Trader Joe's Garlic & Herb Butter Mussels

For six bucks, you get a dozen mussels nestled in their half shells, each one smothered in a garlicky, herbaceous butter sauce. Twelve mussels may not sound like a lot—and honestly, it’s not—but they are imported from France, which automatically gives them a little accent and a sense of occasion. You’re not just eating frozen shellfish; you’re experiencing something. Tres chic.

Preparation is refreshingly low-effort. They come frozen, you slide the tray into the oven, and 15 minutes later you’re pulling out something that looks suspiciously like it belongs on a white tablecloth with a glass of wine you can’t pronounce. No stovetop drama, no splattering oil, no culinary degree required.

Eating Trader Joe's Garlic & Herb Butter Mussels is half the fun. You start off politely with a fork, scooping the mussel out of its shell, but quickly realize the real move is to use the first empty shell as a tiny, makeshift seafood shovel for the rest. It's quite practical but it also feels lowkey vulgar for some reason.

Flavor-wise, these are interesting. There’s a faint fishy note—as one might expect from mussels—and also a subtle flinty, almost metallic edge that reminds you that yes, this did in fact come from the ocean. And yet, somehow, it all works. The garlic and herb butter pulls everything together into something genuinely tasty, unique, and kind of fancy. You can absolutely see why mussels are considered a delicacy, even if you don’t personally want to commit to them long-term.

That said, these are not my favorite seafood, nor even my favorite shellfish. Shrimp still reigns supreme, scallops remain untouchable, and mussels… well, mussels are having a moment, but not a permanent residency in my freezer.

Would I buy these again? Probably not. But if they showed up at a Super Bowl party, parked next to the wings and seven-layer dip? Yeah. I’d grab one or two, feel sophisticated for a second, and then go back to the chips. For the novelty factor and the decent flavor both the beautiful wifey and I will go with a solid seven and a half out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Garlic & Herb Butter Mussels.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Maple Brioche Style Liège Waffles

Trader Joe’s Maple Brioche Style Liège Waffles arrive with a bit of continental swagger. Fun fact to drop at brunch: Liège is a city in Belgium, which means these waffles are technically more cultured than most of us before coffee. They’re imported straight from Belgium, so when you eat one you can briefly pretend you’re on a cobblestone street instead of standing barefoot in your kitchen at 7:42 a.m.

For $4.49, you get six waffles, each one individually wrapped like it’s a precious artifact. At first glance, the extra packaging feels a little dramatic—does a waffle really need its own outfit? But once you’re tossing one into a bag for work or ripping one open half-asleep, the convenience wins you over. No freezer burn, no weird waffle clumping incidents. Everyone stays in their lane.

Out of the wrapper, these are… fine. Perfectly acceptable. Pleasant, even. But let’s not kid ourselves: these waffles want heat. Toss one in the toaster, add a little butter, and suddenly things get interesting. The outside crisps up, the inside stays soft and chewy, and the pearl sugar does that magical caramelized thing it does so well. If you’re really chasing sweetness, a drizzle of extra maple syrup will send it over the top, though it’s not strictly necessary.

The maple flavor itself is noticeable but not aggressive. It’s there, quietly humming in the background, reminding you that fall exists. That said, it does make these waffles a little less versatile than Trader Joe’s Original Brioche Style Liège Waffles. The plain ones are a blank canvas—you can throw fruit spread on them, go savory-ish, do whatever your heart desires. These maple ones feel more opinionated. Butter? Yes. Syrup? Sure. Whipped cream or even a scoop of ice cream? Absolutely. But slathering them with strawberry jam feels… wrong. Like wearing flip-flops to a wedding.

Would we buy them again? Probably. They’re good, they’re convenient, and they scratch a specific maple-flavored itch. But if we’re being honest, we’d still gravitate toward the plain version most of the time. If I want maple, I can always add my own. Control is power, especially when waffles are involved. Seven and a half out of ten stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Maple Brioche Style Liège Waffles. I'll go with seven out of ten stars.

Bottom line: 7.25 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Vegetable Ravioli

I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this ravioli. The best thing about the last ravioli we looked at was the copious quantity of soft ricotta cheese inside the pasta. This pasta has some cheese, too, but we're looking at mild mozzarella here rather than indulgent ricotta.

