Trader Joe's Cinnamon Apple Snack Sticks

From what I can gather, unlike most of you, I don't get all that much into the pumpkin-everything craze every fall. Sure, I'll enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie or the occasional pumpkin beer, but yeah, pumpkin this, pumpkin that, pumpkin this-other-thing and pumpkin-that-other thing? Meh. I guess I'm the anti-Linus, not in search of the Great Pumpkin. In the autumn I get much more excited about crockpot goodies like potato soup and chili and pretty much anything on my second favorite blog ever.

For the fall time, if I had to say I'm excited about any seasonal fruit or vegetable, I'd choose apples. Yeah, I know, they're not "seasonal" in the traditional sense like pumpkins, but you know what I mean. Going apple picking. Apple sauce. Apple cider (or as my four year old nephew calls it, "apple-spider juice"). Apple crisp. Apple pie. Now, that I can get behind.

As for Trader Joe's Cinnamon Apple Snack Sticks, I can get behind them too. Don't get me wrong - they're not nearly as good as any of those aforementioned tasty treats. But, like anything else, they have a time and a place. And get this: they're made from real apples, too. Sure, they're all pureed up and tossed into a multigrain mix, but they're in there, with the sweet, slightly tart taste poking through here and there. Tastewise, using Apple Jacks as a base comparison, these snack sticks are probably at least ten times more actually apple-y. Add in the cinnamon that's liberally blasted on each stick, and the end result is a pretty munchable treat that's a much welcome break from the norm.

Count me as a fan. These will be making my list as a repeat buy, even if Sandy's not as big a fan as I am. "They could be a lot more apple-y," she says. I'm not sure if that's completely accurate for a snack food that's in a similar vein as Funyuns, except, well, better. She does note they'd go well with a bowl of vanilla ice cream or a mug of hot cider. Now you're talking, sweetie. Her score's a measly 2.5. For me, I like the well-balanced taste between the apples and the grains and the cinnamon, yet they're not addictive enough I feel like I have to eat them handful after handful. They're not a bad treat at all.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Cinnamon Apple Snack Sticks: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons        

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter

We both eyed the pumpkin butter from the middle of the aisle, peering over a number of other TJ's shoppers scurrying by. One other woman did a double take as she perused the jellies and syrups. It seemed the pumpkin butter aroused curiosity more than anything else. As Sonia and I debated whether to buy and review the item, one question rose up in our minds, "What would go well with pumpkin butter?"

For that reason, the jar has no fewer than 6 different suggestions for how to serve the product within. They recommend using it in soup, on ice cream, or as a poultry glaze, among others. Its uniqueness is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, TJ's Pumpkin Butter is versatile enough that you can use it to make almost anything taste like pumpkin. On the other hand, even if you find a bunch of different foods that you want to make taste like pumpkin, you find yourself doing little more than experimenting with a culinary tool that you're barely familiar with and don't fully understand. It's kind of like the Twitter of the kitchen-world: obviously there's a lot of potential there...but ultimately, what's the point?

Furthermore, if you wanted something like pumpkin ice cream, for example, it would probably be best to just buy Pilgrim Joe's Pumpkin Ice Cream—a product whose pumpkin-properties have been balanced and blended by professional ice cream folks, rather than creating your own haphazard version using Pumpkin Butter and whatever you've got kicking around in your freezer. Although some people might prefer creating their own ice cream so they can tailor the mixture to suit their own tastes...

Texture-wise, the product is not unlike apple butter. There's pureed pumpkin, sugar, and honey. It's very sweet, but traditional pumpkin spices are definitely there. We tried it on toast. It's okay by itself, but we found that the most palatable way to eat it was with some cream cheese. Not wanting to waste time, energy...and potentially food, we steered clear of creating things like Pumpkin Butter and sour cream soup. And I'm pretty sure our Thanksgiving turkey this year will not be basted in this stuff.

I can't deny that there's something fascinating about it. It's good to try something new once in a while. But I just can't figure out what niche this product should fill in my diet. It's certainly no replacement for apple butter, jams, or jellies. It's just a bit of novelty. Three stars.

Sonia feels the same way, but because all things pumpkin remind her of autumn, her favorite season, she couldn't help but enjoy it. She almost gave it four stars, but decided on three and a half.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's Spinach & Kale Pie

If you're a fan of Trader Joe's Spinach and Kale Greek Yogurt Dip, and were ever like "Dude, I really wish I could eat something like this in a pie," guess what? Your prayers have been answered.

Although, I really wonder if the word pie was the best choice in this case. "Pastry" would seem to be slightly more accurate to me, but I've petitioned for that coveted Trader Joe's product-naming position repeatedly over the past few years and have yet to receive a response, so what do I know?

At any rate, this item turns out pretty well when cooked in the oven. It's extraordinarily flaky. Like, explosively flaky. Little bits of the crust wound up all over the table and floor as I crunched away each piece with my fork. But I was pleased with the taste. The crust was lightly buttery and croissant-like, flavor-wise.

The filling was very similar to the aforementioned spinach dip. And as was the case with the spinach dip, I definitely tasted spinach, but I really couldn't tell you if I tasted kale. Even after multiple dishes containing kale, I'm still not really sure if I know what it tastes like. That could be partly due to its blandness (but let's be kind and use the term "subtle flavor" instead). Or it may be due to the fact that kale and spinach are so similar in texture, flavor, and color, that it's completely pointless to put both of them into the same food together, except maybe to add a bit of exoticness to the name of the product. The only major difference between the spinach dip and the filling of this pastry is the absence of Greek yogurt in the latter.

With or without yogurt, spinach and kale would seem to be a healthy food choice. For a diet like mine, it might be a step in the right direction for the green roughage alone, but this particular item is chock full of sodium and saturated fat. The pie is pretty large, but not so large that a normal serving size is 1/6 of it. 1/4 of the pie seems a more realistic serving size to me, but you know how mathematically-creative people can be when drawing up the numbers for that Nutrition Facts column.

