Trader Joe’s Baconesque White Cheddar Popcorn
Posted: March 26, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, bacon, popcorn, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand 1 Comment
You know how much you like bacon? Well this doesn’t have any.
It’s hard to know what to say about Trader Joe’s Baconesque White Cheddar Popcorn. It’s unusual certainly – the most unusual popcorn I’ve had since Trader Joe’s last weird popcorn experiment (or maybe the one before that) – but unusual in a very different way. This popcorn is, weirdly, exactly what it says – a vaguely bacon-y kind of popcorn. Not bacon popcorn, not popcorn with bacon bits, bacon flakes or even real bacon flavor, but a bacon-esque popcorn. Popcorn, in this case, that has been infused with a fake bacon smoke flavor. That fake bacon flavor is mingled with an intense white cheddar cheese powder results in a bizarre, slightly off-putting, but addictive snack.
I’ve written before on my opinion of bacon-mania. Although longer lasting than many of the food fads that have swept the nation, it stills shares the same quality of food fads everywhere – whether it be bacon vodka, or chocolate covered bacon, novelty comes first and quality is the afterthought. So when I see a new bacon gimmick on the self I’m immediately skeptical.
Does Trader Joe’s Baconesque Popcorn actually qualify as bacon though? Kind of… but not really. Normally I’d criticize a product for something like that, but in this case that’s what they’re actually advertising right on the bag. They promise fake bacon flavor and they deliver fake bacon flavor – should they penalized for that, or just stared at agog? They make it abundantly clear that in lieu of real bacon or bacon flavoring you will be getting “natural smoke flavor”. A psuedo-flavor that is sort of like putting your nose right above a sizzingly BBQ.
“Natural smoke flavor” is the same thing as “liquid smoke”, which really is actually made from smoke. It’s usually made by burning hickory or mesquite wood and capturing and concentrating the resulting smoke in a liquid medium. The resulting taste is a general sort of heavily-cooked meatiness. There isn’t anything screamingly bacon-y about it, certainly nothing resembling the heady, savory tastes of Trader Joe’s incredible Apple Smoked or Black Forest bacons. It tastes much more like these pieces of popcorn were mixed with a few heaping handfuls of Baco Bits – those hard, granuated bacon imitators people put on baked potatoes and what have you.
This strong and perplexing taste is combined with the equally strident taste of white cheddar – every bit as mouth blastingly cheesy as you would expect as if this popcorn was bright orange. The combination of extremely fake bacon flavor with extremely strong cheese flavor makes for one intense popcorn snack.
I personally found the roller coaster ride of flavors interesting enough to come back to bag more than once – although each time I limited myself to just a kernel or two. This would be extremely hard stuff to munch down like your standard movie theater popcorn. It’s much better treated like a tin of sardines or a plate of olives – as an over the top flavor to be sampled in small quantities.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Probably not. The fake bacon taste is somewhat off putting.
Would I Buy It Again: I might, I like a snack that demands you muse on it rather than gobble it down.
Final Synopsis: Like cheesy popcorn with a bunch of Baco bits mixed in.
Trader Joe’s Baconesque White Cheddar Popcorn – Nutrtion Facts
Trader Joe’s Partially Popped Popcorn!
Posted: March 17, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, Gluten-Free, Kosher, popcorn, Snacks, Trader Joe's 5 Comments
Coming soon, Trader Joe’s Just Watermelon Seeds!
Trader Joe’s Partially Popped Popcorn? Trader Joe’s Partially Popped Popcorn! Not only has TJ’s brought us a new product that sounds absolutely insane, but judging by the exclamation marks, they’re very excited to being doing so.
Trader Joe’s Partiall yPopped Popcorn is, astoundingly, exactly what it sounds like. Ever tried to pop a bag of popcorn in a microwave? You know htose partially popped kernles that are lawys left on the botto? That’s what this is. An entire bag of nothing but popcorn rejects. Essentially, Trader JOe’s has hit on the idea of selling you some of the trash you would normally throw out.
But wait. Is it trash? After all, who among us hasn’t found themselves idly trying to munch on some of the half-budded misfit kernels when all the good popcorn is gone. Is it true that not only have you tried to eat these kernels, but that maybe, every now and then, you have found one that was semi-popped in just the right way, formed just enought that it crunched beneath the teeth with an enjoyable, salty little crunch?
