Trader Joe’s Lemon Chicken and Arugula Salad
Posted: January 9, 2014 Filed under: Quinoa, Salad, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: couscous, pimento 3 Comments
Nice colors. Looks rather like the flag of Sri Lanka.
I’ve always been intrigued by Trader Joe’s Lemon Chicken and Arugula Salad, squatting in the lower reaches of the salad aisle, mostly because I assumed it had a big piece of salmon on it. That particular misconception came about due to the unusually enormous salmon pink bag of spicy pimento dressing that lays, slug like, on top of the salad mix. While there’s no salmon on this salad, what it does have to offer is tasty and intriguing.
This is, as Trader Joe’s itself is quick to point out, a Moroccan style salad. Morocco is home to many types of salads, both hot and cold and beet derived, and while this isn’t a traditional type of Moroccan salad per se, it does bring together many wonderful, traditionally Moroccan spices. These include parsley, mint and smoked paprika, all of which show up along side the lemon zested chicken.
This medley of spices is mixed into a bed of couscous and red quinoa that makes up the unspoken third component of this chicken and arugula salad. It’s anyone’s guess why the grains didn’t make it into the title, they’re certainly the most notable part of the salad. The arugula is perfectly acceptable and the lemon chicken is nicely lemoned, but it’s the couscous and red quinoa mix that infuses it with rich and savory flavors, in addition to adding a little exotic texture. Add to this a scattering of sweet currants, and you’re talking about a complex combination of flavors that could easily go all wrong. Fortunately, Trader Joe’s manages to strike a good balance here. The simple flavors of the zesty lemon chicken and the stridently piquant arugula are foregrounded here, with the other more nuanced tastes leaping out at you from the curtains from bite to bite.
This leads us, as all human inquiry must, to the spicy pimento dressing. My first reaction to this dressing was, really? A dressing made out of pimentos? What did they do with the rest of the olive after they got the pimentos out? It turns out, however, that the pimento is more than just the hilarious name for a specific type of olive stuffer, it’s a little red pepper with a life all it’s own. The pimento is a smallish chili pepper, rather like a dwarfish, heart-shaped bell pepper, known also by the name cherry pepper. In the world of chili peppers, as we all know, there’s no rating so important as your place on the Scoville scale. While the juggernauts of the chili world, the ghost peppers and scotch bonnets and such, battle it out for position Supreme Pepper President at the top of the scale, the pimento suffers the indignity of having one of the lowest ratings on the books, ranking below even the banana pepper. Life in pepper school must have been hard for the poor pimento.
All this means that, despite being billed as such, this dressing is not particularly spicy – at least not in sane quantities. TJ’s seems to be suffering from the same spicy dressing over compensation here as they did with their seaweed salad. The single bag included in the tub could easy cover two to three salads of equal size. It’s a bold paring for such an already complex dish, but the creaminess and mild fire only add to the intrigue rather than detract from it – just be sure to play it on the safe side when putting it on.
On a final pimento note, it is my understanding stuffed green olives are made by a hydrolic pump shooting the pimento into each olive, blasting the olive pit out the other end at the same time with what, I am sure, is a very satisfying noise. While that has no bearing upon this dish, I just wanted to share that rather striking image wit you.
More than anything, Trader Joe’s Lemon Chicken and Arugula salad reminds me of TJ’s other quinoa salad – but unlike that one, this salad fails to fill you up. Once you remove the dressing packet, there’s not a whole lot left in the salad tub – just a handful of knotted arugula leaves, a little hill of couscous and, depressingly, a tiny portion of chicken. If this salad was a little more robust, I’d be a frequent buyer. As it stands, it’ll have to be content to exist as a savory side dish to go along side a larger meal.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Yes, but not as a meal in itself.
Would I Buy It Again: Probably someday, when I’m not too hungry.
Final Synopsis: A savory, Moroccan inspired salad that’s a little on the small side.
Trader Joe’s Lemon Chicken and Arugula Salad – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants
Posted: December 5, 2013 Filed under: Pumpkin, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: croissant 7 Comments
My simple breakfast of pumpkin croissants, turkey bacon, Greek yogurt, and left over Arby’s.
I know that pumpkin season is technically over now, so writing about Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants may not make much sense, but in a certain sense isn’t it true that pumpkin season never ends? And, in another, even more accurate sense, isn’t true that I forgot I had these croissants in my freezer and ran out of other things to make for breakfast? Yes, yes it is – and lucky for you, because these croissants kick ass.