I think it's worthy of three stars. Sonia's going with three and a half on this one. Not bad.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10

Trader Joe's All Butter Shortbread Cookies

When I was a young, strapping lad, I nearly qualified for the Olympics in the very popular event of Underwater Basket Weaving. They called me a phenom in the sport, but an unfortunate sprained left thumb prevented me from fulfilling my dreams. Now, watching the 2012 London Olympic games reminded me of those days and the dietary restraints that I, and indeed all such athletes (except for that robust-looking American sharpshooter lady) must deal with. In celebration that I no longer must repress my sweet tooth to such a degree, I decided to indulge on these shortbread cookies while enjoying the spectacle of the fittest humans in existence competing on the world's biggest stage and performing feats of athletics that even great warriors such as I could scarcely perform in my prime.

Apparently, each tiny cookie has approximately 11% of your daily saturated fat. Each cookie. Talk about indulgent. The good news is, they taste like they have 11% of your daily saturated fat. In other words, they're worth it...almost.

Sonia wanted them to be "softer." I'm not sure what she means by that. They're not hard. They're made of shortbread, and they have the consistency of shortbread. Really buttery shortbread. We both wanted them to have more fruit filling because we both like raspberry and apricot fruit stuff. But fortunately for raspberry and apricot-haters, a love of those two fruits is not requisite for loving the taste of these cookies, because you can barely taste the fruit. There's a slightly gelatinous texture in the center of each cookie, but any fruit flavor that might be there is slathered in a pound of butter and lost in the sweet cookie goodness.

In short, these guys are a nice treat for a party or something, but if we had these in the cupboard on a regular basis, I'd weigh 300 pounds. And honestly, I'm not sure if I'd want to waste my precious allocation of fat and calories on something with such a one-dimensional flavor. A big boost in the fruit department would have helped these cookies immensely. I give 'em a 3. Sonia gives them 3.5.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's White Cheddar Popcorn

Growing up, my family definitely went through a Smartfood* popcorn phase. But it wasn't just my folks and us four kiddos. Our cat loved it, too. I'll admit, I don't recall if it was Greta or Cleo, but whichever feline it was, she couldn't get enough of it. She'd almost beg like a dog for it, and if you dropped a kernel on the floor, you had no chance (we were all strong proponents of the five second rule). Know Cartman's cat and his chicken pot pies? Totally plausible, except for our cat it was Smartfood. Back then, Smartfood would put little customer stories on the back of their bags, and so we wrote the company about it, along with some photgraphic evidence. I don't believe our story was ever deemed baggy-reading-material-worthy (probably because I wrote it, and it was way too long. Go figure.), but they still sent us a whole case of Smartfood. A whole freakin' case. We ended up eating so much of it (we also believed in not wasting food) that by the time the last little crumbles in the last sackfull danced down into our tummies, I don't think we ever bought it again. I certainly haven't.

Anyways, sorry to continue the snack food phase we're doing here, but as the pile of other folk's ceramic dishes and Tupperware on our kitchen table attest to, we're being very well fed right now as Sandy, Baby M and I are adjusting to being a family of three. Such a blessing. I'm loving all the homecooked meals made in somebody else's oven. We would've had kids earlier if we knew we'd be eating so well.

My one buddy (same guy who tipped me off to the best chocolate bar in the world) and his wife stopped over a few nights back, and, among the homebaked bread, fresh fruit and chicken avocado spread (delicious!), they snuck in a bag of Trader Joe's White Cheddar Popcorn. Even though it's not something I wouldn't have bought on my own, I figure, it's in my house, it's a freebie, it's probably good, so why not review it?

I'll start with the good...not that there's really anything bad. It's perfect texture-wise - kinda pillowy, kinda Styrofoamy, and very munchable. That I like. Cheddarwise, it's alright, too. Kinda sharp but...there's just not enough. I seem to remember Smartfood being coated all over the place, with the white powdery residue caking onto your fingers no matter what you did. These kernels have one foot in the plain world, the other in the cheddar world. It's true as we get towards the bottom of the bag, that may change. I suppose one could choose to have the snooty, pinkie-in-the-air attitude that the popcorn is so much more refined this way. I choose not to, and that's coming from a guy who hasn't had white cheddar popcorn in years, and pretty much hates the orangey cheesy variety. Maybe I miss Smartfood more than I thought. Maybe I'll check the vending machine at work sometime and find out.

There's nothing all that bad with the popcorn. Sandy and I will eat it all and be happy enough. It's just there's not enough right with it. I think that may be a classic Trader Joe's problem with some products - they pull off enough unexpected surprises that it's a bit of a letdown when one of the more basic items is average at best. Sandy said she'd like it more if they were either more or less cheddar. I think I'd side on the "more" side. There's enough other Trader Joe popcorn varieties that you'll find another one or two that might fit the bill a little bit better. Put the two of us down with some matching 3s.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's White Cheddar Popcorn: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons
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* Why the heck is it named Smartfood anyways? It's packaged powder-cheese popcorn for goodness sake. While not a dumb idea, that doesn't seem overly intelligent, either. Does buying it make you a genius? Did Einstein invent it? What a silly name. Next thing you know they'll name something Skinny Fries...wait, what?

Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Tracks Ice Cream

This ice cream isn't bad, but it feels like Trader Joe is trying to imitate Ben & Jerry with this one.

Dairy Free Mochi is unique and Trader Joe-esque. Stuff like Pilgrim Joe's Pumpkin Ice Cream is simple enough to avoid comparison with Ben & Jerry. And, of course, the Lemon and Triple Ginger Snap Ice Cream is by far the best example of what we've seen Trader Joe's do with ice cream. It isn't particularly simple, but it somehow gives off an air of delicateness. And, while somewhat indulgent, it's more of a dessert you'd expect to find at the end of a five course meal in a fine-dining establishment, as opposed to something a gluttonous fat man would scarf down in between the tilt-a-whirl and the tractor pulls at the East Bumblehump County Fair.

This product, however, is a shade closer to the latter. Fortunately for this item's score, I'm no slender sophisticate, and I've enjoyed the aggravated roar of a souped up Massey Ferguson or two in my day. But I do have to say, despite its terrible name, I prefer Chubby Hubby to these Peanut Butter Tracks any day of the week.

