Sometimes Foodie, Search results for: pumpkin

Pumpkin Ravioli - Aldi : Medford, NJ

We’re almost at the end of my pumpkin stash, only 2 more items to go!

I have had pumpkin based pasta before, but not ravioli. Reading the bag I wasn’t sure if these were meant to be a sweet, or savory item. The bag mentions has a recipe on the back for a brown sugar pecan sauce to serve them with, so I think this might be on the sweet side.

The picture on the bag is….well…gross. I am sorry, but that sauce on top looks disgusting! I think it is supposed to be the suggest brown sugar pecan topping.

The ravioli are frozen, so they really had no smell, even when cooked the aroma was hidden inside the little pockets of pasta.

When I cut the ravioli open, the inside looked like ricotta cheese mixed with pumpkin pie filling.

What little smell the filling did have, was quite sweet. I don’t think any additional sugars were added, but ricotta cheese has a sweet flavor on it’s own. So my adding the sweet, nutty, pumpkin and spices…these turned into a mild dessert treat.

I might see if these can be paired with tomato sauce later tonight, since I love the pumpkin salsa.

These ravioli are interesting, and quite different, but I don’t think this is something I would buy again next year.

On a pumpkin-y scale of 1-5 (5 being extremely pumpkin-y) I would rate this a 2.5.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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In case any of you plan on making that pumpkin spiced syrup, here is a Pumpkin Syrup label I made that is available for free-use. Download it HERE

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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sometimesfoodie:

Please vote in my poll to help decide the fate of the rest of my PUMPKIN items.

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO VOTE!

Today marks the end of PUMPKIN WEEK 2 (~~Electric~~ ~~Booglaoo~~) so starting Monday I will either keep on posting pumpkin-y goodness, or mix non-pumpkin posts in with the pumpkin-y ones. I have enough pumpkin to do another full week, so vote in the poll and help me decide what to post for tomorrow.

Archer Farms Pumpkin Spice Cereal- Target : Cherry Hill, NJ

I was really excited for this one! I had never seen a pumpkin spiced cereal before, and I think it would be a brilliant idea. Can you imagine Cinnamon Toast Crunch with added pumpkin spice? I think it would be delicious!

Archer Farms is a brand you can buy at Target, they have a pretty good range of granola cereals with unique flavors. This year they released a pumpkin spice variety and I had to pick it up.

The box is very simple and follows their general design scheme. It isn’t breathtaking, but it gets the job done and makes this cereal look very mature. They are definitely marketing this to an adult-audience. There is actually one thing I really love about this packaging, the bag inside is resealable. It has a sturdy zip-lock top that allows you to reseal the granola and keep it crunchy. I love that! I wish more cereals would add that feature to their products.

Opening the bag, you get the generic smell of granola mixed with very faint pumpkin pie spices. The spice that stands out the most is cinnamon, and it is hard to detect anything else. Maybe it’ll taste more like pumpkin?

Dry, you can barely taste pumpkin pie spices if at all. They really went heavy with the cinnamon, and the other flavors mixed in to the granola over power the other spices. I can taste the raisins and almond clusters more than the pumpkin pie spices. Which sucks!

I added milk, and that made the pumpkin spices more prominent, but not by much. The cereal still tasted very cinnamon, almond and raisin heavy. Which isn’t bad, the cereal tasted very good, but it wasn’t very pumpkin-y as advertized. The milk left behind from the cereal had a light pumpkin pie flavor, but it was the only moment where I could actually taste the pumpkin pie spices more than any other flavor.

This was yummy, but barely rated on the pumpkin-y scale.
On a pumpkin-y scale of 1-5 (5 being extremely pumpkin-y) I would rate this a .5
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Pumpkin Pie Bagel- Panera : Cherry Hill, NJ