Turns out the veggie and cheese blend is surprisingly tasty. There's a rich, savory, earthy flavor to it. It's just a veggie puree for the most part. Much to Sonia's disappointment, there are no big veggie chunks. The vegetables included are apparently zucchini, eggplant, and onion. There's some garlic in there, too. What an outstanding combination of natural flavors. I'm fine with the smooth veg and cheese filling texture alongside the very standard Trader Joe's ravioli style pasta.

Sonia tried hers with some Alfredo sauce. She admitted it was better with avocado oil and grated parmesan, the same way we served the above-mentioned Pasta Festiva. Oil and parm allow the intrinsic veggie flavors to shine a lot more than any traditional pasta sauce.

All in all, this is a very tasty product. Again, my expectations were somewhat low, but I'd say this is among the best pre-packaged ravioli we've purchased from Trader Joe's to date—and we've probably had in the ballpark of a dozen different varieties from them over the years. We'd definitely buy this again.

$3.99 for the 8.8 oz package. We felt like there were a few more pieces of pasta in this item than the other ravioli products from Trader Joe's. Maybe we just weren't that hungry, but this package more than satisfied Sonia and me for lunch one day. We're eager to pick it up again. I'll go with eight out of ten stars and the beautiful wifey will spring for seven and a half.

Bottom line: 7.75 out of 10.

Trader Giotto's Panettone Classico

We actually reviewed this product 12 years ago. I wrote a terza rima poem about it under the incorrect assumption that the product was pronounced pan-uh-TONE. It's actually pan-uh-TONE-ay. Or something like that...

Anyway, Sonia's score was tragically low for some reason. And yet she kept buying this product year after year. So we decided to do a video about it and amend Sonia's score and throw up some new info and photos.

I can't tell if the product is a victim of shrinkflation or if they just use slightly different ingredients now. But this version has 30 fewer calories than the version from 12 years ago, while the net weight has remained the same at 3.52 ounces—or did they just decide not to update the front of the packaging? I think we paid two bucks even for the one in 2013. This one cost $2.29. Not too bad considering how much everything else has gone up.

It's still imported from Italy. It's still remarkably soft and fresh-tasting bread considering it's shipped halfway around the world, wrapped in cellophane and a box. The "best by" on ours is in April 2026 and we bought it a couple weeks ago. It's still got a ribbon on the top of the package so you can hang it on your tree like an ornament.

Some might say it's just Italian fruitcake, but we think it's a fun, festive, and exotic product. This time around, Sonia and I are both giving Trader Giotto's Panettone Classico eight out of ten stars. Would buy again.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Clotted Cream Fudge and Trader Joe's Hot Honey Fudge

These two British imports came out a couple months apart, with the hot honey fudge appearing over the summer and the clotted cream following a bit later. Both are still currently available according to traderjoes.com and both were available at our local Trader Joe's as of the time this review was composed. I'm not exactly a fudge connoisseur but these products sound fairly interesting, and British candy is Christmassy enough, so let's get to it.

First up, Trader Joe's Hot Honey Fudge. True to the name, there's a whisper of distinctly honey sweetness. The "hot" part of the equation isn't particularly noticeable on the front of the palate when you first bite into the candy, but rather it creeps up on you and tingles the back of your throat at the finish. I'm surprised how much I like these. The heat isn't overwhelming if you're used to spicy food, but there's enough of a kick to make it quite interesting. I like this candy just a bit better than the other one.

Next, Trader Joe's Clotted Cream Fudge. This one's creamier, sweeter, and richer, and Sonia prefers this one over its spicy cousin. It has a more indulgent flavor, and the flavor isn't a far cry from that of butterscotch. Both fudges are soft and easy to bite into, with a melt-in-the-mouth quality as you chew.

Each box contains 10-12 pieces of fudge and will run you $2.99. We'd buy either one again in the future. They'd make great stocking stuffers for the fudge fanatics in your life. We've also checked out Trader Joe's Maple Flavored Fudge and Trader Joe's English Butter Fudge, in case you're interested.

Sonia will give seven and a half out of ten stars to Trader Joe's Hot Honey Fudge and she'll give eight out of ten to Trader Joe's Clotted Cream Fudge. I'll go with seven and a half for the hot honey selection and an even seven for the clotted cream offering. In the end, they'll both average out to the same score.