I guess the name is a play on "moose tracks." Moose tracks has little peanut butter cups in vanilla ice cream, and that's exactly what this is. I suppose the peanut butter cups are intended to resemble muddy footprints of the large woodland mammals in a blanket of white-ish snow. There's also supposed to be swirls of caramel. Sonia and I both agreed that TJ's skimped on the caramel. But to me, that was of little concern.

I did enjoy the copious quantities of little peanut butter cups, and the vanilla wasn't bad...but it wasn't stellar either. My biggest complaint is just that the whole thing didn't blend together as perfectly as Ben & Jerry's stuff. There's just something so ingenious about their flavors. Somehow Trader Joe captured that kind of cohesiveness with his Lemon Triple Ginger Snap ice cream, but not with this. This really isn't even as good as other brands of moose tracks that I've tried.

But again, it's cold, it's sweet, and there's enough peanut butter in it to make it somewhat rich and filling. Sonia says it's worthy of a 3.5. I think 3 stars is generous enough.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's Wild Blueberry Pie

Since the Fourth of July is right around the corner, we'll go ahead and review this American picnic classic: blueberry pie. Perhaps it's not as stereotypically American as apple pie, but it's made with real Maine blueberries, and if you serve it on a traditional tablecloth like the one in the photo to the left, you've got an authentic slice of Americana, complete with red, white, and blueberry pie.

Upon first bite, I was a little disappointed with the texture and taste of the crust. It's a poor imitation of homemade, it lacks uniqueness, and while I wouldn't call it "stale," it's way too stiff to feel like it's even approaching "fresh." Plus, it's entirely bland.

The blueberries were a shade more exciting. Hundreds of perfect little blueberries in a subtly-sweet, semi-syrupy sauce saved the flavor of this pie. Coming straight out of the fridge, however, there was still an overall firmness that left me feeling like I was munching on something that fell a great deal short of the high standards I hold TJ's to.

Sonia microwaved her second piece for twenty seconds or so, and claimed that it greatly improved the pastry. I followed suit, and wouldn't you know it—the pie took a giant leap in the direction of delicious. Still, the crust couldn't be redeemed entirely, but the smoothness of the blueberry elements all but made up for it.

Could be if you tried this pie at an actual outdoor picnic that the hundred degree temperatures would have a similar effect as twenty seconds in the microwave. But served cold or warm, it's still a far cry from fresh-baked. However, keeping in mind that it's ready-made, sitting on a shelf, and only about $5 for a whole pie, we'll be merciful when we give our scores.

Sonia and I are on the same page with this one. 3 stars a piece. Not bad.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Bistro Biscuits

I'm generally not big on hard, dry cookies...or "biscuits" if you must—but these crisp caramelized treats are one of a handful of exceptions to that rule. My initial impulse was to compare these cookies with Barnum's Animals crackers, which everyone knows are the creme dela creme of the animal cracker kingdom, far superior to even those with nifty pink frosting that come in giant bags. These biscuits reflect the quality and good taste of the Barnum's Animals, but possess a slightly more complex flavor. There's an essence of gingerbread present—and the word "caramelized," used on the packaging, has a certain propriety in this case, so long as you're not thinking of caramelized onions as I unfortunately do whenever I hear the word "caramelized."

After trying several of these dessert-ish biscuits, I was overcome with a shameful impulse... I wanted to put Speculoos Cookie Butter on them. And I did. For those of you with a severe simple sugar deficiency, that combo may well just be the cure that you're looking for. It's intensely sweet and gingery, and it'll send your system into sugar shock in the blink of an eye, and will cause a four-alarm fire in your mouth that only a good glass of milk can put out. Hours later, independently of me, after just a bite or two, Sonia was struck with the same impulse to slather her biscuits with cookie butter. Like me, she quickly satisfied both her contemptible culinary craving and her recommended weekly allowance of sugar in one fell swoop.

Flavor-wise they're winners, but again, their dryness begs for milk or coffee or tea. Did you ever, just sheerly out of curiosity, try a dog biscuit in your youth? I know I did. And it was never the taste that revolted me, it was always the texture—the dryness. It's like that with these Bistro Biscuits, except that they're way better than most dog biscuits. Both texture and flavor. Way better. I guess the dog biscuits are a really bad comparison to make. Nevermind that then. Please disregard this paragraph.

Sonia liked them a lot. With or without cookie butter. She gives them a 4. They remind her of actual British biscuits. She's had the real thing. I'll give them a 3. They're tasty little buggers, but again, I don't think they're particularly great as a stand-alone food. Check them out if you're into the whole "dunking" thing. And definitely try them with cookie butter, but have extra insulin standing by.

P.S. - These biscuits are vegan.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Maine Whole Cherrystone Clams

There's an old adage for us scribes that's been passed down over the generations: Write what you know. That was drilled into my head while getting a journalism degree at Penn State, and it obviously makes a great deal of sense. If you don't know anything about the subject matter you're writing about, it shows as blatantly as a glass of wine spilled on a white sofa. As proof, you should see the articles I wrote covering collegiate rugby for Penn State's Daily Collegian.

Or you can just continue reading this review about Trader Joe's Maine Whole Cherrystone Clams. I'm not sure how many times I've had clams in my life, but it's probably in the single digits, and almost assuredly every other time they've been deep-fried. Plus, my history with canned seafood is more or less restricted to tuna fish, which I'll admit, I absolutely hate. The smell kinda grosses me out, and when growing up whenever my mom opened a can our kitty cat would run up begging for a bite, only to barf it up two minutes later. I'm sure there's a lot worse things to put in a can (oh yeah there is - viewer discretion advised) but it's not how I'd choose to get my seafood. The way I figure it, though, is if Trader Joe's can reasonably impress (or at least not totally gross out) a canned clam rookie, that must mean they're reasonably good. Alternatively, of course, they could be absolutely terrible, but if I don't know any better, then I'm completely off-base. Readers, you're going to have to be the judge here.