This is my first foray into Trader Joe’s world of croissants, a magical region that contains chocolate, almond, and mini varieties. I’m terribly sorry that I’ve missed out on them for this long. The croissants bake up easy into light, crispy, buttery crunchy breakfast pastries that trounce the bakery output of your local supermarket. The pumpkin croissants are thus named for two reasons – one they come sprinkled with a handful of hearty pepitas, or pumpkin seeds, and two, they are filled with a sweet and rich pumpkin custard. The custard is a wonderful accompaniment to the flaky croissant, very similar in taste and sweetness to pumpkin butter, but with a creamier texture. Yes, essentially it is just a fancier type of jelly donut, but when you’re picking one up, warm, and golden brown off the baking tray, you’ll be happy you bought them.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say the reason I bought these was because of the use of the word “proof” in the title. “Just proof over night and bake”, you’re informed. Having never heard of “proofing” dough before, I immediately threw these in my cart. Any excuse to learn!
As no doubt many of you know, “proofing” (or “proving”) is is the specific term for allowing dough to rise after it’s been shaped but before it’s been baked. Why do we do it? I don’t know, dough is just a mysterious thing. In fact, dough is often left to sit and rise several times prior to baking. As you’ll see when you leave these little cuties out to proof, they’ll expand in size to almost double. What we’re seeing is fermentation, specifically the yeast in the dough is converting sugar (glucose) into carbon dioxide gas and carbohydrates – it’s literally inflating from the inside. What’s more, and this was shocking for me to discover, the yeast is actually fermenting the sugars in the dough into trace amounts of alcohol, and it’s this alcohol that, when baked, is responsible for the rich flavor of bread. I’d always thought that beer tastes kind of like bread – it turns out that it’s actually bread that tastes like beer.
In any case, these croissants bake up delicious and flaky – the only issue is that you’ve got to plan for them. The proofing process takes between 6 and 7 hours, followed by 20 or so minutes in the oven. That’s a considerable time expenditure for just 4 croissants, but in my humble opinion it was well worth it.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Yes, these are some excellent croissants.
Would I Buy Them Again: Next pumpkin season, I’ll be all over them.
Final Synopsis: Tasty, flaky croissants for breakfast, just make sure you leave them out the night before.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Dolmas
Posted: November 21, 2013 Filed under: mint, Rice, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: dill, dolma, grape leaf, mint 21 Comments
Yes, they really open from the bottom. It’s hard for me to express how much this offends my aesthetic sensibilities. Just put the label on the other way around, man!
Ah, the dolma. It’s easy to over look the Greeks as purveyors of strange delicacies, but the dolma is certainly that. It’s rare, outside of Asia (and, I suppose, salads), to be fed straight up leaves as food, yet that is precisely what a dolma is – a broad, boiled grape leaf rolled into a tube and stuffed with seasoned rice.
The dolma is something of an acquired taste thanks to an interesting mingling of flavors. Like any local, traditional dish, the stuffing of a dolma can vary dramatically from region to region. Most commonly, however, you’re going to find them looking like the Trader Joe’s variation here – with plenty of dill and mint mixed into the rice. Dill and mint are not two tastes that are generally thought to go together very well, justly I might add, and complicating matters further is the grape leaf itself. Something of the wine-ness of the grape is also present in the grape leaf. Even after being boiled and stored in oil for god knows how long, the grape leaves have a subtle but lingering wine-like taste that muddles into the dill and mint scrap up. Essentially, a dolma is a tiny flavor battlefield where different flavors keep coming out on top. The amazing thing is this is one of those flavor combinations that actually works, making for a fascinating side dish and excellent compliment to tzatziki sauce.
I’ve only had a few experiences with domas before now – one particularly favorable memory involving a nice Greek salad – so I was game to try them again when Trader Joe’s presented me the chance. This initial willingness was first checked when I picked up the tin they were packaged in. I have very few iron-clad eating guidelines, but one of them is not to neat anything that comes packaged in a sardine tin. I was willing to bend that rule this one time based solely on my regard for the Trader Joe’s name – so much have I come to respect this gentle, supermarket giant.
No sooner did I peel back the metal tab on top (or bottom, strangely) of the dolma tin then did I regret making this exception. Trader Joe’s dolmas look positively unappetizing – shimmering, glistening leaf rolls swimming in the viscous soybean oil which fills the canister to the brim. Soybean oil is just straight vegetable oil – which is to say, it’s 100% pure liquid fat – and while I understand that soybean oil is, in some ways, more healthy than other vegetable oils, I also know that no food should be served in so much oil that it makes Dubai look poor.