Trader Joe's Hot Honey Fudge: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Clotted Cream Fudge: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Pasta Festiva

Numerous readers have noted that these Trader Joe's refrigerated pastas and raviolis are "too much for one person" yet not enough for two or more. I concur. Although, if you're serving them with sides, they're just about adequate for a couple.

The "servings per container" is officially 2.5 or 3 on most of these products. It's three in this case, although I really don't think it's realistic at all that three adults could share this one package for dinner without copious quantities of sides, toppings, and/or fillers. If we're talking light lunch, then pairing this entire package with a decent salad would probably suffice for two normal folks.

But odd serving sizes aside, this is a decent product. We like the festive red and green colors, courtesy of all-natural tomato and spinach powders. We like the generous amount of ricotta cheese, and we both like the seasonings and pesto flavors involved. We've got basil, parmesan, and even nutmeg in the mix.

We boiled the pasta for six minutes or so. Traderjoes.com recommends serving it with their Rosatella Sauce, but we were unable to obtain that on our last TJ's run. Alternatively, you can serve it with olive oil and grated cheese. We went with avocado oil and parmesan. Honestly, these would probably even do just fine with a traditional marinara pasta sauce.

We polished off the package in a single sitting, devouring the majority of it during the recording of our eight and a half minute video review. We decided that it must be a pasta optimized for Festivus, the fictional winter holiday made famous on Seinfeld. It's probably just the Italian way to say "festive," but I can't think of anything more appropriate for dinner on December 23rd than Trader Joe's Pasta Festiva.

$3.99 for the 9 oz package, found in the refrigerated section. Sonia would buy again and I wouldn't stop her. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll go with seven out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Pasta Festiva.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Hazelnut & Cocoa Filled Crepes

Let me start off by saying Sonia and I have both been to Paris independently of one another, and while there, we both sampled some crepes from street vendors. We both remember them being shockingly inexpensive, warm, and delicious. They were one of the few things I perceived to be both uniquely French and also within my price range.

They weren't long and thin like these crepes. They were made with a similar-looking dough and folded into roughly triangular shapes and shuffled into a paper sleeve to be carried off and eaten on the go. I don't remember for sure since it was many years ago, but the crepes were filled with generous amounts of a chocolate spread of some kind—it very well may have been Nutella. It was creamy and full of cocoa flavor. The dough they used was amazing. It was buttery, slightly crispy in places, and it just melted in your mouth.

These are a far cry from those Parisian street crepes. The dough is the most intrusive element. Sonia and I both find it to be chewy—totally lacking that melt-in-the-mouth quality. To be fair, these crepes are pre-packaged and stored at room temperature for a number of weeks and then heated (or not) in the microwave. I guess you can also serve them unheated. I'm tempted to see how they turn out in the air fryer but I fear that they might dry out.

The hazelnut filling is chocolatey enough and tastes decent, but there just isn't enough of it. I remember creamy chocolate oozing out the sides of that delectable street food. That's not the case here. There's way more breading than the hazelnut cocoa filling.

There were some frozen crepes from Trader Joe's quite a few years back. We liked those significantly more than these room temperature dealies. Not sure why they disappeared, but that's pretty much par for the course with TJ's, unfortunately.

At $3.99 for six individually-wrapped servings, the cost isn't much steeper than those very inexpensive crepes from France all those years ago, but the quality isn't even in the same ballpark. Kosher. Would not buy again. Six out of ten stars from both Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Hazelnut & Cocoa Filled Crepes.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Harvest Chocolate Collection

So this is basically just the Chocolatissimo Harvest Collection, but now it has Trader Joe's brand name on it. Straight outta Belgium, we've got nine fun fall-themed candies with different combinations of chocolate and fillings. Let's take a look at each one.

Yellow & Brown Corncob - This one's a milk chocolate shell with crispy hazelnut praline filling. Good. The middle is like Nutella but with tiny crunchy bits. One of the better ones.

White Apple - I'm a fan of white chocolate, but I thought this specimen was weird. The filling is milk chocolate we think, but for me, the odd flavor of the shell kinda ruined it. Sonia thinks the whole thing tasted more like milk chocolate than white, but she was okay with it overall.