On to the clams. Hmm. So that's what a whole unbreaded/unfried clam looks like when the shell gets shucked. Umm...interesting. Gulp. At least it's kinda hard to make out where the face is, so I feel less guilty. To me, the clams kinda taste how they smell, which I mean as a compliment. I grew up going to Maine and visiting the coast there, so the gritty, salty, briny, mineral-ly, rocky aroma that permeates each bite is actually fairly pleasant in its own way. Yeah, they kinda taste like Maine, and I freakin' love that state. To keep with my theme of ignorance, I'm going to assume that the "cherrystone" part of the name refers to the dark center of gutsy matter that's in the clam's main body, because in no other way to me do these remind me of either a cherry or a stone. As I kinda suspected they would be, the clams are a little chewier than I'd like, but then again, it's a whole skeletonless animal.

Sandy and I had these with dinner with a box of lemon pepper clam linguini we unearthed a little while back while tearing apart and putting our kitchen back together. I think at first I pushed to make it with shrimp instead, but since the pasta box said "clam", Sandy insisted we couldn't. It had to be clams, thus forcing our purchase ($1.99 a can). In a way, that turned out to be a good thing, as we've found out we need to be a little more intentional about iron in her diet in the last couple days/weeks/however long before our lil' baby decides to make his/her appearance (due in just a few weeks! We're getting our hospital bag packed!). Anyways, both Sandy and I feel about the same about them - decent enough, but no strong feelings one way or the other, mostly because we don't know any better. We'll be fair and give it a solid "not bad."

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Maine Whole Cherrystone Clams: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's S'mashing S'mores

Hope y'all had a good Memorial Day Weekend! Obviously, there's some deeper meanings to the holiday, but probably like a lot of you, I was flat out busy doing stuff around the house for the bulk of the weekend. How busy? Well, let's just say that if such a thing as a human male nesting instinct is ever discovered, I might be considered Patient Zero for it. It's a just a few more weeks before our kiddo arrives, so it was clean the oven, stain and assemble the baby furniture, do this and that and this and...you get the point. I spent entirely too much time (and too many dollars) at Home Depot. I'm just glad I had the chance for some quality time with the wifey, a couple cookouts with friends and family, and also, finally, got the grill working again in time for some tasty grilled mahi mahi the other night. All in all, I can't really complain about the weekend, especially since I also have today (Tuesday) off, and plan to mainly kick back and relax.

Anyways, maybe some of you went camping this weekend. I'm not jealous of you either. I got my camping fix out of the way a few weekends ago with my dad and brothers. Plus, as we all know, one of the best parts of camping is making s'mores, and if I wanted to get a reasonable facsimile of a s'more, all I had to do was run over to Trader Joe's, pick up a carton of his S'mashing S'mores, and stick them in the microwave...

Yeah, okay, I'm a little jealous, and all that malarkey about nuking a S'mashing S'more was definitely an overstatement. There's always something about a pre-fab s'more-related product that just doesn't hold up against the real thing. These were no exception, except I can't quite place my finger on it. My best guess would be the marshmallowy part - I've never been a fan of marshmallow fluff or Mallo-Cups as they've tasted "too fake" to me. I kinda feel that way about the mallowy parts of these guys, and they definitely lack the toasted taste the every good s'more needs. I guess the marshmallow's okay but just not quite good enough. The chocolate's good, and the graham cracker part is decent, and I like how both parts are layered in there. As a whole, I certainly don't mind eating them, but they just don't cut it fully for me. And microwaving them, as the package suggests? For me, that basically just made another small mess to clean up and improved them only marginally.

Sandy, though? She loves them! I had to tell her on more than one occasion that the s'more bites were not an acceptable breakfast alternative. These turned out to be one TJ treat that she undoubtedly ate more of than I did, which is kinda rare. Sandy gives them a good solid thumbs up with a "3.5 to 4" Golden Spoon rating, only saying she wished there were more of them. As for me, well, if they make her happy, I'll continue to buy them and sneak a couple here and there, but all in all, I'm not nearly as enthused. I kinda wish I liked them more, as they're something that I should devour, but as is I'm sticking with a 2, maybe a 2.5.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's S'mashing S'mores: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Trader Joe's Gluten Free Ginger Snaps

Oh SNAP! These ginger cookies are gluten free!

Once again we have a Trader Joe's victory in gluten free-flavor, and uh...a Trader Joe's...valiant effort in gluten-free texture.

There's an unexpected lemoniness to these cookies that makes them delightful at first bite. There's also a gingeriness, but...that's to be expected. I have mixed feelings about ginger. It's good for you. That's good. In cookies, it can add flavor. That's good. Sometimes it adds too much flavor. That's bad. There's ginger beer. That's good. There's ginger tea. That's bad. Ginger by itself is nasty as heck. That's bad.

And ginger snaps? Well, they're hit or miss. They're generally a bit dry and snappy, which would kind of seem to lend them to a gluten-free form. But, unfortunately, in my humble opinion, these were a bit too dry and snappy. Like tear-up-your-mouth-by-the-second-cookie kind of dry and snappy. Like "Is the blood in my mouth adding or detracting from the taste of these delightful snacks?" kind of dry and snappy.

Sonia, on the other hand, liked them a lot. She sees where I'm coming from in the rips-your-mouth-to-shreds-worse-than-six-bowls-of-Captain-Crunch department. But I think her mouth is a little more resilient than mine, what with three-plus decades of real Mexican spices and L.A. food truck cuisine to build up her resistance to oral battery such as these weaponized cookies.

Seldom in life will you come across such a tasty food that has such a ridiculously inhospitable texture. I really wanted to eat more...but I could not bear the pain. It's something like drinking a Slurpee and getting a brain freeze, but instead of it being cold liquid, it's just ultra-crispy cookies. If I were to break down my 5 potential stars into 2.5 stars for taste and 2.5 stars for texture, these get all 2.5 stars in the flavor arena, and none of the stars in the texture arena. That might be a little harsh, but I'm still compulsively tonguing the roof of my mouth to see if it's healed yet. I say if you've got a mouth of steel—or if you're on a gluten-free diet and you need a tasty cookie, try them. Otherwise, steer clear.

Sonia gives them a 4. She's one tough cookie...just like these Ginger Snaps.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10

Trader Joe's Organic Green Tea & Lemonade

"Herbaceous."

