Trader Joe's Pineapple Cottage Cheese

Growing up adjacent to Pennsylvania Dutch country, I was introduced to cottage cheese and apple butter at an early age. I've always loved that combo. My family would frequent the local Bonanza Steakhouse when I was a kid, and I remember hitting up the salad bar repeatedly to fill plate after plate with globs of cottage cheese topped with generous amounts of apple butter. My parents would even scold me and remind me to save room for the main course. I always had juuust enough appetite left to shovel down my child-size portion of fried shrimp with cocktail sauce.

Since then, I've learned that various fruits pair well with cottage cheese. I love it with pears, peaches, grapes...and most recently, pineapple chunks. Up to this point, I've always just added my own, although I'm aware there are numerous other pre-mixed cottage cheese and pineapple offerings.

Since pineapple is so naturally sweet, I was surprised to see both "sugar" and "brown sugar" as part of the pineapple base in this product. There's a total of 5g of added sugars in the tub, which isn't too bad, I suppose, but I honestly prefer cottage cheese with nothing but fruit—apple butter being the one exception.

But if I'm not comparing it to anything else, this combo tastes pretty good and isn't bad for a cheap snack at $1.19. Cottage cheese always packs a significant amount of protein without a ton of calories and fat, and the tub is the perfect size for a single-serving blood sugar booster. 

I'd really have liked a lot more pineapple, though. The bits in the container are miniscule and few and far between. The pineapple base is a thin yellowish jam-like substance, and both the fruit and the pineapple base come on the bottom of the plastic tub and must be stirred in manually, in the manner of fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt. It's definitely sweet and pineappley, but you can still taste the curdy creaminess of cottage cheese, as well.

For the sake of convenience and value, I'd consider purchasing this product again, but if you've got actual pineapple on hand and can add it to plain cottage cheese yourself, I think that's a better option, all things considered. Sonia concurs. Three out of five stars from Sonia, three and a half from me.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Triple Chocolate Cupcakes

Last week, as is tradition in our family, my oldest daughter got to pick out everything she wanted for her birthday dinner. When driving towards TJ's to get all the necessary supplies, we started talking about what she wanted. And by "we", I mostly meant me trying to gently coax out what her ideal meal would look and taste like. Finally, we got to a full menu...homemade cheese pizza, baby carrots, watermelon and strawberry lemonade. Now that sounds like a pretty good birthday dinner!

But I did skip over one part. All those listed there were after asking what her favorite food, her favorite veggie, her favorite fruit, and so on was. But one thing she mentioned without hesitation, as if it were the only thing she wanted to eat, ever, was this: chocolate. So naturally, when going thru the aisles and past the bakery section and she saw Trader Joe's Triple Chocolate Cupcakes, she did her thing where her eyes light up, eyebrows get raised, a taut little smile, and she bounces on her toes that clearly indicate this is precisely what she wanted, no words needed. With respect to The Eurhythmics, who am I to disagree?

Sorry for the cruddy pic, but I could only snap it real quick before it got ripped into by my daughters and one of their friends who came over. "Chocolate!!!!!" they cried. Well then. There's no denying there is ample chocolate in something called "triple chocolate cupcakes." I barely got a bite, so more apologies if I'm not completely accurate here. As is with most things, I'm doing the best I can with what I got here.

Let's do this one chocolate layer at a time:

- Chocolate cake: Meh. I mean, it's a plain chocolate cake. When's the last time you've been truly impressed by one? It's equal parts spongy and stiff, and tastes really only mildly like chocolate. Definitely not homemade quality, and kinda closer to a regular Duncan Hines cake mix.

- Chocolate creme: Well, okay, here we go. Soft and sugary and sweet, like a good milk chocolate should be. I wish the cupcakes had one of those little creme reservoirs in there, as this creme would taste really great taking up more product space than the actual cake. It's fairly respectable, not amazingly great by it's own, but passable.

- Chocolate fudge frosting: Now, here we go. The frosting is easily the fullest, richest chocolate component. it's thick and kinda buttercreamy and quite frankly straight up delicious. But also quite rich and filling, especially when atop the cake and creme. There's a reason that after a couple bites pretty much everyone was saying "Too much chocolate!" while plowing on anyways, and I'm pretty sure this was it.

All together it's a respectable store bought cupcake, and an okay, not great price at $3.99 for a four pack. I don't think we'll get a hankering again anytime soon for them, especially by when we also finish up leftover birthday cake and cookies.

Unfortunately I didn't get the pics of the nutritional info and ingredients, but they are more or less what you'd expect for a chocolate cupcake. Here's a link for just the facts. My kids loved 'em while my lovely bride and I were more "meh" so I'm hoping I'm scoring with the right balance of youthful exuberance and aged jadedness.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Triple Chocolate Cupcakes: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons. 

Trader Joe's Balela

A certain "source for authentic Latino cuisine" has been in the news lately, and without mentioning its name or getting into divisive politics, I'll just say that Sonia and I have been talking about beans a lot as of late. We discussed our mutual love of beans in general, and in particular, we got into garbanzo beans and black beans, since they're both staples of our ever-deepening pantry.

I made the assertion that garbanzos will be much more convenient when the power grid goes down, since they're generally meant to be served cold or at room temperature, while black beans are only palatable when heated. Sonia disagreed and stated that she'd happily consume black beans cold as well, also pointing out that a particular stereotype about her ethnicity is not only true, but that if anything, her people's reverence for frijoles is understated and only partially understood by los gringos.

All of this discussion took place before picking up this new (?) refrigerated bean salad from Trader Joe's. Apparently Middle-Easterners are nearly as enthusiastic about beans as our south-of-the-border amigos. Also, my assumption that black beans had no place in any cold dishes was dashed to pieces. This balela is chock full of garbanzos as well as black beans, and they both work beautifully in this mixture.

To me, this salad tasted like the two aforementioned bean types, mixed with something akin to pico de gallo, with some oil and vinegar dressing on top. Ingredients-wise, it's really not a far cry from that. There's a hint of citrus flavor and a barely-detectable amount of spice from the chili pepper and garlic. The faint "dried mint" element is perhaps the most uniquely Middle-Eastern or Mediterranean aspect of the salad.

It's crisp, refreshing, filling, and not too shabby in the calories and fat departments. It's perfect for summer. I found it a nice break from typical lettuce-cabbage-spinach-based salads. And obviously, there are far fewer carbs in here than in any kind of pasta salad.

$3.29 for the 8 oz tub. Might be a repeat purchase, or we might try to make our own. Four stars a piece.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.