Trader Joe's Riced Hearts of Palm

Trader Joe's is discovering that hearts of palm are nearly as versatile as cauliflower. We've already looked at Trader Joe's Hearts of Palm Pasta, and I've already given my contemplative spiel about palm trees, so this time we'll just jump right into the food review.

Inside the box, there's a plastic pouch full of the riced hearts of palm. After snipping the corner or top of the pouch, you have to squeeze the contents out in the manner of toothpaste from a tube. They land in your saucepan resembling a lumpy wet mass. Not particularly appetizing. The smell is odd and excessively planty, similar to the pasta version, but not something that's familiar otherwise. Again, not particularly appetizing.

After heating, however, the product improves drastically both in smell and appearance. The aroma gets richer and more earthy, almost squash-like. The little palm pieces start to resemble actual rice as the liquids are partially cooked away.

The finished product is still a little wetter than actual rice somehow. The pieces are slightly more gelatinous than grainy. Still, they're quite edible. They need some fixins, though. The box recommends serving the dish with olive oil, veggies, and spices. I tried experimenting with a bunch of TJ's seasonings but nothing stood out head and shoulders above the others.

I like traditional rice the best. And I'd probably take riced cauliflower over this stuff. Still, this isn't a bad option. I wouldn't go out of my way to purchase Trader Joe's Riced Hearts of Palm again, but if someone served it to me as a side dish, I would eat it without complaint.

$3.49 for the 9 oz package. Vegan. Gluten free. Three and a half stars a piece from Sonia and me.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Ketchup Flavored Sprinkle Seasoning Blend

When I was a kid, people used to tell me, "Your taste buds will change, Nathan, and you'll grow to love tomatoes." Yuck. Raw tomatoes never did it for me. I would eat all manner of fruits and even most veggies as a young kid, but I could never get into the taste of raw tomato.

Now, ketchup, on the other hand, was an absolute staple of my diet. I was fine with tomato soup, tomato sauce, and tomato everything—just not the fruit they were all derived from. Due to food allergies and sensitivities, I'd often have nothing but a plain burger for breakfast as a child. No bread. No cheese. It was sometimes beef, but often bison or something more exotic. As long as I could have it with ketchup, I was a happy camper.

I'd put ketchup on fries, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and pretty much any kind of meat. I loved the stuff. I still do, although I prefer hot sauce on eggs and hash browns now. But if Sonia and I get burgers and fries, I absolutely need a bunch of ketchup to go with my food.

So I simply assumed I'd love Trader Joe's Ketchup Sprinkle Seasoning Blend. Powdered ketchup. Why not?

But I don't love it. And I can't quite put my finger on why it's nowhere near as good as real ketchup. So far I've only tried it on fries and burgers. It doesn't really work in either case.

The beautiful wifey tried to stay positive and pointed out that if for some reason the apocalypse comes and fresh ketchup is no longer available and we've used up all our spare packets from fast food places, that Trader Joe's Ketchup Flavored Sprinkle Seasoning Blend would be better than nothing. Yeah, I guess. I'm reluctant to even give it that much credit. But yeah. If real ketchup were to suddenly vanish from the earth, I guess this ketchup-themed condiment would be better than nothing at all.

It tastes like powdered tomato and sugar. Weirdly, I feel like it tastes more like tomato than actual ketchup does. Maybe that's why I don't like it that much. Maybe folks who actually like the taste of tomato, like Sonia, will enjoy this more than I do. It's just a theory, but I think there may be something to it.

I would never purchase this again. It's worse than the worst real ketchup I've ever had: the ketchup from fast food restaurants in Europe. Their ketchup is like three quarters vinegar. Blech.

Time will tell whether Sonia likes it enough to use it up and get another shaker. My gut says she won't use it much, if at all. She'll give it a decent score, though. Three and a half stars from her.

$2.99 for the 2.6 oz shaker. I'll give Trader Joe's Ketchup Seasoning Blend two out of five stars. Better than no ketchup at all...but that's as far as I'll go.

