Quickie Run-Down - 3 Different Drinks/Treats

A quick rundown of some items I've had recently. 

• Wendy's Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty 
• Starbucks Pecan Crunch Oatmilk Latte
• Starbucks Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai

French vs Icelandic - Yogurt De-stash Part 1

Yogurt is ugly. 

No one posts a photo of -just- yogurt. It's always covered with photogenic toppings, layered with fruit and seeds, or used as an accent. It's in the same boat as oatmeal. Something you enjoy, but don't brag about. 

That said, I've bought a decent amount of yogurt flavors, so here is part 1 of my (hopefully) fridge clearing-series. 

Sometimes Foodie's Not-so-Secret Stash - Part 1

My food hoard is officially out of control. I have lots of expired food, and I hate myself for it. It's a waste of money, resources, and space...so, I'm finally going to do something about it. Tomorrow, after work, I am sitting down and filming myself trying as much of this junk as I can stand (anything that's still safe anyway) and getting rid of it, once and for all! 

That said, here are four items from my hoard pile that I already had photographed and just, never got around to posting. Consider this a literal taste of things to come...

Seasonally Saucy - Pumpkin Alfredo

As someone who is still burnt out on sweet pumpkin offerings (even after all these years,) I was thankful to see so many savory options at Lidl, like this pumpkin alfredo sauce. 

When it comes to store-bought sauces, I have never found one that was perfect right out of the jar, so I expected this to need a little doctoring. To give it an honest review, I'll try it first, as-is, and then I'll let you know what I did to make it better. 

Ice SCREAM Pumpkin Delights

Little Debbie has branched out into ice cream. Turning classics, like Cosmic Brownies and Oatmeal Creme Pies into scoop-able desserts.  

After the Fruity Pebbles ice cream left me feeling is was more of a gimmick than it was edible, I figured these would likely be the same and skipped them. Until I saw that the seasonal sweet, Pumpkin Delights, were getting the ice cream treatment. 

Pumpkin Delights look...rather unfortunate. I reviewed them back in 2015 and I stand by my comparison that they looks just like the Koopas from the live action Mario Bros movie. 

Twinning. 

They may look bizarre, but they are absolutely delicious. If the ice cream is even half as good, I'll consider this a win. 

Death, by Coffee

Death Wish Coffee, a brand that stays spooky year-round, has always been on my radar. The only thing stopping me from checking them out? I rarely drink coffee.

I can count on my fingers (and toes) the cups of coffee I drink in a year, so buying bags of it online just doesn't make sense. (Even if they have cool skulls on them.) That's not a problem anymore! Apparently, you can buy Death Wish at Walmart? Most of you are probably like, "duh, it's been there for ages." But I never buy coffee, so I had no idea!

 

I was actually checking endcaps for Little Debbie's Pumpkin Delights when this black bag with pumpkin-skulls caught my eye. Is this a year-round flavor? Or a seasonal one? I can't really tell. Anyway, into my cart it went.

Something to remember, I write these posts at night and schedule them to post the next day. So it's almost 8:30PM EST. Normally I wouldn't drink coffee this late, or at all, but yesterday's couch-nap and near-midnight Mountain Dew really messed me up. Wired, I was up until 4AM unable to sleep, so I folded laundry and caught up on The Handmaid's Tale instead. (Apparently I woke up and chose anxiety.)

But I paid for it. Today I felt like death warmed over. The kind of over-tired where your eyes are puffy and you can't stop tears from streaming down your face. Which made applying my "I'm totally not a zombie"-undereye make-up very difficult. It's not even real crying, it's your eyes trying to trick you into shutting them for a while longer. I made it through work, and back home, but now I need a little pick me up to get me through my nightly chores, and blogging, so I'm brewing up a cup! Maybe I really do have a death wish.

A Scoop of Seasonal Flavors - Thanksgiving Ice Cream

Salt & Straw Friendsgiving Ice Cream Pack

I have been super into Thanksgiving flavors this year, more than ever before. Normally I try and restrict my food purchases to in-person only, but these flavors sounded so perfect and fed right into my cravings. So I made an exception. 

This is the first time I have ever bought fancy ice cream from the internet. (They're available locally as a normal shop, but no where near me.) There were five different flavors in this release, and they came packaged in a recyclable cardboard box, with insulation that I am using in one of my winter cat shelters, and dry ice. Dry ice is so cool, and I have never gotten to play with it before, so I tossed some into a bowl full of water and added food dye to make fun videos on Instagram. 