Orange Pumpkin - Milk chocolate shell with a creamy hazelnut praline filling. Pretty good.

Dark Walnut - This one looks like a real nut. I think the filling here is almond praline. It's a nice dark chocolate shell. It's not too bitter and it mixes well with the filling.

Brown Leaf - Milk chocolate shell and a gooey caramel center. The filling is very smooth and runny—almost wants to be a liquid. It's nice and salty, too. I think this one was our favorite.

The Black and White Walnut - It's two races of flavor living side by side in harmony. Both white and milk chocolate shells, both white and milk chocolate fillings. Decent. Sonia thinks she tastes the white chocolate more in this case than in the white chocolate shelled apple. Crispy filling.

Dark Brown Pumpkin - If you like dark chocolate, you'll like this one. Both shell and filling are smooth dark chocolate.

Dark Apple - It's just milk chocolate filling inside a dark chocolate coating. Not bad.

Green and Orange Corncob - Almond praline filling inside chocolate—not sure if it's milk chocolate or dyed white chocolate. This one's okay.

$5.49 for nine imported chocolate candies. Might buy again if I needed a fun contribution for a fall get-together or party. The quality of the chocolates isn't the best I've ever seen, but they have a cute fall theme and you never know what filling you'll find inside your candy. Seven and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Harvest Chocolate Collection. Seven out of ten stars from me.

Bottom line: 7.25 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Butternut Squash Risotto

We're looking at another authentic Italian import today. This time, it's butternut squash risotto. It's actually the second butternut squash risotto product we've reviewed from Trader Joe's, the first being a low carb riced cauliflower version from five years ago.

Like its predecessor, this risotto has real butternut squash, cheese, and Italian spices. It's nice and creamy, smooth, and savory, too. We think the overall flavor is stronger with this product since it's got real rice in it.

The sauce blend seems a bit better in this instance, as well, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's just because it's truly Italian. It feels thicker, creamier, and cheesier.

We ate ours with some arugula to give it a bit of extra texture. The flavors worked well together, too. The nuttiness of the greens complemented the cheesiness of the risotto and gave the dish a nice earthy undertone. We're quite sure it would go great with chicken or fish or pork if that's your thing. It would make a fine side dish or even a standalone meal.

We heated it on the stovetop, but the microwave is fair game, too. Instructions say to heat on medium for 6-7 minutes. Ours took 15-16 minutes. Hey, it's still much faster than making it from scratch.

$4.49 for a pound of imported risotto. Product of Italy. Found in the frozen section. We'd both buy it again. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Butternut Squash Risotto eight and a half out of ten stars. I'll go with seven and a half on this one.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Icelandic Style Skyr Yogurt

Never had Icelandic yogurt before. "Skyr" sure sounds like an Icelandic word, though. I bet Björk eats a lot of skyr.

It's very thick. It's on par with Greek yogurt in terms of thickness. It's not an unpleasant texture by any means, but I almost want to compare it to the texture of paste. Not that I've ever eaten paste. I mean, some kids did, but I wasn't one of those kids. I was pretty weird as a kid, but not like paste-eater weird.

Sonia wanted to say the texture was slightly "gritty." I think that's primarily from the berry base, which might contain some faint whispers of raspberry seeds or something along those lines. I don't know that I'd call it gritty. It was pretty smooth to me. Thick. Tacky. But not particularly coarse.

The flavor is unusually subtle. In both cases, there's just a faint fruit flavor behind the tangy yogurt essences. It's slightly sweet—and I mean very slightly sweet. It's almost like what you'd get if you mixed plain Greek yogurt with a spoonful or two of berry flavored yogurt. Color-wise, the product is an extremely faint shade of pink, just a hair on the reddish side of plain yogurt white. Both flavors look remarkably similar.

On the plus side, calories and fat are very low. Protein, on the other hand, is very high. Each cup boasts 15 or 16 grams, about a third of your recommended daily allowance. This skyr yogurt is quite filling.

