Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Watermelon Sticks

Wait a minute. This isn't a fall food. Watermelon is more summery than autumnal. True. We're still doing non-fall food reviews on this blog right now for a number of reasons: (1) many if not most of the fall items at Trader Joe's right now are re-releases and have already been reviewed on this blog. Go ahead. Use the "Search This Blog" bar up top to look up the products you're curious about. (2) It's not fall yet. September 23 is the first day of fall. (3) It's still too warm for autumn products, though it's markedly cooler than it was just last week. In short: patience, young grasshopper. All in good time.

Does anybody remember the chocolate raspberry sticks? Are they still around? Well, these are basically the same thing, but watermelon flavored. I guess I got fooled by the packaging. These watermelon dealies come in a bag while the raspberry version came in a plastic tub. I must say I think the watermelon flavor works better than raspberry for some reason, but even this product doesn't really do it for me in the end.

They're just a gelatinous fruit-flavored center surrounded by a thin layer of dark chocolate on all sides. I guess they're pretty good for a blood sugar picker-upper type situation. The watermelon flavor is more in the direction of like a watermelon lollipop rather than, like, actual watermelon or watermelon puree. It's very candy-esque—not very authentic to my taste buds.

The candies need to stay cool. And I mean, if the temperature is above 72° at all, both the chocolate and the filling will start getting soft and melty. Keep napkins on standby or only consume in cool weather.

$3.49 for the resealable bag. Probably wouldn't buy again, but I can see how some folks dig 'em. Three stars from me. Three and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Watermelon Sticks.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Organic Sparkling Lemon + Strawberry Apple Cider Vinegar Beverage

This is the third installment of our Trader Joe's canned organic sparkling apple cider vinegar beverage series. Most of you remember the recently-reviewed Elderberry + Pomegranate version. And some may even remember our review of the Ginger + Lemon flavor from 2021.

I was surprised how much I liked the taste of ginger and lemon and was quite impressed at how efficiently they masked the intense sourness of apple cider vinegar. I was slightly less impressed with the elderberry iteration of the drink since it wanted to be sweeter and failed to be so. I'm even more disappointed with this flavor since strawberry is sweeter still even than elderberries or pomegranates and clashes with the tart pungency of vinegar more desperately than its deep purple predecessor.

It's like someone took a delicious, refreshing summer-themed beverage and poured salad dressing into it as a prank. I'd almost say this product is less sweet than that strawberry vinaigrette we looked at last week. It utterly frustrates my taste buds.

Sonia has given four and a half stars to each of this beverage's forerunners, and she'll have to go a half star lower this time because, like me, she's not quite as fond of this flavor. This is definitely my least favorite flavor, so I'll throw out my lowest score yet for these ACV beverages.

Once again, about two bucks for the can. Plenty of health benefits from drinking ACV in any form. Organic. Kosher. Bubbly. But still, I can't go higher than two and a half stars. The beautiful wifey will bestow this beverage with four stars.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Lemon Pesto Sauce

If you've been following this blog for any significant amount of time, you'll know I'm a big fan of lemon flavored stuff. And if you've been following this blog even longer than that, you might recall that I'm not a fan of traditional pesto made with pine nuts. Fortunately for me and for the score I'll give to this product, this pesto—as well as one or two other pestos from Trader Joe's that we've reviewed—are not made with pine nuts. Those previous two iterations were made with cashews, and this one's made with almonds. Did you know that lemon and almond blends together fairly well? I didn't either until recently.

By itself, this sauce is thick and oily with little chunks floating around. It's almost like super finely chopped almonds with lemon zest and sunflower seed oil. Well, I mean, it is all those things...and a few other things, too. But it not only looks primarily like those three ingredients, but it basically tastes that way as well. It's citrusy, sweet, salty, oily, and nutty. I wouldn't recommend eating it straight from the jar, although it's interesting enough you might want to at least try it that way.

Sonia cooked up a shrimp and pasta dish using this stuff. It involved fettuccine, cream, butter, shredded parmesan cheese, and garlic. Ohmygosh. I finished eating it an hour ago and I can still barely keep my head up from the comfort food coma. It was lemony, creamy, spicy, and garlicky. So delicious.

My only complaint was that Sonia didn't use enough of Trader Joe's Lemon Pesto Sauce, so I dumped a bunch more onto my portion. I've never had lemon garlic butter shrimp quite so tasty. I'll easily finish all the leftovers tonight. Actually, here's the recipe she used: Pat Cooks. Highly recommend.

