Living in a Cereal World

And in tiny letters underneath: with almonds. Although, come to think of it, I didn't even notice the almonds. I was focused on the other elements of the cereal. And maybe I was in a really good mood two days ago (who knows?) but I really enjoyed this. I could complain about the artificial "banana" flavor but actual banana flavor is hard to replicate. You might end up  with this . No, that "banana" is what I expect and is not offensive to my taste buds. Just so you know, it really permeates the bunches and the flakes. Speaking of which, I must've had a very good box because the flakes were a good size and not crumbly bits, and the oat bunches were big and bunch-y. If you were sampling this cereal, you would want it to look like that. I topped mine off with blueberries (because bananas and blueberries  just   go   together ) and overall had a very pleasant breakfast experience.

I think I've had this over a month and am just now getting around to opening it. I could have waited. Overall impression: disappointing. Or if I hadn't gone into it with any expectations: underwhelming. I was hoping it would be like  Wheat N' Bran , meaning a flatter, tightly-packed woven wheat, but with flavor. In actuality, it's an unstuffed version of the Frosted Shredded Wheat(s) that came out in 2017. And without that filled element, it's pretty...unspectacular. If you want a strawberry frosted wheat cereal, you're better off with Frosted Mini-Wheats Strawberry. Or, if you want a frosted shredded wheat like what I wanted above, Trader Joe's makes one in original frosted. I don't know if it comes in strawberry. You could always just add your own strawberries. Ta-da.🎉

So what exactly is French vanilla, and why do I like it in other foods but not the original ice cream? Okay, maybe I shouldn't have put those two questions together. French vanilla the flavor is meant to evoke the flavor of French vanilla the ice cream. So does this granola have that expected "French vanilla" taste? Yes, yes it does. And does it have almonds? Yep. Then there you go--French vanilla almond granola. That still doesn't explain why I like it everything except the ice cream. If I had to pick a vanilla ice cream I'd go with classic vanilla first, then vanilla bean. Anyway... *bonus* mini-review: Quaker Instant Oatmeal -- Coconut & Caramel Sometimes I pick stuff up and I'm not even sure why. Maybe I just love coconut a little bit too much. As it turned out, I really only tasted caramel here. Also, it smelled like kettle corn. So there's that.

...so I spent last week using up a can of pumpkin 😋: First up, this  Pumpkin Cheesecake Protein Smoothie . Usually by this time of year it's too cold for me to enjoy a smoothie so I thought I'd better sneak this one in now. And it is everything you could want in a pumpkin smoothie. Like drinking a slice of pie. 😍 those Fall spices! Next...okay, wait, I'll leave that for last. Third ,  Creamy Pumpkin Oats with Blueberries and Toasted Almonds . I've never really liked blueberries in my oatmeal but after eating several iterations of blueberry overnight oats I think I'm finally coming around. I'm also a big fan of  Minimalist Baker , so if she says serve your oatmeal over blueberries, I'm trying it. I would've liked the texture of the oats to be a little bit creamier but otherwise it was good. After that I made this  Healthy Pumpkin Bread from another one of my go-to blogs,  Cookie+Kate . I needed a pumpkin bread recipe that took only 1 cu