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Monday, May 10, 2021
Trader Joe's Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Trader Joe's Cajun Style Alfredo Sauce
Ah, the old familiar refrain, sung daily from the shorter, stinkier faction of my evergrowing family.
To which I always respond: Hamsters.
Heck, I'd go all Bubba Blue on them, too. Hamsters are like fruit of the earth. Barbecue, boil, broil, bake, saute. hamster kebobs, creole and gumbo...I could go on and on. Usually it quiets them down.
Please note: We don't actually eat hamsters here. It's all lighthearted diversion, as well as a subtle shoutout to one of the finest cartoons series to ever grace this earth.
All that being said, if not some hamster, man, something else is really needed to make Trader Joe's Cajun Style Alfredo Sauce work.
As perhaps the fatal flaw for our dinner and this pertinent review, my lovely bride and I splashed a ladelfull over this new Cajun-inspired pasta sauce on just some plain rigatoni the other night. Kids had marinara so we didn't have to hear complaints of "too spicy." The result was pretty meh.
With giving the chance to shine all by itself atop just some plain noodles, the sauce doesn't hold up well. There's a bit of cool creaminess, a bit of bite from the cheese...and paprika. Lots and lots of paprika. Paprika is all there is for spice. Paprika is good and all, but the whole spicy sensation defaults to solely that so it all feels a little one note. Sure, the grana padano slips in there too, with its parmesanesque twinge, but in the end, it's not unpleasant but seems a bit incomplete.Atop some roasted veggies, though? It's a better experience. Perhaps some of the taste and texture of our broccoli and Brussel sprouts took away just enough of the creaminess so other aspects of the sauce began to emerge, like pepper and garlic and chili and fennel. Granted, paprika was still the dominant spice force, but at least it wasn't by itself.
I'd give this another try, but would be sure to grab some chicken or sausage or hamster-stuffed alligator (for the true Cajun experience) or something to mix in with some hearty pasta and veggies. That'd seem more like it. Some sauces are meant to shine, and others meant to throw assists to the meal components, and the TJ's Cajun alfredo seems to be the latter. By its lonesome, though? Pretty meh. We'll both toss it a 3.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Cajun Style Alfredo Sauce: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons.
Friday, April 30, 2021
Trader Joe's Fruity Chewy Candy
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Trader Joe's Chocolate & Peanut Butter Joe-Joe's Sandwich Cookies
Keep on...with the force, don't stop, don't stop til you get enough....
Classic Michael Jackson song, with extra advice to Luke Skywalker tossed in? Sure, I can roll with that.
But yeah, there's many forces in the world, and as plain as that statement is, it's even more obvious that chocolate and peanut butter combined is one of them. Is there really any such thing as "getting enough" of that classic confectionary combo?
In a word, yes, apparently. Because such is the case with Trader Joe's Chocolate & Peanut Butter Joe-Joe's Sandwich Cookies.Take one of Joe-Joe's usual Oreofied sandwich cookies. He won't mind, and no, the name of the cookie isn't a "Joe-Joe" - that apostrophe in the title name denotes Joe-Joe's ownership of said cookie. I'm not a lawyer but I'm fairly certain a cookie cannot own itself. Anyways, take some peanut butter creme, sandwich between two chocolate wafers, coated in candified peanut butter, and drizzle chocolate atop. Voila. It's peanut butter inside chocolate inside peanut butter inside chocolate. A confection inception worthy of reflection...but it's not perfection.
It's all...just too much. Maybe I'm just getting old and sugar bombs like these don't hold the same appeal unless I'm in the right mood but, maybe, a line has to be drawn somewhere. What's the issue? Hrrmm. It's not the cookie itself - there's absolutely nothing wrong with a good ol' sandwich cookie, especially if it's got a nice creme-y peanut butter tinge.Nah, instead, let's go with the peanut butter candy shell. It tastes okay but still seems off - it's not quite the flavor or the texture but maybe somehow a little of both when shellacked over a cookie. There's a difference between regular peanut butter, peanut butter creme, and candy shell style peanut butter, of which of course the coating is the last of and my least favorite out of that trio. Add on top some chocolate drizzle and man...ate one, and had to take a breather afterwards. Had another a few minutes later and that pretty much sank my battleship for the rest of the day. Too sugary. Too rich. Too heavy. Just...too much.
Maybe on the right day in the right mood these cookies would hit differently but yesterday, when sampled, was not the day.