There's many words I've stumbled across in my day. Up until now, this hasn't been one of them. I wonder why. I mean, it's a pretty great word. It's straight to the point, and you know exactly what it means once you hear it: vibrant, full of herbs and not much else. If you're botanically inclined, you can add in stuff like "lacking woody stems." That can be a good thing, especially for tea, which we'll get to in a moment. Also, it's kinda fun to say. Try it out for yourselves, nice and slow...See? First time I said it, I immediately thought of Buddy the Elf saying "Fransisco." So, straight to the point yet fun to say, and kinda fun to read, too. Perhaps I haven't paid enough attention in my seventh grade biology classes, or somehow skimmed over the word if it's appeared on the menu at a coffee shop or tea house. At the very least, I would've thought that one of the stoners in "Dazed and Confused" would have said it, like the guy who went on to CSI: Miami, because, well, let's face it, it sounds like something a stoner would say. I'd also thing that either Dr. Dre or Snoop Dogg would be clever enough to rhyme something with it, which I'm definitely not. The furthest I get is "Yer face" then...nothing.

Anyways, the first time I've encountered the word "herbaceous" was on the side panel of Trader Joe's Organic Green Tea & Lemonade. Herbaceous. Even without doing too much further research on the word, I knew that was a pretty apt way to describe green tea. Green tea is one of those things that I *try* to like. Really, I do. It's supposed to be healthy (or "healthier", at least) and may or may not have super heart-beatin' and cancer-whuppin' powers. I'm behind that. It's just...the taste. To me, green tea tastes like rain water that's comingled with lawn clippings for too long. That's perhaps a bit harsh, but you know what it feels like on the side of your lower gums after swallowing a straight shot of green tea? Ugh. That's a bit harsh to me, too and it's what I dislike the most about green tea in general.

Trader Joe's Organic Green Tea & Lemonade is decent, though. I'm a big fan of their Arnold Palmer, and while I can't think of a golfer to name this drink after, I'll admit this has a lighter, crisper taste overall. There's also enough lemonade in there to almost cover up the parts of green tea taste that I don't like as much, without being too sugary or citrusy or anything like that. It works, except for when I neglect to shake it up before drinking. That's when all the green tea parts float into my cup and down my throat, which even then, doesn't bother me as much as green tea usually does. Perhaps it's just a little milder than what I'm used to. Still, this isn't a drink that I can just gulp and gulp down, so I'm not overly wild about it like I am about some of their other juices. Yet I've bought it the last two times I've gone shopping at TJ's, and have been able to more or less enjoy it over the course of nearly the whole week. My wife's pretty impressed by that, as she's used to seeing the empties in the recycle bin after only a day or so.

Sandy's been semi-busy enjoying the TJ Tropical Carrot Juice over the past week or so to give this tea much of a try. We still haven't figured out what a tropical carrot is, but man, that's good stuff. She also may be slightly avoiding the green tea/lemonade because of the some of the unknown stuff with teas and pregnancies. We both know it's probably fine for mama and baby, but figure not to chance it, and plus that way I get my drink, and she gets hers without me guzzling all of it, so it's win/win/possible win. That works well enough for us. As for this particular drink...eh...I'm kinda split on it. I neither love nor hate it, yet have bought it a couple times. Maybe that has to do with the price. At $2.69, it's one of the cheaper half-gallons of juicy beverage, and I know that'll last me a week while being satisfied enough. Sounds like something a smidge or two above average to me.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Organic Green Tea & Lemonade: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Trader Joe's Vanilla Coconut Milk

After one sip, my initial reaction was: anything with so much fat should taste way better than this. That said, I want you to know that I was, and am still, a huge fan of coconut milk. When I was a kid, my dad would, on occasion, bring home a whole coconut from the grocery store. I thoroughly enjoyed draining the juice out of the coconut and drinking it fresh out of a glass. Somehow I figured that coconut milk with the word "vanilla" before it would be sweeter and even more drinkable than the fresh coconut juice I remember from my childhood. But if you ask me, it wasn't. The vanilla flavoring did little to enhance the natural flavor of the coconut milk, and there just simply wasn't enough flavor to justify putting 5 grams of fat per serving into my body, as my body has just plenty of fat to contend with as it is. Although, I must admit that natural, nut-fruit-or-whatever-a-coconut-is-type-fat is always way better for me than most of the actual sources of fat in my current diet. Also, I might have been wanting it to taste like the Goya Cream of Coconut that we used in our piña coladas a while back. That stuff is tasty. But, it's massively fattening and I'm pretty sure there's more sugar in it than actual coconut. So, for health reasons, it's probably good that TJ's coconut milk tastes nothing like that Goya nonsense.

On the plus side, this stuff is totally dairy-free (like regular coconut milk, which I would hope goes without saying). It is soy-free as well, and totally vegan friendly. Sonia loved it. She enjoyed its light taste. She put it on her cereal, and loved it that way, too. It was Cookie Crisp cereal—which pretty well offset any healthiness that might be in the coconut milk, but whatever. It comes in a convenient, attractive package, and it's fortified with calcium and vitamins. It sounds like they're setting it up against dairy milk and soy milk for those who are lactose intolerant and/or don't want lower sperm counts.

It's probably a pretty viable alternative to other milks. To be fair, I should mention that I really don't like drinking plain dairy milk or soy milk at all either. On cereal is about the only way I have milk. And maybe a chocolate milk once in a while. I was just hoping that this stuff was gonna be fairly chuggable just by itself. But...not so much, in my opinion. It's not nasty, it's just kind of bland. If it had been called "coconut water," I might not have been so disappointed.

But I can't be too hard on it, because it's not a dessert item, and it's not meant to be. It's unique. And for the lactose intolerant, it could really become an item that shows up on the grocery list frequently. I give it a 2.5. Sonia will be the reasonable one yet again and give it a good score despite the fact that it doesn't taste like candy. 4 from her. This is one you'll probably just have to try for yourself to see whether it's worth it or not. Tell us what you think below.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's Shredded Hash Browns

Irish people are into potatoes, right? Or at least they grow potatoes in Ireland I think. So it's kinda fitting that we review some kind of potato item around St. Patrick's Day weekend, right?

