Podcast Episode 23: Shopping Spree

We gave ourselves a $15 budget to go on a shopping spree for products we wouldn’t normally try and we share our thoughts about those products in this episode.

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Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Ginger

Here's a confession I have no problem making: Not only did I not have high hopes for Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Ginger, I really didn't want to try it either. It's not that ginger and chocolate can't work together - they can - but...big crystallized ginger bites. We have a history. It's not good. But, here we go. Why? Check out our forthcoming podcast episode.

Thankfully, all my trepidation aside: I actually like these. They're not going to be my newest BSFF (best snack food friend), but I will be sad to see this now nearly-empty container go. It's got to be the chocolate - there's a good, thick coat of the typical high-quality TJ's dark chocolate indigenous to all their other candies - with an added firmness and crunch from the candy lacquer. The middles are that formerly formidable crystal chunks that I usually like in only small doses. That softer core adds a nice textural change up, while that chocolate tampers down that fierce ginger bite into something more palatable.

These Raisinet-sized bites do hit a certain balance. On one hand, when I need a chocolate fix, they deliver. But I can eat way too much chocolate. Thankfully, the ginger, while pairing well enough with the chocolate, still makes odd-enough bedfellows that make eating more thana small handful seem like not the best of ideas.

Both Sandy and I enjoy them, not sure who likes them more. I got a good laugh when she thought at first they were the new cocoa-covered coffee beans...oh, the face she made. Priceless. Anyways, it's $4.99 for the tub, and worth a try.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Ginger: 7.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Peaberry Coffee Beans

The whole chocolate-covered espresso bean/coffee bean thing is growing on me. Bite-sized blasts of earthy cocoa, sugar, and caffeine were never my go-to pick-me-up, but even non-coffee drinkers like me have to admit, there's a lot of good stuff going on here.

I've had quite a few different brands and varieties of this sort of snack, but this is probably the best one I've tried so far. Sonia agrees, and she's far more into coffee and its derivative products than I am. There's a delightful depth to the taste of these beans that blends seamlessly with the bittersweet chocolate. Everything from the crunch of the beans to the texture of the coating is on-point and amazing. 

When I walk into a coffee shop, I always smell the enticing aromas of roasting beans and steaming milk, but when I purchase that rare cup of coffee or espresso, I'm almost always let down. Even with the best blends, I always feel like the taste of coffee can't compete with its fantastic fragrance. Not here. These beans taste like that coffee shop smells: sweet, rich, robust, and downright delicious.

The biggest drawback to these peaberry beans is the inevitable urge to eat way more than you should in one sitting—not just for the calorie count, but also because you'll be buzzing and bouncing well into the night. If you want to play a really mean trick on someone, give them a tub of these treats right before bedtime and watch them try to eat just one.

Sonia will go with four and a half stars for these comestible coffee beans. I'm still not the biggest coffee bean backer or dark chocolate devotee in the world, but I can't go with less than four here.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Chicken Spring Rolls

Although not quite as traditionally 'Murican as chicken soup or chicken pot pie, these chicken spring rolls are new to TJ's and review-worthy, so let's take a brief look, shall we?

The flour wrapper comes out nice and crispy when cooked according to the instructions. And I did. Aren't you proud of me that I didn't try to use the microwave? 

The filling is a nice soft blend of chicken, cabbage, and seasonings, with a detectable amount of sweetness, too. I've had spring rolls and egg rolls before, and I've never noticed anything sweet in the appetizer itself—perhaps in a paired dipping sauce, but not in the roll. Perusing the ingredients, I noted "sugar" right there in between green onion and basil. Interesting. Don't get me wrong, it's not excessively sweet by any means. Overall, the flavor is savory, salty, and somewhat successful, in my opinion.

Also, wouldn't these be egg rolls? After a brief Google research session, the main qualifications I found for something to be a spring roll were "not (usually) fried," "with no chicken or meat," and "with a thin translucent or transparent rice wrapper," none of which apply to these happy little snacks. 

And before someone scolds me for not knowing that all spring rolls have sugar in them or the reason why these are spring rolls and not egg rolls, let me remind you that I'm the dude that just asked you to praise me for using the stove top instead of the microwave a couple paragraphs ago. I'm not exactly a gourmet cooking authority.

But if you want my opinion on these rolls, I say they're teetering on the brink of "not bad" and "really darn good." Three and a half stars from me. Four stars from Sonia will push this in the direction of "really darn good." Her only complaint is that they don't come with a dipping sauce.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Island Salsa

Memorial Weekend is only about a month away! You know what that means - the unofficial start of summer and all that. And that means vacation time! For a lot of you out there, that means one big thing: the beach.

Listen: I'm not opposed to beaches. I can spend a day there and reasonably relax. But maybe it's my fair gingery complexion that causes sunburn too easily, or my general aversion to sand in uncomfortable places, but given the choice, send me off to the mountains (cannot wait for a weekend canyoneeering in Zion National Park in June). For the whole family, we have our sights set on a Pirates road trip which true to tradition will probably include a stop at TJ's and a zoo. We'll probably spend a day at Presque Isle (best lake beach!) but other than that, islands? Beaches? All that? not in our plans.

Buuuuuuut...if you want to send your tastebuds on an early tropical vacation, you can easily pick up a jar of Trader Joe's Island Salsa. $2.99 on your local TJ shelf.

Even for us admittedly nonbeachy folks, this is some good, good salsa. The mango and pineapple base offers a sweet citrusy opening flourish that, while a little cloyingly candylike, quickly resides. In the middling transition, there's a quick hit of the bell peppers and onions before ending up with a mostly subtly spicy bow. Now, I said mostly. Depending on perspective, if you get the right or wrong bite into one of the very ripe red jalapenos, the heat goes up quite noticeably. But if that happens, just pop in another bite real quick, and chances are, the smooth sweetness will soothe your burning buds.

Like most fruit salsas, it is kinda delicate in flavor. The salsa was a great accompaniment for some tortilla chips, and atop a mahi mahi burger....heaven. Grilled chicken would also be a great pairing, whereas things like beef tacos I wouldn't see as much, unless you're into that kinda thing. 

I'm not quite sold on the word "chunky" in the description, though. Really, the whole salsa flows fairly alike to crushed pineapple, so there are small little chunks, but no mega veggie or fruit boulders. I guess if pressed I could say chunky, but to me, it's much in the moderate middle between smooth and chunky.

Also, as a huge bonus for my beloved wife: no tomatoes. None. That's got to be the reason she gives it a perfect five. I'm not able to ask her, since she's not quite 18 months old yet, but I'd love to know what my younger daughter B thinks - she was eating this by the spoonful as happy as could be. Well, until she caught that one jalapeno...but even though, after making a face for a couple minutes, she went back for more. Regardless, Sandy in a rare flash of exuberance goes with an all-out perfect five for her score. I want to go there myself, but fruit salsa aren't my bag, but this is undoubtedly the best fruit salsa I've had that I can remember (at least in the jarred grocery category)...alright, alright, we'll Pantheon it.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Island Salsa: 9.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Hot & Spicy Chicken Wings Sections

There's a few different ways to prepare wings. Grilling, smoking, deep frying...those are all valid methods. Baking though? And from frozen? Listen, if you're willing to sacrifice some quality on the altar of convenience...well, sure, I guess. After all, it is still a chicken wing, but you can expect a little soft mush instead of firm bite with crispy skin.

Such is the shortfall of Trader Joe's Hot & Spicy Chicken Wings Sections. Convenient? Heck yes. Just need a few minutes in the oven to warm up these fully-cooked frozen fowl fragments. But, if you desire the usual feel of a good wing, or need more spice than the usually toned down variety made for mass consumption, these won't quite hit the spot. Spend the little extra time to get some fresh wings, make your own hot sauce concoction, and go for it.

All that being said, for what they, these aren't a bad bunch of wings. There was about an even ration of wings to drumsticks, and all were meaty enough, with just enough heat to keep me interested but still well below my admittedly high threshhold. There were about 15 in there, and cost maybe $5 or $6, so a good value. Still, if you're hankering for some truly great wings, you're better off somewhere else.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Hot & Spicy Chicken Wing Sections: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Kettle Cooked Chicken Soup

I'd say "just like Mom used to make," except my mom never did much cooking due to chronic illness. Incidentally, the date I'm composing this blog post is the one year anniversary of my mother's memorial service. 

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but the past couple weeks have been one of those stretches in life that calls for some home-cooked (or at least home-cooked-esque) chicken soup for the body as well as the kind for the soul—just in time for my annual spring cold, too. We bought this soup before my little bug set in, and it's almost like my body got sick on purpose just so it could be soothed by this kettle-cooked container of chicken cheer.