$1.19 for each 5.3 oz cup—40 cents to one dollar cheaper than leading brands of Greek yogurt in the same size container. Kosher. Found in the refrigerated yogurt and cheese section. Trader Joe's also sells a vanilla skyr flavor, but we weren't able to get our hands on that one this go around. Despite its health benefits, Sonia and I both think we'd stick to more familiar, more palatable yogurts before buying Trader Joe's Icelandic Style Raspberry and Cherry Skyr Lowfat Yogurts again. Still, we're very glad to have tried this interesting product. Seven out of ten stars from both of us.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Apizza Gouda Cheese

If you do an internet search for "apizza gouda" this product is the only thing that comes up. Not sure why we're adding an "a" to the beginning of the word "pizza" because this is essentially just pizza-flavored cheese. Maybe it's there for searchability purposes? Trader Joe's offering pops up if you search for "pizza gouda," but so do many other products and recipes.

At any rate, we paid $5.85 for our wedge of cheese. It's about 13 bucks a pound. Not a bad value, considering it's imported from the Netherlands. You'd think it's Italian, right? Nope. It's Dutch. The striking color and unique name has raised more than a few eyebrows over the past month or two. I know we're not the first ones to review it, but if you read on, I'm sure you'll feel enlightened.

Tasting the cheese straight out of the plastic wrapper, I must admit I wasn't impressed. It was very tomatoey. The spices were quite potent, too. I tasted oregano, garlic, and a faint bit of vinegar. The gouda flavor didn't shine through the veggies and seasonings as much as I would have liked it to.

So we decided to experiment. The beautiful wifey made a grilled cheese sandwich first. Wow. What a difference. When placed on bread, the apizza cheese emulated the flavor of pizza. Imagine that. Nothing but a bit of butter for grilling, some nice thick slices of sourdough, and this apizza gouda, melted, made an outstanding snack. I didn't even whine about not having soup. If I eat grilled cheese, I almost always want soup. In this case, I just inhaled the sandwich with reckless abandon. What kind of soup would go with it? Your guess is as good as mine. Tomato, I suppose.

Then we tried some quesadillas. Not bad. I preferred the grilled cheese since the bread is much thicker than our tiny corn tortillas. Sonia, on the other hand, liked the quesadillas better. She is Mexican, after all.

Finally, we made some flatbread pizzas. We used Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Lavash Flatbread as the base and topped it with this cheese, canned white meat chicken, olives, spinach, and onions. Sonia added a little pesto to hers. We both agreed that one was the best of all. The apizza gouda served as both the tomato sauce and the cheese and all the flavors blended together beautifully. For pictures of the pizzas, simply click on that review of the lavash flatbread or watch the video embedded below.

It's not a great standalone cheese in my humble opinion, but there's a lot you can do with it. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Apizza Gouda eight out of ten stars. I'm torn. It's interesting enough, but it's just so weird and funky unless you heat it up and add it to something else...I'll be nice and give it seven and a half stars.

Bottom line: 7.75 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Cinnamon Buns with Cream Cheese Frosting

Last year we looked at some Danish pastries that made cardamom the star of the spice show. I wasn't particularly smitten with those, but Sonia liked them pretty well. I simply prefer good old American cinnamon buns.

And you might expect this product to be exactly that: a classic Cinnabon-esque dessert treat. However, this too is an actual product of Denmark. I'm not sure how that works. Baked fresh in Copenhagen? And then...teleported to Trader Joe's all over the USA?

This product is almost like if you split the difference between the above-mentioned Brown Sugar Cardamom Buns and your classic American cinnamon bun. I could have sworn I tasted cardamom or clove in ours, but there's nothing like that listed in the ingredients. It's just molasses, brown sugar, and cinnamon in terms of spices and sweeteners.

There's a tartness to these buns that's atypical of most cinnamon buns I've tried. It's unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. I see "citrus fiber" and "cheese culture" in the ingredients. It could be either of those elements providing the tang.

All things considered, though, these treats are sweet, bready, and indulgent. They're much better when warmed up for a spell. I was worried they'd dry out in the oven, so we nuked ours for 12 seconds the first time. They were even better when zapped for about 20 seconds. The cream cheese frosting—arguably the best part of the product—melts and dribbles all over the buns and wakes up a lot of the pastry's more subtle flavors.

