Well, 2023 was an interesting year. There's no doubt 2024 will be even more so. I've mused about New Year's resolutions before on this blog, so there's no need to wax philosophical today. Suffice it to say that if I were to make any intentional changes in my life, eating better and being less fat healthier is always somewhere on the list.
I like oat-based cereal, oatmeal, and overnight oats. Sonia has some oaty stuff on hand more often than not, so I'm not sure why I don't eat it more frequently. It's filling, nutritious, and generally not very expensive. This product is no exception to those rules.
Plus, this oat and almond-based breakfast tastes surprisingly good. Overall, it's nutty and hearty, and there are plenty of sweet date and apple pieces throughout. Honestly, I didn't notice the dates until I looked at the ingredients. They just blended in with the slightly more familiar taste of apple, and there's plenty cinnamon flavor too—for a distinctly apple cinnamon vibe.
There's a good bit of moisture all through the oats. It's almond milk, mostly...er, sorry—it's almond beverage. Is there a copyright on "almond milk"? Meh. Who cares? Anyway, the mixture is nice and wet, but it's still quite thick. I was pleasantly surprised at how dense and rich the mixture was. It's not watered down at all. Sonia actually wanted the overnight oats to be thinner, with more liquid. Interesting. That's the only point we disagree on.
We both like the product quite a bit and are eager to try other flavors. $1.99 for the 5.5 oz cup. Gluten free. Kosher. Would buy again. Four stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Apple Overnight Oats.
Bottom line: 8 out of 10.
Trader Joe's has gone and made hot cocoa flavored cream cheese. It's everything you'd expect it to be...I mean, unless you were expecting it to actually be hot. Of course it's not hot when you pull it out of the fridge. That would be silly to think that. I mean, I suppose you could heat it up and melt it and find some uses for it that way, but now we're getting off track...
This cream cheese looks, smells, and tastes like actual hot cocoa. It's a milky light brown color, and it spreads like any other cream cheese. It's super smooth. No flecks of powder or chunks of marshmallow or anything like that—although Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Cream Cheese with Marshmallows doesn't sound bad to me at all.
As soon as you open the tub, the smell of hot cocoa hits your nose. And it tastes like hot cocoa, too—like a medium-sweet milk chocolate made with real cow's milk, cocoa, and sugar. It goes great on bagels and anywhere else you'd use regular cream cheese. Sonia is fond of sprinkling Trader Joe's Cocoa Cinnamon Sugar Blend on top of this stuff for an extra blast of sweetness and maybe a bit of Mexican Hot Chocolate flair from the cinnamon.
$2.79 for the tub. Would buy again. Four stars a piece from the beautiful wifey and me for Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Cream Cheese Spread.
Bottom line: 8 out of 10.
Well, it's Christmas yet again. And in lieu of figgy pudding—which I've still never even tried, by the way—we've got some figgy cheddar cheese, which we'll be munching on throughout this soggy winter's day, along with some all beef sausage and crackers.
This block of cheese is a fine mild cheddar, produced in the U.K. It's nice and soft and not very sharp at all. Most of TJ's cheeses are high-quality, so that's usually not something you have to worry about.
But it has figs in it. Weird, right? Does it work? Yeah, sorta. The figs lend a faint sweetness that otherwise wouldn't be there, which I expected. What I wasn't prepared for was the odd crunchiness from the fig seeds. Just as you get a bit of grittiness when eating a dried fig, there are whispers of crunch in this block of cheddar. It's a tad odd, but it's still a tasty cheese.
The "spiced" part of the figs is negligible. You don't really taste much, if any, of the coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and fennel mentioned in the ingredients—not that I was really hoping to. This is figgy cheddar after all, not pumpkin spice cheddar. Shoot, I better not give them any ideas for next fall...
The fig bits could be bigger, honestly. I think it would help the unique flavor shine a little more, but then there would be more of that weird sandy grit, too, so...never mind. $8.68 for our block, priced by weight—looks like $11 per pound I think. Sonia likes it a little more than I do. She'd buy again, while I'm on the fence. Four stars from the beautiful wifey. Three and a half from me for Trader Joe's Figgy Cheddar.
Merry Christmas, everybody! Thanks for reading!
Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.
We've been plugging away at Trader Joe's brand Christmas goodies rather industriously here for the past couple weeks, so I'll spare you a long soliloquy today and keep this one short. I don't really have a ton to say anyway, so let's get to it.
Trader Joe's Cranberry Butter Cookies have a good taste and an okay texture. They're a little harder than I would have liked. They are firm and crumbly rather than soft and delicate. The cranberries lend a hint of chewy satisfaction, but there's not enough of them.
The flavor is sweet and buttery, tart and tangy. They taste a bit like the All Butter Shortbread Sandwich Cookies, but I liked the texture on those a good bit better than these. I feel like these cookies are too solid, and they lack the smooth jelly filling of the sandwich cookies.
I give Trader Joe's Cranberry Butter Cookies three and a half stars. Sonia gives them only three, also stating that they're too hard and need to be dunked in a hot beverage. $2.99 for the five serving pack. They're not the worst cookies I've tried, but knowing what else is out there, these are probably not a repeat purchase for us.
Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.
Few foods are as overtly Christmassy as gingerbread. Apple pie is jovial and jubilant and all, but it's just as appropriate on the Fourth of July as it is during the holiday season. Pumpkin stuff is fair game around Yuletide, but those goodies are also ubiquitous in October and November. I guess peppermint and egg nog are flavors you can't separate from late December, but as far as actual food items go, gingerbread is about as inextricably woven into the fabric of Noël as anything I can think of...and that's one of the reasons we have to hold it to a high standard.
These iced gingerbread squares aren't exactly a disappointment, but I certainly wouldn't put them at the top of my Trader Joe's holiday wish list. When it comes to appearance and texture, these morsels are about as far removed from homemade as you can get. They look and feel fake, overly processed. The perfectly squared off gingerbread pieces feel almost rubbery to the touch while the icing looks and feels like hard plastic.
The mouthfeel is fine, however. Once you start chewing the product, the gingerbread is nice and soft, the icing may be a little stiff but not hard. Still, there's the sense that these sugary slabs were made by machines rather than human hands.
There's a molasses and brown sugar sweetness to the taste, and the spices are blended fairly well. They're not overdone or harsh in any way. If anything, once you factor in the layer of icing, the squares may teeter on the verge of being too sweet.
The flavor, while pleasant, isn't particularly memorable. Of all the goodies we've sampled this year, this is about the only one that didn't disappear in short order after opening the package. Even the Holiday Vegetable Hash, after discovering a few ways to prepare it that we really enjoyed, is long gone from our fridge. Sonia and I aren't exactly fighting one another for the remaining gingerbread squares.
While it's not a terrible product by any means, this one just isn't among our favorites. About five bucks for six bars. Probably wouldn't buy again. Three out of five stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Iced Gingerbread Squares.
Bottom line: 6 out of 10.
