Trader Joe's Shakshuka Starter

I had never heard of shakshuka until Trader Joe's came out with this product. From Wikipedia: "Shakshouka (Arabic: شكشوكة‎, also spelled shakshuka or chakchouka) is a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers and garlic, and commonly spiced with cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper and nutmeg. Although the dish has existed in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, its more recent egg and vegetable-based form originated in the Maghreb region of North Africa (Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia)." See Trader Joe's description of the product here.

The directions say to microwave it for a while, then use a spoon to make two indentations in the top into which you break two eggs (not included). But it was soupy enough that the indentations couldn't retain their shape, and the eggs ended up just kind of layered across the top. That didn't really matter; it looked kinda funny, but still tasted good.

I liked it. Just the right amount of spiciness to be interesting, not too much onion or garlic for me. The quantity was awkward--a little much for one person, yet wouldn't have been enough for two.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I wouldn't call it a new favorite, but it will make a nice occasional change-up from my usual home menu. Nina liked it, too--maybe even more than I did.

Trader Joe's Fudgy Chocolate Quinoa Loaf & Cake Mix

This sat in my pantry for several months before I got around to turning it from a mix into a cake. Among other reasons, I had to buy a loaf pan first.

The directions call for 3/4 cup of oil and four eggs, which is hugely more than other mixes I've used before.

I used the maximum baking time recommended, and it still wasn't enough; the center of the cake had an almost liquid core. It needed probably another ten minutes.

The cake made from this mix is quite a bit denser than what I'm used to from other mixes. Maybe this is because of using quinoa instead of wheat flour? It's extremely moist, richly chocolaty.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I make cake probably only once or twice a year, and I prefer other mixes from the big-name national brands.

Trader Joe's Taco Shells, Taco Seasoning Mix, and Fire Roasted Diced Green Chiles

I've noticed the taco shells and seasoning dozens of times during Trader Joe's runs, but always passed them by, with the thought, "Some other time, not today." Then this week I developed an odd hankering for tacos, and knew that it was time. While at the store finally purchasing the ingredients, I also noticed the tiny can of green chiles next to the taco fixings, and on a whim tossed it in my basket.

I arbitrarily chose Gardein's fake ground beef, out of many similar products, as the substrate, and it worked perfectly.

I used just half of the seasoning mix, as the directions recommend. It says you can use the whole package if you want your tacos "really spicy." With the recommended half-package, both Nina and I thought the result was a little on the bland side, so next time I probably will go for the whole thing. I added a can of tomato sauce, one of the options the manufacturer suggests.

I warmed up the shells in my toaster oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. It was too much. One of them was browned almost to the point of being burned, and all of them ended up too brittle. I'll dial that back to 2-3 minutes next time.

At the table, I had three toppings: Fresh Express Green Leaf Shreds (much better than standard shredded iceberg lettuce), TJ's Organic Shredded 3 Cheese Blend, and the chiles.

Despite the niggling problems mentioned above, I loved the result. I had planned to eat just two, but ended up going back to make a third, then a fourth. The last one I tried without adding the chiles, to see if they were really contributing anything. They definitely were, though I suspect with the doubled seasoning mix they would fade away, as they are very mild. With the last two, I didn't bother heating up the shells, and while that meant that the tacos weren't as piping hot, they were also much easier to fill and eat without breaking apart.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely, and enthusiastically, on the shells and mix; no on the chiles (because I think they'll be pointless when using more than half a packet of the mix).

I used to make tacos pretty regularly when I was married, then I stopped after my divorce. It wasn't really a conscious decision; it just always felt like more trouble than they were worth when cooking for one. I'm not sure that the TJ's shells and mix are any better than competing products from other companies, but they're at least as good, and inexpensive. They also allow you to avoid the decision fatigue of selecting between numerous similar products at a standard supermarket. I'm sure that much of the joy I felt last night was not from the components being the absolute finest, but simply from being reminded of how much I used to like this simple food. Nevertheless, between the mix, the choice of adding tomato sauce, and the nice texture of the Gardein ground-beef substitute, I stumbled into what I think is an excellent combination, which I plan to stick with.

I have to add that Nina was less enthusiastic about the results: mix too bland, shells too thin. So this is a new favorite that I'll probably mostly keep to myself.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Salted Caramel Mug Mix

This is a weird product. At first I thought it was a new hot chocolate; that's what "chocolate...mug mix" implies to me. But then I noticed the strange, semi-solid, gloppy stuff in the picture, and it didn't compute. Then I saw the smaller print: "cake." WTF?

Yes, this mix creates a little chocolate cake in a mug. You put the powder in the mug, add a little water, stir, and microwave. Voila--cake. Or at least that's the idea.

On my first attempt, I followed the directions precisely, with two 20-second zaps. The "cake" was still partially liquid. So the second time, I increased to two 25-second bursts. That seemed to fix the problem.

However, the result is still very strange. It's sort of cake-like. But spooning cake out of a mug sets off conflicting brain signals. This isn't what's supposed to be in a mug, and this isn't how one is supposed to eat cake.

