Trader Joe's Organic Vanilla Fudge Chip Ice Cream

Oh ice cream, what would we do without you?

This is a serious question.

Listen, if I want anyone to do anything in my family, bribery is required, with ice cream being the promised booty of choice. Want kids to clean their room and not complain too much? Promise ice cream. Do Sandy and I (okay, mostly Sandy) have a huge pile of laundry to slay? If there's ice cream when we're done, no problem. Need to motivate ourselves for a run or to get other chores or if we need to celebrate a milestone or feel better about a crappy day or sometimes just because? Yup, ice cream on all those counts. Nothing puts a smile on our collective face better than a lil ice cream, especially if we say we're giving an "extra little bit" when scooping.

Yep, we love our ice cream out here...but we don't love Trader Joe's Organic Vanilla Fudge Chip Ice Cream.

It's a pretty simple, classic construct. Kinda obviously, it's vanilla ice cream and fudgy little chips, and not much else. When there's such simplicity it can make your shortcomings all the more apparent. Other TJ's vanilla ice cream has taught me how absofreakindelish that plain ol' vanilla can be...this stuff is kinda the other end of the spectrum. It's just kinda amiss all the way around. It's not particularly creamy or flavorful or anything. Instead the ice cream kinda tastes and feels like somewhat chalky, cold dairy-like substance that vaguely tastes like the cardboard carton it comes in. That's not exactly high praise.

But the fudge chips? They're pretty good! Something seemed a little different yet familkiar about them, that I couldn't place until scanning the ingredients...coconut oil! Sandy has made some desserts made mostly from cocoa powder and coconut oil and some other stuff too, I'm sure, that these chips kinda tastelike. Coconut and chocolate almost always go great together, and even though it's pretty subtle here, the chips (of which there are plenty) are fairly choice and help pick up the rest of the dessert.

It goes without saying that our kids love this TJ's ice cream, as they're pretty easy to please with anything sugar related, but Sandy and I? Not huge fans. There's bonus points for being organic and whatnot, but man, if it doesn't feel or taste quite right, it ain't right. If this were our sole means of motioation, we might not get out of bed in the morning. No, wait, that's what we use coffee for...you know what we mean. We'll play nice and give it a five between us.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Organic Vanilla Fudge Chip Ice Cream: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons