Looks just like some kinda fancy raisin bread broken up into mini-loaves for easy consumption, but I can't tell for sure. Let's see the write-up on the packaging. I'm sure it will tell us what the gimmick is here and how best to heat these little morsels. But...um...nope. No write up.
Traderjoes.com to the rescue. Ah, these are protein bars? I never would have guessed that in a million years. And they contain "high gluten enriched flour." Does that mean they add extra gluten? I guess whatever they remove from the gluten free products has to wind up somewhere, right? What a clever use for repurposed gluten.
Anyway. The bars. How are they? They're like really dense, really doughy raisin bread but with dried apple bits and walnuts, too. Kinda sweet. Kinda soft. Kinda chewy. They're much more filling than just a typical slice of cinnamon toast or other specialty breakfast bread. Not bad, not bad.
But they're so much better toasted. A little butter or cream cheese here goes a long way here since there's already a natural richness to the product. Filling, sweet, nutty, and fruity, I don't even know if these are supposed to be holiday or not, but I think something like this would do well year-round.
About 6 bucks for 8 bars. Sonia likes them a lot. Would buy again. Four stars a piece from the wifey and me for Trader Joe's Raisin Walnut Apple Bars.
On our last Trader Joe's run, we might have overbought a little, and I don't think there's any way to review all of these goodies before Christmas. So in the interest of consolidating our blog posts, this edition will serve to compare and contrast two popular apple pie products available this holiday season: Trader Joe's French Apple Tart and Trader Joe's Teeny Tiny Apple Pies.
The first and most obvious difference between the two products is the presence of enormous apple slices on the French tart. They're both Granny Smith and Northern Spy varieties. Some of you might recall the legendary Rustic Apple Tarte employed the use of Northern Spies. It's a lightly sweet and juicy species, while Granny Smith is tart and crisp. The teeny tiny pies are filled with a more traditional apple pie filling, with very small minced pieces of fruit—again using Northern Spy apples from Canada.
Flavor-wise, the French pie not only flaunts some sour apple pieces, but it uses apricot bits as well, lending it even more sweet-tart tang. The teeny tiny iteration boasts more of a cinnamon and brown sugar flavor and a much sweeter filling blend.
As far as crust goes, the teeny tiny apple pies have a traditional apple pie crust on the sides and bottom with an apple crumble-style coating on top. The tart is much less reliant on breading with nothing but a modest layer of shortbread underneath the layers of apple and apricot. There was an odd grittiness to the shortbread on the French apple tart that was just a tad off-putting.
Value-wise, we're looking at four servings in each of the products, though Sonia and I both agree you could easily stretch the French apple tart to eight servings. However, at $7.99, it's also pricier. The teeny tiny fellows will run you five bucks for the quartet of mini pies.
In the end, the French apple tart tastes more natural, and it'll serve a greater number of people, at least potentially. The teeny tiny apple pies have a very safe, classic apple pie flavor with cinnamon and brown sugar, they offer three different heating options right on the box (while the French tart includes none). The grainy texture in the French tart's shortbread bothered me a little more than Sonia, but she did notice it. Here are our final scores:
Trader Joe's French Apple Tart Trader Joe's Teeny Tiny Apple Pies Nathan: 3.5 stars Nathan: 4 stars Sonia: 4.5 stars Sonia: 4 stars Bottom line: 8 out of 10. Bottom line: 8 out of 10.
And if you're still on the fence about which purchase to make and you don't want to try one of each, we offer this last bit of guidance: if you're a family of four or less, go with the teeny tiny pies. If you're a family of five or more, go with the French tart.
All right, we did our obligatory vegetable-based product yesterday, so it's time to get back to indulgent, fattening holiday treats. I mean, it's practically the weekend. Up next: this raspberry croissant pastry thing. I've never heard of carré before. Apparently, it means "square" in French. Pronounced like "car-ray."
Only conventional oven heating instructions are given on the packaging, but we winged it in the air fryer on low heat (325°F) for about five minutes. It worked. The pastry was still soft, flaky, and buttery on the outside—like a croissant—and the filling was nice and hot, smooth and sweet, like the center of a high-quality jelly doughnut.
