Trader Joe's 3 Seed Beet Crackers

When I think of crackers, I don't think of beets. Then again, I am not Trader Joe's.

I don't mind beets, but I don't seek them out, so this is a product I never would have bought if not for this blog. Fortunately, they're not as beety in flavor as they appear. They worked fine for scooping up hummus--crunchy, but not too delicate or brittle. They're really too thin to make a good base for cheese slices.


Will I buy it again? 

Probably not. Nina might, though; she liked them better than I did. And they would make an attractive addition to a cheese-and-cracker platter.

Trader Joe's ABC + K Slaw

Eating this slaw was the first occasion in my life in which I've been inclined to say, "There's not enough kale here."

Because of how it's packed, with the kale on top, it's easy to believe there's more of it than turns out to be so. In reality, you end up with a kind of gloppy mix of carrot shreds and beet shreds, with an occasion stray kale leaf, and some glops of apple. Nothing mixes together well.

That said, when I bought it I thought there was about a 75% chance that I'd hate it and not even finish one serving. I didn't hate it. In fact, I liked it better than Nina did, which I would have estimated had a 0.00000001% chance of being true. That doesn't mean that I loved it, but I didn't mind it--and I ate all of mine, while she quit about halfway through hers. I even went back and had two more servings of it over the next couple of days.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I think apples, beets, and carrots pretty much need to stay in their own lanes.

Trader Joe's Organic Beet Strawberry Juice

This is some weird-ass juice.

My history with Trader Joe's beet juice is not good. See here and here. I thought that the addition of strawberry might make this one better.

Nope. The flavors just don't blend well. They clash, competing for attention. When drinking it, I'm constantly aware that there's the strawberry part (good) and the beet part (bad).

The "hint of lemon juice" promised is nowhere to be found. Maybe they added it in with an eyedropper.

Some juice blends I feel uncertain about with the first swallow, but warm up to as I get used to them. This one had the opposite effect. My uncertainty turned more and more to active dislike with each ounce that passed my lips. It felt like a chore to finish the glass, after which I wanted no more of it, ever.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Just Beets

This is Day Two of New Products Week. 


This is a brand-new product. See Trader Joe's introduction to it here. $2.99 for a very small bag. Do not confuse it with this very similarly named item.

As the name says, there's nothing here but dehydrated beets--no oil, no seasonings. TJ's says that the beets are blanched in boiling water just enough to allow the skins to be removed. Other than that, there is no cooking involved.

So you end up with thin chips, approximately the texture of slightly soft potato chips, but tasting exactly like, well, beets. I found it a strange sensory combination, because my brain associates that flavor with the typical firm but not crunchy texture of beets. It's not unpleasant--just unexpected and slightly confusing.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I'm happy to have tried them once, but I think that's enough--especially given the steep price per ounce.

Nina's View

Not a success. Have a beet the way nature intended it, or a fried beet chip instead.

Trader Joe's Butternut Squash, Beet & Goat Cheese Ravioli

New Trader Joe's item. See the company's description of it (and a much better photo than mine) here.

I bought this package not only because it's new and I feel an obligation to report on it, but because it's attractive and intriguing. Who puts squash, beets, and goat cheese into ravioli???

The flavors of the first two components are surprisingly subdued, to the point that I found it hard to taste anything except the pasta shell and the cheese, unless I really concentrated. But that worked for me, since I like cheese a lot more than I like either squash or beets. Physically, they held together pretty well, with only one piece splitting open in the pot of boiling water.

We had them with just butter. The package recommends olive oil. A traditional pasta sauce would probably extinguish any chance of tasting the individual ingredients.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I probably wouldn't just for myself, but Nina liked them, so I think they'll make a nice occasional part of dinner when I cook for her.

Nina's View

I think this was a really canny bit of recipe-jiggering. The sweetness of the butternut squash is perfectly balanced by the earthiness of the beets, and the cheese makes a nice third note. No fireworks in the mouth, but definitely in the comfort-food realm. The aesthetics of the ravioli are quite lovely.

A nice brown-butter or sage butter or herbed butter or lemon butter sauce would be best here—something savory to contrast with the little bit of sweetness.

Another interesting twist would be to try deep-frying them. They might make really tasty appetizers that way.

Recommended. Of course I'm not buying for myself because: cheese. 

Trader Joe's Just Beets With A Splash Of Lemon

New product. Not exactly traditional TJ's December roll-out material, is it?

It's beet juice. It's tolerable, but nothing that I want to subject myself to again.

I thought that the "subtle earthiness" on the label was a warning that it would taste like dirt--just like the rather vile Root Juice. Nope, it didn't. So it's got that going for it, which is nice. But I still don't like it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Nina's View

This is one of those things that, on first tasting, seems entirely skippable. Until you take another sip, and then another. I find that there's something subtly addictive and appealing about beet juice.

I say, give it a chance. You might find that you like it.

Trader Joe's Root Juice

This is the newest product from Trader Joe's. The company's description of it is here.

Let me introduce you to this juice the same way I first heard about it, which was via this tweet:

Then came this one:

And ya know what? They're right. It TASTES LIKE DIRT!

In case you're wondering, those three capitalized words do not constitute my highest recommendation for juice.

But it does have one redeeming virtue: It looks so much like human blood when sitting in a clear glass that you could used it as fake blood on Halloween.

Will I buy it again? 

Sure--as soon as "tastes like dirt" becomes a compliment.


Nina's View

The first sip of this is DEFINITELY earthy. Sips 2 to the end get more and more palatable. By the bottom of the glass I actually kind of liked it. The vampiric appearance contributes to the whole Halloween-y liquid-dirt experience. This is not something I see myself running out and buying regularly, but I can imagine one day waking up with a mysterious craving for it (and an aversion to garlic and sunshine).

It seems like exactly the sort of oddball concoction that could also be a pregnant woman's yen.