Bottom line: 5.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Maple Pancake Flavored Puffs

Usually Trader Joe's rolls out maple stuff in the fall, but I believe these little beauties debuted last month. Right now is actual maple harvest season—February into April, so let's take a look, shall we?

I was highly skeptical of these puffs before trying them. I mean, I love corn and rice-based snacks. They're so light and crispy and snackable. I'm thinking: Bambas, The World's Puffiest Sour Cream & Onion Puffs, and classic snacks like Pirate's Booty. They've generally been savory flavors like white cheddar cheese, rather than sweet, although a couple versions of the Bambas featured peanut butter and cocoa. How would they work with maple flavoring?

At first bite, both Sonia and I were a little weirded out, honestly. The texture was no surprise. Trader Joe's Maple Pancake Flavored Puffs are identical to all the above-mentioned puffs in terms of their crispy, crunchy mouthfeel. On the other hand, the taste was a brand new experience.

There's an amber dusting on each puff. It looks a bit like cinnamon, but it tastes distinctly mapley. It's also oddly buttery, too. Just like a real pancake. The flavor grew on me quickly.

Not the beautiful wifey, however. She was still saying they tasted weird after a couple handfuls and told me I could finish the bag. I happily did. It took me more than one sitting, but I finished the whole thing in less than 24 hours. I thought they were addicting.

$2.49 for the 4 oz bag. Vegan. Gluten free. I'd buy again. Sonia wouldn't. She says she didn't think they were gross per se, but rather they're just not her thing. She'd prefer a cheese or sour cream and onion flavored puff.

I think these could easily become churro flavored puffs if they substituted cinnamon for the maple and molasses flavors. I'd try that version, too. Three out of five stars from Sonia on Trader Joe's Maple Pancake Flavored Puffs. Four and a half from this guy.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Blueberries and Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Strawberries

Well, friends, let's take a break from all of these seasonally-appropriate Valentine's treats and newfangled TJ's products for a moment as I throw out a looksee at what some might consider not-so-exciting pantry staple type fare once again: Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Strawberries and Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Blueberries.

Exciting or not, these two products have been available for quite a while and have stood the test of time at TJ's stores, unlike many of their more gimmicky products. They certainly aren't a bad thing to have on hand around the house. They are shelf-stable, vacuum-sealed, and of course, freeze-dried. Most preppers will tell you a product like this will still be perfectly edible and safe to consume years​ beyond the listed "best by" date, provided they are stored in a cool, dry place.

They are "unsulfured," which is nice, because I'm not a huge fan of the taste of sulfur. They're also "unsweetened," which is fine, because, well you know... they're berries. And berries are already sweet. They're light, brittle, and crunchy, which is fun. I can eat 'em straight out of the bag and finish it in one or two sittings.

Sonia likes to put Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Blueberries and Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Strawberries on her morning oatmeal. Sometimes she'll throw them in with a plain cereal like Corn Flakes or Cheerios. They'd go well with plain yogurt or even vanilla ice cream. I've heard some people smash them into dust and use it as a topping for cupcakes and such. Haven't tried that yet but I bet it's yummy.

The blueberry variety is $3.99 while the strawberry one is only $2.99. They're the exact same weight, so I guess blueberries are just a bit pricier than strawberries these days. Trader Joe's official website says they use 12 oz of actual fruit, which dehydrates down to 1.2 oz after undergoing the freeze drying process. Interesting.

They have a few other types of freeze dried fruits including mixed berries now. We'll pick those up soon, hopefully. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Strawberries and Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Blueberries four stars a piece. I do too.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's White Miso Paste

Up to this point, my experience with miso has simply been miso soup in Asian restaurants. Miso is generally made with fermented soy beans and sometimes, as is the case here, with rice. Every miso soup I've tried is a cloudy white/tan color, and it tastes mostly just salty. There has always been a faint savory, umami essence, too. I've had it plain, and I've had it a few times with noodles, tofu, and/or some sparse veggies like green onions and peas.

I guess you could look at Trader Joe's White Miso Paste as a shelf-stable base for multiple bowls of plain miso soup, or you could think of it as a unique Japanese condiment to put on...whatever. The pouch suggests adding it "to sauces, dressings, soups, and marinades." Okay.

I thought it might add a bit of fanciness and flair to a cheap cup of ramen, so that's how I experimented with it first. A few globs of the stuff added a slightly richer, fermented flavor to the otherwise thin, watery ramen broth. It took my soup one tiny step in the direction of "authentic Japanese restaurant fare" from "poor college kid instant lunch."

But in the end, it didn't really transform the meal in any significant way. I tried adding a few more globs, and honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of difference. It just made the broth cloudier and thicker, while only slightly enhancing the flavor.

We'll keep experimenting. Using it as a marinade on chicken or fish sounds fascinating to me, but I don't think I'll get around to that before I put up this blog post. Let us know if you've tried anything like that in the comments below.

$2.99 for the pouch. Imported from Japan. Refrigerate after opening. Don't think we'd purchase again, but hey, let the adventure continue...

Three stars a piece from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's White Miso Paste.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Apple Chip Duo

It's a little scary if you think about it, but I asked ChatGPT to write a review of Trader Joe's Apple Chip Duo and in mere seconds, it composed a multi-paragraph blog post style review of a product featuring two types of apple chips that was grammatically-correct, intelligible, and about half as long as the average food review on this blog. 

It wasn't particularly engaging, however. I mean, that's the only saving grace here. I hope I have a bit more personality than an online artificial intelligence robot. It just goes to show that you can have perfect spelling, perfect grammar, and still not have what it takes to be a successful writer. You gotta have some heart. You gotta have opinions. You gotta have weird stories. And it doesn't hurt to say "gotta" once in a while instead of "have to."

I'd copy and paste the OpenAI-generated review here, but I'm not sure about copyrights and things like that. I guess I can quote a sentence or two just to give you a flavor of what it wrote: "The baked cinnamon apple chips are equally as tasty, with a crisp, crunchy texture and a warm, cinnamon flavor that is simply irresistible. They're a great option for people who are looking for a low-fat and low-sugar snack that is still sweet and satisfying."

The funny thing is that there are no baked cinnamon apple chips here. Apparently the details of the product were simply fabricated on the spur of the moment by the A.I. The two types of chips in the bag are, according to the ingredients, "red apples" and "green apples." I wasn't sure what the "duo" mentioned on the bag was referring to until after I purchased the product and really looked at the packaging. The red apples are indeed sweet and the green apples tart.

Texture-wise, both types of apple chips are completely dehydrated. The ChatGPT assumed the chips would be both "crunchy" and "juicy." I had to laugh out loud at that. It was half right. They are crunchy, brittle, and quite dry, like many of Trader Joe's other freeze dried offerings.

As far as being "low-fat" and "low-sugar," it's definitely right on the fat front. Zero grams of fat. There are 35g of total sugars, but all of it is natural. No sugars added.

Sonia likes these a tad more than I do. I prefer some of TJ's other dried fruits. $2.49 for 2oz of dehydrated apples. Four stars from the beautiful wifey. Three stars from me on Trader Joe's Apple Chip Duo.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Jelly Bean Hearts

More hearts! These little do-dads have been around for a couple years. Nothing spectacular, you know, just jelly beans shaped like hearts. This is the first we've tried them.

They're honestly pretty decent jelly beans. For a minute I was worried they were all cinnamon flavored, like Brach's Jelly Hearts or what have you. Nothing against cinnamon. I just tire of it easily. I think we're still working on finishing that bag of Cinna-Dragons.

But nope, these are fruit flavored. I can't tell you exactly what flavors they were going for. Well, the white ones are coconut. That's pretty obvious, but then again, there were very few of the white ones in the bag. They're good. I like coconut candy. There's coconut oil at the end of the ingredients.

Initially, the other colors tasted vaguely cherry and strawberry-esque to me even though there's no cherry or strawberry juice in Trader Joe's Jelly Bean Hearts. The other juices listed in the ingredients are pineapple, orange, and apple. If I really focus, I can kind of taste apple juice in the red ones. The pink ones? I dunno. They're just fruity. Not bad. I just can't put my finger on the flavor.

Only 99¢ for the 3.5 serving bag. No HFCS. No unnatural dyes or colors. If you're a dude who's going on a first date right around V.D. these are the type of thing to give your prospective lady friend. It's enough to let her know you're thinking about her but not so much that you seem too eager to dive in head first.

And there you have it: free, unsolicited dating advice to go along with your free, unsolicited opinion of this candy. Four stars from Sonia. Three and a half from me for Trader Joe's Jelly Bean Hearts. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Pizza Sprinkle Seasoning Blend

Whenever Sonia and I purchase a new seasoning blend from Trader Joe's, we like to kick things off with a little brainstorming session about what we could potentially do with our newfound condiment. With this one, I immediately thought of turning our run-of-the-mill everyday quesadillas into little Mexican-Italian fusion pizzas.

It might have come off a little blasphemous to the beautiful wifey, since quesadillas are to her like bread and butter are to us white folks. But before she could object, I reminded her of the wise words of Ted Lasso: You don't bring an umbrella to a brainstorm.

And in no time flat, I had a flour tortilla topped with a slice of mozzarella warming in the microwave. About 30 seconds later, I was administering a dusting of Trader Joe's Pizza Sprinkle Seasoning Blend over the subject of my culinary experiment.

And voila, the fastest, easiest pizza in the history of mankind was born. I mean...you could argue those pizza Lunchables are even easier, since you don't even need to warm them. Although, let's face it: they're kinda gross.

My pizzadilla creation was surprisingly not gross, though I suppose I'm a bit biased, and a lot would depend on the type of tortilla you used and whether you used good cheese or not. A lot would depend on using the right amount of this seasoning, too. Too much could easily overpower a simple, mild cheese like mozzarella. Just a dusting and not much more seemed to work quite well in this instance.

I could see us finding dozens of different uses for this seasoning blend. Pizzadillas, pizza fries, pizza pasta, pizza burgers, pizza veggies, pizza omelettes? Trader Joe's Pizza Sprinkle Seasoning Blend will get a thumbs up from both Sonia and me.

$2.99 for the shaker. Four stars from Sonia. Four and a half from me.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Gummy X's & O's

Finally, they thought of something other than hearts to represent Valentine's Day: X's and O's. That's clever. Hugs and kisses. I like it.

Following in the footsteps of other great letter-shaped foods like Alphabet Soup, Newman's Own Alphabet Cookies, and of course, Trader Joe's Sour T's and J's, I had reasonably high expectations for these sweet gummy letters. And all things considered, they didn't disappoint.

There's a distinct Swedish Fish vibe to these Trader Joe's Gummy X's and O's. I mean these taste more like legit Swedish Fish than the Scandinavian Swimmers did. But as per TJ's usual, these candies don't contain any HFCS, and all the colors are derived from fruits and vegetables.

Texture-wise, they're just about perfect. They're soft and pliable enough to start chewing away immediately, even if the temperatures are below average. They don't get super stiff in the cold. Or if you're blessed with the gift of patience and you want to make each one last longer, they're also fun to suck on for a while like you might a piece of hard candy.

$3.49 for the 14 oz bag. Fourteen ounces is actually a LOT of gummy candy. As good as they are, I think it'll take us a while to finish the package. Thankfully, it's resealable. Four stars from Sonia, four stars from me on Trader Joe's Gummy X's & O's.

As I close here, I'll leave you with the following question: when do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, U, V, W, Y, and Z have their day in the sun at Trader Joe's?