The filling is made with real raspberries and lemon juice, so it tastes authentic and fruity. It's mostly sweet, but there's a nice dose of tart flavor in there, too.
The edges of the pastry favor the bread quite a bit, while the middle is positively bursting with the purple jam. Both elements are delicious and pair beautifully with one another as a fancy and festive French dessert treat.
$5.99 for the six serving loaf. I don't even know if this is an explicitly Christmassy thing. Raspberries are kinda summer fruits, no? I'm sure they could make this with apples, oranges, figs, or plums and it would still be interesting to try.
Anyway, we would definitely buy again next year. Four stars from me. Four and a half stars from the beautiful wifey for Trader Joe's Raspberry Croissant Carré.
Trader Joe's is selling the good stuff now. And it's not just any hash, it's a special strain cultivated for this magical holiday season. But try as I may to roll it up and light it up, I just couldn't get this bud to burn. Somebody gotta tell Joe to dry his goods before selling them. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to eat these little hash chunks. They even give you suggestions for using them as edibles right on the package. You can make super stimulating soup or stoner stuffing with this stuff. Far out.
All hash jokes aside, our mixture seemed like it was teetering on the verge of being too dry, honestly. A bit more moisture would have been quite pleasant here. The squash and sweet potato bites were a little too hard and even the celery seemed stiff. We did consume it a couple days before the "best by" date, but it seemed like maybe our batch had seen better days..?
It's not a mix I'd ever want to eat on its own. In addition to the lack of moisture and abundance of firmness, it's a very odd flavor combo to me. When cold, the onions clash with the sweet potato and squash, and the herbs and spices are overrepresented.
As far as seasonings are concerned, we're looking at parsley, sage, rosemary, and...wait. What? Just parsley, sage, rosemary...and no thyme. I bet Simon and Garfunkel are rolling over in their graves right now. Wait. What? Neither of those guys are dead yet? Well, that's good, I guess. Time for a reunion tour then, maybe?
As an additive to other foods, I guess I'm failing to find a soup that suits this unusual mishmash of not-super-Christmassy oddball ingredients. Sonia sautéed it with salt and olive oil, and I must say I like this melange much better when served warm. The oil helps with the dryness, and all the flavors blend into a nice savory snack—much less harsh and bitter than when consumed raw. It works amazingly well as an accompaniment to eggs.
The beautiful wifey has big plans to serve up the remainder of our hash with a Cornish hen, but I don't think we'll get to that before this review gets posted. In light of how good this stuff is when served as a hot dish, I'll have to give it the benefit of the doubt. Sonia agrees.
$4.99 for the 18 oz container. Three and a half stars a piece from the wifey and me for Trader Joe's Holiday Vegetable Hash.
I'm definitely an ice cream-all-year-round kinda guy. Most of my life, I've lived in places with four seasons. Ice cream in December might make sense to Southern Californians, but it might not be the norm for folks in the Mid-Atlantic or Upper Midwest.
Actually, I take that back. In my hometown in central Pennsylvania, there'd be folks in line for ice cream at The Igloo all throughout the winter months. And the Berkey Creamery at Penn State never closed even in the freezing cold. I guess it's just part of the culture when you live in places surrounded by dairy farms.
At any rate, we never shy away from newfangled ice cream from Trader Joe's even if it's cold outside, so let's dig in. The actual ice cream here is gingerbread flavored. There are also nice big pieces of ginger cookies and a molasses-esque "gingerbread swirl." I think a vanilla base would have worked a little better here than the spicy brown base they used. A bit more creamy and sweet would have helped put the ginger spices in check, in the manner of Cookie Butter Ice Cream.
Still, this is a decent ice cream flavor, particularly if you love gingerrific ginger snaps. Every few bites or so, we got a piece of powerful, sinus-clearing raw ginger. I didn't really mind it since it wasn't in every bite. There were enough sweet and desserty elements that the raw ginger bits helped to balance them out, and they blended well with the molasses, cinnamon, and nutmeg flavors.
$3.79 for the pint. In summary, this ice cream is a festive, high quality, specialty dessert. It'll hit the spot for folks that absolutely love ginger. For other folks like Sonia and me, it was fun to try just once, but we'll return to vanilla-based ice creams that balance out the ginger spices a little better in the future. Three and a half stars a piece from the beautiful wifey and me for Trader Joe's Gingerbread Ice Cream.
Neither Sonia nor I grew up with bread pudding, but we've reviewed a couple versions from Trader Joe's throughout the years. See: pumpkin and salted caramel varieties.
This hot new product looked buzzworthy, so we decided to embark on another bread pudding adventure. After a bit of full-contact Christmas shopping over the weekend, Sonia and I were both getting hangry and teetering on the verge of a full blown verbal sparring session as we arrived at home, so we took the shortest path to raising our blood sugar back to normal-ish levels by yoinking this product from the freezer and popping the little desserts in the microwave.
The results? Quite decent. Forty-five seconds never tasted so scrumptious. A few bites of the sticky sweet concoction had us laughing and smiling like our normal, good-natured selves again.
The bread pudding is glazed in a pleasant amount of a salty caramel sauce that keeps the product sticky and syrupy. The flavor is sweet and buttery. The texture: soft, wet, and doughy.
The product wasn't even a bit chewy or rubbery even after a spell in the microwave. The bread does seem a bit firmer and puffier than your average bread pudding bread—perhaps because it's bread from actual pretzels. Has this been a thing for a while? Why didn't anybody tell me about this?
$4.49 for two very filling dessert cups. Good stuff here. Worth a purchase. Would eat for dessert after Christmas dinner. The beautiful wifey is on board for four and a half stars. Put me down for another four and a half and a thumbs up for Trader Joe's Pretzel Bread Pudding.
Like most people, I love the smell of vanilla extract. I love it as an ingredient in all manner of desserts and cakes and I enjoy the flavor it provides. However, unlike most people, I even like the taste of it straight out of the container, plain. I mean, I wouldn't drink a whole bottle of it like that, but I probably could on a dare or some similar situation.
After taking in a few whiffs of this Double Fold Bourbon Vanilla Extract, I was absolutely enchanted. I informed Sonia that I was going to try it straight. She cautioned me against it in the same manner that my parents used to, but being the wild man that I am, I proceeded to pour a teaspoon full and lap it up like so much fragrant water.
It's harsh and full of alcohol, for sure, but I mean, some bourbon can be pretty harsh and astringent, flavor-wise. It's got a distinct bourbon flavor and plenty of pure vanilla, too. It's like a shot of regular vanilla extract mixed with a dash of straight bourbon, slightly stronger than a spoonful of normal vanilla extract.
As an ingredient in food, it lends a nice earthy sweetness. Sonia made some pancakes using this elixir, and they came out just a little more vanillatastic than pancakes made with normal vanilla extract. I made a London fog beverage with some Earl Grey, half and half, honey, and this stuff, and it was lovely.
At first $7.99 seems a little steep for just 3.55 fluid ounces, but considering the quality and the fact that it's imported all the way from Mauritius, it could be a lot worse. Hard to score something like this. I think I'll throw out three and a half stars. Put the beautiful wifey down for four on Trader Joe's Double Fold Bourbon Vanilla Extract with Vanilla Bean Seeds.
If Peter Parker picked a pack of pickled picanté peppers, then where's the pantry where the people put the package of pretty pepper pieces? Or something like that...
So here we have pickled peppers submerged in oil and vacuum-sealed in a jar, along with plenty of salt. Not surprisingly, the product is shelf stable for quite some time—about two years—but the package label says "once opened, keep refrigerated and consume within 5 days." Five days?? We don't even get a week to eat these? You'd think they'd keep almost indefinitely if they're refrigerated and still submerged in oil, salt, and acidifiers. I have a feeling we won't finish the whole jar in such a short span of time, but this review will be posted well before we know for sure.
First thoughts: just like the sweet peppers you get from sandwich joints. I know they exist outside of Subway and Jersey Mike's, but that's where I know this flavor from. They're usually sliced into little strips there, but here we have the whole pepper.
The cheese? It doesn't really specify what type of cheese it is, but it strikes me as just your typical cream cheese or what have you. It's good and it pairs pretty well with the pepper flavor.
As far as the "picanté" aspect is concerned, yes there is a hint of peppery spice, but it's quite mild by our standards. Sweet? Yes. Quite sweet. Cheesy? Yes. Quite cheesy. But not very hot.
These went crazy well with water crackers and beef summer sausage. I don't really like them on their own, but they do very well with other charcuterie style foods. They need something bready to soak up all that oil. They're absolutely dripping with sunflower and canola oils and it's very difficult to get them completely dry.
$4.99 for the 5 serving jar. Not a bad thing to stash away in the back of the pantry for a rainy day. Four stars from me. Three and a half stars from the beautiful wifey for Trader Joe's Sweet Picanté Peppers with Creamy Cheese Filling.
Are pumpkin products still legit after Thanksgiving? I mean, pumpkin pie sure is, at least until Christmas, right? So pumpkin season rolls on in my humble opinion. Mid-September through Christmas seems appropriate.
On one hand we have hoppy IPA beer and on the other hand we have sweeter stuff like pumpkin cider. I'll do either/or depending on my mood, but something like pumpkin ale often falls between the cracks and fails to meet the needs of either my arrogant hipster wannabe persona or that of my inner giggly college girl. I mean, who actually craves a pumpkin ale?
I just grabbed one off the mix-a-six shelf at Trader Joe's some weeks ago and haven't had the opportunity or desire to drink it yet, so what better time than now while I'm stuffed to the gills with heavy Thanksgiving fare and the first of the Christmas season's fattening goodies? Here are my thoughts...
It pours an amber-ish color with an off-white head. It's sweeter than I thought it would be. Pumpkin spices are evident, though not overwhelming. It's almost more of a cider than an ale, but it's not as appley as drinks like The Gourd Tree Pumpkin Cider.
Despite the sweetness and pumpkin spice aura, the beer finishes surprisingly clean. Alcohol-wise, it doesn't taste as strong as most 7% ABV beers, but it'd be a rare occasion I'd go out of my way to find and procure an ale this "girly."
The price is nice at $1.34 for the individual can. Brewed by Josephsbrau. I guess I might throw another one in my mix-a-six next year if it's around again. Sonia sat this one out. I'm torn between 3 and 3.5 stars, so I'll do one of each.
"Cheese sticks." Hope nobody got a pay raise or promotion for coming up with that creative product title. Why not cheese swords or cheesy rods or cheese branches or cheesy trees? Oh wait. They already did that one. The packaging is lackluster at best, and these crispy little do-dads don't even have a listing on traderjoes.com as far as I could tell. Oh well.
Thanksgiving week tends to be the slowest time of year in terms of blog traffic, so I often throw out kind of oddball generic reviews of boring-ish products during that time because, hey, what have I got to lose?
What's working here: the texture is nice and crispy, crunchy, but not overly hard. The sticks are brittle but even my sensitive teeth and gums aren't irritated even after gnawing on a few of these sourdough sticks. They pair great with almost any kind of soup, especially tomato-based ones, and who needs croutons for a salad when you have these? The sourdough flavor is pleasant, as well, but not overpowering.
What's not working here: there's definitely some cheese flavor, but I think they could have packed them with a bit more. I guess too much cheese would reduce the shelf life of the product and make it more prone to spoilage, but doesn't all that salt help with preservation?
$2.99 for approximately a dozen cheese sticks. I guess we'd buy this item again just to have it in the back of the pantry to serve with tomato soup in lieu of grilled cheese or something more elaborate. Three and a half stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Cheddar Cheese Sticks.
In my experience, pupusas were always the staple food for folks from El Salvador. Those Salvadoreños would seize any opportunity to introduce us gringos to their favorite pupusa joint, often just a hole in the wall or some unsuspecting apartment in a random neighborhood. They'd come out with lots of little clear plastic bags tied at the top with rubber bands. It might have looked like a shady narcotics deal if not for the fact the bags were obviously filled with veggies, sauces, and shredded cheese.
The base element for those pupusas was always a puffy pancake-esque cake similar to the one we have here, although those were generally much lighter. Some weren't filled at all, and all the flavor came from whatever you put on top—usually some pickled cabbage, a thin salsa, and jack cheese—possibly shredded chicken or other meat. Others had a thin layer of beans or maybe cheese baked into the middle of the disc.
Lacking the cabbage topping and unique salsa, I was skeptical of this offering from Trader Joe's. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with them, and their filling is quite a bit more interesting than the street style pupusas I've had in the past. There's no detectable chicken pieces. It's just a whirled mush of chicken and cheese with a few flecks of green chiles scattered throughout.
Using the air fryer method, the breading part of the cake gets slightly crispy. It's a good quality corn masa—authentic enough for me. The overall flavor is salty and savory and there's enough chicken and cheese flavor to be satisfying. The chile pieces add a bit of a kick, but salsa of any kind is in order if you're craving something truly picante.
We added onions to ours in lieu of Salvadoran slaw and experimented with a few different types of hot sauces and salsas. Nothing quite replicated what we'd had from restaurants but we were happy enough to finish the meal, one pupusa each, and contemplated heating the third one immediately and splitting it between the two of us, although in the end, we opted to save it for later.
I think the moral of the story here is to buy or make some Salvadoran cabbage relish, or "curtido," and have it on standby when you eat these. While any tomato-based salsa will do in a pinch, looking up an authentic recipe online might be worth it in this instance, too. Either way, it's not a bad product and it's a simple way to introduce yourself to the world of pupusas.
$4.79 for three servings. Three and a half stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Chicken, Cheese & Green Chile Pupusas.
First thoughts: looks like one of those Cholula or Tapatio or Texas Pete hot sauce bottles with a teensy little hole where you have to shake the bottle fairly vigorously to get the sauce to come out, so how could it possibly be "chunky"? There might be some pureed peppers in there or something like that, but this sauce being truly chunky seems unlikely.
Oh well, if it tastes like garlic and jalapeño I don't even care if it's chunky or not.
The verdict? Okay...it's...sorta chunky. The entire circumference of the mouth of the bottle is open. It's not like that super tiny narrow hole on other hot sauce bottles, which allows bits of jalapeño to flow from the container onto your food.
The taste? Briny! The jalapeño peppers are brined and they make the whole thing taste super salty. It's like garlic-flavored sea water with a little heat to it. Not my favorite hot sauce for sure. Not even close. This definitely won't replace Tapatio or Cholula in our household, and it definitely won't take the place of good tomato-based actually-chunky salsa for chip dipping or topping Mexican dishes.
I make this meal I call "tuna surprise" because the ingredients change every time we have it based on what condiments are available in our fridge at the time of creation...
I have a feeling it will do pretty well as an element in tuna surprise. A little saltiness and heat never hurts that dish.
Maybe I just have to get used to it. It's not at all like what I was expecting. Supposedly this type of salsa is quite popular all throughout California's Central Coast. I only made it up that way once or twice during my Cali days.
$3.99 for the 10 oz. bottle. Sonia is similarly unimpressed. Three stars from her. Two and a half from me for Trader Joe's Chunky Garlic & Jalapeño Hot Sauce.
A Brazilian girl I once knew told me that they often eat dessert first in Brazil because it makes them feel fuller sooner, so they wind up eating less of the main course—one of the many reasons, she explained, that Brazilians tend to be more fit than Americans. She also told me that Brazilian culture is all about having fun, more so than American culture, which focuses on career and work too much, and that Brazilians go out every day to clubs or parties, dance, and walk a lot, while Americans stay home and watch TV.
But nobody ever told me about brigadeiros. Maybe my Brazilian friend knew I'd just sit on the couch catching up with my Star Wars shows on Disney Plus shoveling them into my mouth box by box like a typical obese American. I bet that was it. She was looking out for me.
But Trader Joe has no scruples about selling me Brazilian bonbons and watching me grow fatter and fatter, do you Joe? Something something something about self-control and all that. Sure. Whatever. Actually, the box says they're Portuguese. But Google says they're Brazilian. I guess they're both..? I'm all over the place today.
Well, at any rate, these brigadeiros are delicious. They're uber-chocolatey. Fudgy, like it says on the box. They're dense, creamy, thick, and they deliver a massive blast of sweet milk chocolate.
Texture-wise, they're soft and they do indeed melt in your mouth. They're not chewy or crunchy or crispy at all. They're slightly squishy but solid when you remove them from the little tray, but as soon as they hit your tongue, it almost feels and tastes like you just tilted your head back and squirted a bunch of chocolate syrup into your mouth.
$3.79 for nine little chocolate bonbon things. Not available at TJ's anymore. I think they came out right when that first round of fall goodies got released this year. Not sure if we'll ever see them again, but my vote is: bring them back, please. Very tasty. Double fours from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Brigadeiros.
It's very rare I'm in the mood for a hot beverage. Even in the midst of a frigid midwestern winter, I'll generally reach for an ice cold energy drink over traditional coffee and I'll do refrigerated cider over the heated kind. I might have a mug of hot chocolate after shoveling snow or a walk in sub-freezing temperatures, but that's unusual for me.
At the same time, I think I'd be remiss in my duties as an unofficial Trader Joe's brand product blogger if I didn't at least try this beverage both hot and cold. We'll get to the results in a minute...
For review, TJ's once produced what was maybe my favorite cider drink of all time, now long since forgotten and discontinued. Why do you hate me, Trader Joe? And they offered what I consider one of the worst cider products of all time, too. Also discontinued. Hey, at least they're consistent. This particular iteration of cider has been around for at least the past few years, somehow eluding a post on this blog up until now.
So where does it land on the spectrum of fine festive fall beverages? For me personally, it's somewhere in the middle, probably closer to the top than to the bottom. It's aromatic from the moment you twist off the cap. There's a good bit of sediment in the depths of the bottle, so a fair amount of agitation is required before pouring.
Served cold, it's light and sweet enough to be refreshing, and the spices are quite noticeable but not overpowering. It's a bit tart, maybe even more than I was expecting. It's chuggable and/or sippable, and there's not too much aftertaste like some ciders we've seen in the past.
When heated, the spicy aromas only increase. The lemon juice seems to wake up, too, and add a bit more tang. There's an almost caramel-esque quality to the smell. It's fine by itself, but it begs for a dusting of cinnamon, cloves, and/or nutmeg to further enhance the experience. Even as a lover of cold drinks, I think this particular cider might shine a bit more brightly when served piping hot, with each flavor opening up just a tad more than in the iced version. Oddly, Sonia thinks the opposite, and she's way more into warm drinks than I am.
Sonia loves it. Four and a half stars from her. $3.99 for the bottle, found with the unrefrigerated juices. Three and a half stars from me for Trader Joe's Spiced Cider.
Apparently "ravioloni" is just a larger version of ravioli. They just made the word longer so you'd know the pasta is bigger. Although, "ravioletti" is the smallest version of all, so...never mind. At first glance inside the packaging, they don't appear to be any larger than normal ravioli, but I must admit they about doubled in size while boiling in water.
These reminded me quite a bit of the recently-reviewed Vegan Italian Bolognese Ravioli, and they were similarly, you know, not bad-ish. I think the flavor of these square pasta pieces was a tad tastier than their round vegan counterparts, thanks to the presence of real burrata cheese.
There were sort of off-yellow colored pieces and orange colored pieces, representing the limoncello and mango flavors, respectively. Just kidding about the fruit flavors. They're just pasta flavored. Once again, tomato is pretty dominant, but cheese rounds out the dish nicely, especially if you add a touch of parmesan to the finished product.
There still wasn't a ton of filling in these oversized raviolis, and the pasta itself was on the thin side, but it's a step in the right direction from those Bolognese fellows. There are only about a dozen pieces of pasta in the whole package, too, which is a bit stingy if you ask me, but I guess four bucks isn't exactly breaking the bank, either. The package is supposedly three servings, which would amount to about four pieces of pasta each. Sonia and I did six for her, six for me, and it worked out nicely for a moderately-filling lunch.
The wifey says she'd buy again. I'm on the fence. Something like four stars from Sonia and three from me once again for Trader Joe's Italian Tomato & Burrata Ravioloni.
I guess if I were a real foodie, I'd know what the word "confit" meant without having to look it up. I've heard the phrase "duck confit," but that's about the only context in which I've ever actually noticed the word before. And to be honest, I have no idea what duck confit is.
I'm quite familiar with and fond of onions, however, so I thought I'd give this product a whirl. I looked at the packaging and saw a sort of dark brown swirl on these crackers. My brain immediately made the connection to caramelized onions since that's the first place my mind goes when I think of onions in a dark brown format.