I've never been into hash browns or potato tots or anything super potatoey—except fries. (Although I must admit TJ's potato snacks are tasty). Even chips aren't my favorite...unless they're super saturated with sour cream and onion or barbecue sauce flavor. I'll eat a baked potato now and again because they're sorta good for you (until you slather them with sour cream, butter, and salt) but overall, I'm rarely in the mood for actual potato flavor.

For breakfast yesterday morning, Sonia cooked up a nice, tasty omelette and these hash browns. Just as I was about to dump salt, pepper, and hot sauce on them, I hesitated for a moment. Perhaps one of my Scotch-Irish ancestors whispered in my ear..."taaaaste the potatoes..." So I did. I ate them plain. Although, my Scotch-Irish ancestors would have been Protestant and loyal to Britain, not Catholic and loyal to Ireland, and would probably not have celebrated St. Patrick's Day nor held any sort of national pride associated with potatoes or potato products. But who cares, anyway? Irish people are cool and potatoes are a staple here in the States, too.

The only ingredients in this bag are potatoes and dextrose. Apparently dextrose is basically the same thing as glucose. Personally, I'd rather see "glucose" on the ingredients list, because I have a pretty decent idea what that is. Why we need dextrose or glucose in our hash browns, I'm not quite sure. But considering those are the ONLY two ingredients, I'm not going to complain a whole lot. They tasted very natural to me...and surprisingly flavorful even without salt or anything. (I did eventually put some hot sauce on them. Hot sauce makes everything better). But I could have eaten the whole serving plain.

Sonia said the opposite. She thinks the Crystal Farms Simply Potatoes that we get from Target on occasion taste more fresh and natural than these. To tell you the truth, I think I like TJ's a bit better, even though they come frozen, and Crystal Farms just come refrigerated. But anyway, I think it's time for last looks. I'm gonna give 'em a 3.5 out of 5. Not bad for someone who's not into plain potato products. Sonia gives them a 2.5. She thinks if Target can beat TJ's, that TJ's just has to work a little harder. But what are they going to do? Add more dextrose?

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Chickenless Crispy Tenders

One thing I love/hate about the Internet is all the comments people leave at the end of articles. Like, I love all the ones you, our faithful readers, leave on ours, so keep 'em coming, we do read 'em! Conversely, see the comment section of pretty much any CNN article, and yeah...not a fan. I bring this up because occasionally over the past few months I've really enjoyed reading the comments people have left on the article written about this blog on The Daily Meal and Shine! from Yahoo (same article). Chances are, it's how you found our blog as it's gotten a lot of play since last summer. But man, the comments....some are kind, some like to rip on me because I admitted to not really liking sushi and so I *cannot* be a legitimate foodie reviewer (which I've made no claim to ever being), but one in particular got my attention, and gets me rolling on the floor. Whoever left it said, because we feature vegetarian and meatless options so much, and fake meat products in particular, Nathan and I must be undercover rogue vegetarians trying to brainwash society into giving up meat. Listen, you're talking about a guy who keeps thinking about keeping a spreadsheet of all the different kinds of animal he's eaten (I really should, I could think of a couple dozen if I tried, I'm sure, and all of them delicious) and loves bacon, meatloaf, medium raw steak, and even scrapple. Listen, you have to really like animally stuff to like scrapple. If you don't know what it is, a friend of mine best sums it up as "Eastern PA haggis," so use your imagination. And I remember hanging out with Nathan just enough back in college to more or less recall his diet, and let's just say there weren't too many veggie and quinoa nights.


But yeah...I do like a lot of Trader Joe's meatless/fake meat products. I've run through them enough times that I'm not going to do it again. I asked Sandy why we eat so much soy/grain based fake meat, when we both like the real thing just as much. Her answer: "Because we haven't had a bad experience yet." That's true enough, so when we saw a new shiny bag of Chickenless Crispy Tenders in the freezer aisle, we knew it was time again to give it the ol' college try.



It's not a bad product. For $2.99, you get about nine two-or-three bite sized tenders, so it's more than enough for a couple hungry adults for dinner. We baked them up alongside some tasty Trader Tots for a quick and easy meal. The "meat" is a little different from some other of their fake chicken products, where it tastes and feel like the intention is to assimilate an actual chicken chunk a little more closely. In these crispy tenders, it still tastes pretty darn and close to the real thing, but seems in texture and bite to be more like the stuff that goes inside a chicken patty or nugget. Does that make sense? Anyways, no real complaints there. The breading isn't bad either. I kinda like how they tried to do something a little different and put some oats and some crunchy bits of not-sure-what in. I don't like how a lot of it stuck to the baking sheet and by and large seemed to lack a little flavor. That's not awful if you view things like chicken strips as dipping sauce delivery devices (indeed, they went well with the sweet chili sauce and hot sauce we had on hand), but still, a little shake of black pepper or a little more paprika would've made a difference for them.

Regardless, both Sandy and I liked them. If there's anyone on the blog team that'd try to convince you to go vegetarian, it'd be her as she's talked about it once or twice. Whenever she does, I start sizzling up the bacon, and it's amazing how quickly that thought train derails. "Yeah, we'd get these again," she said. I think we would, too. They're not the best fake meat product that Trader Joe's offers, but they're not the worst (not like there's really bad ones we've stumbled across). Based primarily on breading issues, Sandy's going with a 3.5, whereas I see those concerns, quibble slightly about the price, and settle on a 3.5 as well.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Chickenless Crispy Tenders: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels

Peanut butter pretzels. It'd be pretty hard to screw these up. Pretzels = good. Peanut butter = good. Peanut butter pretzels = good x 2. I have met a handful of people that don't like peanut butter in my day, though. I'm guessing these wouldn't be winners with those special people. But other than that...of course these are gonna be good. But ... the question is: how good?

Well, as I've mentioned many times before, we've come to expect more from TJ's than just meeting expectations. If regular grocery store brands could make a decent peanut butter filled pretzel, then we expect TJ's to make something absolutely killer. Trader Joe's does offer both salted and unsalted varieties of this product. (We're only reviewing the salty kind right now). But just the fact that TJ's thought of people on low sodium diets shows that their thinking is a little different. A good different.

But to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they did everything they could with these. They could have messed around with the texture of the peanut butter a bit. Each pretzel had a sort of peanut butter nugget-thing inside of it. It wasn't particularly creamy. It was just kind of a ball of semi-firm peanut butteriness. And the pretzels were...just pretzels. Nothing particularly special.