Friends and readers, I’m shocked to see myself write this, but Trader Joe’s Partially Popped Popcorn is not just good, but strangely addicting. –addicting in the weirdly compulsive way that leads you to repeatedly chawing on those partially cooked kernels in your own Pop Secret bag. The difference here is that the kernels in this bag are all precisely cooked as to be half-popped, fully roasted and pleasantly chompable, without any molar-busting, underdone seeds in the mix. The result is more like a roasted Corn Nut than anything else. They have about that same level of sturdy, hard-shelled integrity, that gives way to a crunchy, salty core after a brief moment of tense, inter-dental resistance.
A nutty crunchy, salty, snack – that’s what these really are at the bottom of it, despite their strange origins. Maybe Trader Joe’s isn’t peddling us their rejects, so much as they’ve discovered a previously untapped resource.
The Breakdown:
Would I Recommend Them: It’d be hard to, without being laughed at.
Would I Buy Them Again: Yeah, I would. I love Corn Nuts.
Final Synopsis: Basically smaller, off-brand Corn Nuts.
Trader Joe’s Partially Popped Popcorn – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Reduced Guilt Chicken Salad with White Meat
Posted: February 26, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, Chicken, chicken salad, Salad, Trader Joe's 2 Comments
Finally, a chicken salad that can reduce my guilt.
We’ve talked about Trader Joe’s reduced guilt offerings before. In fact, we talked about one earlier this week. As I mentioned then, the problem inherent in “low cal” versions of fattier food, is that they tend to negate themselves. In general, if I’m going to eat a creamy, sugary, salty brownie or whatever, I have steeled myself to the fact that I’m blowing my diet, if at least for the moment. But I’m willing to do it, because it tastes so damn good. Or I at least hope it tastes that good. The problem with our reduced guilt guacamole, or whatever, is that by taking out all the fat and sugar, you’re taking out all the stuff that makes it taste so good. The result is that I’m left sitting there, scooping watery psudeo-guac into my mouth, still getting fat, just not as quickly, but not enjoying myself nearly as much.
So almost always when I see the “diet” version of an otherwise unhealthy food I immediately assume I’m not going to enjoy myself. However, there is a tricky little bit of math here. On the graph of healthfulness vs. tastiness, every now and then there’s a diet food that manages to fall just on the right side of the curve. The “Inner Beans” snack we explored yesterday managed to do this (debatably). Can Trader Joe’s Reduced Guilt Chicken Salad do the same?
To cut to the chase – no, it doesn’t. This new salad is a classic case of close, but not quite. And really, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Often times these “reduced guilt” formulations offer underwhelming health benefits like “15% less sodium!” or “Now only 72% fat by volume!”. Trader Joe’s Reduced Guilt Chicken Salad swings for the fences, offering an insane reduction in both calories and fat. On the label it proudly states that this chicken salad has 85% less fat and 60% fewer calories than their regular chicken salad. An 85% reduction in fat and less than half the calories – from 19 grams of fat per serving to 2.5, and down 250 calories to 100. That’s insane. You’d think you’re getting a tub with about a teaspoon of chicken salad in it but nope, they’ve filled it all the way to the top.
How did they achieve this miracle? In this case, the answer is they took out all the mayonnaise and replaced it with low fat greek yogurt. It’s a bold, crazy move – and it doesn’t really pay off. While the calories might be reasonable, there’s not tang or zip to the salad. Instead it just tastes flat. The chicken is there, the chopped vegetables are there, but there isn’t much beyond that. The result is something that tastes like a chicken vegetable soup without enough salt in it.
For some people this is probably not a deal breaker. If you’re looking for an interesting cracker topping, or a healthy side to have with lunch this will fit the bill. For me,however, this chicken salad just isn’t quite interesting enough to justify future purchases.
The Breakdown:
Would I Recommend It: Yeah… I guess so. Healthy chicken salad is probably worth a nod.
Would I Buy It Again: No, I thought it was a little too mushy and boring.
Final Synopsis: A very low cal, if bland, chicken salad.
