Krispy Skremes at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Orlando, FL

I went to the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Orlando near Millenia Mall to try their Halloween/Autumn doughnuts. They have all sorts of doughnuts known as Krispy Skremes decorated for Halloween, including Jack-o-Lanterns and spiderwebs. They also have Ghostbusters doughnuts to celebrate the movie's 30th anniversary.

I liked their Pumpkin Cheesecake Doughnut. It was stuffed with a pumpkin cheesecake filling, topped with creme cheese icing and gingersnap cookie crumbles. Also pictured is the Pumpkin Spice Doughnut.

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Doughnut and Ghostbusters Doughnut were also tasted. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Doughnut was a marshmallow Kreme-filled shell topped with white icing, decorated with Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’s familiar face and a sugar piece hat. The Ghostbusters Doughnut consisted of a marshmallow Kreme-filled shell topped with white icing, a decorative green “splat” inspired by Slimer, and a Ghostbusters logo sugar piece.

Jack-o-Lantern Doughnut!

They had a doughnut decorating station set up and I created this Ghostbusters Doughnut. Should I be proud of my slime placement on this doughnut?

Now for the important part! Everyone likes free food. Make sure you wear a costume to Krispy Kreme on Halloween. It will get you a free doughnut!

Dunkin' Donuts' Fall Lineup/National Coffee Day in Winter Park, FL

I was invited to the Dunkin' Donuts in Winter Park on University Blvd to try some of the new Fall foods on their menu. I'm always a fan of pumpkin flavored stuff, so I was looking forward to trying some of their seasonal menu items.

The Spicy Smoked Sausage Breakfast Sandwich was the first food item which was sampled. This consisted of a spicy split sausage link with egg and American cheese, served on an English muffin.

The Pumpkin Pie Donut came next. This doughnut was filled with a pumpkin pie flavored buttercreme. It was frosted with white dipping icing and sprinkled with grahmn cracker topping. This was good, but the filling and icing was very sweet.

The Pumpkin Donut wasn't nearly as sweet as the Pumpkin Pie Donut. Out of the two pumpkin flavors, I preferred this doughnut.

While on the subject of doughnuts, I was also able to try the Pumpkin Munchkins. Same as the pumpkin donut, only in a much smaller size.

The Snack 'n Go Chicken Wrap was filled with chicken, bacon, and ranch in a folded tortilla.

The Pepperjack Bagel Supreme was a bagel smothered in melted pepperjack cheese. The cheese had a nice, spicy kick, which I enjoyed. This was spicier than I was expecting from a fast food restaurant.

Dunkin' Donuts also served several varieties of their coffee. We tried their Dark Roast Pumpkin Coffee, Hot Pumpkin Mocha Latte, Pumpkin Creme Brulee Latte, Iced Hazelnut Swirl, and the Iced French Vanilla Swirl. I'm more of a tea drinker and not much of a coffee connoisseur, so I'm not the best judge of good coffee. The Hot Pumpkin Mocha Latte was my personal favorite. It tasted much more like a hot chocolate than a coffee to me.

Being that Dunkin' Donuts served coffee at their sampling event, it is appropriate that today, September 29, is National Coffee Day. That means Dunkin' Donuts is giving away a free medium cup of hot Dark Roast Coffee at all of their participating Orlando stores! Go get your free coffee!

I had fun trying the foods at Dunkin' Donuts. I vote that they bring back that pumpkin cream cheese that was served a couple years ago which wasn't brought back this year. That was my favorite pumpkin flavored food that I remember trying at Dunkin' Donuts in recent memory.

 

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Go eat pumpkin flavored foods...

Happy Halloween

What's better on Halloween than a home-grown Seminole Pumpkin?

Maison Le Grand

Maison Le Grand is a Montreal-based company that produces several types of pestos, sauces, and tapenades. They were kind enough to send me a sampling of their products to try. I suppose it's an unexpected perk of writing a food blog and what you see below is what I cooked with their products along with some thoughts.

Since I'm a big fan of pesto, I started by trying their pestos. Pesto and pasta is a classic combination, so I had to give it a try. Here's the Garden Pesto on angel hair pasta with shrimp and cannelloni beans. This pesto was vegan, but the lack of cheese wasn't missed. Out of the three pestos I tried, the Garden Pesto was my personal favorite.

Pesto also goes great on sandwiches. Here's my lunch one day consisting of egg, cheese, avocado, spinach, sliced radish, and the 4 Nut & Cheese Pesto on whole wheat bread. I wasn't sure how well the avocado and radish would taste with the pesto, but I actually thought it was a pretty tasty combination.

For Maison Le Grand's Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, I went back to the default pesto and pasta. It was good, but being a person that isn't a huge fan of tomatoes, I preferred the greener pestos.

Moving on to other types of sauces, next up is Maison Le Grand's Lemon Confit & Pumpkin Seed Aromatic Sauce. With this, I made a dish consisting of brown rice, garbanzo beans, pickled turnips, onions, and spinach. It ended up having a great citrus flavor. I also found the Lemon Confit & Pumpkin Seed Aromatic Sauce went really well with shrimp.

Pictured here is Maison Le Grand's Spicy Olive and Sun Dried Tomato Tapenade on a cracker. I also tried the mild version of the tapenade and decided that the spicy was my favorite. It had a nice kick to it, although the tapenade's spiciness was a bit too much for a few other people that tasted it.

Overall, Maison Le Grand definitely has some tasty sauces. I liked just about all of them and the pouches that the sauces come packaged in are just plain cool. I've never seen any other sauces packaged in their type of astronaut food type pouch!

If you want to try Maison Le Grand's products, they are available at Whole Foods and The Fresh Market in the Orlando area. Be sure to check out their website, follow them on Twitter, and become their fan on Facebook. Give them a try!

Happy Halloween

What happened to the trick or treaters? Two years ago, over 100 came through collecting candy. This year, only 19. Still better than last year's 10...

Robert Is Here

I was down in South Florida for a weekend and decided to do some sightseeing. My first stop was the Coral Castle. It was definitely an interesting place to stop, but they pushed too much of the woo with their theories of how the place was built. It seemed pretty well established and obvious how the castle was built, but this is a food blog, so I won't complain much more about roadside attractions adding more hype than actually surrounds a place.

My next stop was the Robert Is Here fruit stand. I found out about this place their brochures in the rest stops along the Florida Turnpike, so they must be pretty touristy. There advertising works though, because I visited as a tourist.

Robert is Here sells all sorts of tropical fruit that grows locally in the Redlands area south-west of Miami. They had some of your standard tropical fruit like mango and papaya (grown on the trees out back), but then there was more exotic stuff. They had locally grown Jackfruit, and then there was fruit I've never heard of.

Besides from the tropical fruit, Robert is Here's milkshakes also seemed to be a big draw. I bought myself a key lime milkshake. This very thick shake tasted just like a key lime pie in a viscous, semi-drinkable form. Really good!

I also had to buy myself some of the locally grown fruit. I choose a Florida Mango and a Mamey Sapote. When I went to pay for these two fruits, I found out why Robert is Here can afford to advertise in all of those Miami brochures. These two fruits came out to $8 and change. It seemed really overpriced to me, especially since mangos can often be found in supermarkets for under a dollar during the season. I was doing the tourist thing though and I really wanted to try the mamey, so I ended up buying th fruit anyway.

Lately, mango has become one of my favorite fruits. I've noticed that there is quite a difference between fruits depending on where the mango is grown. If the mango comes from South America or Mexico, they have a lot more juice and are slighly stringy. A Florida mango doesn't have the stringyness and has a creamier texture. Out of the two types, Florida mangos are definitely my favorite. The mango that I bought from Robert is Here was a prime example of a really good Florida Mango.

I bought the mamey sapote because I was totally unfamiliar with the fruit and the sign said it tasted like a pumpkin pie. You would never know from the brown fuzzy skin on the outside of the fruit that the inside flesh was a brilliant deep orange color. The flesh had the texture of an avocado and really did taste just like a pumpkin pie. This fruit could probably be put in a pie crust, and you would have an instant pumpkin pie with no work! It would probably be a lot healthier too! I've never seen a mamey in a store up in the Orlando area, but I'd definitely buy the fruit again if I see it!

Halloween Candy Corn

Target now has their Halloween department set up, and a bag of candy corn was purchased. Eating one or two pieces of the candy is good, but beyond that, the candy gets sicky-sweet. For some reason the non-traditional pumpkin-shaped candy corns tasted the best, although it's all the same candy.

I still want to try a a few of Hershey's Candy Corn and Pumpkin Spice Kisses that I originally saw at Hershey's Chocolate World. It's all too much candy though!