Beyond the problem of expectations being dashed is the problem that it's just not particularly good cake. That shouldn't be surprising. What do you expect from an add-water-and-microwave concoction?

You might also want to know that the mix contains large crystals of salt that do not dissolve. The first time I crunched one of these without knowing it was there, I thought I had broken a tooth.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Banana Bread Mix

On the plus side, this is easy to make: blend the mix, eggs, oil, and water, and let it bake 40 minutes. Also, it comes out with a nice, moist texture.

On the minus side--and here we get into the unforgivable territory--it barely tastes like bananas at all. It's more vanilla than banana. Maybe this is the inevitable result of using banana powder instead of mashed-up real bananas, as in traditional recipes, but I find it unacceptable. I felt like doing my best Clara Peller imitation and shouting at the box, "Where's the banana?"


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Cinnamon Sugar Muffin & Baking Mix

This item makes 10 that I have reviewed under the heading of "mixes," and it's only the third to rate a "Will buy again." (The others are cornbread mix and pumpkin cornbread mix.)

I made the muffins rather than the cake. They baked up light, fluffy, and moist. They taste great with the cinnamon sugar on top.

Oddly, the picture on the front shows the use of paper cupcake cups, but the directions specify using a greased muffin tin--i.e., without paper cups. I opted to follow the photo rather than the directions, and it was probably a mistake, because the one problem I had in eating the muffins was how they stuck to the paper. Next time, I'll skip them.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Vanilla Cake & Baking Mix

I deem this a complete failure of a product.

First, it's harder to make than most modern cake mixes, requiring milk, eggs, and butter. Second, it ended up with some grittiness--maybe clusters of sugar granules? I'm not sure what they were, but they were unpleasant. Third, it just wasn't especially vanilla-y, and if there's anything special about the "Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla," I couldn't detect it.

I ate about a third of the resulting cake, and threw the rest away. It just wasn't good enough to use my dietary sweets allotment on.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Brownie Mix

My experience with Trader Joe's gluten-free products has been a decidedly mixed bag. Some have been perfectly normal products that you wouldn't know or care are gluten-free--like this. Some have been a little less desirable than the regular products for which they substitute, but would be only a modest compromise if one needed to avoid gluten--like this. And some have been just awful, completely inedible--like this.

So I had no way to predict where this brownie mix would fall on that spectrum. Trader Joe's, predictably, touts the resultant brownies as "Thick and rich, a little chewy, and wonderfully chocoately [sic]." Are they?

Yes, they really are. They have an admirable texture, marred only by being a little granular. I've now eaten enough products made from rice flour that I recognized its flavor, even before checking the list of ingredients to confirm my suspicion that that was the main constituent--but that was only a minor detraction. I think they're a little sweeter than I consider ideal, but, again, that's a small demerit.

All in all, I would deem these a perfectly acceptable substitute for a regular brownie mix. I'd even call them surprisingly good.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I won't be buying this mix again because I think several regular products are better. But if I needed a gluten-free diet, I would be ever so grateful to have this option available. It's possible that this is as good as a gluten-free brownie mix can get.

Trader Joe's Meyer Lemon Cake Mix With Lemon Icing

I spotted this in the Trader Joe's baking-supplies section while looking for something else. It's possible it's been around for a while, but I think it's new--even though it was never on the "new products" shelf in my local store--because I don't find any online references to it prior to February. I've purchased similar mixes before (see here and here), and I certainly would have noticed this one if it had been sitting next to those.

The directions call for a 4" x 8" loaf pan, which I did not have. So I made it in an 8" x 8" cake pan, and reduced the baking time by about 10 minutes. It turned out just right.

The mix required a whole lot of stirring. You're supposed to keep mixing, by hand, until the batter is smooth. This takes forever. It greatly exceeded my attention span, and made me question how badly I wanted to eat lemon cake.

I liked the result, but I wasn't in love with it. It definitely is lemony, but I couldn't detect anything that was specifically Meyer lemony. Nice texture. I finished the whole thing in a few days, but never felt craving for it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Deep Dark Gingerbread Cake & Baking Mix With Molasses & Ginger

I made what were essentially gingerbread brownies with this mix--the most basic recipe provided on the box. While they turned out to have a nice texture, they were way too heavy on the ginger, and had an odd bitter note that I couldn't identify. I ate two, with the second being a day later just to be sure I had not been overreacting to the first one. I wasn't. I threw the rest away.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Brownie Truffle Baking Mix

Good brownies. However, they're a little too much cocoa as opposed to chocolate for my taste, and I'm not a fan of chocolate chips added to brownies, as these have. Also, I didn't like having to use a full stick of butter to make them, rather than the more typical vegetable oil called for by other mixes. Still, I'd happily eat them anytime they were served to me.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It's not because I didn't like them. It's only because I long ago discovered that the best brownie mix in the universe is Ghirardelli's "Chocolate Supreme." (Ghirardelli makes eight different brownie mixes, so it's easy to get confused as to which is which. The "Chocolate Supreme" is the only one with a packet of chocolate syrup that you add to the dry mix. This is clearly indicated on the front of the box, and is the only way I can remember which one to buy.)