Pumpkin for breakfast! This fall Panera has added a new pumpkin pie flavored bagel to their menu. They also brought back the cherry vanilla bagel that is released every October. The cherry vanilla is one of my favorite bagels ever and usually it is made into the shape of a breast cancer ribbon. (It is usually promoted as such and money goes towards charities.)
This bagel is entirely new, and I am surprised they haven’t made it sooner!
The Panera description for this bagel is:
Pumpkin Pie Bagel
NEW! Freshly baked bagel featuring pumpkin and spice with a crumb topping and cinnamon sugar mixture, sprinkled with powdered sugar
Untoasted, it smells like a sweet pumpkin bread. You can smell the cinnamon and other pumpkin pie spices, and the topping reminds me of a cobbler. It tastes doughy and sweet, and it is a lot like eating a delicious dense pumpkin-pie flavored bread.
Toasted, it made my whole kitchen smell like pumpkin and snickerdoodles. (Must have been the cinnamon.) I wish they made candles with this scent! It was a wonderful way to start October. I added a bit of butter to the toasted bagel, and it was delicious!
It doesn’t taste exactly like pumpkin pie, more like a pumpkin spiced pound cake, but that makes sense with the consistency of a bagel.
On a pumpkin-y scale of 1-5 (5 being extremely pumpkin-y) I would rate this a 3.5

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Limited Edition S'mores Eggo Waffles - Target : Cherry Hill, NJ

I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind messages and words regarding my ER visit the other day. Thankfully my dizzy spells are over and I can get back to my normal review and update schedule!
I’m not big fan of waffles, especially the freezer kind, but I’ll make an exception for interesting flavors. (Like the pumpkin spiced waffles released every fall.) Eggo released this smore’s variety for summer 2013, which is pretty interesting, so I grabbed a box at Target.
The box doesn’t look too special, if they hadn’t advertized these in store and put them in a special end-cap freezer I might have walked right past these. There are some chocolatey stripes at the top of box with a little “Seasons Limited Edition” blurb. Visually, I think the design is appealing and the photograph of the waffles tempting, but the box doesn’t stand out against a sea of the other frozen Eggo flavors. I wish they had a drastically different colored box or something to help these seasonal flavors stand out.
Frozen, the waffles look a lot like the pumpkin spiced variety. The waffle dough has a spiced look to it, which might be graham cracker related, and there are tiny specks that indicate marshmallow and chocolate bits inside.
When toasted, these smell sweet with a mildly chocolatey aroma.
I can’t see myself eating these with syrup and butter, like the photograph on the box, so I opted for a spoonful of Nutella and a sprinkling of mini marshmallows. (I LOVE these Mallow bits.)
Overall these waffles are pretty yummy, but alone they don’t have a strong marshmallow or graham cracker flavor. (I think that graham flour was used in the waffle batter, but the flavoring is pretty mild.) The Nutella and marshmallows I added really upped the s'more flavor, so I’d recommend eating these with chocolate or marshmallow flavored toppings instead of the traditional butter and syrup.
I enjoyed this summery flavor, and I can see these waffles being really yummy for waffle ice cream sandwiches, but I don’t like this as a breakfast item.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Splendid Milk Chocolate Truffles: Pumpkin Spice Caramel & Candy Corn - Target

Prep your skeletons, Halloween is right around the corner, so I’ll be posting seasonal snacks all this week!

Today I’ve got another double review lined up for you guys, but first, Target, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.

Keep reading

Pumpkin Pie Dessert Cheese Bites - Aldi - Moorestown, NJ

And we’re back with more pumpkin 2013 posts!

These little cheese bites are one of the new pumpkin items Aldi released this year. (A lot of the things I previously reviewed returned, which is awesome, but there weren’t many new items this season.)
My first impression in the store was that this package is tiny. The photo in Aldi’s ad was really small, so I wasn’t sure how big the container would be, but I never thought it’d be this compact. The entire package is about the size of my hand! (For the record, I have fairly large hands.) Other than the label, there are no other design elements to critique, so I’ll just say that I love the typography! The font choices and simple black and white color scheme creates a very sophisticated look for this no-frills product. (The typography is similar to the seasonal labels and designs used last year for Aldi’s brand.)
Inside the plastic clam-shell container there are 11, chocolate truffle-sized, cheese balls. It’s a little odd that the container is tapered to only allow 11, why not a full dozen? Oh well, time to open this thing up.
Once opened, and thawed, these smell a lot like a pumpkin cheesecake. Which makes sense, considering the ingredients for both items are practically the same.
Since this is a frozen product the outside graham cracker bits are more sponge-y than crunchy, and the filling has a slightly dry cheesecake-like texture. Although these are called “Pumpkin Pie Cheese Bites,” they might as well be pumpkin cheese cake truffles.
I am not a cheesecake person, I would have preferred a strictly pumpkin pie-flavored truffle/bite, but these are decently flavored and spiced. You can easily tell that this is some kind of pumpkin pie dessert without having to be told.
If you like pumpkin cheesecake, you’ll love these. I really like the packaging, and these could be nice to set out on Thanksgiving, but I rather have a legit pumpkin pie.
On a Pumpkin Scale of 1-5 (5 being the most pumpkin-y) I’d give this a 2.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Pumpkin Spice Pancakes - Aldi : Medford, NJ