The taste of the dolmas themselves was more or less on target – but the texture and execution turns them from something I should enjoy snacking on into something I had to force myself to eat. The soybean oil completely permeates the dolma, bloating every grain of mushy rice with pure oil and running off the leaf to pool on your plate. Combine this with the no-frills, low-quality, upside-down tin and you’re left feeling like you’ve just picked up something from the bottom shelf of the off-brand supermarket.
From the weird tin to the copious use of oil, this just doesn’t feel like a Trader Joe’s product. It’s well known that Trader Joe’s sources nearly all their offerings from various manufacturers around the world, but in general the quality is so uniformly high that I never think twice about it. It’s only when I pick up something like this that the illusion starts to show at the seams and I suddenly get a vision of the crappy factory in Turkey where leaf rolls are dumped off a conveyor belt into tins alternatively marked Trader Joe’s and Tesco.
Dolmas are great and delicious, and I’d recommend you try them sometime – just not here, not like this.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: To Eastern European grandmothers who grew up during the Cold War and other people who don’t mind oil-packed, tinned foods, yes. To everyone else, no.
Would I Buy Them Again: No, There have got to be better dolmas than this out there.
Final Synopsis: A tasty dolma brought low by a cheap, oily presentation.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Soup
Posted: November 12, 2013 Filed under: Pumpkin, Soup, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: pumpkin soup 7 Comments
Everything else aside – this is probably my favorite Trader Joe’s font.
Well folks, it’s time to face facts. It’s November, and that means that Trader Joe’s pumpkin madness is drawing to a close for another year. Still, there’s time for one final pumpkin post before holiday food mania sets in upon us, and that post I’m reserving for Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Soup.
On the pumpkin weirdness scale I think we can agree that pumpkin soup is not as out there as pumpkin greek yogurt – there is, after all, a rich tradition of squash-based soups. Nevertheless, I’ve never actually seen a purely pumpkin-based soup before now. The soup itself not much more than pumpkin puree mixed with water and a few spices – essentially a watered-down verision of Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter (which is to be expected, given the soup recipe listed on the pumpkin butter jar). That simplicity means that the soup tastes almost exactly like you would expect it to, like a big mouthful of pumpkin, but with one slight surprise – it’s notably, quite sweet. There’s no sugar added, so that sweetness comes from the natural sugar in the ripened Wisconsin pumpkins that go into the dish. A sweet, vegetable soup is not necessarily the taste I would have been looking for, but the mellowness of the pumpkin and the richness of the flavor keep the sweetness from becoming too overpowering, but its still a taste that takes some getting used to. The tongue may also detect the mild presence of some typical pumpkin spices (nutmeg and clove, mainly), but these don’t add much to the basically pumpkin taste.
Straight from the box, it’s a very basic, not particularly impressive soup. The soup has almost the exact same texture and consistency of a bowl of Campbell’s Tomato soup, and it shares the same the same simple, workman like nature as well. Few are the individuals going to a bowl of unadorned tomato soup for the soup alone, not when there’s a can of minestrone at hand. Tomato soup is only going to show up on the table when it’s been paired with the right dishes, or fancied up with addition ingredients, and the same is true of this pumpkin soup. Eaten straight the soup is okay, though maybe slightly to sweet to have broad appeal, but if finessed into a more robust soup or stew you might really have something here.
Trader Joe’s seems to sense this themselves, offering a couple of easy soup augmentations on their webpage – suggesting topping it with a dollop of sour cream, or giving it some Indian flare with a bit of coconut milk or coconut cream and curry powder. You can delve deeper into the twists and turns of pumpkin soup with the Trader Joe’s approved Hazelnut Frico Soup-Topper recipe, or check out some of the third-party innovations like this pumpkin and chicken stew.
The takeaway from all this is that there’s not much reason to pick up this soup unless you’re going to do so with an experimental attitude. The soup is not by itself a compelling buy, but could become the compelling center of an ambitious dish.
I should spare a word for the one thing about the soup that did impress me – the really clever box design. Trader Joe’s packages this soup in tiny, soft-sided 17 oz. boxes that, in addition to being long-term shelf stable, also folds out into a convenient spout with the application of a quick squeeze to all four corners. Clever, Trader Joe’s, just don’t forget to keep putting that much thought into the food.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Only if you already have a recipe already in mind.
Would I Buy It Again: ‘fraid not – slightly too sweet for my tastes.
