Pumpkin Passion

Name: Kashi’s TLC Fruit & Grain Bars in Pumpkin Pie
Purchased At: Target
Price: $5ish
Availability: Year Round

Finding pumpkin products on the shelf of my supermarket in the month of May is always a little strange but nice. This was true of Kashi’s TLC Fruit & Grain Bars in Pumpkin Pie. I wasn’t that surprised to find them in Spring because Kashi also has a year-round TLC Crunchy Granola Bars in Pumpkin Spice Flax (omg, how many names can a company give one granola bar), which I like but think the pumpkin flavor was nearly nonexistent—it seems like more than a stretch to call them “pumpkin spice.”

This previous experience squelched my excitement to try the TLC Fruit & Grain Bars in Pumpkin Pie but I figured I give them a shot. After all, pumpkin products in May are slim pickings. The wife tried them first and gave it a poor verbal review. She thought the top layer was a strange texture and the flavor was all wrong. I was subsequently even less excited and left them in the cupboard for weeks before a search for garbanzo beans turned them up again.

Begrudgingly I ate one at my desk at work in a moment of 3 o’clock hunger. After all, it’s a healthy snack back with only 120 calories but they’re so not worth it. Yuck!

From the picture on the box you can see that these bars are in two layers. The first is a dry oat layer and the second is a spongeier layer-of-mystery with pecans on top. I have no idea what the mystery layer is about. It’s somewhere in texture between a very firm jell-o and a nonsticky caramel but tastes similar to licking a cinnamon stick. The picture on the box also shows a generous amount of pecans on the top layer of the bar. In reality there’s only about 5 small pieces of pecans stuck into the top layer.

I’m beginning to think that Kashi considers “pumpkin” to be synonymous with cinnamon. I checked to see if there possibly some pumpkin seeds in the bar. I’ll forgive a product that tastes nothing like pumpkin if it includes pumpkin seed–the seeds don’t have a very distinctive flavor. The check turned up actual pumpkin puree and dried pumpkin but both were down towards the bottom of the ingredient list.

Rating: I give it a 1 out of 5. However, I will finish off the box so they must not be entirely disgusting.

I found this treasure in my inbox a few days ago. Now if I could just find it in my grocer’s freezer! Here’s the word from the Ben & Jerry’s website:

Fall is right around the corner. Doesn’t it make you start craving foods like apple cider, butternut squash, and Pumpkin Cheesecake!? That’s right!

This favorite seasonal flavor can be found in select retail stores for a limited time.

It seems as if others are just as eager for the return of fall and pumpkins as I am. Comments have increase this month and I appreciate every one of them.

Also, people have been sending me some interesting looking pumpkin finds. Coincidentally, they’ve both been found in other countries.

The first is from Kat who found Pumpkin Beef flavored Soup mix at a grocery store in Barbados. It’s from a company out of Jamaica called Grace. I’m not sure if she tried it or not but this website describes it as “This spicy noodle soup is great eaten by itself or to enhance the flavor of your favorite beef, chicken or vegetable soup.”

Another PumpkinPassion.com visitor, Randy, pointed out a Japanese product Pumpkin Pretz. When he first mentioned them I thought of Pumpkin Pocky, which are like a stick cookie dipped in chocolate. But the Pretz sound more like a savory cracker rather than a cookie. Randy describes them by saying, “I spend a fair amount of time in Japan and found a crunchy snack treat called ‘Pretz’. Along with regular flavors such as basil, and tomato, they make a pumpkin version as well. The taste was curious to me at first and I thought maybe I didn’t like it. But after chowing down a few, I could not put them down so easily.”

I’ll have to go on the hunt for both of these soon.

Name: Pumpkin Pie Flavored Jelly Belly Beans
Purchased At: Oak Glen, CA
Price: Forgotten Again!
Availability: Seasonal but I found them in July

I adore me some Shannon! She found me a community that’s practically stuck in the fall season the whole year round. It’s the community of Oak Glen, CA. Located in the San Bernardino Mountains, Oak Glen is primarily a series of apple farms.

In the fall months, you can pick your own apples right off the trees and shop for a ton of country related nic-nac crap at the many gift shops. Most of the points of interest are open only in the fall months but others remain open continuously.

The great thing about a Fall obsessed community is that there’s plenty of homage given to our favorite squash-like fruit, the pumpkin. In fact, at the very first orchard that you come to while traveling up Oak Glen Road has an entire section of its store dedicated to the pumpkin.

It was here that I came across the Pumpkin Pie flavored Jelly Belly beans. I later found out that these are a seasonal item but I guess they had some left over from the 2007 Pumpkin Eatin’ Season, which could explain why they were so blah. The flavor was off, tasting very artificial but mostly not tasting at all. They made me sad. I finally find a pumpkin product in the middle of July and we didn’t even finish the tiny bag that we bought.

I’ll be back to Oak Glen in the fall and hopefully there will be more and better pumpkin finds.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Name: Pumpkin Cheesecake Caramels
Purchased At: Olives Gourmet Grocers
Price: $8.99 a pound
Availability: Seasonal

I purchased these in the evening when it was much too dark to take a picture for blogging posterity purposes. By the morning I had only 3 little Pumpkin Cheesecake Caramels left.

These were quite yummy! The pumpkin factor was strong and the originality of the flavor combinations was high. They really did taste like pumpkin and cheesecake.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be seeing these again until next October.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Yogurt? This is the first year that I’ve found pumpkin pie flavored yogurt. Pumpkin stuff that I can have for breakfast is always a welcome surprise.

Name: Archer Farms Pumpkin Pie Yogurt
Purchased At: Target
Price: about $1.00
Availability: Seasonal

The Archer Farms yogurt was fairly benign. It had a tacky sticky texture that was slightly unsettling and the flavor was extremely sour. The pumpkin pie flavor was there but the tacky texture and sour tang overpowered any yummy pumpkin taste.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Name: Lucerne Pumpkin Pie Yogurt
Purchased At: Vons Grocery Store
Price: about $1.00
Availability: Seasonal

The Lucerne yogurt was much better. This is your basic yogurt, slight tang and creamy texture. I enjoyed it. The pumpkin taste wasn’t overpowered and could therefore shine through.

Rating: 3 out of 5

We had a pumpkin decorating contest at work yesterday and this one was mine:

I never said that I have a LOVE of decorating pumpkins ;0)

Name: Spiced Pumpkin Soup
Purchased At: Olives Gourmet Grocer in Long Beach, CA
Price: $5.99
Availability: Seasonal

I love Olives Gourmet Grocer! Their food is freaking delicious and with their being a lack of places to eat near where I live Olives gets many of my $$$. It’s not cheap but it’s all sooo worth it. They are similar to Whole Food, which we don’t have in the LBC, but MUCH smaller. Their sandwiches ROCK and so do their desserts, especially the chocolate chip cookies.

So, I was very happy to see this Spiced Pumpkin Soup on their shelves. I saw it in January but had never seen it before nor since. I’d already ordered my turkey and brie sandwich on olive bread when I saw it.

The soup did not displease :0) It was creamy and tasted like pumpkin but could also passed for a creamy carrot soup. There was a strong nutmeg flavor but it went well with the flavor.

I’m not a big fan of creamy soups. I prefer mine with some big chunks of noodles and vegetables. However this soup was quite good. Olives has yet to disappoint.

Olives is located at 3510 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803

Rating: 8 out of 10

Name: McCutcheon’s Pumpkin Butter
Purchased At: Not Sure
Price: ?
Availability: Year Round

Mmmm, pumpkin butter. I love this stuff. It’s like spreading pumpkin joy on ordinary every-day food. You can use it on toast, waffles, bagels, and even turkey sandwiches! It’s mucho less fat that butter and it quickly satisfies a pumpkin pie craving.

McCutcheon’s Pumpkin Butter is particularly tasty. At first bite it weirded me out a little because of the texture. It tastes SOO much like pumpkin pie that I expected it to have a firmer texture. Runny pumpkin pie doesn’t sound good but it sure does taste good.

This stuff has a nice mixture of spices and pumpkin flavor. Give it a try. Seriously, try a little on a turkey sandwich it’ll remind you of a late night Thanksgiving snack.

I got this item as a gift so I’m not certain of the price or the location where it was bought but I do know that it was purchased somewhere near the Gigantic Duck in Flanders, NY.

Rating: 9 out of 10
A little less sweet would be nice

Name: Clif Bar-Spiced Pumpkin Pie
Purchased At: Trader Joe’s
Price: $.99
Availability: Seasonal

Nutrition bars are not my favorite food. They typically taste bland and have a chemical-like aftertaste that I’m assuming are vitamins. I’ve tasted a different Clif Bar flavor before and thought it was tasty but overly sweet. So, I purchased this as an impulse item while waiting for the cashier at Trader Joe’s.

The bar was surprisingly yummy. It didn’t taste overly sweet; posses a sawdust texture; or taste chemically, even though it does have 100% of the daily recommended amount of Vitamin A & E, with plenty of Zinc, Magnesium and lots of other good stuff. The bar is crunchy and chewy with a very thin white chocolate-like coating on top. The ingredients are all organic, mostly brown rice and rolled oats.

The pumpkin taste is not strong but pumpkin doesn’t naturally have a strong taste. Dried pumpkin is fifth on the ingredient list but I’m not complaining. The bar if filling, tasty and has enough pumpkin to let you know that it’s there but it isn’t so strong that you know it’s an artificial flavor.

I’m still surprised at how much I liked it and I’d purchase it again if I was going camping or hiking and needy a satisfying snack. There’s a few too many calories (245 per bar) and carbohydrates (45) to make it a frequent snack.

In total, it’s nice.

Rating: 8 out of 10