 

I haven't had a spoonful yet, and I am already getting my money's worth out of this purchase. Let's jump right in. 

Ghoulishly Gourmet Marshmallows? (Okay, ghoulish is a stretch for sure, but they're definitely fall-themed)

Pumpkin Pie Smash-Mallows - JoAnn Fabrics

Happy Halloween! Like always, I bought way too much stuff and life got in the way of me reviewing it in a timely manner, so...I'm going to cram a bunch of Halloween reviews into the next few days. Get ready for multiple (breif-ish) posts and November-ween.  

Somehow I avoided Smash Mallow until now. Which is strange because I LOVE marshmallows. Toasted, plain, mixed into other sweets, even candy coated, like my beloved red-candy-coated marshmallows from Aunt Charlotte's. (A local confectionary. Everything they make is amazing.) 

These were on sale at JoAnn Fabrics, for like, 30% off, and even though I'm still experiencing taste-bud-burnout from my all-pumpkin-review-days, I figured there's no better time (or price) than now to give this particular flavor a try. 

It's finally time to start the Smash Mallow journey.

Not Bagel Bites, but Bite-Sized Bagels

Limited Edition Bantam Bagels - Lidl

Back in 2015 I attended the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York, and there was booth for Bantam Bagels in one of the many MANY rooms of the convention center. The brand rep was baking up these bite sized bagel morsels in a little toaster oven on the convention room floor, the booth operators were really friendly, and overall I had a really positive impression of the product and the brand, so much so that after seeing hundreds of products, I still remembered them all these years later. 

I felt a twinge of happiness seeing these in the freezer section, I'm glad to see they were picked up by a few grocery chains and were expanding into seasonal flavors. So I grabbed one of each to give them a try. 

Let's Get Cozy - Lidl Pumpkin Spice Tea Review

Pumpkin Tea - Lidl

I normally like to be detached and light hearted in food posts, and I know this has been a difficult time for everyone, but somedays I'm able to take it in stride, and other days it just sucker-punches me in the gut. This month was filled with a lot of sucker-punch-days. 

But in the end, my little food blog here is one of my happy places on the internet. So let's all take a breath, get cozy, and have a cup of tea to forget about all the hard stuff for a minute.

I'm certainly no stranger when it comes to pumpkin teas. Over the years I have had three different varieties: Celestial Seasonings, Trader Joe's, and HT, and while that is but a mere scratch on the pumpkin-themed-tea surface, I still feel like I have a pretty good base to judge this new contender.   

Caramel Pumpkin Lay's (I Think?)

Caramel Pumpkin Chips - Hung Vuong Market

Halloween may be over, but we're not through with pumpkin-season yet. Although I pretty much ruined all things pumpkin related for myself, forever, I still can't resist new and wacky items, like these chips. 

I found them all alone in the snacking aisle with little to no English, so all I had to go on was a translated ingredient label, and the imagery, which made it seem like these were some kind of sweet caramel and pumpkin flavored chip, and I figured...why not give it a try?

You can check out the video review above, or keep reading for a fully written post and close-up photos.  

#TBT White Pumpkin Pie m&m's, from 2019 (Because I'm a hoarder)

White Pumpkin Pie m&m's  - Target (I think)

In 2019, a simpler time, I went Halloween clearance crazy. While I totally don't regret it, a bunch of stuff ended up slipping through the cracks...like these m&m's. 

The bag says these are best before April of 2020, but do m&m's ever really go bad? They get chalky, sure, but rancid? Not really, unless they get wet.  So let's open up this (dry) bag of Halloween m&m's from 2019 and see how they've held up! 

Christmas vs. Halloween : Kit-Kat Edition

Pumpkin Pie vs. Sweet Cinnamon Kit-Kats 

I know I said I wasn't going to jump into the winter stuff...but these were ALSO on clearance, so let's pit Halloween against Christmas and see who comes out on top! 

I'll let Halloween go first, because it's my favorite, and it's obviously the superior holiday.

Is It Fall Yet? - Pumpkin Whipped Topping

Pumpkin Whipped Topping  - Shop Rite

No, we haven't traveled back in time and no, the Pumpkin Invasion of 2019 hasn't started early. I'm just a hoarder.

I bought this last fall thinking it would be an easy item to review that would get me back into the habit of blogging. We both know that didn't happen, but it has been in my fridge ever since.