And...yeah...no. That's not what these are. Apparently confit is anything cooked for a very long time at a low-ish temperature in grease or oil. Even if I had been aware of the meaning of the word "confit," I still don't think I would have imagined the taste of these swirls even semi-accurately. I would have imagined something, you know, greasy and oniony.
These crackers are dry as can be, if but maybe a tad oily...and they don't really taste like onions, sadly. Onion powder is the third ingredient after wheat flour and butter, and I guess there's a whisper of oniony essence, but not much more. I thought they'd be similar to those crispy onion chips, which were freaking amazing, but with maybe a bit more breadiness to them.
I don't know how I'd eat these things other than tossing them into savory soup of some kind. Honestly, I don't know if I'd ever reach for these puppies over classic croutons or even saltine crackers. They just need more onion flavor to be worth it. And they're extremely tiny. I wouldn't have minded if they were, you know, bite-sized...instead of half-bite-sized.
$2.49 for the 2.5 serving box. We will polish off the box within the week with the help of some tasty bisque or stew, but we probably would not buy again. Three and a half stars from Sonia. Three from me for Trader Joe's Onion Confit Swirls.
You all know me. I'm a trooper. I'll try just about anything once. There are pumpkin products I love and pumpkin products I dislike, and everything in between. But this right here is pretty gross. I imagine it's about as close as I'll ever get to drinking a pumpkin spice candle.
I mean, we don't even have pumpkin spice cow's milk. Sure, I've had some killer pumpkin pie milkshakes in my day. And there are pumpkin coffee beverages galore, some of which are okay and some of which are not. But there's not really just plain pumpkin milk. So...just maybe the world doesn't need a dairy-free version of pumpkin milk..?
We tried the pumpkin almond beverage a few years back, and it wasn't good. It might have passed as a coffee creamer, but even that was pushing it. This stuff is an even paler shade of unnatural orange—not unlike orange cream milk or an orange creamsicle milkshake. Oh how I wish to God it tasted like an orange creamsicle.
It tastes like the dirty dishwater used to clean out several bowls of plain oatmeal...mixed with potpourri and a dash of pureed squash. The aftertaste is appalling. I just barely managed to down a couple swigs of it for this review. Never again.
Sonia, predictably, isn't nearly as disgusted as I am, although even she says she can't really taste pumpkin spices exactly. She thinks it needs more cinnamon. Yes. Okay. I'll agree with that. It definitely doesn't taste like cinnamon, and the taste of cinnamon is much less vile than the taste of this beverage, ergo, it could use some cinnamon I guess.
Sonia will finish the carton using it as a coffee creamer or to make her own potpourri lattes. $2.99 for the candle. Three out of five stars from the beautiful wifey. One star from me for Trader Joe's Non-Dairy Pumpkin Oat Beverage.
Eleven years ago, Sonia and I did our very first video review on Trader Joe's Mexicaine Quiche, a comparable product to this one with similar packaging and preparation instructions. The dish didn't exactly wow us, so for the most part, we've avoided Trader Joe's quiche offerings for the past decade.
Although, I must admit, I had completely forgotten about odd little items like this one, which were similarly underwhelming and unmemorable. But even so, at long last, it is time to give TJ's quiche another whirl. This time, it's the broccoli and cheddar variety.
There's plenty of egg and cheese here. The crust is nice and crumbly. It's slightly buttery and supple. Somehow, I feel this product flaunts a tastier spice blend than some of its predecessors. It certainly isn't spicy per se, but there's a nice overall flavor, which some of the other quiches lacked. There's onion in there, which helps, but as far as actual herbs and spices, all I'm seeing is garlic, salt, and pepper. In my humble opinion, it's enough—although, a few dabs of hot sauce can't hurt, either.
There are large chunks of broccoli here and there, which can be a little stringy. The bites that contained very small bits of broccoli were better texture-wise, and I think more finely-chopped veggies would have helped distribute the greens around the dish more evenly.
$2.99 for the single serving quiche. It's nothing to write home about, but I definitely don't hate it, either. It makes a more interesting breakfast than toaster pastries or cereal, I suppose. I don't know if I'd seek this product out again, but if I found it in the back of my freezer, I'd happily fire up the oven and eat it without complaint. Three and a half stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Broccoli & Cheddar Cheese Quiche.
