I went to Disneyland a couple of weekends ago and they were slowly taking down the pumpkin seasonal items and replacing them with Christmas decorations. There wasn’t much new with their fall displays; they were very similar to last year’s with only a few changes—mostly absent items.

The pumpkin candy apple was new and darling but I didn’t actually try one. The almost $9.00 price tag was probably the only thing that stopped me. I did love the “World of Color” apple that sat next to it in the display case. Our friend who works at Disneyland mentioned that they just happened to debut the Pride “World of Color” apple that morning….on the first day of Disneyland’s “unofficial” 2010 Gay Days…hmmmm, what a coincidence. In spite of the $9.00 apples that were left behind, we still had much fun. Gay Days at Disneyland is always a blast.

***Reminder: Don’t forget to enter the Pumpkin Cupcake Ornament Giveaway before November 30.

Mine was the second one. Can you tell it was supposed to be an owl?

Tonight I am busy testing recipes and perfecting my entry for the Key Ingredient contest. The guideline are to bake and submit an original cupcake recipe using squash as the key ingredient and cupcakes as the theme. All you have to do is email your recipe by midnight on November 20th to sophie@keyingredient.com. The winner will be notified on November 23rd! The grand prize is a Demy! I want to win!!!

I hate giving bad reviews. I feel guilty. Just look at the woman’s face on the package. She looks so sweet and eager to share her pumpkin cheese balls with all of us and now I have to hurt her feelings.

These are weird. They sat in the refrigerator for a few weeks while I figured out what I was going to do with them: was I supposed to just grab a ball and eat it; spread it on some type of cracker; and what type of cracker would I spread it on–maybe a saltine or gram cracker? I finally decided to just eat one.

The gram cracker coating was soft, which was disconcerting. The taste was blah. I was not impressed and I’m still confused by them. Sorry nice blond lady but Kelly’s Kitchen Pumpkin Pie Dessert Cheese Balls are not a favorite!

I have a tender special place in my heart for the Muppets.

Searching for bento ideas has left me with less inspiration and more of an inferiority complex. I mean, just look at some of these:

Happy Little Bento has some incredible bento photographs and she’s featured several pumpkin bento designs throughout the month of October. This is one of my favorites, probably because I love persimmons and never would have thought of using a persimmon to make a pumpkin.

Or how about this one from lianbento. All of her bentos are works of art.

For more pumpkin bento, have a look at this photo gallery on Flickr.

la chouette alexandre so the owl
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What a weekend! Here we are only a few weeks into Pumpkin Eatin’ Season and I’m pretty sure I’ve already found my favorite pumpkin treat of 2010. Magnolia Bakery, a staple of the New York cupcake scene, just opened their first west coast store a few weekends ago. I’d visited one of their New York stores and loved it. The aesthetic of the store is my aesthetic: bright and cheery with a giant dollop of 1950’s retro. Even their cupcakes are simply beautiful. The colors remind me of Easter pastels and their cupcake decorations are reminiscent of a sophisticated kindergarten birthday party. So cute!

How do they taste? Yummy delicious! They’re the only store-bought cupcake that truly tastes homemade to me. They keep their flavors fairly basic. Combinations of vanilla and chocolate make up the bulk of the cupcakes in the case. Lately cupcake stores, at least those in Los Angeles, pride themselves on coming up with the craziest flavor combinations: sea salt caramel, cookie dough, cosmo, watermelon, etc. Magnolia doesn’t need to overwhelm your taste buds with crazy flavors because the simplicity of their flavors allows the quality to come through.

While the cupcakes and banana pudding (equally as amazing) would have left my taste buds dancing for weeks, they also had a Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust!!! I’m always raving about the Pumpkin Bars at Creative Cakey and these are equally as good. The gingersnap crust pairs wonderfully with the creamy spiciness of the pumpkin cheesecake. These are completely craveable. I’m drooling right now just thinking about them.

If you’re not near Los Angeles or New York, you can pick up the second book from Magnolia Bakery, More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey’s Home Kitchen, which has the Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust recipe. I can’t wait to try it at home because the only thing that would have made it any better would be a little more salt in the crust.

I’m beginning to think I’m an east coast girl trapped on the west coast. I would choose Magnolia Bakery over Sprinkles any day—not to mention Five Guys over In-N-Out.

Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipes
I have enjoyed several recipes from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipe blog and was looking forward to making the pumpkin cheesecake. This recipe seemed perfect: pumpkin and guilt-free dessert. I’d tried making a similar recipe before minus the pumpkin and was not impressed. Still, my hopes were high. However, the cream cheese was just too strong and tangy. We didn’t finish our slice. Maybe next time we’ll add more pumpkin and lighten up the density with some fat-free whipped cream

Pumpkin & Corn Fritters by Emeril Lagasse
I haven’t eaten many fritters before or I might have know better than to have made this recipe. Essentially these are like a savory pumpkin bread with corn added and then fried. A more realistic name would have been fried pumpkin corn bread. They did have some good flavor but they were just too much. It needed some kind of sour cream chipotle sauce…actually any sauce would have been an improvement. I ate a few of these but most of them went in the trash. Savory fried bread balls are not my thing. However, these Golden Ricotta Pumpkin Fritters sound like a delicious improvement and so do these pumpkin banana fritters.

Pumpkin Waffles by the Pumpkin Waffles Blog
We have also been pumpkin waffle making fools lately and I really do mean fools. The first batch of these pumpkin waffles that I got from a recipe at the aptly named Pumpkin Waffle Blog turned out CRAZY BAD. They were runny and thin and I couldn’t get them to cook without burning in the middle. I had no doubt that I’d done something wrong. Trying out a new recipe early on a Saturday morning without taking the time to drink a cup of coffee beforehand is a bad idea. I gave them another try a couple of weeks later and they were completely delicious. They have the Pumpkin Passion Seal of Approval. Yummmm!

Pumpkin Bread by the Polka Dot Cottage
Hands down, my favorite pumpkin recipe we tried over this past Pumpkin Eatin’ Season was the Pumpkin Bread recipe over at Polka Dot Cottage. I swear that I would not be eligible for a spot on the Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America”–btw, I HEART Rachel Coleman. I can be a pretty decent cook when I try but I almost messed this recipe up too. I didn’t read that this was a recipe for two loaves, instead of the one gigantic loaf I tried to make. Luckily I realized my mistake shortly after putting it in the oven. I quickly took out the full loaf pan and took out enough batter to make 12 gigantic Costco muffins in addition to the one loaf. Even with this mistake the bread and muffins came out wonderfully. We’ve made this recipe several times and have frozen and thawed the second loaf without being able to tell that it wasn’t freshly baked. It’s moist and delicious. I highly recommend trying this recipe all year long. In fact, I think I’ll make some more this weekend!

Here’s a perfect example of my biggest pumpkin related pet peeve.

What exactly is pumpkin about these Pop Rocks? The orange color? Basketballs are orange too. Why not call these Basketball Pop Rocks? Or maybe Clown Fish Pop Rocks? Yum!

Just because you slap an awkward looking pumpkin on the wrapper doesn’t make this a cool seasonal item. Next time, try pumpkin flavored Pop Rocks. Those would be awesome!

A special thank you to our regularly featured Pumpkin Passion hand model, Shannon. We use her services regularly because she’s free, which is probably the reason why she can’t afford hand lotion. Dang! Those are some dry looking fingers! Love you!

Have you ever been to Rutabegorz? It’s a delicious vegetarian friendly restaurant with a funny name. Unfortunately there are only 3 locations and they are all located in Orange County, CA: Fullerton, Orange, and Tustin. Their food is generally healthy but substantial and their menu is extensive. Their salad are amazing and are served in a substantially sized mixing bowl—they’re huge—and their salad dressings are unique and taste homemade.

I’ve been going here for almost 20 years and the food has remained excellent. There are so many great moments I’ve had at Rutabegorz. I met Nomy Lamm at the Fullerton location. She asked my friend and I over to her table and we ended up having dinner with her. It was a memorable night. Mostly, this is my favorite restaurant because it’s where my wife and I had our first date. I suggested we meet there (just in case she was a serial killer) and she was impressed because it was one of her favorite restaurants too. Ahhh…

We went to Rutabegorz again last month and they were in full pumpkin motion. They had pumpkin hummus (only $1), pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin beer (only $2). We tried all of it but the beer. The pumpkin hummus was quickly gobbled up but the soup was not a favorite. It was too tasteless and there were canned mushrooms it, blah! The pumpkin cookie tasted like half of a whoopie without the frosting center. Their pumpkin items weren’t their best items but I still love the place.