$3.49 for the jar. Would buy again. Four stars from the beautiful wifey. Four and a half stars from me for Trader Joe's Lemon Pesto.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's 100% Red Tart Cherry Juice

About nine and a half years ago, we looked at Trader Joe's other mainstay cherry juice in a glass bottle, Trader Joe's 100% Cherry Juice. One of the first comments was a suggestion to try this not-from-concentrate, more tart version. Well, Tess, I don't know if you still read our blog or not, but thanks for the recommendation. It only took us a decade to find the product at Trader Joe's and actually make a purchase.

Maybe my forty-something-year-old self craves less sugar than my thirty-something-year-old self, but I'm actually surprised how much I like this. It's not as mouth-puckeringly sour as I might have guessed. At the same time, it isn't particularly sweet at all.

It just tastes like actual cherries—not like cherry candy, sour or otherwise—not like a sugar-laden cherry juice blend. It just tastes like actual slightly tart, slightly sweet cherries, and it's surprisingly drinkable.

Sediment collects at the bottle of the bottle fairly quickly, so some agitation is in order prior to pouring. The juice flaunts a deep pink sort of color, not unlike a ruby red grapefruit juice in terms of cloudiness and redness, but perhaps a shade or two darker. Sonia thinks the flavor is very similar to cranberry juice. I agree. I'd say if you split the difference between 100% cranberry juice and that other not-so-tart cherry juice, it's a fair approximation of the flavor you get from this beverage, at least in terms of tartness level.

Apparently cherry juice is full of antioxidants and is fairly good for you. Another bonus. We'd both buy again.

$4.99 for the bottle. Four out of five stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's 100% Red Tart Cherry Juice.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Strawberry Basil Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette. Is it like the female version of "vinegar"? I mean, we have Smurfette, who's the original female Smurf. Then we might have a kitchenette or a launderette, which are basically like petite versions of the originals. And of course the suffragettes were all females looking for the right to vote and stuff.

Should a self-respecting man be eating vinaigrette at all? If he wants a little something on his greens, wouldn't it be a lot more manly to just dump a bunch of household cleaning vinegar on his salad? The answers to these questions and more...are definitely not is this review. But they are worth pondering.

So I asked Google's new AI chatbot named Bard what it had to say about the matter. He gave me four paragraphs as a response, the last and most pertinent of which read: "If you are looking for a manly way to dress a salad, I recommend using a vinaigrette made with good quality olive oil, vinegar, and herbs. This will give your salad a delicious and healthy flavor without any of the risks associated with using cleaning vinegar."

Thanks, Bard. You always know what's up. Although, in this particular product, we have canola oil instead of good quality olive oil. Some folks think that's a bad thing. Apparently, canola oil causes inflammation, and that's something I'm trying to avoid.

Also, there are a total of 4g of sugar, all of which are "added sugar." You'd think there'd be some natural fructose from the strawberry puree, but I guess the amount is negligible. Must all come from the cane sugar.

And this dressing is definitely sweet. It's at least teetering on the verge of too sweet. It's quite strawberry forward, and there's definitely a spicy, earthy basil essence underneath. The vinegar flavor doesn't come through very much at all. The dressing isn't particularly tangy or tart to my taste buds.

$3.99 for the 8 serving bottle. I wouldn't buy this one again. I just don't do sweet summer berry salads enough to make it worth it, and I feel like I've had better berry balsamics and berry vinaigrettes than this one. As usual, Sonia will be a little more positive and lenient. She likes the sweetness level and strawberry flavor.

Two and a half out of five stars from me. Three and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Strawberry Basil Vinaigrette.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's English Toffee

The thing about toffee is that I don't like dentists.

I feel like every time I eat it that I'm tempting fate to snap off one of my teeth, or at least a section of a tooth, and then I'll be forced to either do some extraordinarily painful homespun remedy involving clove oil, pliers, and an ungodly amount of ibuprofen or go to one of those overpriced professional purveyors of pain.

No offense if you happen to be a dentist reading this. Nothing personal. Unless you're that horrible lady that removed my last wisdom tooth. Then you should definitely be offended.

Toffee. It's like hard candy that you're supposed to chew. There's a reason we don't chomp down on Jolly Ranchers or Werther's Originals or Dum Dums. Toffee is basically the same thing, but if you slap some chocolate and almonds on it, suddenly it's okay to bite into rocks made of sugar.

I'm exaggerating slightly of course. I mean, I'd simply suck on this candy like I do other hard candies, but the nuts make it kinda impractical to do that. It's not quite as a hard as a lollipop or whatever, but it's darn close. And it's sticky. Each bite leaves more and more crushed up toffee fused to the surface of your teeth.