Final Synopsis: A functional, sweet pumpkin soup in search of a delicious recipe.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Soup – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Non-fat Pumpkin Greek Yogurt
Posted: November 5, 2013 Filed under: Pumpkin, Trader Joe's Brand, Yogurt | Tags: greek yogurt 3 Comments
Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.
Of everything that Trader Joe’s has attempted to cram pumpkin into, Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Green Yogurt has surprised me the most. Pumpkin in waffles? There’s precedent for that. But pumpkin in yogurt? Any member of the squash family, really, has no place being blended into thick, protein laden yogurt. Of course we’re talking about the food engineers at Trader Joe’s labs who didn’t shy back from merging pizza and veggie burgers so it was unlikely their hand would be stayed here either.
To get right into it – pumpkin does not marry well to the tongue-enveloping cloak of greek yogurt. I like pumpkin as much as the next man, and I’m certainly a lover of greek yogurt, but they simply do not play well together here.
Let’s start with the first issue – what does pumpkin really taste like? The squash family as a whole isn’t known for overwhelming people with blasts of flavor. While pumpkin does have it’s own sort of mild, intriguing charm it isn’t really a natural candidate to jazz up plain, unflavored yogurt in the same way that, say, strawberries and pineapple are. What people generally respond to, when you’re talking about pumpkin are the spices and sugar that get mixed in with it – pumpkin pie, more than pumpkin.
Trader Joe’s tries very hard to deliver this – in addition to the pureed pumpkin (the second ingredient), they’ve also added nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. So really what we’re talking about is not pumpkin flavored greek yogurt, but pumpkin pie flavored greek yogurt. This doesn’t really seem like all that daunting of a task to deliver on – Yoplait manages to pull off a huge number of pie flavors in their yogurts, from Boston cream to lemon chiffon. But yoplait isn’t interested in delivering you a healthy, non-fat, greek yogurt like Trader Joe’s, and it’s in pursuing that course that TJ’s managed to trip themselves up.
This yogurt tastes, first, strongly of the slightly sour yogurt cultures you’d expect, then a bit of generic pumpkin spice, then very faintly of pumpkin. And that’s about it. None of the jazzy pep of the more flavorful, fruit variety yogurts you offer. Just a long, lingering, slightly sour taste in the mouth.It’s possible that if this were not a non-fat yogurt, if it had a richer, fuller body, there might have been more room for the pumpkin pie spices to play out, but that’s nothing but conjecture at this point.
I get it, Trader Joe’s, you love pumpkin! But let’s take a good look at just the non-fat greek yogurts you already offer – honey, mango, blueberry, vanilla, strawberry and pomegranate. Why are you adding pumpkin to the mix? To impress people with your boldness? What if you succeed and people buy it, just out of curiosity? Don’t you think it’s important that the yogurt tastes at least as good as your other yogurts? I’ve tried all of your other non-fat greek yogurts, and I can safely say this is the least enjoyable of them all. Worse than pomegranate, TJ, worse than pomegranate.
You know me, I’m all for boldness. I’m all for embracing the wild and unknown. But you also have to know when you’re challenging the status quo and when you’re just peeing into the wind. Trader Joe’s Greek Pumpkin Yogurt is, despite all their enthusiasm and good intentions, the latter.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: To no one but the pathologically motivated Trader Joe’s pumpkin perfectionist.
Would I Buy It Again: Not this year, not next year.
Final Synopsis: Non-fat greek yogurt is just one of those things that doesn’t need pumpkin in it.
Trader Joe’s Non-fat Pumpkin Greek Yogurt – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Mini Pumpkin Pies
Posted: October 29, 2013 Filed under: Desserts, Pumpkin, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: mini pies, pie, pumpkin pie 1 Comment
“Petite Pumpkin Pies Perfectly Produced” – someone’s getting alliterative at Trader Joe’s
What is it about miniaturization that makes things so much more appealing? Regular umbrellas? Just okay. Mini drink umbrellas? Amazing. Regular bottles of alcohol? Enjoyable. Mini bottles of alcohol? Instant fun. Regular elephants? Pretty good. Dwarf elephants? Mind blowing. Whatever it is, it applies equally to Trader Joe’s Mini Pumpkin Pies – delicious, light and flaky hor d’oeuvre-sized pumpkin pies so deliciously edible that they pose a serious danger to your waistband.