Trader Joe’s Embrace Your Inner Bean
Posted: February 24, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, beans, Snacks, Trader Joe's Leave a comment
Such a confusing bag, Trader Joe’s. Are they implying the bean’s inner bean is fried bean puffs? Wouldn’t it be the other way around? C’mon TJ, let’s try to tighten it up in the future.
I really feel like Trader Joe’s Inner Bean fails on multiple levels. Namely, two levels. It isn’t a very tasty snack, and the name is confusing gibberish that makes people angry. Nevertheless, there is something interesting going on here, and that is worth looking at.
Let’s lay out all the problems first and see if we can figure this out. First, What does “embrace your inner bean” mean? I assume Trader Joe’s must have a reason for putting a perplexing quasi-pun on the package, but I can seriously not understand why. Yes, I know that they sell a similar snack called “Contemplate Inner Peas”. Yes, I get that this bean snack is a spiritual successor to that pea snack. The crucial difference is that while “contemplate inner peace” is a phrase you might expect someone to be familiar with, “Embrace your inner being” is confusing even with the whole bean part left out. It’s just a very, very strange name that tells you nothing about the product except that it involves beans somehow and that, apparently, Trader Joe’s has very high ideals for them.
Even if TJ gave this snack a purely descriptive name, like “Trader Joe’s Air-Puffed Bean Snack”, it would still have some hurdles to clear. What, after all, is an air-puffed bean snack? Well basically, as you will see if you buy this bag, a Cheeto that is made from milled black beans instead of corn. The result is something that does not look or taste very much like Cheetos at all.
Despite the airy content of each crisp, these bean snacks are surprisingly rigid and dense. If you want to chow down on some of these you really have to commit to the bite. In fact, the extreme structural integrity of these ostensibly grab-‘em-‘n-munch’em fun snacks inspired me to construct a small but sturdy tower from the bean treats and see how many cans of Coke it could support. Stacking the bean puffs into a Lincoln-log style cabin, I was able to stack nearly 3 cans of coke before the structure collapsed – a feat that I doubt even Flamin’ Hot Cheetos could replicate.
Taste-wise, Embrace Your Inner Beans are much more approachable. The beans have been seasoned with salt and a dash of pepper that scratches that salty snack food itch. These crunchable bean nuggets will pass snuff for any typical junk food chip at first blush. They’ve got that sort of generic, fried starchiness common to potato chips, Cheetoes, Bugles, etc. However, this taste quickly gives way to the tell-tail mealy, bean taste common to lentils everywhere. It’s not a bad bean taste – it’s just a bean taste. If you’re okay with that in your snack food, then that’s not a problem. If, on the other hand, you don’t want to be reminded of beans while pigging out, this is something to be aware of. They are, more than anything, like a dry crispy version of salted edamame.
Taste aside, there’s one area where these bean snacks excel, and that’s in the calorie count. If you wanted to sit down and pig out on this entire bag, it would only cost you less than 400 calories, while simultaneously packing in 15 grams of protein. Calorie-wise, that’s equivalent to less than 1/2 of one fun-sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Despite the name, despite the hard exterior, these beans are amazingly healthy for a fried food, and still manage to satisfy that gluttonous little voice that demands salt fat all day long. Trader Joe’s has a wide variety of “reduced guilt” or “healthy” alternatives to more fattening snack foods, but generally speaking, it’s a trade off that isn’t worth it. In this case, Trader Joe’s Embrace Your Inner Beans hits that sweet spot of “healthy enough” and “tasty enough” – and that’s a rare combination.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Yes, these are a good healthy snack… if you’re okay with beans.
Would I Buy Them Again: No, these are too bean-y for me.
Final Synopsis: Like healthier, bean-based Cheetos.
Trader Joe’s Embrace Your Inner Bean – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Preserved Tunisian Lemon Slices
Posted: February 12, 2015 Filed under: Condiments, Fruit | Tags: 3 stars, garnish, lemon, preserved lemon, preserves, Trader Joe's 24 Comments
It’s lemon… like you’ve never seen him before!
Trader Joe’s preserved lemons are unlike any other sort of lemon you may have tried before. People do lots of weird things to produce that they store in jars. Sometimes they’re pickling it, sometimes they’re making it sweet, sometimes they’re just packing it in tons and tons of oil. Whatever it is, it’s always impossible to tell what you’re going to get until you actually pop the jar open and give it a try. In this case, I was surprised to find that what they were doing was making the lemons less sour. The lemons in TJ’s Preserved Tunisian Lemon Slices contain all the flavor of that famous yellow citrus fruit, but none of the acidity or sourness. The result is a slightly unnerving but intriguing food experience.
I was really, really not expecting this. Frankly I didn’t even know it was possible to unsour lemons. Really, I didn’t know what expect when I picked these up – and Trader Joe’s was not in a helpful mood when they created the packaging. Search the jar and you’ll find no description of what to use these lemons for, or how they might taste. The one clue that TJ’s sort of lets on to is when they casually mention “Be sure to rinse under water – unless you really like salt.” That might lead you to believe these lemons will be salty. And while yes, indeed, the brine they’re packed in is very salty, that salinity doesn’t make its way into the taste of the lemons. The only reason the lemon slices are soaking in a salt bath is because salt draws out and neutralizes the bitterness of the lemon peel and acidity of the lemon juice.
The result is lemon slices that taste and look like lemons, but don’t make you pucker or wince. If you’ve never had them, it may hard to imagine what non-sour lemons taste like. Basically, they taste like lemon-sceneted dish soap smells. While that is a strange little thing to deal with, mentally, it’s not the only slightly off-putting part of these preserved lemons. As a necessary part of the preserving process, these lemons are saturated, soaked and soggy. Washing them off and patting them dry is about all the strain they can take without falling apart on you. You’ll have no trouble slicing through the rind of these lemons with the edge of a plastic spoon.
So what are you to do with a jar of un-lemonafied lemon slices? The answer is, pretty much anything. The best way to think of these preserved lemons is as a solid slices of lemon juice. Adding a slice, either diced or whole, gives a refreshing zest to any dish. The real boon here is that you can’t over load on these. With the face puckering sourness of the lemon nullified all you’re really adding is a burst of citrus flavor. The classic way to use preserved lemon is in a Moroccan tagine soup, but they really dress up any dish that would benefit from a touch of lemon zest. Dice it up and mix it in a salad, add a slice to a sandwich, or serve as a garnish for roasted chicken. If the somewhat unnatural texture and taste of the lemons doesn’t bother you, they’re an easy and interesting way to dress up almost any dish.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Yes – these have all the perks of lemons without any of the downside.
Would I Buy Them Again: One jar should last me a long time, but I’d consider it.
Final Synopsis: All of the flavor of a lemon without the acid.
Trader Joe’s 100% Pure Coconut Water – Single Origin
Posted: January 27, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, Coconut, coconut water, Trader Joe's 4 Comments
Trader Joe’s – 100% Pure Coconut Water Single Origin
I’m used to seeing coconut water peddled in large cartons, usually with some sort of semi-novel tetra-pack packaging – so coming across Trader Joe’s new 100% Pure Coconut Water in a tiny little 12 oz plastic bottle was a surprise. Even more surprising was the $2.99 price tag. Wait – seriously? Doesn’t Trader Joe’s already peddle a 750ml box of Pure Coconut Water for that exact same price? Just feet away on a nearby shelf? Do they really expect me to pay more than twice as much for the same amount of coconut water? They must think this is some seriously good stuff.
As I talk about in my earlier post on coconut water, Trader Joe’s made me a coconut water convert. Yes, I still think it tastes sort of weird and is painfully trendy – but it’s also an absolutely amazing (and natural) way to get massively hydrated. So I’m more than willing to be receptive to TJ’s new take on coconut water – but with this sort of price differential they going to have to make one hell of a case.
When you crack this bottle open and take a sip, the first thing you’ll notice is that it is actually pretty similar to Trader Joe’s other coconut water. This certainly puts it leaps and bounds ahead of many of the commercial coconut waters on the market (Zico, VitaCoco, etc, etc, etc) but doesn’t exactly make the case for that bigger price tag. Sure, there are some subtle taste differences that can be dissected – this Single Origin Coconut water seems to go down a little “smoother” and seems to taste a little fresher – but this is largely splitting hairs.
So if they taste the same, why the big price difference. That, of course, is because of the “single origin” quality, featured on the label. As TJ themselves explain on the side, each bottle is derived from a coconuts grown only in Thailand, with 1.5 coconuts going into each bottle. Hence the “single origin” label. While that may be somewhat underwhelming (defining “single origin” as originating within the same general country doesn’t particularly impress me), they also make use of a cold water method of pasteurization called HPP or high-pressure processing, thereby avoiding high temperature pasteurization which degrades the nutritive qualities inherent in the water
Basically, at this point, I could get into exactly what that entails – but it matters less than what Trader Joe’s is really trying to do with all this fancy labeling. True coconut water purists – those who turning to coconut wateras a lifestyle choice – pay considerable attention to the origin and method of pasteurization of their water. For instance, this blog post goes into depth at great length about the various virtues and sins committed by coconut water bottlers. Trader Joe’s new 100% Pure Single Origin Coconut Water is Trader Joe’s response to these concerns – a coconut water targeted at the discerning coconut water drinker.
While that’s all well and wonderful, what does it mean to someone like me who already enjoys Trader Joe’s existing coconut water offerings fairly well, and technical discussions of pasteurization processes very little. For that person, you can safely ignore this little bottle and continue to purchase the big carton, as usual. You can imagine the difference between these two as something like the difference between Perrier bottled water and Arrowhead. By all means, go for the Perrier if you fancy yourself a bottled water connoisseur, or have the money to spare. For everyone else, the difference between the two will be less than the pressure on your wallet.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Only to serious coconut water enthusiasts.
Would I Buy It Again: I’ll be sticking with TJ’s other coconut water.
Final Synopsis: An ostensibly higher-quality coconut water meant to target the discerning coconut water crowd.
Trader Joe’s – 100% Pure Coconut Water Single Origin – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Organic Sriracha and Roasted Garlic BBQ Sauce
Posted: January 22, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, bbq, bbq sauce, garlic, Organic, sauce, sriracha, Trader Joe's 4 Comments
Regardless of anything which follows – just know that I love the hell out of this bottle design.
After reviewing Trader Joe’s fantastic new Sweet Sriracha Bacon Jerky the other day, I was more than eager to give Trader Joe’s Organic Sriracha and Roasted Garlic BBQ sauce a shot. Trader Joe’s obviously has it in their mind to revolutionize the sriracha game. Not content deal with the Hoy Fong foods status quo, TJ’s started off by shaking things up with their own brand of tangier sriracha. The sweet sriracha bacon jerky escalated things to a whole different level entirely – setting the stage perfectly for an organic, sriracha based BBQ sauce. However, while this BBQ sauce is good, it’s not going to knock your socks off or anything.
The first thing I should point out is, despite getting top billing in the name, this sauce doesn’t taste like sriracha at all. Oh, sure, it’s spicy – very pleasantly spicy without being too hot in fact. However, that spiciness simply doesn’t have any of the signature fire or tang of sriracha. In this case, it really feels like Trader Joe’s simply decided to replace the generic word “spicy” with a more buzz worthy keyword.
The second thing I should point out is that it isn’t really all that garlicky. There is definitley garlic in it, but the garlic is hidden beneath the much stronger flavors of the BBQ sauce, mostly noticeable just as it touches the tongue, then just peaking up around the edges after that. Much stronger than the garlic taste is the sugary sweetness of the sauce. In fact, the sauce is about a third molasses and sugar, so when it comes to the aftertaste there’s not really any zing, just the cloying, lingering aftertaste of syrup.
So I praise this BBQ sauce with a caveat. For a BBQ sauce, it really is pretty good – spicy, sweet and bold, with just a subtle hint of garlic to mix things up. For a “sriracha and garlic” BBQ sauce, however, it doesn’t really deliver on the billing. If you’re looking for a sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, you’re not going to regret picking his one up. If you’re looking for something with a garlic kick, however, or something that pays homage to the South East Asian fire of real sriracha, you’re probably better off just picking up a bottle of the rooster sauce by itself and whipping up a glaze on your own.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: I might – it’s a good sweet and spicy sauce, if that’s what you like.
Would I Buy It Again: Too sweet for me – I prefer something more like Trader Joes’s Carolina Gold.
Final Synopsis: Not much sriracha or garlic, but still a good BBQ sauce.
KitchenMeister Edel-Marzipanstollen
Posted: December 23, 2014 Filed under: Bread, Desserts, Log | Tags: 3 stars, christmas, fruitcake, hannukkah, kichenmeister, stollen 1 Comment
$3.49 – That’s a good price for Edel-Marzipanstollen! I think!
Rarely, as in very rarely, as in once a year or so, I review something available at Trader Joe’s but not made by them. Last year about this time we looked at the shocking Dutch ChocoVine, a blend of red wine and European chocolate. This year we look at something equally seasonal, and equally European – Edel-Marzinpanstollen. A soft, heavy, sweet loaf of bread filled with dried fruits, marzipan, citrus, loads of spices, and dusted with sugar. The result is something like a fluffier fruitcake.
As you might guess from the long, unwieldy name, Edel-Marzipanstollen is German in origin. And, moreover, it’s as seasonal as seasonal can get. What do I mean by that? Well, put it this way – not only is it a traditional Hanukkah treat and a traditional Christmas treat, but also the Pope himself issued an edict to save them from being outlawed (by an earlier Pope). Now that’s a holiday tradition.
Let’s start at the beginning – distant medieval Germany, AKA the Fun Zone. Back in middle of the dark ages, in the Saxony region of north-eastern Germany, people decided what the hell, let’s start baking a bread-like fruit cake and fill it with all the sweet tasting goodies we can get our hands on. This came to mean including candied orange and lemon peel, raisins, almonds, cardamom, cinnamon and, depending on taste, marzipan – as in the version we’re trying today.
The resulting product, called stollen in it’s most generic form, was originally of Jewish origin, and was eaten throughout the Hanukkah season. The neighboring gentiles, recognizing a good idea when they saw one, adopted it for their own Christmas celebrations sometime there after. However, despite its popularity among Christian laity, the Pope was having none of it. Tasty Christmas breads we’re one casualty of medieval Advent traditions – namely the tradition of fasting, which forbade (among other things) using butter in baking. A stollen isn’t really a stollen if it isn’t absolutely slathered with butter to ensure tasty, moist bread and a long shelf life. Forced to use oil as a surrogate, the resulting stollens were much less palatable – harder, crustier, and bland. The Saxons did not take the loss of the stollen sitting down.
You might have a Christmas tradition you hold dear – you might be prepared to fight for it, but are you prepared to fight five Popes to the death for it? The Saxons were. Starting in the mid-1400’s, two Saxon nobles began sending letters to Pope Nicholas V campaigning for a special dispensation for their bakers to use real butter over Christmas. These letters were summarily ignored until Nicholas’ death – when his successor Callixtus III took over. Callixtus, a very different sort of Pope, nevertheless continued to refuse the request until he died. The post then fell to Pius II, who wanted nothing to do with the butter request and shot it down again. This pattern continued until 1490 when Pope Innocent VIII finally gave in – allowing butter to be used once more. The stollen was saved.
Knowing all this, you might feel more inclined to pick up this sweet bread – but the big question remains – how does it actually taste? Well, as I suggested way back up at the top of the page, Edel-Marzipanstollen is a lot like fruitcake, only better. I’m aware that’s not saying a lot, given the low regard fruitcake is held in, but the comparison stands.
Many of the same ingredients you find in your standard, sticky heavy fruitcake are found here too. The biggest difference is that instead of being crammed into the densest possible wad, they’re given room to breathe in a fluffy, moist, cake-like bread. This bread isn’t sweetened directly – all of the sweetness comes from the sugary fruits and nuts, and the dusting of confectioners sugar on top. This lighter texture makes it much friendlier and more snackable when compared to fruitcake. Nevertheless, the taste is still very similar. If you’ve had one slice of bread filled with candied produce, you know what to expect here. The biggest difference is in the large pieces of marzipan placed throughout. Soft, sweet, and about the size of walnuts, they insert some welcome variety into the otherwise predictable fruit bread.
Overall, despite the unusual name, there isn’t anything in this stollen that you haven’t seen before. If you have a tradition of buying holiday fruit breads, this is a good one, pleasantly heavy and soft, with plenty of candied sweetness. However, if you can get along well enough without fruitcakes or their kin, there’s nothing here that is going to make you change your mind.
Still, it’s only $3.50 for a fine, big loaf – and that’s not a bad price for a piece of ancient holiday history. If the spirit of the season happens to overtake you one fine day as you browse the aisles, why not pick it up and see what all the fuss was about?
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Not really, unless you have a particular fondness for holiday fruit breads or feel buoyed up by holiday cheer.
Would I Buy It Again: Probably not, I’ve had it once – my curiosity is satisfied.
Final Synopsis: A fluffier, moister variety of fruit cake with a rich history.
KichenMeister Edel-Marzipanstollen – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates
Posted: December 4, 2014 Filed under: Chocolate, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 3 stars, Chocolate, dark chcolate, gift, holidays, milk chocolate, Trader Joe's, white chocolate Leave a comment
Nice looking box, right?
Like a lake effect blizzard, the holiday season has descended on Trader Joe’s – only instead of snow, we find ourselves mired in drifts of seasonal holiday offerings. From artisanal mustard sets, to tea samplers to the return of Pink Himalyan Truffle Salt, the shelves are again overflowing with slightly over-priced, niche items in attractive packaging. Frankly, I love it. Trader Joe’s holiday gifts are the second most jolly time of the year for a Trader Joe’s food review blogger – second only, of course, to the annual Pumpkin Madness.
Our impulse buy today is Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates. This is one of those ideas that’s so stupid it’s brilliant or, possibly, vice-versa. I’m not sure why I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else before, because the idea has been sitting in plain sight for decades. Simply put, TJ has taken slice of white chocolate, a slice of milk chocolate, and a slice of dark chocolate and stacked them all together into one chimeric, hybrid chocolate treat.
There are two things going on here with this new chocolate, and I’ll start with the most important one. This is unmistakably a gift item first, and a chocolate treat second. The difference is sometimes subtle, but basically comes down to the packaging. From the box design, to the font, to the presentation of the chocolates themselves, Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates have been designed to look good first and taste good second.
Chocolate is a very safe niche in the holiday gift giving world, and this product fills it expertly. Just look at the box, for instance. Who packages seven chocolates in a box only 3 inches wide and 18 inches long? Someone who’s trying to make an impact with fancy packaging, that’s who. Hand this out to a co-worker / in-law / mail carrier and you’re going to get a little an “Aww” on the box alone . No question – it makes an impact.
Fancy chocolates in their own little rooms.
But once we actually get the box open, how do the chocolates themselves stand up? Well, for one, they’re chocolate. As we’ve talked about before there’s not really any such thing as “bad” chocolate. Having any chocolate is a preferable existence to having no chocolate, and this is by no means a bad chocolate – although Trader Joe’s makes things tricky by combining the three different types together.
While there are certainly plenty of people who define themselves as “chocolate lovers”, these people generally break along the dark chocolate / milk chocolate line. Combine those two into one chocolate, and then add a layer of the always divisive white chocolate, and you have a confection that’s going to simultaneously delight and disappoint people.
You could bring up the argument here that Trader Joe’s probably didn’t need to bring in white chocolate at all. After all, white chocolate isn’t even technically a chocolate, but a sugar-and-fat-derived chocolate wannabe. Considering that a simple milk chocolate / dark chocolate blend would be sure to sell just as many boxes, if not more boxes, than one that also includes white chocolate, I makes you think that maybe the white chocolate is just there to be visually pleasing.
While I’m sure that’s true to some extent, the white chocolate here actually elevates Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates to a strange new level. Never, before taking a bite of this stuff, have I stuck these three very different types of chocolate into my mouth at the same time. The result is something I wasn’t expecting – the flavors melt into one another in a complex interplay. The waxy, sugary taste of the white chocolate, normally cloying, is ameliorated by the flow of the sweet milk chocolate and bitter dark. The result is an intriguing storm of cocoa and sugar, teasing your taste buds this way and that. Certainly enjoyable to savor as it melts upon the tongue.
Unfortunately the chocolates are too big to pop into your mouth all at once. Instead, you have to bite through the three, firm, thick layers – a surprisingly difficult feat. Even after you manage it, the chocolate layers have a tendency to come apart under the pressure, leaving you a potential mess in your fingers.
All in all, I’m satisfied with the purchase. It makes an interesting gift, but also manages to stand on it’s own as an intriguing, if not overwhelming, chocolate confection.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Sure, this could make a nice Christmas gift.
Would I Buy It Again: Not for myself, maybe for others.
Final Synopsis: A handful of novelty chocolates in fancy packaging.
Trader Joe’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Posted: December 2, 2014 Filed under: Brussles sprouts, Trader Joe's Brand, Vegetables | Tags: 3 stars, Brussels sprouts, recipe, roasted, Trader Joe's 6 CommentsNo vegetable has seen a resurgence in recent years like the Brussels sprout. Sure, the per person consumption of broccoli has increased more than 400% since 1980, but people always kind of ate broccoli. Brussels sprouts, on the other hand, have been shorthand for universally reviled food since before WWII. In fact, as recently as 2008 a survey conducted by Heinz Corp. found Brussels sprouts to be the most-hated vegetable in America. Yet in the last few years a strange new, pro-Brussels sprout zeitgeist has arisen in America. Suddenly they are a tasty treat to be found on your dinner plate, no longer regarded as cheap, unpleasant-tasting leaf wads. No one’s fool, Trader Joe’s has made tracks to capitalize on this resurgence, and has brought to their shelves their new Trader Joe’s Roasted Brussels Spouts just in time for the holiday season.
Personally, I’ve long been enjoying the tasty crunch of raw shredded Brussels sprout in Trader Joe’s excellent Cruciferous Crunch Collection, and while that’s all well and good I’ve been avoiding them in their whole, steamed form for many years, thanks to some truly unpalatable encounters with them in my childhood. Yet when I saw them presented in the produce aisle the other day, looking so demure in their minimalist wrapping, I couldn’t resist the urge to pick them up again and see if we couldn’t reconnect.
Normally, I probably wouldn’t have been willing to do this if it wasn’t for that one magically word in the title, “roasted”. The roasting of Brussels sprouts has been the magic key to their reappearance on dinner tables everywhere – that and the generous addition of crispy bacon, onion, pine nuts, etc. The old-fashioned way of boiling Brussels sprouts goes hand-in-hand with their ill reputation. As a cruciferous vegetable, the sprouts contain heaps of the compound glucosinolate which, while beneficial to the body, will stink like rotten sulfur when boiled too long. By roasting a Brussels sprout you avoid all this unpleasantness while retaining the nutrition and enhancing the taste.
Trader Joe’s Brussels sprouts come pre-roasted and ready to eat – sort of. Although they’ve been pre-cooked you’ll need to re-heat them, either by steaming them in their own package in the microwave, or sauteeing them up on the range. Steaming them is more likely to bring out that unsavory glucosinolate, so get out the frying pan if you really want to have a tasty meal.
So how do Trader Joe’s Roasted Brussels sprouts do? Rather well, actually. This is a classic what- you-see-is-what-you-get food product. Although the sprouts have been nominally roasted in olive oil with salt and pepper you won’t taste any of that in the prepared dish. It’s for good reason that TJ exhorts you to “season to taste” twice on the package. The sprouts themselves are fine examples of their cultivar – firm yet yielding, with a mild, vertiginous taste. They’re basically what you want, but they’re not going to blow anyone away just by themselves.
The easiest way to make these sprout delicious is to dress them up with another splash of olive oil and S&P, but if you’re willing to put a little more elbow grease into it, you could consider this recipe with bacon: , or this one with Parmesan – just make sure that you reduce the cooking times to adjust for the already cooked Brussels sprouts.
Finally, I’d like to break into a long digression here about the fascinating history of the Brussels sprout – as perhaps implied by the strange syntax of its name – but the world fails us here. Brussels sprout are apparently named as such simply because Brussels, Belgium was known for growing a lot of them. That shows a lack of imagination that riles me to no end – but I suppose it’s the hard to spell name we’re stuck with.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Sure, if you have a good idea for how to cook them.
Would I Buy Them Again: No, but I’d gladly eat them if served.
Final Synopsis: A fine bunch of roasted Brussels sprouts.
Eating At Joes 
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