A small sleeve of eight cookies cost about $4, so make of that price point what you will. Not awful. And naturally they're awful for you as well. But on the plus side, there's an ampersand in the product name - those are becoming rarer these days. I don't love 'em, but don't hate 'em either. Nothing about them is screaming repurchase or avoid to me, unless my lovely bride has an opinion on them - I totally snuck them when she wasn't looking as payback for eating the whole donut we were gonna share the other day. Don't worry love, there's still some on top of the microwave and no it wasn't the kids - it was me.
Meh, Let's just go down the middle.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Chocolate & Peanut Butter Joe-Joe's Sandwich Cookies: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Trader Joe's Organic Banana Fruit Spread
It's not to say we're completely symptom free right now. My tastebuds still aren't working quite right. Everything tastes okay...but nothing tastes good. Coffee just tastes all around awful, as if I'm having it for the first time again. Of course, this is better than how Sandy is doing - she can barely smell and her sense of taste is slowly crawling back from completely on its way to mostly dead.
So in other words, it's baby steps from here back to full hitpoints. We'll take it.
And if you're taking baby steps, you may as well eat baby food.
I've heard Trader Joe's Organic Banana Fruit Spread referred to as rather baby food-esque in other social media I've been scrolling through. Didn't know if to believe it or not, or if so if TJ's could do themselves a marketing favor by slapping a baby kangaroo on the label and rebranding it as "Trader Joey's."
Nah, they shouldn't. There's too much added sugar for that.
Really, all this spread is made of is banana, sugar and pectin. It' soft and spreadable like a nonchunky jam. The spread is smooth and even, with an odd kinda sheen to it, that definitely evokes professionally mashed banana. It's wholly a bit familiar and odd at once.
And as may have to be my disclaimer over the next few weeks, my taste may be a bit askew but all I can taste is banana with added sugar. The result isn't candylike, like a banana runt, but still the sweetness of a banana amped up while the other features are left in check. It seems a bit off, and not, for me, 100% enjoyable. I tried some by itself, and on a waffle with a little peanut butter and chocolate chip, and both times I came to the conclusion I would have preferred a plainer, more natural banana flavor. but I guess then TJ's wouldn't have much of a product to sell, so maybe this just isn't for me.Our kids will probably go ape for it though, and in the end the 'nana spread seems to be a relatively alright jar of jam or jelly, so if they like it, full speed ahead, ya little monsters.
I'm a solid meh. Sandy, with her zero taste right now, doesn't have much of an opinion but noted it does have a pleasing enough texture at the very least. Put as down as a meh for both how we're feeling and how we're rating this product, and we''ll be glad to revisit later.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Organic Banana Fruit Spread: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Friday, January 15, 2021
Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Cookie Sticks
Personally, if it were me designing the cover art for this product's packaging, I would have gone with a narwhal. Narwhals are the only animals with a tusk that has a girth to length ratio comparable to these cookie sticks. They're very long and very thin, hence the moniker "sticks" as opposed to "bars," "batons," or "fingers."
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Trader Joe's Chocolate Lava Gnocchi
Gnoccolate. C'mon, man. You missed a golden opportunity to create a beautiful new word, Trader Joe.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar
Trader Joe's. Check.
Candy cane. Yes.
Joe-Joe's. Yup.
Dark chocolate. Texas sized 10-4.
A chocolate bar with a name like Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar should be fun, festive, seasonal, joy inducing. A cure for what ails ya. It should be a little snippet of merriment, a little piece of contentment, a little bite of something good in a world gone mad. I mean, it's a candy bar, but really, can you blame anyone for pinning at least a little hopes of something positive on it.
Hate to sound grinchy, but that's a bit too much for this chocolate bar. It's simply just okay, kinda good but certainly not great. Let's run through that list again and see what's naughty and nice.
Trader Joe's - on the nice list! Really, did you expect anything different?
Candy cane. Oh there's plenty of candy cane, and it's very candy cane-y. That's a good thing. The "generously topped with crushed peppermint" is a bit of an oversell - I prefer the underpromise/overdeliver model of satisfaction personally - but there's plenty enough little candy cane shard that get all up in there and in tooth crevices and whatnot to make the bar plenty candy-cane'd up. Nice and minty and everything. No issue.
Joe-Joe's. Well, okay, here's where things start going sideways. For the uninitiated, Joe-Joe's are TJ's version of Oreos. They're rather ridiculously tasty, and featured plenty this time of year in all sorts of festive offerings. But here? It's literally just cookie crumbs from the Joe-Joe's table. There's not a lot of them, and the ones present are rather small. This could be forgiven if Joe-Joe's creme filling were somehow incorporated (like a little reservoir in the bar itself?) but nope. The cookie essence is completely lost as the cookie crumbs aren't prominent enough in either size or taste to stand out at all. It just feels like another small crunchy bit that could be attributed to a candy cane instead. Not enough in my book.
