Beware! The age of the machines is upon us! But seriously, though, it's a little startling how far AI has come in the past couple years. Like any new technology, I think the best approach is a balanced one. While it's never a great idea to depend upon something like artificial intelligence completely, it's also silly to avoid it entirely in my opinion. People were scared of everything from credit cards to computers to the world wide web when they first came on the scene. AI is no different. It will be used for evil. It will be used for good. Let's just hope more people will use this new tech for the benefit of humanity than the detriment of it.
Know what it's really good at? Recipes. Sonia has been feeding Gemini a list of the random foodstuffs we have around the kitchen and it gives her a complete recipe using only the things we have on hand. If you ask it nicely, it'll even give you the exact measurements for any specific number of people—in our case, just two.
So when Google's AI found out we had chicken and Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes laying around, it gave us the idea to serve the two together along with spicy honey and paprika. Man, that's a tasty combo. And pretty healthy, too. We made some for our latest video review.
This product? Not bad. It's like a typical sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, except there are no marshmallows. The vanilla bean flavor kind of takes the place of the marshmallow flavor, but of course the texture is just a homogenous airy, whipped mash. I'd say it's a tad bit fluffier than your typical sweet potato casserole.
You could eat it on its own, but I recommend eating it with Thanksgiving or Christmas Day fare. But if you're fresh out of turkey and stuffing, the chicken dish mentioned above is spicy, sweet, savory, and scrumptious.
Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes will run you six bucks. Keep refrigerated. We'd buy it again. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll go one star lower with an even seven.
(But I give the Spicy Sweet Potato Chicken Bowl recipe an eight and a half).
Check the ingredients on these dinner rolls. Though not necessarily in this order, we do indeed have parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. The Scarborough Fair Effect is in full force with these herbaceous bread bites, and we're rollin' with it. Get it? Rollin'? Cause these are rolls... <sigh> nevermind.
I appreciate all these herbs a little more now that I'm older. Once upon a thyme, they might have scared me off. And while they're quite distinct in the taste of these savory sides, they're not overpowering. They make the bread unique, flavorful, and festive.
To prepare, you simply throw Trader Joe's Herbed Dinner Rolls in the oven for five minutes at 400°F. They come out piping hot and feeling nearly fresh-baked. They're soft and easy to pull apart. They come in two "loaves" consisting of four pull-apart sections each. We ate some with our Christmas Dinner and we used them to make sandwiches with leftovers, cold cuts, and cheese throughout the following week.
We dunked them in tomato soup and they paired quite well. We spread garlic butter on some pieces and were fine snacking on them that way. They're surprisingly versatile and tasty.
$3.49 for the eight serving package, found with the baked goods. Product of Canada. We didn't even eat the whole thing before the "best by" date but it held up remarkably well. Would buy again for next year's holiday season. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey and me for Trader Joe's Herbed Dinner Rolls.