Now, in their defense, there's really nothing in particular wrong with them either. I've eaten these in my car on my way to work now just about every day for the past month or so. They're bite-sized, highly snackable, happy little morsels. So, it might seem like I'm being harsh on a perfectly tasty product, which I am...but if these were among the best of the best TJ's products, I would certainly not have been nibbling on a few of them each day for a month...because they would never have lasted in our pantry for more than a day or two. All in all, you get peanut butter in a pretzel. No more, no less. If you're at TJ's and you have a particular hankerin' for some peanut butter-filled pretzels, by all means, you should pick some of these puppies up...But don't make a special trip for them.

I give them a 3. Sonia does, too. (She has tried the unsalted kind and likes those slightly better for some strange reason).

Bottom line: 6 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's True Thai Vegetable Curries

In a previous post or two, I've mentioned that 'm just not a lunch guy. It's like a necessary evil for me. Eating lunch more likely than not means I'm at work with about 5 hours of headaches in the bag and at least 3 more coming up, and honestly I just want to be alone more times than not just so I don't have to blabber about something or other. I don't *think* I'm anti-social, but I need that time to just unplug for a bit, even though I'd rather be eating with people. To me, that's about half the point of meals. It's certainly not about zeroing in to find your own table so you can blankly gaze into your iPhone while your coworkers think you're some lonely, kinda stinky jerkface who could use a shave. Eh well. It's what I do.

One thing I also do is Thai food. Love it. Trader Joe's has had some mild success with it over the years...there's only one miss I can think of (certainly not "slap another person worthy"...wait, what?)...with a big win or two (even though I'm convinced that this Thai Joe character is just a one trick pony). I guess if TJ's can make a viable, easy Thai lunch option, then I may as well check it out. Gotta eat somethin', and a little variety to the usual stuff would be great.

There's these two new True Thai Vegetable Curry options - Panang and Green. They're similar enough I'll tackle 'em both here (the panang is the one with all the pics). They're both easy to grab in a rush, cheap ($1.99 each), and both can remain in your manbag or desk drawer to keep lunch thieves away. Yes, I'm still bitter about that. For both, the curry sauce is the real star - the panang is a little spicier than the mellower green - but have rich coconut milk undertones with the usual Thai spicy suspects. Dee-lish. Both have about the same veggies in them - carrots, little babycorn buttons, cauliflower, etc, which are all kinda mushy. Not the biggest fan, although the green curry adds crunchier bamboo sticks, which make me feel like a happy chubby lil' panda gnawing away on them. Each are pretty decent with a little rice to mix in (as pictured) and zap up within a few minutes in the microwave. I suppose that, like the package says, one could mix in a little meat and they'd be good (the sauce is pretty darn good) but to me, that's not necessary to enjoy these. All in all, not a bad deal.

It's kinda funny though...I really never looked at the nutritional info on these until I started writing this post and loaded on the label pic. Is all Thai food this bad for you, with all the fat, saturated fat and sodium? Yikes. I had no idea. Must be the orice you pay for all that tasty spicy coconut milk. I guess you're gonna hafta have a real healthy dinner if you pick up one of these, like some flavored air or something.

Anyways, I'd ask Sandy her opinion on them, as a fellow Thai food lover, but the veggie mushfest that makes up the bulk of these curry cups make 'em a no-go for her. I would literally have to pin her down and clamp her nose shut to get her to try a spoonful of either one. Even though she'd probably like curry sauce itself, that's a little on the impolite side for me to do. So it's all on me this time around. I think, when all said and done, I'd rate the panang curry and green curry as about equals. I like how the panang's a little spicier, but the bamboo makes a huge difference for the green. If they were less mushy and a little more spicy, respectively...Both are about as equally bad for you, and this won't be the first time I make a nutritional knock for something. All things considered, both curries are far from the best you'll ever have, but they're good for what they are as an easy, inexpensive lunch option. I speak for both when I say...

Bottom line: Trader Joe's True Thai Vegetable Panang and Vegetable Green Curry: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Sesame Honey Almonds

Sonia loved these. I wasn't as thrilled. I love almonds. I love honey. And I feel fairly positive about sesame seeds. They work great on hamburger buns—the way Mickey D's does it. It's not overwhelming. I've had some buns from the grocery store, though, at summer barbecues and such that were simply riddled with sesame seeds. They don't have a particularly powerful taste, but when they band together in massive hordes, it's pretty hard to ignore them. Which isn't bad, except that they're usually eaten with something else—in the case of the hamburger bun, you're generally eating them: A) with a soft, white bread roll type baked good and B) with a nice big slab of dead cow or veggie patty or maybe chicken breast or something like that. Plus condiments and whatever else—my POINT being...you should taste the actual burger first in that case, and secondly taste the bread, and then maybe some mustard or ketchup—IF you taste the sesame seeds at all, it should be VERY subtle.


In this particular case, the sesame seeds are being eaten with almonds. In my opinion, almonds should be the "burger" of this snack, and the sesame seeds should always play second fiddle. They're just a little too sesame-ish to me. Again, I enjoy sesame seeds—but they're supposed to be...well, supporting cast members. Like Jay and Silent Bob. They make great background characters...characters that make cute, vulgar little cameos and then go away. In the case of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, it's just way too much Jay and Silent Bob. They should stay in the background. Sesame seeds are similar. But in this case, I think they overstepped their bounds a bit. Sonia disagrees.

Maybe my slight aversion to sesame seeds comes from these little candies my parents used to give me all the time. I wasn't able to have sugar candies back then, due to food allergies and sensitivities. These candies came from the local health food store and they were basically just sesame seeds glued together into these hard-candy-esque little rectangular dealies. I think they were sweetened with honey. I'm not sure what held them in their rectangular shape. It couldn't have just been honey because they were hard. When I'd put one in my mouth, I'd taste the sweet honey flavor, and I wanted more, so I'd try and suck all the sweet out of it. But the sweet went away quickly, and all I'd taste would be a big glob of soggy sesame seed. I didn't waste the sesame seeds, I'd eat them. A year or two later, I eventually got sick of these candies and decided never to eat them again. I just kinda suddenly woke up one day with this extreme aversion to masses of sesame seeds in my mouth all at once. All that to say that I'm probably a bit biased against masses of sesame seeds.

And these almonds have masses of sesame seeds glued onto them with honey. If there were fewer sesame seeds, I would have rated these much higher. It's a really good idea...just maybe not so much for people who hate masses of sesame seeds. Again, I don't hate sesame seeds. Just multitudes of them. I don't like them when they gang up on me. Individually, and in limited doses, they're quite lovely. Sonia gives these Sesame Honey Almonds a 4.5, noting that they are her favorite TJ's food this year so far. She likes them because they're extremely filling, slightly sweet, and a good source of protein. I give them a 2.5. That makes this product our biggest scoring-discrepancy in a long time.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels

Look it up on here if ya want: Trader Joe's has a pretty good rep with us for fake meat products. Soy chorizo? Veggie sausage? Beefless ground beef? Meatless corn dogs? All winners with us. Another winner with us is the inaugural member of the WGaTJ pantheon: Trader Ming's Mandarin Orange Chicken. Nathan and Sonia gave it a 9.5 way back in the day, and Sandy and I would give it at least that many in Golden Spoonage. Not everyone feels that way, though. Just read the comments there...I won't repeat them here because some of them's are naughty words...but yeah, there's a couple complaints about the quality of chicken for those.

My take is, if it's not unhealthy/bad for you type stuff, and you can overcompensate by making it extra tasty with some great flavoring, well, why not? Use what's usable. Not every clucker out there is destined for Chick-fil-A glory, for goodness sake, and sincerely doubt those or any other Trader Joe's product was made from whatever it is in the picture of pinkish glop that McNuggets are made out of (that's been mostly disproven, anyways). Anyways, let's do an experiment here...combine one of Trader Joe's strengths in fake meat technology, and replace the component most often criticized in one of their otherwise universally successful dishes, and what do you get? Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels, of course. Sandy and I saw it, and we were immediately intrigued enough to purchase it ($2.99, I think) and make it that night for dinner.

Making it is easy - it's the same process as the regular ol' chicken-full mandarin orange morsels. Dump the frozen bits out of the bag onto a cookie sheet and slide into the oven until they're done, then stir them up in a bowl with the orange sauce to get each piece coated. Serve over rice (at least that's what we do). 

Tastewise, I have absolutely no issue with the pollo dementira part - it's some combination of quinoa and grains and what not made up who-know-how into a fine tasting chunk of what would pass off as decent chicken - not the best, certainly, but really good. In fact, I'd say I wouldn't have thought it'd be fake unless I saw the bag. The problem I have is with the sauce - it's not nearly as good as what comes with the real mandarin chicken. It's thinner, runnier, and not nearly as strong flavored. I'm not sure what the difference is (maybe the vegan recipe lacks a key component) but it just doesn't work as well. What's left is this thin, vaguely sweet, watered-down orange soda-y type taste. Like other sauces that lack something, I was pretty tempted to try and add something to what TJ's had provided but...

...there was another issue. On the chicken-less orange morsel bag, it clearly says that there's two servings, approximately ten pieces each. That says to me that anything less than 18 fake chicken chunks would be a ripoff and any more than 21 would be a bonus. In our bag, there were only 15. That's unacceptable, even though all were fairly sized. That left us with the classic problem of "too much for one, too little for two" that some other TJ products suffer from. I also find it kinda disheartening that TJ's habit of meat skimping is making it's way towards the meat substitute product line, too. Anyways, I felt like I didn't have enough to really experiment with, so between that and being hobbled by tendonitis, I just stayed put.

Sandy loved it though, but not as much as the regular one, mostly because of the sauce-y lack factor. "The sauce kinda sucks for this one," she said. I agree. It does suck. So does the paucity of chickenless nuggets in the bag. Throw a few more in, and fix the sauce, and there's another pantheon contender out there. As is, Sandy gave it a four and I decided to go a tad low with a 2.5. To me, for having two major problems, it can't rank any higher than "not bad" no matter how good the rest of the dish is.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Ridge Cut Sweet Potato Chips

TJ's track record with sweet potato products is pretty stellar. Probably because it's pretty hard to screw up the sweet potato. Fry it, mash it, bake it...it's aaall goood. So far Sonia and I have checked out the Sweet Potato Pie Bites, and Russ and Sandy tried the Sweet Potato Frites. These products garnered scores of 8.5 and 9, respectively. Not bad. We're tough graders. Now, I'm not exactly sure where the term "frites" came from. I would have assumed it's some British nonsense, but I know that they generally call their fries "chips," and they call their chips "crisps." Well anyway, these are "chips" in the American sense of the word. Ridge cut chips, a la Ruffles brand.

These have a lot of good sweet potato flavor. They're nice and crunchable. Yes, "crunchable." As in "crunchable chipses." As in, that's what Gollum would call them. As in, I wish it were December already so I could watch the new Hobbit movie. But alas, I'm off on one of my notorious rabbit-trails.

Sonia says these chips are a good alternative to regular chips. If you're a chip kind of person, these do break up the monotony of regular old potato chips. And they're not super-sweet. If TJ's had decided to add some kind of brown sugar or mapley flavoring to boost the sweetness level, these would have been much more dessert-like and confection-ish. In my opinion, that would not have been a terrible idea—but I do have a bigger sweet tooth than the average bear. Sonia likes them just the way they are. There's just a hint of salt. When I think of them in my mind, though, I think of them as being more salty than they actually are. Not sure why. They're just... so... chip-ish, and chips tend to be salty.

My only complaint would be that they're not super sweet, and they're not super salty. They do taste natural, which is good. But for me, when I crave a snack, I'm usually looking for a sweet snack like a cookie, or a salty snack like regular chips. These kind of get lost in the middle somehow, and I don't find myself actually craving them ever, although they're absolutely snacktastic if you're down for something slightly salty, slightly sweet. I give them a 3. Sonia gives them a 3.5. If you're on the fence about trying them, and this review didn't sway you either way, I'd say that if you like sweet potatoes or sweet potato products at all, these are absolutely worth a try.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.