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Heart Melts

I won't rant about how I feel about heart-shaped food items in this post. I did that once on this blog and I'm kinda over it now. We press the little heart button on Instagram and sometimes Farcebook. We listen to iHeart Radio. We play the game of Hearts with playing cards. We make hearts with our hands like Damar Hamlin. Seems like everybody has a cardiologist these days. One of my favorite song lyrics goes, "Destroy the mind, destroy the body, but you cannot destroy the heart." As a green comet passes close to our planet this week, we are reminded that the heart chakra is green.

But Valentine's hearts are always packaged in red and pink. For tradition's sake, that's just fine with me. Even if the product itself is brown and white, a red and pink bag is appropriate for this time of year. It's a resealable bag—or at least, it was supposed to be. The ziplock strip on ours only went across three quarters of the mouth of the bag. Fortunately, we have chip clips to keep it closed.

The most uncommon quality of Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Heart Melts is their ability to serve as hot cocoa bombs when dropped into a mug of steamy milk or to simply serve as stand-alone chocolate candies. In the latter case, they taste like sweet milk chocolate, super salty caramel, and soft mini marshmallows. I guess they kind of taste like that in the former case, too, but combined with hot milk, the flavors seem balanced a little more and the extra-salty caramel tastes less like a mistake and more like a gourmet twist on everyday hot chocolate.

I like 'em okay. Sonia does, too. For us, these fall just below the Peppermint Hot Chocolate and Trader Joe's Abuelita—but they're head and shoulders above the Hot Cocoa Ornaments or the Double Chocolate Stirring Spoon. The fact that they're also decent as a regular chocolate caramel candy is a plus.

$3.99 for about 15 hearts. Four stars from Sonia. Three and a half stars from me for Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Heart Melts.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Fig Cookies

By most consumer accounts that I've read, these fig cookies are inferior to their predecessors: Trader Joe's Fig Bites, which were really nothing to write home about in the first place. The fig bites were basically TJ's brand fig newtons with perhaps slightly healthier ingredients (no hydrogenated oils or HFCS) and exotic figs imported from Turkey.

This iteration called Trader Joe's Fig Cookies appeared about two years ago if memory serves correctly. The product has been repackaged and renamed. I believe there are fewer cookies in this pack, but this one is also a tad cheaper at $1.99 for about a dozen cookies. They taste roughly the same, but for some reason, these tend to stick together like they've been glued to one another with sticky fig juice. They're crumbly, soft, and vaguely fig newton-esque. I guess I'd buy these again just to avoid the bad stuff in Nabisco Fig Newtons.

The top ingredients include: unbleached enriched flour, cane sugar, figs, tapioca syrup, palm oil, and agave syrup. Calorie-wise, we're looking at 150 per two cookies. You'll get 3.5 grams of fat per serving, 1.5 of which is saturated fat. For full ingredients and nutrition information, please click here.

Three stars from me for Trader Joe's Fig Cookies. Sonia gives them three stars as well.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Frooze Balls

Just a quick hit for today. It's our first non-Trader Joe's brand product of 2023. It is widely available at Trader Joe's stores as well as a few other major retailers and grocery chains.

Frooze Balls. Not sure how I feel about that name for the product. Like I guess it could be a contraction or portmanteau of the words "fruit" and "ooze." They are made mostly of fruit, and there is a sort of ooze in the middle of them, so "Frooze Balls" it is.

They're made of date and coconut squished into a soft, moist texture, filled with peanut butter and various fruit purees and juices to make up the "jelly" part of the equation. They're fairly filling for how small they are, and they taste kind of like you'd expect: sweet, fruity, nutty. I like them okay, but I tire of them quickly after I've had one or two. They lack...pizzazz in my book, though many will disagree.

Sonia's a tad more into them than I am. She gives them four stars. We've also tried the chocolate hazelnut variety, which I like about the same as these. Sonia prefers PB&J over chocolate hazelnut. $1.99 for five balls. Vegan. Kosher. I give the Peanut Butter & Jelly Frooze Balls three and a half stars.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.