I guess it's unfair to punish this toffee for, you know, being toffee. Compared to other toffee, it's quite good. There's a nice balance of caramel flavor, chocolate, and nuts, and it's buttery and sweet just like I'd expect it to be. I guess I just really want there to be a softer version of toffee—like a chewy, creamy toffee covered in chocolate and almonds. That would be great.

But this here is traditional English toffee. Fair enough. If you've got teeth of steel, you'll love it. $3.49 for the 8 oz tub. Three stars from me. Three and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's English Toffee with Milk Chocolate.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Cauliflower Crisps Snack

Some days I don't have any silly intro story or clever segue into the actual review, so I just reminisce about products from the past and link to them at the beginning of the post. That's what we'll do today. We won't remember every single product with cauliflower that we've seen over the years, but we'll look at the times when cauliflower has become a substitute for some other food staple. Ahh...let's look at:

That time cauliflower became rice.

That time cauliflower became mashed potatoes.

That time cauliflower became pizza crust.

That time cauliflower became latkes.

That time cauliflower became tortillas.

That time cauliflower became gnocchi.

That time cauliflower became jalapeño dip.

That time cauliflower became risotto.

That time cauliflower became cookie butter.

Okay, well, that last one might not have been a thing. But you get the picture. They can turn cauliflower into anything. So crispy little crackers should be a walk in the park for the versatile cauliflower, right?

In my book, not so much. These snacky circles are too dense, too rigid. If they were thinner, they'd be much easier to bite and chew. As is, they're like little cookies—more three-dimensional than I'd have imagined them to be. I thought they'd be delicate like rice crackers, but they're much more solid than that.

They taste a little like cauliflower. They're much more earthy and bitter than typical rice crackers. I think I'd be fine with the product if they used all the same ingredients and simply lost the cauliflower. I mean, brown rice flour is the second ingredient, and I never met a rice crisp I didn't like.

Sonia enjoys them. She thinks they have a very unique flavor, and I don't disagree. She's just a little more fond of that unusual flavor than I am. I'd try redeeming them with random toppings and dips, but I'm afraid it would just ruin my enjoyment of said toppings.

We paid $2.99 for the 2.5 serving bag. I wouldn't buy them again if it were just me. Sonia might I guess. Three and a half stars from the beautiful wifey. Two and a half stars from me for Trader Joe's Cauliflower Crisps Snack.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Caramel Apple Dipping Kit

Word on the street is that this product will be back on Trader Joe's shelves in a matter of weeks, so we better take a look at it now so you know whether it's worth a purchase or not. Since the tachyon fields are fairly stable this time of year...and, of course, because I own my very own time machine, there's no point in just waiting around. Let's travel back to the good old days of October 2022 when a few of these fun-for-the-whole-family packs were still available. 

We'll snag Trader Joe's Caramel Apple Dipping Kit and review it ahead of its re-release in September 2023. If you've been wondering what the magical DeLorean TARDIS time sled hot tub looks like in real life, you're in luck. The video below contains exclusive footage of the time machine in action.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Lime Margarita

When it's this freaking hot, refreshment is always on the forefront of my mind. I know, I know. Alcoholic beverages aren't exactly the best for hydration over the long run, but man, they sure hit the spot over the short term.

A sweet, fruity cocktail with ice is in order after a late afternoon walk in full sunshine and 100°+ heat. I think I sweat a gallon in the last fifteen minutes. Trader Joe's Lime Margarita to the rescue.

I'm definitely more fond of this beverage than the recently-reviewed Vodka Mule. On paper, I like vodka about as much as tequila, and both beverages have lime, so those factors should cancel out. I'm a fan of ginger-flavored beverages, too, so my money would have been on the mule to be the big winner.

I'm not sure what it is. I think the lime flavor comes through more in this margarita, and I'd say it's a tad sweeter, too. The fizz levels are comparable, of course, and the packaging is nearly identical—we've got yellow and green here instead of two shades of blue.

I couldn't tell you if there's triple sec and simple syrup in there because, again, there are no ingredients or nutrition info listed on alcoholic drinks. I mean, they tell you it's 10% ABV or 20 proof, but that's not really "nutrition" per se, is it? Sounds like it's about half of my recommended daily allowance of Vitamin Booze.

There's definitely a touch of mellow tequila flavor, and then a good bit of sweet and a good bit of lime. The colder it is, the better it tastes. Quite refreshing.

$10.99 for four cans at our Joe's. Looks like these are done for the season. I'd look for them again late spring or early summer 2024. Three and a half stars a piece from Sonia and me.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.