Pumpkin Products, Part 1

Well, it's autumn again: beta-carotene's time to shine! Root-Vegetable Madness! Squash-Varietal Mania! ...and pumpkin EVERYTHING at Trader Joe's.
First, before I review any products, I would like to humbly put forth my take on why food manufacturers go nuts with pumpkin in the fall and why we, the consumers, all giddily go along with it: My suspicion is that those hundreds of thousands of us who zealously hop on the pumpkin bandwagon are actually most excited about pumpkin pie, a Thanksgiving staple, of course, but understand that we can't actually eat pumpkin pie every day from September through December because that would be weird, impractical, and really not that good for us. So we seek out that pumpkin-pie flavor in whatever other format it is presented to us: waffles! ice cream! bagels! pasta! bread! and on and on, and the food manufacturers know this. (Enablers!)
And so we've got this symbiotic relationship whereby TJ's sells us all manner of pumpkin product, and we buy it.
What do you think? Am I right?
Anyway, earlier this week I made my first trip to TJ's in about three weeks (!) and brought home the following pumpkin-flavored products: Pumpkin Waffles, Pumpkin Bagels, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Spread, and Honey-Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli.
I feel ridiculous as I look at that list, honestly. Pumpkin bagels? Come on! How desperate for pumpkin-pie substitutes can I be, right?
Anyway, for what it's worth, here are my highly subjective and unscientific reviews of each:

Pumpkin Waffles. OK, first of all, are you a toaster-waffle person? If you're not, then never mind, this product isn't for you. However, if toaster waffles are popular in your home, as they are in mine, I urge you to try these. They get two thumbs up from both of my kids, even Hunter, who hates vegetables so deeply he once literally threw up the entire contents of his stomach after I paid him to try a Brussels sprout. (I realize there isn't much "vegetable" in pumpkin waffles, but there is some, and it says something that Hunter knows this and eats the waffles anyway.)
These waffles are the right combination of light, crispy, soft, hearty, and sweet, and the pumpkin and pumpkin-pie-spice flavors are present but not overpowering. Plus, as with all TJ's waffles, the ingredient list isn't scary: these waffles contain flour, eggs, leavening, pumpkin, spices, salt, an assortment of added vitamins, and not much else, so I feel pretty good about feeding these to my kids. (And a bonus: 20% RDA of both vitamin A and iron!)

Pumpkin Bagels. Meh. I mean, these aren't a horror show or anything, but they're really not great, either, and I can't say we are likely to buy these again. The pumpkin flavor is minimal, and their texture is that of a typical grocery-store bagel: chewy and doughy and roll-like without any of that loveliness that comes from boiling the bagels first the way good bagel shops do it.
These bagels do, however, contain "pumpkin pie spice bits," which are pleasant to encounter (albeit a desperate attempt to win over pumpkin-pie fans). So that's kind of fun. But otherwise...meh.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Spread. Now THIS is good stuff right here, if you're into bagels. Get your bagels elsewhere (might I suggest Brooklyn Water Bagel?) and slather this stuff on them liberally! I eagerly await this product's arrival at TJ's every autumn, because it is creamy and pumpkin-y and spicy, and it just makes sense. It's the marriage of pumpkin-pie filling and cream cheese, which is a happy marriage indeed.

Honey-Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli. I really like this stuff. I don't believe it's for everyone (like, for instance, my daughter), but I do recommend it if you're into pumpkin and you're up for a seasonal diversion from traditional ravioli. The filling is mainly ricotta and small chunks of roasted pumpkin, with some additional sweetness and spice crammed in there. I just drizzled melted butter* over it after boiling it for a few minutes, and voila, dinner's main course was ready(...and veggie-hatin' Hunter ate two bites!). It was yummy for lunch the next day, too. I will buy it again.

I've heard from you that the pumpkin-cranberry cracker thingies are delish, so I'll for sure try them next time, as well as the pumpkin macarons another friend suggested. And good old Pumpkin Butter, which I actually have eaten so much of in previous years I had to take a break from it, but I feel ready to dive in again this fall.

Other pumpkin-flavored TJ's suggestions?

*Actually Earth Balance whipped spread, which is the only "butter" my kids will eat.

Cornbread Mix

You know Mom's getting desperate when...

The other day I needed a dinner menu that was very convenient, very easy to prepare, and not at all cognitively challenging. Also, there needed to be slightly better than a snowball's chance in Hell that my kids would eat at least some of it. (The little dears seem to be more picky and behaving more obnoxiously at the dinner table lately, which is for sure going to drive me to drink an unreasonable amount of TJ's Two-Buck-Chuck Shiraz if our newly posted Mealtime Rules don't have their desired effect soon. See photo at left.)
While cruising the aisles of Trader Joe's with my little guy Hunter that morning, I decided on TJ's Turkey Chili (in a can; reheat and you're done) over tortilla chips, and cornbread made from TJ's Cornbread Mix.
I like making cornbread. I've never made it entirely from scratch, but I've had good luck with mixes. For awhile I was using a Marie Callender mix that required only the addition of water before baking, and it was moist and tasty, and the kids loved it. On this day, however, I found myself in TJ's staring down the Cornbread Mix and decided to go for it.
Score!

I like this cornbread's texture: it's a little grainy; the cornmeal used is ground coarsely enough to keep the bread from feeling too cake-like. It's also got---and please hold your judgment till the end---a very, very mild vanilla flavor, which sounds hideous, I know, but which actually works here and complements the flavor of the corn.
(Note: The vanilla is SO mild that at first I couldn't even place the flavor. I knew there was something ever so slightly different and yummy going on, but I had to read the ingredients list to know what it was. "Vanilla powder." Bingo! Tangential thought: Is it the same kind of vanilla powder the barista uses in my vanilla latte at our local coffee shop? I wonder.)
The cornbread's preparation was simple: Add oil, an egg, and milk. Combine. Bake at 350. Done!
Now the oooooooone little thing that bugs me just a smidge and will keep me from buying this mix too, too often is that it contains more sugar than I'd like. Sugar is, in fact, the second ingredient---it even beats out cornmeal for second place after wheat flour! One serving contains 15 grams of the stuff, which, if memory serves, was more sugar per serving than Dark Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Wafer Cookies.
Wha?
So while this cornbread mix won't become a staple of my pantry because of the sugar content, I won't hesitate to buy it again next time we do a Chili Night (or even a "Chile Night," as I accidentally typed the first time around. "Hey, kids, who wants to discuss Pinochet and his Caravan Of Death over dinner this evening?" Also, did you know Chile is the longest country in the world in terms of length-to-width ratio? Thanks, Wikipedia!).