Trader Joe's Garlic & Butter Mashed Potatoes

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


I like mashed potatoes, but I don't like cooking and mashing them. So I've long been one of those lazy Neanderthals who use instant. These are pretty much like every other, except for having a mild garlic component added. Since I'm not a fan of garlic, I'll never again choose these over Hungry Jack, Ore-Ida, or some similar product. However, I do like the pouches inside the box for making less than the whole amount; saving the rest of the ones that are just flakes inside a box is a pain. I wish the brands I usually purchase would adopt this practice.


Will I buy it again?

No.

Trader Joe's Cornbread Mix

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


I very much liked Trader Joe's Pumpkin Cornbread Mix, and since this is basically the same, sans pumpkin, I anticipated liking it, too. And I did.

I overcooked it a bit. The other two things that needed time in the oven for our Thanksgiving dinner both required 400 degrees. This specified 350. But I don't have two ovens, and time constraints precluded doing them sequentially. So I baked the cornbread at 400, with the other items, guessing at how much I should shorten the time to compensate. It wasn't perfect.

I liked the result anyway. Great flavor, good texture (a little dry, though I'm blaming myself for that). And super-easy to make.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I get a hankering for cornbread only once or twice a year, but when the urge hits, this will be my first choice for a mix.

Nina's View

I'm always skeptical of mixes. Cornbread is one of the things that are actually pretty easy to make from scratch, and so I cast an extra-dubious eye on this product.

I found the flavor of this cornbread rather flat and uninteresting. It had no fresh sweetness to it, no depth of corniness. Perhaps if it had not been quite so dry I would have liked it better, but I'm guessing probably not. 

Imma pass on this one in future.

Trader Joe's Gingerbread Pancake Mix

I bought this back in December, which is the only time of year it's available, but didn't get around to trying it until this past week (April, as I'm writing this). But hey--at least the review will get published before next Christmas season, right?

Nina actually took charge of mixing up the batter and cooking the pancakes, while I attended to other parts of the meal--and she did it once at my place and once at hers, so she'll be better qualified to speak to the process of making them. I can only address the subject of eating them.

I thought they were surprisingly good for coming from a just-add-water mix. My only gripe was that the pieces of crystallized ginger were often too big and kind of jarring to encounter. If they were smaller and better dispersed, I would like them better.

I had them once with just butter, and they were fine that way. The second time I used some of Nina's homemade fruit syrup, which was also good. But they don't need added sweetness; they've got plenty of their own built in.

Will I buy it again? 

Probably not, though more because of the difficulties in making them come out right than because of any dislike of the final result. One of these days I'd also like to try the coconut version, which I presume won't have the same problem with the crystallized ginger pieces.

Nina's View

This is one of the rare pancake mixes that don't ask you to add milk or eggs. It's also a mix that produces a batter which sticks like the dickens. Coincidence?

I like the flavor of these well enough, but the difficulty in producing easily flippable pancakes was a major disappointment. At first I thought it was just that I was unfamiliar with Bob's electric cooktop. But then I tried it at my place, with my gas range, and the outcome was just as frustrating.

One of these days I'll experiment with producing my own version of these, because I think it's a great idea. But the TJ's implementation has not won my seal of approval.

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Cornbread Mix

I bought this basically as a joke, thinking it was just a gimmicky seasonal item the awfulness of which would serve as fodder for an amusingly scathing review.

Welp, I can't do that. I actually like this stuff--a lot. It's super-easy to make, and it came out perfectly on my first try (which can't often be said of food items, given my underdeveloped kitchen skills). The texture is perfect, probably the best of any cornbread mix I've ever tried (which, admittedly, is only a few)--pleasingly moist without tipping over into sogginess. And the taste is just surprisingly good. I had anticipated that it would be either plain ol' cornbread with a hint of pumpkin spice to justify the name, or go to the opposite extreme and overwhelm me with pumpkin, so that it no longer resembled actual cornbread. Nope. TJ's split the difference exactly right, producing a lovely balance of the two dominant flavors.

My only gripe with it is that it's too sweet. After "enriched flour," the second ingredient is "evaporated cane syrup"--i.e., sugar. This is followed by "degermed yellow corn meal," then "pumpkin." They need to move the sugar a notch or two down the list. If they did that, they'd have a perfect product, worthy of my Top Ten list.

As it is, it's very good, but falls short of greatness.

Will I buy it again? 

I think this will be the one TJ's seasonal pumpkin item that I most look forward to having annually.

Other opinions 

Over in the "Eat at Joe's" blog, the review is so different that one might wonder whether we're even talking about the same product.

Nina's View

Okay folks, if you've been following along, you know exactly how I'm going to feel about this one, right?

First, I have to concur that this cooked up just about as perfectly as you could ask for.

And second, just too sweet. It's more like a dessert. You could put some whipped cream on it, stick a candle in it, and sing happy birthday, and everyone would love it. 

Were this a more savory version, it would be a killer side-dish with your Thanksgiving dinner.

FIX IT, TJ's!