I'm not sure about the logic of using a plastic tub for this product, as opposed to a can or a glass jar of some kind. I'm not complaining. It just seems unusual to me, especially since they're going for that home-cooked angle. At any rate, it's unique. As you open the packaging, little globs of chicken stock stick to the plastic safety seal under the lid in a rather unappetizing way. But once you get past that, what lies beneath seems much more inviting.

At first glance, the soup looks nice and chunky. There are decent-sized pieces of both white and dark meat chicken—and not like weird disc-shaped pieces or perfect cubes either, as one may find in other "chunky" soups. These little angular pieces of chicken look like shapes that might have actually been carved by human hands. Or maybe TJ's is employing robots that can realistically imitate the beautifully imperfect slashes and slices you might find in a cauldron of homemade soup. Either way, I like it. Also, there are plenty of carrot, parsnip, celery, and onion bits, too—with an emphasis on the carrots.

The broth is nice and sea-salty, but not overly so. It's flavorful, and it blends well with the other ingredients, although it could almost stand alone as a soup just by itself. A delicate medley of herbs, including garlic, parsley, pepper, thyme, and bay leaves, rounds out the taste of this impressive down-home delicacy. I wouldn't have minded a little more chicken in the soup, but honestly, compared to any other chicken soup I've ever had, this product delivers at least as much of the palatable poultry. So no complaints here. Four and a half stars from me. Four and a half from Sonia, who adds, "This is like really good deli soup." She's not wrong.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Blueberry Breakfast Biscuits

Being an adult is great. I mean, aside from bills and responsibilities and stuff. But otherwise, it's a pretty good deal. You get to whatever you want whenever you want, and in a childhood dream come true for me, you can eat whatever you want when you want. Want to eat three breakfasts a day? Go for it. Pizza for breakfast, tacos for lunch, ice cream for dinner? Why not? I mean, your cardiologist may disagree, and it'd be prudent to mix in a salad, but that's not what I mean. I mean: you can do that if you want to. No one can stop you. That, to me, is awesome.

So, conceivably, you can have cookies for breakfast. But maybe to feel better about it, we can call them something else. The little lies we tell ourselves to get through, I guess, or maybe, if we're spotted crushing cookies down the cram hole by the stray child , we can say, "Oh these aren't cookies. These are Trader Joe's Blueberry Breakfast Biscuits."

Yup. "Biscuits" is what they're going with here. Bwahahaha. No way. These things are cookies through and through. I mean, they're even sold right alongside all the other cookies, and not in the energy/breakfast bar area.

These cookies biscuits  morning-minded munchers are pretty tasty, though. For its basic concept, think of a more granular oblong graham cracker, and thant's fairly close in both taste and texture. There's a little something extra, though, and it's not the blueberries. Vaguely familiar, tip of tongue, couldn't quite place it till scanning the ingredients - rye flakes. There's a pretty hefty dose - not enough to be offensive or anything, but it definitely adds a blueberr-rye dimension. The berries themselves are of the typical dried variety, and intermittently and unevenly sprinkled through out - some wafers were sans berries, others where blue enough from berries to look almost like a flattened Smurf.

As you can probably see, these are some fragile biscuits too. I did nothing to those pictured except the normal rigors of a morning commute to my desk, and I got left with a pile of pieces. So, they're probably not the best for on the go, like while driving, unless you don't mind brushing a dusting of vaguely greasy crumbs off your shirt.

And don't count on them for a full breakfast. A good morning snack, or part of a healthy breakfast, with some yogurt perhaps? Sure. The biscuits were a welcome addition to my usual apple and coffee workweek breakfast, but despite all that fiber, I was still hungry for lunch not all that much later than usual.

Anyways, the wife and both like them, as do our kiddos when we let them have a munch. Save the morning cookies for the adults, kids. For only about $3 or $4 for a fivepack each with four in there, it's not a bad deal, either. These aren't my favorite things ever, but they're good enough to warrant a repeat purchase already, and I'd love to see these expanded into different flavors..like, say, cherry? Sounds delish to me. Matching 3.5s.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Blueberry Breakfast Biscuits: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Podcast Episode 22: EU Paella

In this episode, we talk about Uncured Bacon Jam, Sriracha Tuna Salad, Kung Pao Tempura Cauliflower, Dark Chocolate Cacao Nibs, and much more.

Thanks for listening.

Click here for show notes.

Music by Bensound.