As decent and unique as these baked goods are, I think both Sonia and I would opt for other fall treats before picking up this product again. I'll throw out seven out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Cinnamon Buns with Cream Cheese Frosting. The beautiful wifey will go with eight out of ten.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Italian-Style Wedding Soup

When I do reviews like these, I'm always torn over how to handle my prep for the post. On one hand, I can do a bunch of research and learn as much as possible about a particular offering, maybe read another review or two about the product at hand, particularly ones written by folks who are familiar with the dish, find out the history of the item and get a nice brief but broad education before I sample the food and share my thoughts.

On the other hand, I can just dive in with no expectations and no preconceived ideas about what something is or is not supposed to be. I think I sound a little smarter when I go the former route, but I might be a tad more honest if I go the latter route.

All that to say, I know nothing about Italian wedding soup and have never had it to the best of my knowledge, and I've decided to go the no-prep route on this fine occasion. The first thing that jumps out at me: this Italian wedding soup hails from Canada rather than Italy. That's fine. I'm sure there are plenty of Italian-Canadians that have carried on their proud soup tradition in the great white north just the same as grandma used to make in the old country.

The soup: it's a typical chicken broth with teeny tiny round pasta balls, carrot bits, beef meatballs, and little green flakey things I assume are parsley. The heartiest and most flavorsome of the elements are, of course, the meatballs. They're nice and soft, and their flavor is pleasant, but they're still not the most pungent meatballs I've ever had. They have egg whites, sheep's milk, and Romano cheese in them, but they don't taste quite as robust as their ingredients might make them sound.

The carrots and acini di pepe are even less potent, but they do add a nice selection of textures to the overall mouthfeel. The parsley adds some additional visual appeal and does...you know, whatever parsley is supposed to do.

So, I mean, this isn't the greatest soup I've had from Trader Joe's, but it's not the worst, either. It's vaguely like many chicken noodle soups I've tried in terms of overall taste and comfort food value, but with small beef meatballs instead of chicken.

In the end, I would turn to an Italian and ask, "Did those Canucks do your soup justice?" Because I honestly don't know myself. It's decent soup, but I would not seek it out again.

$4.99 for the 22 oz glass jar. Refrigerate after opening. It has come to my attention that this soup is not necessarily served at actual Italian nuptials. Go figure. The "wedding" part has something to do with a marriage of flavors or something silly like that. 

Six and a half stars out of ten from me for Trader Joe's Italian-Style Wedding Soup. Sonia's had Italian wedding soup from Progresso at least once. She liked it a bit more than this selection, flavor-wise, but notes that it has significantly more sodium than this soup from TJ's. Sonia will go with seven out of ten stars.

Bottom line: 6.75 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Brioche Style Liège Waffles

These waffles are individually wrapped in cellophane. I didn't see that coming. I figured they'd all be sitting in a plastic tray. They're fairly soft and moist and I guess the individual wrapping is meant to keep them that way.

You can eat them straight from the wrapper in the manner of a cookie, or you can remove them from their packaging, toss them into the toaster, add a bit of syrup or what have you, and eat them like miniature waffles. We've tried them both ways and both are pretty tasty. 

Of course the convenience factor is a little higher when you're just snacking on them out of the little baggie, but the indulgence factor is higher when you heat them and add some fixins. We're eager to try them with some vanilla ice cream on top.

They're a tad sticky. I guess it's the "pearl sugar" on them. They're also a bit oily and buttery, too, even before adding any toppings—they do indeed contain both egg and butter. They're nice and sweet, dense and slightly chewy.

The waffles are shelf stable for a couple months. They do come with a "best by" sticker despite being individually wrapped. They'd probably just get a little stale if you let them hang around too long, but for most of you, that won't be a problem.

$3.99 for six waffles, imported from Belgium. Pretty good value. Would probably buy again. Sonia will go with eight out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Brioche Style Liège Waffles with Pearl Sugar. I'll throw out seven and a half stars.

Bottom line: 7.75 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Meatball Calzone

Ah, it's been a while since I've had a good calzone. Found this $7 offering in the refrigerated section on our last TJ's run. Most of you already know we're not pork people, but we thought we'd give it a whirl anyway. The meatballs in this item are a mixture of pork and beef.

Twelve minutes in the air fryer had the insides of this calzone piping hot. It was quite a bit of food for just Sonia and me. It's actually a three serving product, and that makes sense.