Dark chocolate; The usual goodness here. As usual, i could do darker but no complaints.
There ya have it. For a $1.99 you could do better for sure, and while these won't ruin your day, if your kid ends up snatching the whole thing to use for shingles for a gingerbread house you shouldn't be heartbroken either. Middling score here all around with a double 3.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons.
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice Protein Smoothie
Friday, September 18, 2020
Trader Joe's Brazilian Style Cheese Bread
My lovely bride also plays a fair amount of Candy Crush, but apparently also likes some other game called Kitchen Craze or something along those lines. I'm not sure of the point of the game - seems even more arbitrary than matching three same colored candies to make stuff go boom - but when playing she'll tap to cook stuff, serve customers, do dishes, deal with crappy tips. I guess you try not to burn stuff and run some sort of functional restaurant and serve all sorts of food, including some Brazilian-inspired cheese rolls which I had no other frame of reference for until picking up Trader Joe's Brazilian Style Cheese Bread.
There's more involved to prepping them than just tapping your smartphone screen. Of course, we'll see how that comment ages over the next decade or so... but anyways. A frozen dozen comes boxed up and ready to plop on a baking sheet, just heat at 350 degrees for a few minutes, and done. You can even crush some candies while doing so if you want.Oddly, I'm in the minority of my family for the TJ's Brazilian cheese bread. Everyone else loves them, Both Sandy and our verifiable troop of kiddos gobbled them down for lunch the other day, yumming and oohing and aahing. Our five year old also made her own PB&J's with them, which strikes me as fairly weird but she was happy. But me? Ehhhhhhh....
There's just this odd taste to them that develops about midway thru your third bite. I'm not sure how to explain it. But it's kinda funky and bitter and dour and not exactly gag inducing, but is kinda unwelcome. Sandy posits it has something to do with how the tapioca flour and Parmesan interplay. Maybe, but I side with it being more towards eggs and white pepper that seem off. Maybe it's all four of them, maybe just three, maybe she's just right (as usual)...but still. It's just when I would expect the flavor to start going towards warmy carby cheesy comfort, I instead get a mouthful of questions.It's kinda a shame. Otherwise these are some pretty tasty treats. The first few bites, before that funk comes into play, are on point with its doughy Parmesan taste. If every bite tasted like the first few, I could probably nosh on these all day. Each piece is roughly golf ball sized, and when baked have a slightly crispy, not greasy exterior that quickly gives way to a soft, chewy inside. There's so much Parmesan around too that's impossible to get a bite without any, even if you tried. These are some excellent bites in that regard, I just wish they stayed that way. Maybe if I had some sauce to dip them in, I'd like 'em better.
Since everyone else loved them and they're at a reasonable price ($3 to $4) I'm thinking it'll be a likely repurchase despite my misgivings. I mean, whatever works these days, right? Even if I won't be the one crushing them. Meh.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Brazilian Style Cheese Bread: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Trader Joe's Corn & Green Chile Pepper Quiche
I've been watching a bunch of 80's movies on Amazon Prime lately. What a weird decade. I mean, it was so carefree compared to today. Everything was loud and goofy, from music to clothing to hairstyles. It's such a stark contrast to 2020, which is why I've been finding it so refreshing to bask in all the gaudy glory of 1980's American cinema. Plus, there's not a lot I want to see in the way of new stuff right now, and it still costs $20 just to rent the third installment of Bill and Ted.
Monday, August 10, 2020
Trader Joe's Organic 100% Pomegranate Juice
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Trader Joe's Hatch Chile Cheddar Seasoned Popcorn
Ti esrever dna ti pilf, nwod gniht ym tup.
Thanks, Missy Elliot, for the lyrical inspiration. Turns out that second line never was gibberish...duh. So obvious now, not so much back then.
And thanks, Trader Joe's Hatch Chile Cheddar Seasoned Popcorn, as well as my lovely bride, for the real life inspiration to put that line to use. Time to work it, flip it and reverse it.
Huh?
Well, for only $1.99 a bag for this new popcorn sensation sweeping TJ's shelves across the nation, I figured it'd be worth to buy two of 'em on our latest trip. You know, for science. Couldn't wait to get back home and give it a try, and when we finally did, I opened the bag atop, in the most traditional of ways, took a hand sized scoop, dumped it into my mouth, and started waiting for that hatch chile cheddar seasoning to wash over my existence and take me to a place I didn't know existed.
And waited..and waited..and waited...and waited...okay, I'm impatient, here's a fresh batch o' hatch...and waited some more...and a little more...ugh.
The issue with the hatch cheddar isn't the flavor itself. Oh no, it's nice - a nice teeny bite of white cheddar, and a great little savory, mildly spicy kick from the hatch chiles which grows a little with each bite. it's wonderful flavor, topnotch. But it's the intensity itself. It's...subtle? Subtler than subtle? I don't know. I was recently reminded how potently flavored the TJ's pickle popcorn is, with its unmistakable bite. If that's one end of the spectrum, this stuff is on the complete other end. It's...milder than mild. Weaker than weak. Wimpier than wimpy. Maybe I'm just too much of a hatch chile guy, but I'd love if the flavor were kept the same but intensified by a factor of at least four or five. It's good I want to taste more of it.
Enter the second popcorn bag, rap lyrics, and my wife.
Second bag, opened a few days after the first to be sure, she said to open from the bottom. That way if all the flavor dust kinda settled down there, we could be hit with a more intense flavor experience upfront. Duh. So obvious yet genius at the same time. Who says we always had to open the bag at the top? What am I, a sheep? No way! My house, my rules, as okayed by my wife! Let's do it!
Yeah...not much different that way either. The hatch and cheddar mix was a bit beefier, but not by that much. Sigh.
It's too bad, really. Everything else is pretty great - good sized kernels, perfectly munchy with ample fluff, not too greasy or messy. The whole experience just has to be "more hatchier" in the eloquent words of my wife. I've read some folks on the social sites when trying this popcorn added some of their own seasoning to liven it up a bit, so it's not just us.
Sigh. The hatch chile cheddar popcorn could have been an all time classic, but instead is relegated to the "maybe rebuy/maybe not" category. The lack of realized potential is really holding it back, and for some reason this kinda hurts but I can't give it much more than like a 2. It's sad, but at least my wife joins me in the grief by giving it a charitable 3.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Hatch Chile Cheddar Seasoned Popcorn: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Trader Joe's Sea Salted Saddle Potato Crisps
For all the island vibe that TJ's has and is based on, there's still a little cowboy in there, for sure. Off the top of my head, I can recall Cowboy Caviar, Cowboy (and Cowgirl) Bark, Cowboy Quinoa Burgers, and a southwesty nut mix that I can't quite recall the name of that I likened to Sam Elliot shaking the dust out of his mustache.
So to have a product named Trader Joe's Sea Salted Saddle Potato Crisps isn't completely anew. Sure, the Beetlejuice-y looking guy riding the chip on the canister looks pretty odd and amused with himself, so maybe it's not quite classic inspiration. Plus, I usually associate the use of the words "crisps" with British people and/or Smeagol ("crispspspspspsps") , so perhaps that part is a menagerie of non-associated imagery that doesn't quite follow.
Except it does, because, obviously, it's a Pringles knock off. Can't call 'em that, though. So saddle crisps, because they're kinda shaped like a saddle and you can put some goofy imagery on the tubular canister? Good enough.
It's been a hot minute since I've had real actual Pringles - I've learned I have no control with them, ever - so my comparison is based on a lot of memory. It's hard to draw many differences. Same size, shape, appearance, texture, oily feel, and saltiness...it's almost all there. The *crunch* seems maybe a little different, a little lighter, a little airier. at first I attributed that to rice flour in the mix, but then doublechecked Pringles ingredients - you, Pringles has that, too. All the same ingredients, in fact, as far as I can tell. So there's not much different here - they could infact be one and the same, aside from maybe a different cooking process? This could just be me trying too hard to draw a line that doesn't exist.
All that being said, man, these TJ's saddle chips need some flavor to them, a little something something. I mean Pringles got some nice flavors...how about elote, or EBTB, or something along those lines? Please? Sea salt is pretty boring, pretty tame, pretty neutral. Do something to set yourself apart, TJ's?
Nothing too much more to say here. Saddle up for nondescript chips if you buy these for the $2ish asking price.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Sea Salted Saddle Potato Crisps: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Monday, June 1, 2020
Trader Joe's Mint-A-Breath Bones
Four paw prints from Alfred. Two paw prints from Sadie.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Trader Joe's Synergistically Seasoned Popcorn
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Trader Joe's Honey Mustard & Onion Seasoned Pretzel Pieces
Yes, we are talking about Trader Joe's Honey Mustard & Onion Seasoned Pretzel Pieces. If anyone could have magically pulled this off, I would have counted on TJ's to Wonka-fy it into existence. They didn't. I can't really be disappointed, because it just might be impossible, but still...I had hopes, only to be in vain.
You see, there is a fundamental issue with many snack food items, and honey mustard onion pretzel pieces are probably the best, clearest example. It's such a strong flavor, right? You know it when you taste it. The sweetness and bite of vinegar, the saltiness of the onion, the goodness of whatever other odd spices are sprinkled in...you know what I speak of. If you've ever had a honey mustard onion pretzel, you'll know exactly what this taste like.
That's not precisely the issue, of course.
Instead, it's this question: how many bites of a perfectly balanced flavored snack do you actually get, per bag? It can be frustratingly few.
Alas, there's no exception here.
The first few portions out of the top of the bag are surprisingly bland. Like, they look like they should taste like something, and they kinda do...but not really. All that flavor dust went south for the winter and never came back.
Work towards the equator and there's a couple great bites in there, that taste like a little bit of everything and not too much of anything. Snack time bliss, that's what that is. Yum.
But then there's the bottom third or more. It's where everything settled. A little bit is good, but then for such a strong flavor like honey mustard and onion, it gets way too powerful way too quick. It's hard to have too much, unless you're really hungry.
I was really hopeful for some sort of innovative solution that TJ's would bring forth to the masses here. Maybe it'd be a scientific break though, in that some sort of edible, tasty glue or adhesive would hold on more tightly to the flavor crystals, so all would arrive in factory perfected form. Or that the delivery driver would bring them in a rented out concrete truck, tumbling the packages all the way from distribution center to retail. How about a paint-shaker type contraption in the stockroom? Or, like, maybe like the stockperson would give them an expertly vigorous shake before putting on the shelf, with the cashier giving an instructional DVD to purchasers to ensure even flavor distribution and snack food satisfaction all the way to the point of the consumption, so that if a consumer didn't fully love a balanced, even, delicious morsel of honey mustard onion pretzel that'd be squarely on them as some sort of societal outcast worthy of weeping and gnashing of teeth? It's not like TJ's employees are doing anything else these days.
I kid, of course, but alas, it was not to be. Here we go instead from predictable palatal progression from mediocre to delicious to "a bit much." Sigh.
But apparently I like them, enough to have devoured more or less the whole package myself with a few bites spared for the kiddos. It took a few days to be sure. My lovely bride didn't even try them - she's not opposed, she technically had opportunity, but in her opinion the window of time afforded her was too short - so I'm flying solo here, which is dangerous. So, uhh...seven spoons? Sure. Need a breakthrough to get to that next level.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Honey Mustard & Onion Seasoned Pretzel Pieces: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo
That being said...they got some real crappy stuff they put their name on. No, I'm not just talking "Spin the Black Circle" that somehow won a Grammy, just for having the Pearl Jam name on it when they were one of the hottest things around. Have you heard their new song, "Dance of the Clairvoyants"? What in the heck is that?
It's kinda the same deal with Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo.
EBTB! So hot right now! It's a seasoning! It's a salmon! It's...probably at least five other TJ's products I can't recall right now. Thanks, beer. And now it's on a pair of nuts.
Could be hot. Could be great. But more likely than not, like those Pearl Jam tunes, it'll skate by on the premise of its name instead of its merits.
It's that aforementioned Everything but the Bagel Seasoning, which is great on everything, including, ironically, bagels, but on almonds and cashews. That's it. That's all. Must be have been a slow week for the product developers to come up with this.
First, almonds. As far as base nuts, almonds are definitely a step above peanuts, but man, they're still kinda dull. And it's disappointing that by looks our bag is roughly two parts almonds to one part cashews. Need me more quality nuts in this bag!
And for whatever reason, the seasoning blend doesn't translate well onto nuts. It just doesn't. Whatever makes it resonate well on meat and veggies and eggs and, ironically, bagels, just doesn't work here. Yeah, it's there, but not exactly delicious. It's more of a "meh" than an "oooh."
In short, nuts make a great snack. Flavored nut mixes make an even greater snack. But there's so much better out right now - looking at you, Olive & Herb Mix - that makes this mix not too inspiring, with a twinge of feeling like it was kinda mailed in. For $3.99, it's an okay deal but one we are likely to repeat. Feeling charitable, so my lovely bride will hit it with a three each.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons.