Trader Joe's Fire Roasted Vegetables With Balsamic Butter Sauce

This is the sixth of ten consecutive days of reviews of the things Nina and I tried at our all-Trader-Joe's Thanksgiving meal. 



This was the biggest fail of my Thanksgiving meal.

First fail: I picked it without adequate scrutiny of its contents. A glance at the picture on the front made me think it was mostly carrots and green beans and potatoes. It's actually mostly peppers and mushrooms, both of which I'll put up with but don't really like. It also contains a lot of pearl onions, and I think by now we all know how I feel about onions.

Second fail: I was trying to assemble a meal entirely of Trader Joe's products that neither Nina nor I had had before. But it turns out she had had this on her own previously--without telling me. She's sneaky like that. She seems to think that just because she's an adult and has her own house and income, she can buy and eat groceries all by herself without providing her boyfriend with an itemized list of what she's getting. Have all women become this uppity???

Third fail: I cooked them on the stove with the full recommended amount of oil, without stopping to think that that amount is for preparing the entire bag, while I was cooking only about one-third of the bag. The result was way, way too much oil, which I then had to strain off. Even after doing so, the veggies were left too oily.

Fourth fail: I just didn't like the taste of even the few components that I normally like. Caveat: I think the accumulation of the previous fails seriously predisposed me to a dim view of the product, so that I didn't give it a fair trial.

Bottom line: Ick.

Will I buy it again? 

Ick.

Nina's View

Clearly I am utter failure as a girlfriend. It's true that I did not mention I'd had these vegetables before. I have and I like them. My beloved's summation notwithstanding, they are not ick. They are yum.

They're at their best when served over something that can soak up the rather nice balsamic sauce. I enjoyed the flavor they added to the rather undistinguished mashed potatoes [review forthcoming]. Rice would also suit nicely. Or a thick slab of some nice artisanal bread.

It must be noted that Bob was SO sure he wouldn't like this that he prepared a minuscule quantity of this stuff, of which I ate by far the majority. I think if he were served many such items blindfolded, without the opportunity to be prejudiced in advance by the identification of things he knows he doesn't like, he would actually enjoy this mix.