Back in my blogging heyday, I used to go all out each fall and review pumpkin-flavored everything. We're not just talking Pumpkin spiced lattes. I've reviewed teas, pasta sauces, ravioli, pumpkin salsas...pretty much anything I could get my hands on. And you know what it did? It burnt me out. Big time. After three years I went from big ol' basic pumpkin-lover to a hater.  

After all this time off I've started to become interested in a few pumpkin products, but I've never fully recovered. Still, I saw this and found the idea intriguing. I mean, nothing goes better with pumpkin pie than whipped cream, and this would up the pie factor by at least 1000%. (I totally used real math skills there. It's a legit number.)

Better Late Than Never? Seasonal Salsas from Aldi

Seasonal Salsas - Aldi

I posted these on Instagram and they got a moderate amount of attention, so I picked all three up to review...and then didn't review anything for, like, a month. (Or two.) What can I say, I sucked at blogging in 2017. I debated on saving these for a #tbt post, but they're still available at my local Aldi, so I might as well share my thought in case any of you have been wanting to check these out before they disappear. 

There's no use fighting it, it's PUMPKIN TIME - Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin Cheesecake - Aldi $3.99

Pumpkin-pocalypse 2017 wasted no time taking over grocery store shelves. I was going to wait a little longer before dipping my toes into any pumpkin spiced products, but apparently stores have begun putting up Christmas displays?! It's insane how quickly stores cycle through holiday goods! There's no use fighting it, the seasonal limited edition product gods have spoken, it's pumpkin-time. 

I won't be going full-force into the pumpkin product reviews like previous years where I did a new pumpkin product pretty much every day from now until Christmas (and sometimes beyond), because...well, I'm sick of pumpkin. (*collective, internet gasp*) I know, I know, a food blogger, sick of pumpkin? In the fall?! I used to live for this season, and I purchased every pumpkin product that came my way, but I've pumpkin'd myself out to the point where one full foodie-cycle through the year just isn't enough time for my taste-buds to recuperate. I over-pumpkin'd, and now these items that I was once so hype for, make me cringe a little. I'm sure with time I'll be back to my basic, pumpkin-loving, self, but for now, I am taking baby steps to get myself back into the fall-spirit. 

Personally, my mind is still in summer mode. However, this was the last package of this particular flavor at Aldi, and it won't keep for very long, so my curiosity, practical nature, and frugality banded together to inform me that it's better to review it now than to let it slip through my reluctant fingers. 

Enough rambling, let's eat some cheesecake!

#tbt Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes - Walmart

#tbt Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes - Walmart

Are you ready for another pumpkin spice throw back Thursday? I know I am!

Actually, this might be the last pumpkin spiced product in my stash. I don't see anything else hiding in my cabinet, but knowing my food hoarder ways...something might pop up in a week or two.

First world food blogger problems, am I right? Oh well, let's eat some 6 month old Cupcakes!

Pumpkin Pie Almonds - Target

Double Crunch Pumpkin Pie Almonds - Target

'Tis the season to be BASIC, fa la la la la...Well, not really. 

Basic weather has come and gone, and Christmas is literally this weekend, but I am way behind on my food blogging, so we're going to dive into some overdue pumpkin spice reviews on today's #TBT.

Pumpkin Cornbread Croutons - Aldi

Pumpkin Cornbread Croutons - Aldi

I'M ALIVE! Oh, Internet, how I've missed you.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen bits and pieces of my PC struggles posted in my "Instagram stories." What happened was a Microsoft (Windows 10) update murdered my PC and had me stuck at the start up screen (with those evil white spinning dots that I still see in my nightmares) and it took me AGES to sort out all the damage.

Thankfully I'm back in business, with all my files to boot, and I can finally get this blog back on track!

During my (unscheduled) hiatus I went through my giant food hoard and found a few gems I forget I had, like these croutons I bought at Aldi....last year. Whoops. Croutons are already stale bread, right? I bet these are totally fine...(Or are they?)

Pumpkin Spice Caramel Corn - Aldi

Pumpkin Spice Caramel Corn - Aldi

Sorry Christmas enthusiasts, I've got some lingering pumpkin goodies to knock out before moving on to all things mint and cocoa related. (Not to mention my personal vendetta against Santa for turning my Halloween clearance shopping into a winter wonderland ON Halloween. Not cool, Santa. Not cool.)
For today's post I've got some pumpkin spiced caramel corn from Aldi. To be honest I wasn't too keen on buying this, because I thought it was going to be another novelty pumpkin spice product that no one wanted to eat that would clutter up my kitchen cabinets, but it proved me wrong.