Trader Joe's Organic Toasted Coconut Granola Bark

I feel bad. I really do. 

Apparently the past three products I've reviewed, like the antipasto vegetables, have already been discontinued at Trader Joe's. In fact, they were discontinued at the time I posted the reviews. Furthermore, all three of them had already been discontinued at the time we purchased them. They were just part of that leftover batch that hangs out on shelves for a month or two after TJ's gives them the axe. If you ask the friendly employees, they'll kindly check the computer to see which products are going the way of the dodo, but I certainly never think to do that. When I'm shopping Trader Joe's these days, it's usually a rapid deployment-rapid extraction type of operation. 

I mean, I get it. They need to make room for newfangled stuff like this. But it's getting to the point that you'll never know what you can find in the store. Or if they'll discontinue your favorite product while you're not paying attention. Just ask reader Bruce W. about his Black Toad Dark Ale. It's almost like a game shopping at Trader Joe's. You've gotta admit, they keep it interesting.

This new product is like the long-awaited sequel to the pumpkin spice version, released in 2017 and only available seasonally, of course. This one has coconut chips replacing pepitas and pumpkin spice and still contains rolled oats, dark chocolate, and maple syrup. I believe its predecessor came in random shards while this one comes in uniform snackalicious rectangles, which I prefer.

Flavor-wise, you can taste the coconut more than I expected, since it only represents a small percentage of the surface area of the bark bites. If you hate coconut, you ain't gonna like these, by my reckoning. Sonia was pleased that they didn't go crazy with the chocolate coating. It's thin and it's only on one side of the bark. Of course, I would have preferred a milk chocolate coating to push it ever so slightly in a desserty direction. The overall taste is slightly sweet, nutty, filling, and pretty well balanced.

Down sides: crumbs. I hate crumbs. Kinda silly. There are crumbs in life. I guess that's why we have dogs—although Alfred and Sadie aren't particularly diligent when it comes to their vacuum cleaning duties these days. Also, dogs shouldn't have chocolate.

I digress. Sonia liked this bark just slightly more than I did, and we'll continue our streak of thumbs up-ish reviews. Granola + chocolate + coconut. Kinda like a cereal but in a bar form. $3.99, organic, gluten-free, kosher. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Organic Toasted Coconut Granola Bark 4 out of 5 stars. I give it 3.5.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Savory Banana & Nuts Trek Mix

Actual email I sent my wife from work this past week:

"Ummm...bad news for you....I really wanted to save you some of the TJ savory banana and nut trek mix....but it was kinda awful so I made sure it was properly disposed of. :/"

What can I say? This is our madhouse time of year at work right now. I needed a quick snack to grab on the way out the door. I just spent $2.99 of our hard earned money on it not a day or two before. Snagged it as I ran out in the wee morning hours as I overslept, thought to myself, nah, I'll make sure to save her some...

I failed. Failed failed failed. Failed hard, failed long. "Properly disposed of" is a good way to put it, as I did, but that kinda awful part? No, I did not forget the best return policy in all of grand and glorious grocerdom...I just neglected to tack on the "-ly darn good." 

So yes, properly disposed off, down the pie hole, in next to no time flat, because dang....it's GOOD. I was hungry too, but GOOD. 

So, Trader Joe's Savory Banana & Nuts Trek Mix. Awesome. The base of this newish snack mix is pretty simple and straightforward - standard banana chips, cashews and pecans. No peanuts or other fillers, straight to the good stuff. All business. I like it. All are appropriately crunchy, I'd say bananas are most prevalent followed by cashews. Pecans were a bit sparse. To be expected, I guess. 

"Lightly seasoned" though? Nah. Every square micromillimeter was coated in dusty brown spice mix which stuck remarkably well to the chips and nuts. Reading the ingredients at first for it, I was a bit concerned - coconut aminos mixed with apple cider vinegar and garlic, with some other standard stuff mixed in? How's that gonna play out?

Marvelously well. The end result is actually fairly mild, but still with a warm spicy sense to it. But there's a certain sweet vibe underneath it all, which still allows for the natural goodness of the nanners and nuts to come through. It's kinda like a light Caribbean jerk vibe, I guess. I called and the jerk store was out of it, so i couldn't quite do the direct comparison with the real deal and instead going off my increasingly faulty memory. Delicious though. I'd use this spice blend on just about anything. 

That's about it. Deeeeee-lish. No real complaints at all. I mean, it might be a slightly premium price at $3, but again it's all killer no filler ingredient wise so i get it. I wouldn't be surpised if something identical were at least a buck or two if not more somewhere else. Maybe a couple more pecans woulda made me happier, but in all it's really hard to complain too much about anything about this interesting snack. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Savory Banana & Nuts Trek Mix: 9 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Antipasto Mediterranean Vegetables

Every once in a while, I get creative in the kitchen. Products like this one that aren't really meant to be consumed straight out of the packaging sometimes inspire me to throw a few items together and see what happens. Those spur-of-the-moment impromptu projects often end up a disaster. Just ask Sonia.

So it's fortunate that there was a recipe on TJ's site that included this product as one of the main ingredients. I modified it just a tad, as we did not have every ingredient listed, but I didn't go out on a limb this time—and in half an hour, we had some pretty delectable dip on our dinette table. In the pic below, you can see a before photo of the antipasto veggies by themselves and also the diptastic conglomeration that resulted from my little culinary endeavor. We ate it with tortilla chips, but it would also go great with baguette slices like the recipe suggests. It's much richer and tangier than traditional artichoke dip. The Superbowl's not too far away, and this recipe would be a total crowd-pleaser, in my estimation.

Trader Joe's Antipasto Mediterranean Vegetables are "semi-dried" and absolutely drowned in olive oil. I guess that's part of the preservation process that keeps them shelf stable pretty much indefinitely, but there's just a TON of olive oil in the little tray. Even after mixing them with four different kinds of cheese and lemon juice and baking them for 25 minutes, you can still tell that they're completely drenched in olive oil. Fortunately, I don't mind olive oil.

Glancing at the veggies, it appears there are mushrooms of some kind in the mix, but I think those are just zucchini slices with their edges turned down a bit. The flavors aren't super intense, but they're pleasant and vegetabley. The artichoke hearts are my favorite, followed by the zucchini, then the eggplant, and finally the tomato. I've never been a huge tomato guy. If they're cooked in some way, I'll eat them. In this case, the saturation of olive oil makes them palatable. They're nothing like fresh tomatoes in terms of taste or texture.

I did try each of the four vegetables straight out of the packaging, but they're much better as ingredients in some larger appetizer or meal. They'd be great on salads, pasta, sandwiches, or even burgers, though in most cases, they'd probably work better in smaller chunks. The dip recipe had me quartering them. I can't imagine an instance where they'd work better as the large chunks they come as, so it begs the question why they weren't cut in smaller pieces to begin with. I know, it's a silly complaint. The chewier elements, namely the eggplant, work much better as bite-sized pieces for almost any application.

Sonia and I both enjoyed this product overall, with our biggest complaints being too much olive oil and too large vegetable pieces. We're both thinking somewhere between three and a half and four stars for Trader Joe's Antipasto Mediterranean Vegetables, so we'll just go with one of each.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.