TJ’s pumpkin chocolate mousse cake

This cake went straight in the garbage.

 
The shiny, mirror top looks really nice when the cake is defrosted.

I love the fine crumb of the cake, and the silky-smooth mousse filling. The cake layer tastes a little like chocolate, but mostly like weird cinnamon and mild spices. The mousse tastes bland and sweet, but not enough to offset the spices. There was really no pumpkin flavor to compliment the chocolate spice. It was so bleh and unappetizing that I lost interest after a few bites. The Mister felt the same way, and since neither of us had any interest in eating it again, it went in the trash. Sad trash cake.

 
The still-frozen cake

Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Chocolate Mousse Cake – 1/5

Pumpkin Cheesecake cookies

1/5

These cookies were an exciting find: Pepperidge Farm Pumpkin Cheesecake Soft Dessert Cookies. The cookies smell wonderful - like a mix of creamy cheesecake and spicy pumpkin pie.

 

They taste like salt mixed with oil. The texture is simultaneously floury and greasy, probably because they are soft cookies so a lot of extra partially hydrogenated whatever is added for the pleasing fresh-baked texture. The faint spice flavor is overwhelmed by caustic saltiness. My husband and I each ate half a cookie before throwing the entire package in the garbage.

I’ve read favorable reviews for this cookie, and others seem to like the flavor and texture. All those people can have my trash cookies.

My next goal is to find these Pumpkin Macarons from TJs. I was just wondering if my kitchen skills could accommodate macarons/macaroons. Now I don’t even have to try.

Pumpkin Juice

Recently, juicing has been my favorite thing. It's fun to throw a bunch of fruits and veg into the machine and taste what comes out. Apple seems to be the best fruit to use with nearly every vegetable, so I thought I'd try juicing some fresh pumpkin with apple.

Very little prep is required for fruit and veg juice - wash and go!

Washed and roughly cut gala apples and half a pie pumpkin.

The results.

I thought it was pretty awful. My husband and I each took a few sips and looked at each other with this face:

It tasted BAD. Perhaps it needed to be heated or strained further, but it really just tasted like a mouthful of bitty garden trimmings.

Yeeeeach. I don't know if I'll try it again. I suppose I could have looked up a recipe for going at it, but where's the adventure in that? Harry Potter fans have tried their hand at Pumpkin Juice - maybe I'll give it another shot in the future. MAYBE.