Trader Joe's Multigrain Crackers

The first time I tried these was with TJ's muhammara. Nina was having the same, and she quickly pointed out how much sweeter the crackers were than the Pita Bite crackers, which we were just finishing up. I had not noticed that characteristic, and couldn't detect it even after she mentioned it. Perhaps it's because my palate is still a shamefully dull instrument--or perhaps it was because of the sweetness of the muhammara.

Later, however, I tried them with slices of a mildly flavored cheese, and almost immediately I could see what she meant. There was an unmistakable flavor of sweetness coming through--and it didn't mesh well with the cheese. A glance at the list of ingredients confirms the suspicion: Sugar is #3, after flour and oil.

I had hoped that these would be good general-purpose crackers. However, I think that the oddly prominent note of sweetness limits their use. Whatever you're putting on them basically has to be sufficiently strongly flavored to mask that--unless, of course, sweetness is a trait that you like in a cracker.

Will I buy it again? 

No. They have a nice texture, and are strong enough to hold whatever you want to put on them, without being tough to bite into. But crackers are not where I want to be tasting sugar.

Trader Joe's Soft 10 Grain Bread

I like many multigrain breads. They tend to be more complex and interesting than plain wheat bread.

Not this one. For reasons I can't identify, it felt and tasted completely generic, bland, and uninteresting. It was soft, as promised, though that's generally true of any bread sold as a sliced loaf. I usually don't like seeds on the outsides of crusts. They fall off messily, they litter the bottom of the toaster, they get stuck between my teeth, and they make the crusts have a concentrated taste that is different than the rest of the slice. This product was no different in that regard.

Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Quiche

This is a two-in-one post--and you didn't even have to wait for a double-coupons day to get it!

Trader Joe's actually sells three varieties of quiche in this product line. The third is spinach and mushroom, which I was quite sure I wouldn't like, so I skipped it. Nina and I each ate half of the two versions shown above.

Both of them had nice crust and nice texture throughout. Surprisingly for a TJ's freezer-to-oven product, the baking time made them come out exactly right. (Most such TJ's things require more time than the instructions specify.) The size was just right for one serving.

I had the "Mexicaine" one first. What makes it Mexican? Not much other than green chili peppers. If tasted blindfolded, I never would have identified this as even remotely Mexican. It tasted like basic quiche, with maybe a tad more spiciness than usual, and maybe more cheese. I liked it just fine, but it was nothing to write home about.

The broccoli version was less successful. It is indeed chock full of chopped broccoli. (Because of that, its calorie count is lower--460--than the Mexicaine's 500. That's what happens when you replace cheese with a vegetable, I guess.) But I quickly sensed the presence of my personal kryptonite ingredient, the dreaded onion. I started looking, and soon found a little cube of what I felt confident was, in fact, the offending matter. I checked the box, and sure enough, there it was in black and white: "dehydrated onion." Bah! Some day I will be an absolute despot, and will by royal decree rid the world of this foul, noxious plant. But I'm not quite there yet.

Will I buy it again? 

The Mexicaine yes, the broccoli/cheddar cheese/ONION no.

Nina's View

Raise your hand if you are surprised that I think Bob has this backwards.

The Broccoli one is yummy, with good clearly-identifiable flavors and pleasing textures. The Mexicaine is quite dull and one-note. I'm not buying either because: cheese. 

Trader Joe's Organic White Corn Tortilla Chips

Trader Joe's has so many different varieties of tortilla chips that I honestly can't keep them straight in my brain. I grabbed this one not sure if I had previously bought and reviewed it. Turns out that I haven't. But looking over my list of posts, it's not hard to understand my confusion. I have, after all, reviewed Trader Joe's Unsalted Organic White Corn Tortilla Chips, TJ's Salted Tortilla Chips, TJ's Restaurant Style White Corn Tortilla Chips, TJ's Reduced Guilt White Corn Tortilla Chips, TJ's Longboards Organic Tortilla Chips, and TJ's Organic Yellow Corn Tortilla Chip Rounds. And that's just the "normal" lineup of chips--meaning white or yellow corn tortilla chips. Then there are the blue corn ones, the multigrain ones, the ones with quinoa and amarinth, the ones with flax and/or soy added, the ones made from sweet potatoes or pumpkins, etc.

I say it again: TRADER JOE'S HAS TOO MANY KINDS OF TORTILLA CHIPS! NOBODY NEEDS SO MANY SIMILAR PRODUCTS!

Anyway.

I thought these had superior corn taste. They were considerably saltier than most TJ's tortilla chips, which is a good thing, though I realize this may be just batch-to-batch variation. They are also thinner than most. That gives them a delicate crunch, which is delightful to chew on, but a little fragile for scooping up dense hummus, which is what I mostly use them for.

They're a good choice overall--if you can manage to remember the exact combination of words to look for on the label.