The bread was a little firm and toasty, crusty and chewy, soft on the inside...all in all, pretty good. The meat? Well there was a ton of meat. In fact, it was pretty much all meat on the inside. The ingredients did mention some parmesan cheese and a tomato-based sauce, but they were barely noticeable.

We were pining for big globs of mozzarella and waves of rich, velvety marinara sauce bursting with oregano and basil flavors, and they simply weren't there in any significant quantities. The product might as well have been all bread and meat. The spices were there along with some whispers of onion and garlic, but we just both wanted more.

We could definitely tell the meatballs were part pork, too. We know a lot of you are big fans of that stuff, so by all means, please try this product and report back here with your thoughts. We just don't think it's as good as the calzones we've had from mom and pop's Italian places or even your run-of-the-mill pizza joint.

$6.99 for the three serving calzone. Found in the refrigerated section. Can be heated in the microwave, conventional oven, or air fryer. Sonia will throw out six and a half stars for Trader Joe's Meatball Calzone. I'll go with six.

Bottom line: 6.25 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Raspberry, Vanilla & Blueberry Macarons

Not to be confused with macaroons, the macaron is a French sandwich cookie made with egg white, almond flour, sugar, and some creamy or fruity filling. We've seen a bunch of different macaron offerings from Trader Joe's steadily over the course of this blog's tenure. One highlight: the pumpkin macarons. Those are probably still our favorite (although we haven't had them in many years. Let's hope they didn't change suppliers or recipes or anything like that) but these would have to be a close second.

Preparation: you simply thaw the entire pack at room temperature for an hour or in the fridge for four hours. Pro tip: actually let them thaw the whole hour. As much as I love cold desserts and iced treats, the flavors of these macarons hit just a little nicer when they're fully unfrozen.

The blueberry flavor was our favorite by a pretty solid margin, the raspberry our second favorite, and vanilla—though not bad by any means—fell in third. The fruity flavors actually tasted like their namesake berries thanks to the inclusion of actual raspberry and blueberry puree. There's apple in there, too, since apple tends to just lend sweetness and rarely overshadows the tart intensity of something like blueberry or raspberry.

The vanilla cookies tasted nuttier and creamier than their fruit-based counterparts but perhaps not quite as sweet or indulgent somehow. Again, nothing to complain about, but if I had the opportunity to buy a dozen blueberry macarons all by themselves, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Texture-wise, like most good macarons, these were meringue-esque but also soft and slightly chewy. You could feel the almond meal, too, but they never came across as gritty or unpleasant in any way. Very pleasant mouthfeel.

$5.99 for 12 macarons. Product of France. We'd give the blueberry flavor nine out of ten stars. The raspberry and vanilla flavors would get eight and a halfs and eights, respectively. So, in the end, averaging all three scores, both Sonia and I would give Trader Jacques' <ahem> Trader Joe's Raspberry, Vanilla & Blueberry Macarons eight and a half out of ten stars. Would buy again.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Pesto Sauce

Here's yet another non-traditional pesto from Trader Joe's. And it's yet another winner in our book. We've got a red pepper base that provides a nice pasty texture and bell pepper flavor. Then we've got pecorino romano cheese for some rich tang and earthiness. Throw almonds and a winning spice blend into the mix and you're looking at a very unique and tasty spread/sauce.

Sonia made some fettuccine pasta with beef meatballs and cheese—see video below. It was scrump-dilly. Any drawbacks? This product isn't as thin as marinara sauce, so it doesn't always coat as well. It's more of a chunky paste rather than a liquid. I wish it had just a bit of heat or spice.

Also, Sonia and I basically polished off the whole jar in a single sitting. They should sell a larger container, although we must admit this small one (9.8 oz) is a great sample size if you just want to taste and experiment with the product before committing to anything larger.

As well as it worked as a pasta sauce, I think I appreciated it even more as a spread on sourdough toast. I could taste all the ingredients quite well. The onion, garlic, basil, and paprika worked great with any savory, salty food. Any veggie and meat combo would be worth trying this with.

$3.99 for the jar. Product of Italy. Organic. Would buy again. Sonia and I will both go with eight and a half out of ten stars on Trader Joe's Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Pesto Sauce.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.