Trader Joe's Kale Gnocchi

As I sat down to write this, I discovered that I had failed to take a picture of the package when I brought it home. I could fish the empty bag out of the garbage, but I decided it was better to steal the above photo from Trader Joe's web page introducing the product, here.

The good news: Simple sauteeing, as the package recommends, makes these things turn out fine, which was not the case with the cauliflower gnocchi (see the addendum at the end of that review).

The bad news: They taste like gnocchi rolled with lawn clippings. However, that becomes ignorable with a little dressing up. I served them with sliced, browned Sausage-less Sausage and Autumnal Harvest Creamy Pasta Sauce. That combination made the grassiness fade far into the background.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I'll finish the leftovers for my lunch today, but I think that will be plenty of that.

Trader Joe's 3 Cheese Vegetable Ravioli

Trader Joe's just keeps churning out new variations on a familiar theme. This time, they've stuck mushrooms, Swiss chard, kale, and three Italian cheeses inside the ravioli.

There were 12 pieces in the plastic container. One of them tore open partially during cooking, as I tried to separate two that were stuck together, but it didn't spill out all of its contents as I've seen happen before.

The texture was fine, as always. The contents left something to be desired, though. I tasted almost nothing but cheese. Now, for me this is kind of a good thing, because I tolerate but do not love mushrooms. For Nina, though, it was a letdown. She wondered what's the point of featuring mushrooms if they're not going to be prominent and really wonderful. And, she added, kale does not belong in ravioli. This is a scientific fact.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I'd stick with this one, or this one, or this one.

Trader Joe's Broccoli & Kale Pizza Crust

"I don't think that ever in the history of pizza has anybody said, 'What I need is broccoli and kale in my pizza crust.'"

So said Nina last night after trying a few bites of this. I had made a pizza with this crust, TJ's Fat Free Pizza Sauce, TJ's Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, and my favorite fake chicken strips, from Beyond Meat.

In that configuration, I found that the corn flour of the pizza crust came through more than the broccoli and kale, but I could taste those portions if I cut off a little piece of the crust and ate it without the toppings.

Physically, the crust held up well, with no significant sogginess.

Because of a long history of TJ's frozen foods requiring longer in the oven than specified on the package, I maxed out the baking times from the ranges suggested in the directions. Here's my advice: Don't do that. I seriously overcooked it, and we had burnt edges all around. Go with the minimum suggested times.


Will I buy it again? 

A week ago, I didn't know that broccoli & kale pizza crust existed, and had never even imagined that it could exist. I would be happy to subject myself to the memory-erasing flasher thing from "Men In Black" and return to that state of blissful ignorance.


via GIPHY

In other words, no.

If you want or need a gluten-free pizza crust, TJ's own cauliflower-based one is better. It's both more neutral in flavor, and, well, not green. Pizza crust should not be green.

Trader Joe's Tahini, Pepita & Apricot Slaw Kit

My record of liking Trader Joe's prepared salad kits is pretty low. Heck, it might even be zero. (I didn't go through the archives to check.) This is one of the more successful ones.

It has serious crunch to it, what with the raw carrot, cabbage, and broccoli-stalk shreds. In fact, it takes so much chewing that Nina said she was starting to feel distinctly "bovine" while eating it. (To the best of my knowledge, however, she did not regurgitate any of it for re-chewing later.)

I got very little flavor enhancement from either the pumpkin seeds or the apricot bits. I wish the latter had been a lot more prominent.

I was kinda meh about the tahini-orange dressing (too much tahini, not enough orange), but Nina thought it was one of the nicest kit dressings TJ's has put out.


Will I buy it again? 

No--but it's close. I was happy to finish off, by myself, the three servings that were left after Nina and I had the first two with a dinner. But I already eat a ton of brassica vegetables, and I like them better in other forms.

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 Kale & Cauliflower Curry Salad

For once, I forgot to take a photo of this product when I brought it home, so I swiped the above from Trader Joe's web site, here.

This stuff is not good. The cauliflower is OK, but the kale is tough and bitter. (I think I'm just going to have to accept that any kale in my life will have to be the "baby" variety; I have not been able to get into the regular variety, despite many attempts.) There are way too many wheat berries, which don't add much except for a little chewiness. There are a few golden raisins, for a nice touch of sweetness. The "curry" is pretty un-curry-like. I don't know what's going on with it, but it didn't taste like real curry to me. I couldn't work up the interest to explore the ingredients list to figure out what it was.

The whole thing just didn't work. I suppose I ate about 3/4 of my half of it; Nina ate less than 1/4 of hers.

For an opposing point of view, see this review from the "Eat at Joe's" blog, the author of which absolutely loved it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Spinach & Kale Bites

These are, as the name implies, basically just balls of chopped spinach and kale. They are held together by egg and bread crumbs as a binder, with some Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top (which I could neither see nor taste), plus a little onion (fortunately not detectable), salt, and pepper.

I found these to be tolerable, though short of enjoyable. However, if you grade on a curve, I'd say that these bites are among the better ways I've experienced eating spinach and kale.


Will I buy it again? 

No. But it's nice to know that spinach and kale can be made palatable in ways other than as part of a salad.

Nina's View

I thought these were pretty good. I think they were a tad over-baked, and thus less succulent than would be optimal.

[Bob notes: That was my fault. At the end of the prescribed baking time, I thought they didn't feel as hot to the touch as they should, so I gave them another 5 minutes. This decision was probably influenced by having so many previous TJ's products needing more oven time than the label says. I maybe should have just gone with the directions instead of my not-so-keen culinary instincts.]

Trader Joe's Organic Superfood Pilaf

I made no deliberate attempt at a theme week here, but for the third day in a row, I'm reviewing a product that I fully expected to like, and then didn't.

After I served it for the first time as a side dish in a dinner with Nina, the leftovers just sat in my refrigerator. Every day I looked at the container and considered reheating it with lunch, and every day I decided instead on something else. After about a week, I stopped trying to fool myself into believing I would eat it, and threw it out.

Why? I think it's the balance. Specifically, too much kale. Kale is OK as part of a salad (or soup or casserole or whatever), but here it's just too dominant. And for me, that transforms what should be a pretty good mixture into one that falls just below the threshold of wanting to have it again.

Will I buy it again? 

No. I'll eat it if Nina has it at her place, but I think if I bought it for myself, it would once again just sit in the freezer forever, with me repeatedly picking other things that I like better.

Trader Joe's Broccoli & Kale Slaw

Stop the presses! Last week saw such a profusion of new and seasonal products that I had to relegate a whole week's worth of pre-written blog posts to a later date, in order to make room to tell you about the more urgent stuff. We have seven days of reviews of products that are brand new, only seasonally available, or both. For lack of a catchier moniker, let's call this NEW AND SEASONAL PRODUCTS WEEK. 


This is a brand-new product at Trader Joe's. See the company's description of it here.

The chopped broccoli was fine. The kale was fine. The dried cherries and blueberries added a nice bit of fruity sweetness to the mix. I don't much like almonds, so that component was a negative for me. The dressing was OK.

So I didn't actively dislike much of anything about this. Yet the whole left me unimpressed. I'm not sure I even have a coherent reason. It's just that I kept looking at it on my plate and not wanting to eat more of it. I finished a normal serving size, but more through a sense of resignation to it than liking of it.

Will I buy it again? 

No.

Nina's View

The dressing was dire.

The mix was okay.

The rest of it is in my fridge and will be served mixed with some tender greens to Bob when he comes to dinner tonight. With better dressing.

Trader Joe's Persimmon Salad

What you've got here is lettuce, kale, goat cheese, persimmons, pumpkin seeds, and pomegranate seeds with a pomegranate-sherry dressing. All of which would be fine, except for one prominent flaw: TOO MUCH KALE!

In fact, it we were to rewrite the ingredient list to more accurately reflect the actual contents, it would be approximately this: kale, kale, kale, kale, kale, kale, lettuce, kale, persimmons, kale, goat cheese, kale, pumpkin seeds, kale, pomegranate seeds, kale, pomegranate-sherry dressing, and kale. With a side of kale.

It’s kind of like the Monty Python sketch, where a menu item is Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, and Spam.

Kale is nice as a salad component, but this was so overdone it was ridiculous.

Will I buy it again? 

If these ingredients were better balanced, it would have been a really nice salad. Maybe someday I'll look at a couple of samples in the refrigerated case again and see if it looks like they've toned down the kale volume some. If so, then yes, I would give it another try.

Nina's View

What he said.

Trader Joe's Organic Vegetable Soup With Quinoa & Kale

Did not like. Too peppery, and way, way too full of onions, which, as all sensible people know, are poison to humans.

Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Kale Quinoa Salad

I saw this listed on Trader Joe's web site as a new product and decided to give it a try alongside a TJ's frozen pizza for a weekly dinner with Nina.

I kind of wish I hadn't.

As is typical of TJ's complete bagged salads, there are lots of ingredients: baby kale, shredded broccoli, shredded carrots, chopped red cabbage, radicchio, pumpkin seeds, quinoa, and dried cranberries, plus a packet of lemon vinaigrette dressing. But the leafy green stuff? All kale, all the time. Being "baby" kale, it's more tender than the "adult" variety, but it still packs a lot of bitterness--so much so that I was unable to taste, let alone enjoy, any of the other components. I honestly could not even taste the salad dressing. The signal my taste buds were sending was KALE KALE KALE KALE KALE KALE KALE KALE KALE.

I don't mind some kale. In fact, I'm a big fan of TJ's Cruciferous Crunch Collection tossed 50/50 with a bag of lettuce or spring mix. But that blending is cruciferously crucial, and it's completely absent here. This product badly needs balancing by replacing half of the kale with some type of lettuce or lettuce/spinach blend. Without that, as far as I'm concerned, the other eight ingredients might as well not even show up to the party.

Will I buy it again? 

No. It felt like a chore to make it all the way through one bowl of the stuff.

Nina's View

There's no disputing that there's a lot of KALE in this product. And that the additional items get lost in the shuffle. Except for the quinoa, which gets distributed on the damp KALE leaves and ends up looking like some sort of infestation. Not a particularly successful outcome. Bob is right that this salad would be improved by a significant dilution of the KALE quotient with other greens.

I feel, however, that there is one thing that this salad has going for it that the overwhelming majority of TJ salads do not: a very good dressing. The included lemon vinaigrette is most meritorious, and even makes the relentless KALE more tolerable (for me, anyway).