkin Curry Soup. It's not too difficult to make (other than chopping the onions and garlic... burn!). It tasted okay, but I have to admit, I really am not a soup guy. I like chili and stews, but for whatever reason, eating liquid with a spoon just doesn't appeal to me. I will say that I enjoyed it more as a Creamy Pumpkin Curry Sauce that I poured over chicken and veggies. For my taste though, I think I'd like it a little less creamy. I don't think I'm done with this one... perhaps some tweaking and experimenting is in order. I'm giving it 2 out of 5 pumpkins, but that's largely because I think the "creamy" and "soup" parts got in the way.
If anybody wants the recipe.... let me know.

Archer Farms Holiday Nog: Pumpkin Spice Milk

Today's pumpkin treat is absolutely fanamatastic! I can tell you a straight up 5 pumpkins right now.

Archer Farms Holiday Nog: Pumpkin Spice Milk. This is awesome! Smooth and creamy with a dandy pumpkin flavor. Perfect for making your Cheerios a little more exciting or just a nice treat after another stupid day at work. Buy a bunch of it and spike it with rum or some other spirit and never leave the house. Available at Target.

Pumpkin beer plus one "bonus"

Today's pumpkin entry is actually 4 entries. 4 "pumpkin" beers to be exact. 3 of these were from last year. The thing about pumpkin beers is that they really don't taste like pumpkin. They're MADE with pumpkin, but they don't much taste like pumpkin. Regardless, I keep trying.

Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale (Anheuser-Busch) 5.5% - "Ale Brewed with only the Finest Barley Malt, The Choicest Hops, Pumpkin and spices." Pretty much a typical pumpkin ale. Taste like an ale with some stuff in it. Not bad, but there are better beers if this isn't gonna taste like pumpkin.

The Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale - No % listed and a warning sign: "MALT Beverage with pumpkin spice added." It's been a year since I had this, but the memories are coming back.... this tasted like soda water with some pumpkin flavoring. It actually tasted like pumpkin, but lacked any beer qualities that I pretty much disqualified this one. The artwork on the label is quite entertaining, though.

Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale (Blue Moon Seasonal Collection) 5.6% - "The flavor of vine ripened pumpkin & spices with traditional crystal malt." This is the one I got this year. It's a good beer (but then, I just like the Blue Moon line), but again, not a major pumpkin flavor explosion. I'd recommend it for parties just to go with the theme, but if you want a seasonal to just drink at home, try the Blue Moon Winter Ale.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale 7% - "A full-bodied brown ale brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon & nutmeg." If you are at all familiar with the Dogfish Head line of beer, then you know that it is made up of beers that are heavy on flavor and heavy on alcohol. This one fits the bill. To be honest, I don't remember exactly how this one tasted, but I can remember that I felt quite relaxed after drinking it. Pumpkin flavor or not, shotgun one of these and you'll have no problem going to sleep.

The "bonus" beer is not a pumpkin beer, rather, it is the beer that was unanimously voted at the Chris & Liesl Logan Beer Tasting Festival as THE WORST BEER EVER!!!!
This is the Left Hand Brewing Company's Milk Stout. There is no alcohol percentage listed, but I can tell you that it isn't enough, whatever the hell it is. I bought this with the intention of of maybe winning best beer or weirdest. I like stout and I like milk stout and I thought, hmmmm.... this looks interesting. Plus, there's a cow with hand-print spots on the label. That cow wouldn't steer me wrong (no pun intended).
That cow drove me into the biggest cow patty ever ejected from bovine buttocks. A general consensus was that the beer tasted like an ashtray. As such, it easily won worst beer and I earned the prize of a book about the "most evil" people in history.
It was my own fault. I broke rules regarding good beer selection. Mainly, NEVER BUY A DOMESTIC STOUT! I don't care what you think it might taste like, if it was made by some hippie indie brewer in the US, then it's crap. Period.

Archer Farms Pumpkin Tart (with side of beer)

Today's pumpkin review is for the Archer Farms 4" Pumpkin Tart. Found this one in the Target bakery for $2.99. It's 6 oz of tasty pumpkin goodness (with dollop of cream and a chocolate stick). Don't look at the Nutrition Facts (especially since this thing is supposed to serve 2).
It has a good pumpkin flavor but I can't say this is fanamatastic since it largely tastes like a mini-pumpkin pie with extra crust (not that I mind... I like crust). It was good and I'd recommend it, but it isn't the pumpkin find of the year. 4 out of 5 pumpkins.
An aside: it went quite well with the Blue Moon Winter Ale (Target was out of the BM Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale, which will be reviewed later). Both were consumed while watching another dandy episode of Reaper.

Stop! Pumpkin Time!

Well, it's pumpkin season again. This year, I fully intend on doing a better job of reporting all of the tasty pumpkin treats. So far this year, there has been a new pumpkin beer, pumpkin pudding, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin tart, pumpkin milk, and pumpkin curry soup. I have a pumpkin cake recipe to try and some pumpkin cream cheese in the fridge. Reviews will follow as time allows.

If you happen to find a pumpkin flavored something, let me know so I can try it.

Blah, Blah, Pumpkin, Blah, Blah!

Pictured here are some strange treat called "Pumpkin Dreams" or some such nonsense. They are a roundish bite sized ball that has some sort of cookie type inside and covered by a powdered sugar and spice outside. These aren't too bad. They have a lot of flavor, pumpkin and other assorted spices. The problem is that they are waaaaay too rich. One is plenty. Not like in a candy corn kind of way, but it's just that one of them is so strong that you can really only eat one and then wait a week before eating another.

3 pumpkins. Good flavor, too strong to eat more than one.