Will I buy it again? 

Undoubtedly--and I will probably be just as confused the next time about whether I've had them before as I was this time.

Trader Joe's Organic Power To The Greens

Here's what Trader Joe's said about this product in an issue of the Fearless Flyer last year:

In a world, where some speak of super foods, and many whisper of wellness, only Trader Joe's has the power to change your life… one leaf at a time. Trader Joe's Organic Power to the Greens will make you better, stronger, faster, causing a rift in the time-space continuum that will give you eternal youth and the strength of a thousand men.* 

*Not really. We made that up. 

That's a lot to live up to. I have not yet noticed having gained the strength of a thousand men. Ten, maybe, but not a thousand.

However, this stuff does contribute to a nice salad. I didn't even try eating it alone, because the combination of spinach, kale, and chard, without dilution by more mild components like lettuce, I just knew would be like eating lawn clippings. I tossed it with a bag of TJ's butter lettuce and radicchio. Together they made a salad that was easy to eat, and had just enough of an edge of seriousness that it felt like I was being infused with at least a trickle of superpowers. It wasn't quite Popeye downing a can of spinach, but it was close enough--and I don't think I could do that anyway.

The bitterness from the kale and chard made the overall taste a little less easy to enjoy than when I mixed the same lettuce/radicchio base with TJ's baby spinach. But there was a lot more crunch and variety of textures and colors this way, and probably a better assortment of nutrients, too, though I didn't look into that.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I think this two-bag blend I concocted is an excellent salad. I think I might play with it further, adding this and that and the other thing, and see what happens.

Nina's View

The Catalina dressing is in the trash bin and Bob is tinkering with salad composition. My work here is done. \o/


Addendum 

In the months since the above was written, I have continued to buy a bag of this stuff almost every week. Combined with any one of a few different TJ's bags of lettuce, it is a salad combo that I nearly always have in my refrigerator. Highly recommended. 

Trader Joe's Turkey and Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips

This product is a fraud. A sham. A deception. It is lying to you.

If I had sampled these chips without being told the name on the bag, and then been asked to guess what food item(s) the seasoning was supposed to be imitating, "turkey and stuffing" would not have been among my first ten guesses. Nothing about them triggers my memory of turkey and stuffing.

The underlying chips are fine. But the seasoning is, well, just kind of weird. It doesn't even feel like it's trying to be anything in particular--as if the seasonings were just randomly chosen from the shelf and thrown in blindly. This is in stark contrast to the way that TJ's Ghost Pepper chips or South African chips have a sense of unity of intent to their seasoning blends. Heck, even the far less complex salt and vinegar chips and the salt and pepper ridge-cut chips succeed better at being a clear, distinct, purposeful thing. The "turkey and stuffing" seasoning, by contrast, is just puzzling to my tongue. From the title, I know what it's supposed to be, but it's not that--nor anything else, either.

I will, however, give credit to Trader Joe's for ambition. Trying to recreate turkey and stuffing in a potato chip is just ridiculously audacious, and I love them for it. It's the kind of product creativity that TJ's cranks out on an impressively regular basis, while other grocery stores add a 47th brand of chocolate ice cream to the freezer and call it a day.

TJ's swung for the fences with this one, like Casey at his third pitch: "And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow!" But Trader Joe's, like the sturdy batsman, has struck out.

Other opinions 

This is another item on which my e-friend and fellow TJ's blogger Susan (and her husband/co-blogger David) disagree completely. For a radically different perspective, see their review here.

EDIT: Now the nice (but slightly crazy) folks at the "What's Good at Trader Joe's" blog have weighed in, assigning this item a perfect score of 10/10. So for another radically different opinion from mine, see here.

Will I buy it again? 

No.


Nina's View 

I ate exactly ONE of these (after ascertaining that they did not, in fact, have any actually turkey content).

ONE potato chip. Out of a full bag. ONE.

That should tell you everything you need to know about this product.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

When I spotted these in the TJ's candy aisle in late January, I was both perplexed and delighted. I thought they were the Dark Chocolate Minty Mallows, still on sale well after the season for them should have ended. Closer examination, however, revealed that they were not the same thing.

They're similar, however, and it seems obvious in retrospect that the seasonal version must be a variation on this original. I can discern only two differences between them. First, these are round, while the minty ones are squarish--which is puzzling, but of no consequence.

Second, of course, is the absence of the peppermint flavoring in the marshmallow center. And that turns out to make all the difference. Without the peppermint, these lose most of their appeal. They seem lifeless and dull. They're not horrible--not by a long shot. I'm happy to eat them. But they don't make all the synapses in my brain light up with joy the way the minty ones do.

Had I encountered these before the Minty Mallows, I might have liked them more. Sadly, though, they are made less appealing by knowledge of the existence of a better version of the same basic concept.

Will I buy it again? 

No. I'll wait for December and get the good ones.