Tomorrow is out last day of pumpkin! After that, I’ll be posting some Fall/Halloween treats. For now, here are some pumpkin pancakes.

The box is a nice size and color, I can easily find it in my cabinet, but the overall design feels dated. That isn’t a bad thing, but the box feels like it is an older products (and I know it isn’t.)

I bought the same pancake mix last year, and followed the directions on the back of the box to make them. They weren’t very pumpkin-y at all. So when I bought the mix this year I tried to experiment.

This time, instead of following the directions (which said to add 1 cup of milk, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of oil) I replaced the milk with pumpkin milk. I was hoping it would make the overall pumpkin taste stronger and richer.

With the addition of the pumpkin milk, I also served them with my homemade pumpkin syrup. This year, the pancakes tasted more pumpkin-y, but I am not truly satisfied with the flavor. I think I might play around with the recipe more. Maybe I’ll add applesauce instead of oil and see how that goes.

On a pumpkin-y scale of 1-5 (5 being extremely pumpkin-y) I would rate this a 1 on it’s own. A 2 if it is made with pumpkin milk and served with pumpkin syrup.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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Pumpkin Spice Syrup - Pinterest Recipe

Time for another pinterest recipe! Recipes for your own pumpkin spice latte syrup have been all OVER lately. As I have said before, the only pumpkin-coffee beverage I really enjoy is Panera Bread’s Pumpkin Spice Latte. (Because I worked there and drank it religiously every fall.) I wanted to try this recipe out to see if it was Panera-worthy.

This recipe is very simple and used very little ingredients: Sugar, water, pumpkin and the pumpkin pie spices. Almost everyone should have these ingredients in their cabinets already, so I like that it is very accessible. I don’t have to run out to the store to buy anything crazy that I will never cook with again.

I followed the recipe to the letter, and made some very delicious ‘syrup.’ Why is it in quotes? Well it is VERY thin and watery, which is what the recipe is meant to make. I understand that a simple syrup is usually 1-to-1 ratio (meaning even amounts water and sugar) but I like a bit more substance to my syrups.

What does the completed syrup taste like? It tastes a lot like the filling of a pumpkin pie, only MUCH sweeter. The recipe includes pumpkin puree, so you can definitely taste the pumpkin, and it includes a nice balance of the pumpkin pie spices, I don’t find that one really overpowers another. Instead, all the flavors blend together and create a genuine pumpkin pie taste.

This syrup tastes VERY sweet, so if you plan on using it, don’t use any other sweeteners or sweetened creamer. (Unless you want to go into a sugar-coma!)

As for storage, I used iced coffee bottles that I washed out and removed the labels from. I think they look pretty cute!

On a pumpkin-y scale of 1-5 (5 being extremely pumpkin-y) I would rate this a 5!

I think this recipe is delicious, easy, and can help you pumpkin coffee and latte addicts save a few bucks! If you want it thicker, just half the amount of sugar used in the recipe and use less of i in your drink.

(I plan on making a thicker batch to use for pancake syrup!)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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“ These are back starting Sept 1st!
The delicious and pumpkin-y seasonal sweets are already starting to reappear on the shelves, but thankfully Krispy Kreme is holding off until September. I love pumpkin as much as the next food blogger, but August...

These are back starting Sept 1st!

The delicious and pumpkin-y seasonal sweets are already starting to reappear on the shelves, but thankfully Krispy Kreme is holding off until September. I love pumpkin as much as the next food blogger, but August is just too early!
Be sure to try the Summer Classic flavors at Krispy Kreme, Banana Pudding and Carrot Cake, before they get replaced!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Spotted this at Wawa over the long weekend. Pumpkin Cannoli Dip & Chips!

Have any of you tried this item yet? Let me know if I should review it in the near future!