I picked up these pies more out of a sense of obligation to my on going coverage of Trader Joe’s pumpkin madness then any real desire to have pumpkin pies. Let me preface my coming remarks by pointing out that I’m a pumpkin pie lover, and always will be so long as I live. Pumpkin pie has an indelible place at my Thanksgiving table this year and every year to come. That said, pumpkin pie is definitely a second tier pie. I love eating it at Thanksgiving, and maybe one or two more times over the winter holidays, but that’s about does it for me. Unlike, say, a good cherry or lemon meringue, it’s just not a pie I hanker for year round.
Why, then, should I expect these mini pumpkin pies to be any better – miniaturization aside. There’s one excellent answer to that question – and that’s the crust. While the heart of the pie might be its filling, its soul is in its crust. A pie can only go so far with an average crust. For a pie to be truly delectable it needs a light, flaky, tasty, buttery crust – and on that front Trader Joe’s knocks it out of the park. The crust on these mini pumpkin pies is the most delicious part – tastier by far than the somewhat indifferent pumpkin pie filling. It’s an all butter crust, imbued with sugar yolk (egg white beaten with sugar) and graced across the top with a few more grains of granulated sugar for good measure – more like the crust of a delicate turnover than a pie. I’m no pie die hard, but I can confidently say this is the most delicious pie crust I’ve ever had.
Trader Joe’s plays to the strength of their excellent crust in two ways. One, in direct defiance of all pumpkin pie tradition, they have put top crusts on these pies. Now normally I’m the kind of guy who’d strut up and down lambasting TJ’s for such a brazen act of effrontery. In this case however, I’ve got nothing to say – the top crust does everything to improve this pie and nothing to hurt it.
Second, by serving these pies in miniature TJ is maximizing the amount of crust surface area they’re delivering while keeping the crust light and thin. The one issue I encountered while baking up these pies was that they tended to crumble apart at the least provocation. This is, of course, the Achilles’s heel of a very light and flaky pie crust. Only by limiting the pies to such a small size is it even possible to cook them without have them fall all to pieces. Of course, even at such a small size you’ve got to expect that that buttery crust packs some fat. And you’d be right to expect that – to the tune of 30% of your saturated fat intake in just one 1.5 oz pie.
So yes, these are delicious pies. But in the end they are still pumpkin pies – while they might delight me, and make an appearance at my holiday parties, I don’t think I’ll be bringing them out again until this time next year.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Yes, just be careful you don’t eat them all in one sitting.
Would I Buy Them Again: Sure, but not until next Thanksgiving.
Final Synopsis: A tiny, delicious take on the pumpkin pie with a truly wonderful crust.
Trader Joe’s Mini Pumpkin Pies – Nutrtion Facts
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Waffles
Posted: October 24, 2013 Filed under: Pumpkin, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: waffles 3 Comments
Sure any waffle looks good with a bunch of whip cream and syrup on it.
As Bert so sagely pointed out, a waffle without “w” is simply awful. But what if that waffle has pumpkin in it as well? Does it become something even better? I aimed to find out by taking home Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Waffles, exactly the sort of unpredictable concoction that I should have expected from the mad lab geniuses at the TJ labs. As long as you’re putting pumpkin in everything, you might as well add it to waffles right? Possibly. While there must surely be a case to be made for pumpkin waffles, Trader Joe’s pallid planks aren’t it, offering so little as to be no more preferable than a regular frozen waffle.
Look, let’s talk waffles. I think we can all agree that waffles are one of nature’s ultimate foods – capable of making any meal better. I hope whoever invented the waffle has a damn big monument on his grave, because they’re simply the best – the brainchild of a man who dared to ask, “What if pancakes had little nooks to hold the syrup in?”
There are two types of inventions in this world – the ho-hum inventions that someone was bound to get around to given enough time (the wheel, the book, the space shuttle, etc), then there are the truly amazing inventions, the inventions that, were it not for the fortunate birth of one incredible man or woman, would have never entered into this world no matter how long we waited (the tamagotchi, the keyboard necktie, platform shoes with little fish tanks in them, etc).
Waffles, of course, belong to this miraculous second category of inventions. Our efforts to heap praise upon the inventor, however, is wasted – this genius is lost to us in the long, convoluted depths of waffle history. While I would love nothing more than to leap into some of the truly interesting aspects of waffle history, I simply don’t have enough space here. Instead, I beg you to spend some time on Wikipedia’s waffle page, where you will learn about such things as:
- The medieval waffle guilds of France
- A Bruegel painting that “shows waffles being cooked, but also features a man wearing three waffles strapped to his head, playing dice for waffles with a black-masked carnival-goer.”
- Thomas Jefferson’s “Waffle frolics”
That’s not even all the highlights. Check it out guys, knowledge is its own reward.
All of which brings us back to Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Waffles. The pressing question is, why bother making pumpkin waffles if you aren’t going to make them taste that much like pumpkin? This is exactly the misstep TJ’s makes here – the pumpkin waffles taste a bit like pumpkin, but not all that much. Despite promises of “sweet pumpkin and savory pumpkin pie spices”, what you really get is a waffle that tastes basically like an Eggo. Yes, there are undertones of pumpkin, but its rather subtle and not very satisfying. Hot out of the toaster you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise – these guys smell good, exactly as if they’re chock full of delicious pumpkin flavor, but on the plate they let you down.
Look, these aren’t bad waffles, they’re just bad pumpkin waffles. Do they have more of a pumpkin taste then non-pumpkin waffles? Yes, but it’s not enough to tickle the taste buds that crave that pumpkin taste. Eating these was sort of like listening to a good song that’s turned down too low – I kept wanting to reach out and turn up the flavor so I could really enjoy the experience. Instead, I was just left mildly annoyed.
I topped mine with pumpkin butter ultimately, which made them much more satisfying but left me wondering why you shouldn’t just buy a nicer, regular waffle and put pumpkin butter on that. Beyond the promise of pumpkin flavor, these waffles don’t have a lot to write home about – they’re just your basic, frozen, toaster waffle. It’s a great idea – there’s no reason not to mix pumpkin and waffle – Trader Joe’s just needs to keep on trying in this case.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: No – even the most die hard pumpkin lovers will be let down.
Would I Buy Them Again: I’ll save my money for a better waffle.
Final Synopsis: Not enough pumpkin in these waffles to make them worth the purchase.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Waffles – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter
Posted: October 23, 2013 Filed under: Pumpkin, Spreads, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Most Creative Serving Suggestion Award, pumpkin butter 6 Comments
Pumpkin butter coming at you at a dutch angle! Whoa – look out!
There was no question in my mind about which of Trader Joe’s ridiculous list of pumpkin products I was going to try next – the pumpkin butter. I could barely conceive of what this product might possibly look like, but my best guess was something like a stick of butter but orange. I was entirely surprised, and slightly disappointed, to discover that Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter was not actual butter butter, but the apple butter kind of butter. A classic, “Ah – of course, I’m an idiot” moment.
Despite my initial confusion, this pumpkin butter is actually rather good, in a fruit butter sort of way. By which I mean that it’s very sweet, very creamy and entirely suited for any of your general or seasonal fruit butter purposes – whatever those might be. Which is to say, again, that it’s nice but pretty unnecessary by anyone’s definition of the word.
Pumpkin butter is a fruit butter – which is basically what you get when you cook down a load of fruit, puree it and thrown in some sugar and spices. What you end up with is a creamy, smooth spread that tastes like a sweet fruit jam, but spreads like a dream.
If you’ve ever had apple butter, you’ll know what to expect from Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter. If you haven’t had it, imagine eating a jar of sweet pumpkin pie filling and you’re not far off in both taste and consisetnecy. I’ve tried it on a variety of food products, and each time I’m left with the same sensation – like I’m eating the center out of a pumpkin pie that is subtly wrong somehow.
Other than the pureed pumpkin, there’s not a lot to pumpkin butter. For instance, despite its very smooth consistency there is no butter, cream or fat of any sort in the spread. There’s also much less sugar than you might expect from such a decadent spread. The butter is sweetened with sugar and honey, but only to the tune of 9 grams of sugar per 18 gram serving. While 50% is a pretty considerable sugar to food ratio by most standards, it’s a big improvement over the 70+% you find in most jellies and jams. What that really means is that you’re going to want to come to pumpkin butter for the pumpkin first and the sweetness second.
So what do you do with a pumpkin butter? Well, the jar itself happily suggests you try it as “a pastry filling, a poultry glaze, an ice cream topping, on toast, mixed with fat free cream cheese, and as a soup”. In other words, you can do everything and nothing with it. It’s like we’re talking about a sneed here. Works as an ice cream topping and a soup? Really, TJ? Because nothing else in the world does that. In fact, I’m going to have to give this Trader Joe’s Most Creative Serving Suggestion award – ripping away from the former champion.
So yes, pumpkin butter is probably totally unnecessary – but on the other hand, that can be said of all seasonal holiday products. The real merit of this class of food is how tasty it is and, more importantly, how much it helps you get into the spirit of the season. On those grounds, Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter is reasonably effective, but not a knock out. By it’s very nature as pumpkin butter it’s so rich and thick that it’s hard to integrate into your daily routine.
If you’re planning on baking holiday pastries or hosting a pumpkin themed dinner, this is probably a great purchase for you. As a regular sort of Joe, I don’t plan on doing anything with this other than putting it on the occasional piece of toast and, if I’m feeling particularly fey one of these evenings, making a nice bowl of pumpkin butter soup out of it. Pumpkin Butter on toast has been okay, but something I could skip in the future. As for the soup, stay tuned for an update.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Not unless you’re already a fruit butter fan or can’t get enough pumpkin.
Would I Buy It Again: Sadly, no. I don’t have anything to do with it.
Final Synopsis: Basically, spreadable pumpkin pie filling.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Pita Crisps with Cranberries and Pumpkin Seeds
Posted: October 17, 2013 Filed under: Chips, Pumpkin, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: crackers, cranberries, pita, pita crisps 1 Comment
Cranberries and pumpkins seeds in baked pita. Why not?
Trader Joe’s Pita Crisps with Cranberries and Pumpkin Seeds are a fine, crispy cracker, though it’s applications are limited. More interesting, I’d say, is that they decided to put pumpkin in a pita chip at all.
Accuse Trader Joe’s of anything you want: that their interior décor is garish, that their food nomenclature is erratic at best, that they struggle with keeping listeria out of their salads, whatever – but I dare you to accuse them of not providing enough seasonal foods. I effin’ dare you. Because Trader Joe’s would kick your ass up and down the block if you even opened your mouth to say that. Have you seen the Fearless Flyer for this month yet? Taken a little peak inside? Let me just save you the trouble and summarize a few of the entries right here:
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Bread Mix
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Toaster Pastries
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pancake Mix
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Waffles
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Soup
- Trader Joe’s Honey Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli
- Trader Joe’s Mini Pumpkin Pies
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cream Cheese
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cheesecake
- Trader Joe’s Organic Canned Pumpkin
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pie Spice
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Chai Latte
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee
- Trader Joe’s Pumpin Spice Rooibos
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Bread Pudding
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants
- Pilgrim Joe’s Pumpkin Ice Cream
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Macaroons
- Trader Joe’s Country Pumpkin Granola
- Trader Joe’s Pecan Pumpkin Instant Oatmeal
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Bar Baking Mix
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cranberry Scone Mix
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Body Butter
- Trader Joe’s “This Pumpkin Walks Into a Bar” Pumpkin & Cereal Snack Bars
- Trader Joe’s Greek Pumpkin Yogurt
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cranberry Crisps
- Trader Joe’s Pita Crisps with Cranberry and Pumpkin Seeds
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Biscotti
- ACE Hard Pumpkin Cider
- KBC Pumpkin Ale
- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Flavored Dog Treats
- Trade Joe’s Pumpkin Trees
- and, of course, regular Pumpkins
And I’m pretty sure this is only a partial list.
I swear to you I didn’t make any of this up – not even “pumpkin trees”, a phrase which you’d be entirely justified in using as an excuse to write off this blog as surreal and joke-prone if it weren’t actually, really a thing they really have.
Pumpkin dog treats? Pumpkin greek yogurt!?!? These people are goddamn crazy. This is not the output of a sane company. No one needs this many pumpkin products for fall – in fact, no one needs this many pumpkin products over the course of their entire lifespan.
Somebody get in there and restrain these lunatics. I’m not joking, someone is in serious need of restraint and possibly anti-psychotics. Somewhere in the upper offices of Trader Joe’s Monrovia enclave an executive is stomping around, frothing at the mouth, demanding more and more pumpkin dishes, occasionally bursting into the R&D department and executing employees for not thinking “pumpkin” enough. I wish I could think of an alternative scenario that would explain this level of pumpkin output, but I really can’t.
I can only imagine the chaos overtaking the Trader Joe’s processing facilities. Huge dump trucks full of pumpkins backed up down the road, honking at each other so they too can send their load tumbling into the giant pumpkin hopper, itself already clogged with huge, bright orange pumpkins as the special, industrial pumpkin masher below, a specialty unit flown in from Germany, overheats under the strain of too many pumpkins.
Which brings us to the first entry on the ludicrous list of Trader Joe’s pumpkin products – Trader Joe’s Pita Crisps and Pumpkin Seeds. I’ll be hitting as many of these items as possible before the end of pumpkin season and, arbitrarily, I’ve chosen to start here. Keep an eye on the pumpkin list though – I’ll update it with links to articles as I go.
