Trader Joe's Corn Cookie Mix

Corn. It's everywhere and in everything. It's across the street from where I grew up in suburban Philadelphia - even between all the fancy residential developments and retail shopping centers that seemingly try to devour them all, a corn field still remains. It's like the entire middle of America, right? I know that's not precisely true but it's what a lot of people say anyways, and most of us kinda smile and nod. It was on my dinner plate last night in it's classic on-the-cob form, and is most nights anyways as a somewhat sneaky food ingredient that's in almost everything it seems.

That's not all, of course. Corn is used to make everything from fuel to plastics to heck, even spark plugs these days. You can't get away from it even if you tried.

Despite all this, seeing something like Trader Joe's Corn Cookie Baking Mix was a bit of a surprise. Cookies...featuring corn? And we don't mean like candy corn, either. Like, actual real corn...as a selling feature and not just as HFCS or any of that stuff.

Apparently the concept of a corn cookie has been around for a while. I've just never heard of it, which is par for the course for me of course. At first impression and without much further research, there seems to be like a 1950s vibe to the idea. I'd welcome to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable than me.

Anyways, the TJ's cookies. They're super easy to make. A cannister of the mix, two sticks of unsalted butter and a large egg are all that's needed to make two dozen corn cookies. Or if you're like me and can't make even sized dough balls, it might be more like 30. Anyways, just mix those all up to a smooth batter, which will likely take a few minutes - I was staring at a mishmash of crumbs for a while until it just magically came together.

Now, imagine cornbread. And imagine a decently crispy, light sugar cookie. And think of the two of them smashed together, with the graininess of the cornbread being stripped away. That's almost precisely what these cookies taste like. It's a bit odd at first but it gets more comfortable on repeated bites. the flavor comes in a wave - first, it's unmistakably corny, but then transitions to a sweet, almost creamy cookie taste. It's like cornbread but sweeter, and like a cookie but cornier. And it actually kinda works.

Naturally this got me a little curious to try a little experimentation. I sprinkled a little cinnamon atop one. That worked nicely. But then I got the courage to go bold. How do these corn cookies and, say, a little Everything but the Elote Seasoning go together? Or heck even a cookie and a pickled jalapeno? I will say I tried them both and wasn't completely offput by the experience. The pepper pairing was better than the elote eloping in my opinion, but then again, I'm not a huge fan of the elote stuff anyways. I know. Shame on me. 

It is important to note that the first ingredient of the TJ corn cookie mix is, in fact, wheat. Sorry, glutenfree folks out there.

As a whole, neither my lovely bride nor I nor our kids absolutely love or hate the corn cookies. A repeat purchase is entirely debatable and may be subject to any suggestions for other ways of using the mix. There's nothing revolting about them, for sure, but nothing that really gathers our enthusiasm either. We'll go double threes.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Corn Cookie Mix: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Pecan Pralines

Man, 2020 has been quite a year so far, and we're not even halfway through it yet. Has the whole world gone nuts?

Apparently, everything is happening on schedule. Earlier this year, I finished reading a book called The Fourth Turning, written the year I graduated high school: 1997, over two decades ago. This book specified that the "climax of the crisis era" would begin "around the year 2020" and would be marked by "new diseases," "cultural distress," "social distress," "political distress," "economic distress," and "military distress." These predictions were made based on the simple theory that history repeats itself roughly every 80 years. 

Look at 1940: WWII raged around the world and the U.S. got pulled into it the following year. 80 years prior: 1860, the American Civil War. 80 years prior to that: 1780, right in the middle of the American Revolution. The pattern actually goes back well before the formation of this country, and it can be observed in almost any civilization throughout history. It's an incredibly insightful read and I could go on and on for pages, so to prevent this snack review from becoming a book report, I'll try to wrap things up. My point? It's going to be a bumpy ride for a while, but stuff is cyclical, and no, the world is not nuts—or more accurately, it's no more or less nuts than it's ever been.

What is nuts? Trader Joe's Pecan Pralines. In times like these, it's nice to have an old familiar snack that you can count on to curb the munchies, satisfy a sweet tooth, and keep your blood sugar up without too much fanfare.

The pecans are a good mixture of pecan halves and smaller pecan bits, generously coated in a praline confection consisting of sugar, butter, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt. They're very sweet, moderately salty, and surprisingly buttery. Texture-wise, for a fraction of a second, they feel almost breaded when they're in my mouth. I guess that's a testament to the amount of sugar, butter, and salt that's on there.

The flavor is so potent that I'm usually pretty satisfied after just two or three pecans. Beyond that, I feel like I'm teetering on the brink of hyperglycemic shock. That sweet butter just builds up on my tongue and I need to chug a half gallon of water to reclaim equilibrium in my mouth. In light of that, I think this single tub would last me quite a while if it were just me. Sonia's quite happy to eat them all day long, however. She finds them supremely addictive.

These have been around there on TJ's candy shelf for a number of years now, at least. Once again, this is the first opportunity we've had to try them. If you already like pecans and enjoy them in a buttery candy form, then this snack is for you. I'd be okay going quite a while before we purchase them again, but I think Sonia will grab them sooner. 

A plastic tub will run you just under $6 at Trader Joe's, or....what the WHAT? You can pick them up on eBay for about $40 plus shipping?

Four stars from Sonia. Three and a half from me.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Coconut & Almond Creamer

Ahh, coffee. So good, right? And who knew how wrong I've been making it for years?

It's simple, actually. We just bought a kitchen scale for use for baking and fermenting, but my lovely bride Sandy just realized we should be using it to make coffee, too, for our French press. Something about 1 gram of coffee for every 15 grams of water or something....for someone one so math adverse as her, I'm surprised she took it on. But dang! Awesome coffee every time she's made it that way. Smooth, mild, highly drinkable, enough kick. Coffeehouse quality, as simple as that, for a fraction of the cost.

Of course, I haven't embraced or learned this new to us method quite yet, so when I had to make some brew to get us going yesterday, I reverted to the old ways. Grind some beans, dump in an approximate amount, pour water til it looked about right. Result? Comparatively speaking, it was barely drinkable. Looks like I'm going have to do some coffee break science from now on.

About the only thing that made my coffee drinkable was Trader Joe's Coconut & Almond Creamer. Or so says Sandy, I choked down my coffee as is, but when she's gone for creamy coffee recently this has been her choice.

Obviously, it's dairy free. So that's an okay start...we both can handle lactose just fine but prefer to save as much as we can for cheese. Coconut creamer can tend to be a little too heavy, while almond creamer never really seems to make coffee quite creamy enough by itself, so a good blend of the two seems to make the right kind of sense to approximate "regular" creamer the closest.

Not too much coconut or almond flavor comes through - a little, sure, but it's not gonna taste like a flavored latte. The small hint of vanilla helps smooth all that over as well.

 Anyways if you're looking for a decent dairy-free alternative to the usual half and half, giving this one a try wouldn't be a bad idea. I have a feeling we'll be restocking on an as-needed basis, until I can convince Sandy to go all black coffee like I do. I don't have much of say here, so like our old way of making coffee, I'm gonna approximate and hope for the best when I say a seven overall. I forgot to take a pic of the nutritional info so check it out here.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Coconut & Almond Creamer: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons