Trader Joe's Chicken & Chimichurri Empanadas

Despite her Latin-ness, Sonia isn't an expert when it comes to empanadas. That is, she didn't grow up eating them and I certainly didn't either. However, we've sampled a few tasty ones here and there throughout the years, so we're not entirely unfamiliar.

In the manner of tamales, mole, and flan, empanadas are eaten year round but are often associated with special occasions, including the Christmas and New Year's holidays. So I guess these are appropriate for this final week of the year when it's difficult to discern what day it is and 2022 resolutions still seem abstract and irrelevant.

Air fryer instructions are given on the back of the box. Hallelujah. And for the first time EVER I wound up heating the product for LESS time than was suggested on the packaging. The box said 375° for 15 minutes, but the chicken and chimichurri empanadas were fully cooked and crispy at about 13 and a half.

The crust was nice and flaky. It was crispy but not brittle. I wouldn't have minded a tad more filling inside each pocket, but what was there was impressive—finely shredded chicken and a delicious blend of veggies and spices. Very flavorful. Mildly spicy.

Sonia remarked that they were "very salty...but really good." At just shy of a quarter of your daily sodium in each empanada, I think that qualifies as "very salty."

$4.29 for two empanadas. It's not the most food for your buck at Trader Joe's. Each empanada feels more like an appetizer to me rather than a main dinner entree, but the quality is there in my opinion. Nearly restaurant quality for nearly restaurant prices. Four stars each from Sonia and me.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Mini Chocolate Chip Pancake & Waffle Mix

 

Monday nights are breakfast for dinner night in our house. Just is. Almost always has been, just maybe will be forever, we'll see. My lovely bride and the kiddos like to call it brinner, I will too on occasion, but that sounds weird. Absolutely better than brupper, I guess.

Anyways, if bacon and eggs aren't what we're doing, then it's gonna be bacon and pancakes or waffles. Bacon makes Mondays better, so it's nearly nonnegotiable. But when something new gets tossed our way, like the new Trader Joe's Mini Chocolate Chip Pancake & Waffle Mix, we'll give it a whirl for sure. The sidekicks can always be open to discussion. 

By now, I've had enough homemade pancakes and waffles to know my lovely bride is awesomely, perfectly capable of making a darn good pancake and/or waffle. Mixes never have that same from scratch vibe. That's kinda the same thing here with the TJ's mix - nothing wrong per se, but not anything overwhelmingly special. 

 What it's got is convenience. Homemade stuff takes time. Sometimes we got that...sometimes we don't. Getting stuck at work late then having one kid needing to go to Girl Scouts and another wanting to play Ticket to Ride means not as much time. Bam. Dump the mix in the bowl, stir in some water, heat up a griddle and go. Sandy pounded these out in no time flat. 

And the outcome was pretty acceptable. Firm, a bit fluffy, a little buttermilky, and plenty of milky chocolate chips. I swear they multiplied somehow because it didn't look like that many, but every bite had multiple chocolate chips. That'll make the kids, even the middle aged ones, happy. These went right down the hatch. Though we made them as pancakes, both the Mrs and i noted we thought the experience would easily transfer over as a waffle as well.

Only complaint is, there's no whole bag of mix instructions. There's about 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups of mix in the bag. The highest the mix-to-water chart goes is two cups mix to 1 1/3rd cup water. That means if you want to do the whole bag of mix at once (like we did) you either gotta eyeball it or do some fancy math and hope for the right end consistency. Mondays are hard enough, don't put multiplying fractions into it, please. 

Anyways, for only like $2 for the mix, it'll be a regular pick up. Not amazing, but good enough as is to not really elicit too many complaints.I'll take that any day but especially Mondays...

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Mini Chocolate Chip Pancake & Waffle Mix: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Ornaments

Well these look fun. Clearly each pack of hot cocoa mix comes in a plastic ornament you can put on your tree after you empty out the cocoa mix. Wait. What? You put the whole thing in your milk and let it dissolve like hot chocolate bombs? They're too big. They'll never fit.

Fortunately, Sonia has an oversized coffee mug that reads "I'm not a morning person." She's not. It's true. Ah, good. The ornament fits in there. And I'll let you know as an aside: these would have just barely fit into any of our normal size mugs too, however, I'm not sure if there would have been any room left for milk.

So first we nuked a bunch of milk and got it nice and piping hot. Second, we dropped in the ornament. Nearly immediately, the gold coloring from the ornament began to melt off and slide onto the surface of the milk like a metallic oil slick—reminiscent of the One Ring dissipating in the lava flows of Mount Doom, or if you prefer a different nerdtacular film reference: the T1000 destruction sequence at the end of T2 featured some nearly identical shots to what I saw going on in my mug of milk, but with Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Ornaments maybe making fewer scary faces than the liquid metal terminator.

After about 30 seconds, there were a few puffs of air from the ornament, bubbles from its underside, and an audible "pfft" or two. At one point, the ornament let out a gasp so violent that a bit of scalding hot milk jumped out of the mug and landed on my hand. Ouch. Anybody else? Maybe we should organize a class action lawsuit against TJ's. Just kidding. It's the holidays. And as much as it burned for a second, I don't think I'd be able to prove damages in court.

After a few big bubbly emissions, the ornament capsized and succumbed to the milky recesses of the very large mug. I waited, eagerly anticipating the arrival of fluffy, buoyant mini marshmallows... waited... waited. But they never came. I grabbed a spoon and began stirring, dredging the bottom of the mug for any sign of my missing marshies. All I found were a couple wads of thick semi-melted, syrupy chocolate. What happened? I guess my milk was too hot and the marshmallows dissolved before even floating to the surface..?

The taste is like a very sweet milk chocolate hot chocolate. There's nothing dark about it. Practically no mint flavor at all. It leaves a funny aftertaste, too. Some of you might remember how I feel about pork gelatin. We've got that going on here too. Nothing like a bit of pork in your Christmas cocoa.

$6.99 for four ornaments. They really do look and feel like real plastic Christmas tree ornaments. Unfortunately, neither Sonia nor I were blown away by any other aspects of the product. Would not buy again. We'll be a little grinchy and throw out only two and a half stars a piece.

Bottom line: 5 out of 10.