These really are excellent crackers. Case in point, they’re made with whole wheat and whole seeds, they’re toasted to a crispy brown, and they’re made by a small family owned bakery in Canada. That’s a very nice pedigree.
The pita crisps find a very nice little spot between sweet and salty. The saltiness (sea salt) is quite slight, just enough to grace the tongue and heighten the sweetness (organic cane sugar and the sweetened cranberries). Neither is so strong that it detracts from the earthy, whole grain taste of the toasted wheat and roasted pumpkin.
The fact is, I’d probably have preferred the crackers more it they didn’t have the cranberries at all. It’s an excellent snacking cracker in and of itself, thick, with a nice snap and good crunch that isn’t too dry. The cranberry bits are fine, they lend a slight chewiness to each cracker in addition to their sweetness, but they also infuse it with a berry flavor that fights a lot of other foods. This means that you’re limited as to what you can eat these pita crisps with. Most cheeses are just fine, especially Trader Joe’s fruity goat cheeses, but that’s about it. However most dips, particularly hummus and salsa, clash with the berry taste, which really curtails their table top use.
As compliments to cheeses or eaten by themselves the crackers are very nice – they’re just going to have a hard time rising out of the novelty, holiday food niche.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Yes, if you’re planning ahead to a nice cheese plate.
Would I Buy Them Again: Good though they are, I’ll be buying less specialized crackers in the future.
Final Synopsis: A very, very good cracker, but a bit too sweet to go with many foods.
Trader Joe’s Pita Crisps with Cranberries and Pumpkin Seeds – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Greens and Seeds Salad
Posted: October 15, 2013 Filed under: Feta, Pomegranate, Salad, squash, Trader Joe's Brand, Vegetarian | Tags: feta, pumpkin, pumpkin seeds Leave a comment
Greens and seeds *and* squash, is more like it.
I picked up Trader Joe’s Greens and Seeds Salad the other day after a moment’s hesitation. Greens and seeds? Seeds are not normally my go to salad toppings. I was even more surprised by the ingredients: butternut squash, feta cheese, pomegranate and pumpkin seeds. First off, I’m not sure butternut squash counts as anyone’s idea of “greens”, but more than that, who’s ever heard of mixing pumpkin and pomegranate seeds together. Nevertheless, remembering the rather delicious lessons Trader Joe’s couscous and cabbage and quinoa and wheat berry salads taught me, I decided that I’d better just suck it up and give it a try.
Folks, I’m glad I did. The salad mix might be unconventional, but the taste is right on. This is exactly the kind of salad I go for – a hearty, robust mouthful that hits every taste bud on the way down. Where salads like Trader Joe’s Walnut & Gorgonzola focus on a narrow, rather bland taste profile, the greens and seeds in this mix cover the whole pallet. The butternut squash is savory with mellow, earthy tones, the feta is as intensely flavorful as a nice fragrant fetid should be, the pomegranate packs that astringent, high-toned zing, and the pepitas are salty and nutty. It could, and maybe should, be the taste equivalent of dressing in a tux, sandals, and a clown wig, but somehow it manages to all hang together. The eclectic assortment of tastes are helped in no small part by the excellent salad dressing pairing – a zingy and creamy honey dijon balsamic. The dressing is strong, quite mustardy and vinegary, so you might only want to put about a third of it on at first, but it’s this strength that unites and accentuate the tastes of the other ingredients.
Two potential marks against the salad. First, it’s meat free. I’m perfectly happy to make a meal of salad alone, which generally means I’m looking for something with at least a little meat in it. That said, all the cheese and seeds in this salad means that you’re getting 11 grams of protein per serving. That’s not bad. The other caveat is that the squash is, as you might expect, a bit squishy. That doesn’t bother me, but if you get hung up on texture this may not be the salad for you.
Trader Joe’s rolls out new salads all the time, but this rather wild salad combination has come out this fall for more reason than mere happenstance. Spring mix and summer salads abound, but this is one of the few truly autumnal salads I’ve ever had – a pointed and purposeful concoction made with only those ingredients that are in season during the harvest – or so they say on the company website, at least. I’m a food fan, sure, but I’m an even bigger fan of food born out of high concept musings. Kudos on this happening salad, TJ!
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Yes, if you don’t mind squishy squash in your salad, you’ll love this one.
Would I Buy It Again: Absolutely, I’m adding it to the shopping list now.
Final Synopsis: A hearty salad with a tasty autumnal bent.
Eating At Joes 
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