Trader Joe's Chickenless Crispy Tenders

One thing I love/hate about the Internet is all the comments people leave at the end of articles. Like, I love all the ones you, our faithful readers, leave on ours, so keep 'em coming, we do read 'em! Conversely, see the comment section of pretty much any CNN article, and yeah...not a fan. I bring this up because occasionally over the past few months I've really enjoyed reading the comments people have left on the article written about this blog on The Daily Meal and Shine! from Yahoo (same article). Chances are, it's how you found our blog as it's gotten a lot of play since last summer. But man, the comments....some are kind, some like to rip on me because I admitted to not really liking sushi and so I *cannot* be a legitimate foodie reviewer (which I've made no claim to ever being), but one in particular got my attention, and gets me rolling on the floor. Whoever left it said, because we feature vegetarian and meatless options so much, and fake meat products in particular, Nathan and I must be undercover rogue vegetarians trying to brainwash society into giving up meat. Listen, you're talking about a guy who keeps thinking about keeping a spreadsheet of all the different kinds of animal he's eaten (I really should, I could think of a couple dozen if I tried, I'm sure, and all of them delicious) and loves bacon, meatloaf, medium raw steak, and even scrapple. Listen, you have to really like animally stuff to like scrapple. If you don't know what it is, a friend of mine best sums it up as "Eastern PA haggis," so use your imagination. And I remember hanging out with Nathan just enough back in college to more or less recall his diet, and let's just say there weren't too many veggie and quinoa nights.


But yeah...I do like a lot of Trader Joe's meatless/fake meat products. I've run through them enough times that I'm not going to do it again. I asked Sandy why we eat so much soy/grain based fake meat, when we both like the real thing just as much. Her answer: "Because we haven't had a bad experience yet." That's true enough, so when we saw a new shiny bag of Chickenless Crispy Tenders in the freezer aisle, we knew it was time again to give it the ol' college try.



It's not a bad product. For $2.99, you get about nine two-or-three bite sized tenders, so it's more than enough for a couple hungry adults for dinner. We baked them up alongside some tasty Trader Tots for a quick and easy meal. The "meat" is a little different from some other of their fake chicken products, where it tastes and feel like the intention is to assimilate an actual chicken chunk a little more closely. In these crispy tenders, it still tastes pretty darn and close to the real thing, but seems in texture and bite to be more like the stuff that goes inside a chicken patty or nugget. Does that make sense? Anyways, no real complaints there. The breading isn't bad either. I kinda like how they tried to do something a little different and put some oats and some crunchy bits of not-sure-what in. I don't like how a lot of it stuck to the baking sheet and by and large seemed to lack a little flavor. That's not awful if you view things like chicken strips as dipping sauce delivery devices (indeed, they went well with the sweet chili sauce and hot sauce we had on hand), but still, a little shake of black pepper or a little more paprika would've made a difference for them.

Regardless, both Sandy and I liked them. If there's anyone on the blog team that'd try to convince you to go vegetarian, it'd be her as she's talked about it once or twice. Whenever she does, I start sizzling up the bacon, and it's amazing how quickly that thought train derails. "Yeah, we'd get these again," she said. I think we would, too. They're not the best fake meat product that Trader Joe's offers, but they're not the worst (not like there's really bad ones we've stumbled across). Based primarily on breading issues, Sandy's going with a 3.5, whereas I see those concerns, quibble slightly about the price, and settle on a 3.5 as well.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Chickenless Crispy Tenders: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's 100% Pineapple Juice

I could not believe it. Last Labor Day, while on vacation at Disneyland, just as it got to be mid-afternoon with the sun high up and in sweltering heat, Sandy starts pleading with me that we go in and see the Enchanted Tiki Room. You know what I'm talking about - all those stupid animatronic birds singing some stupid song that gets lodged in your brain for thirteen years. I know it's thirteen years, because in 1998, I was at the one at Disneyworld, and had finally forgotten it existed until we got inside Disneyland. If you don't know what I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and never watch this YouTube video. "Come on, it's part of the experience, we gotta do it!!," she said. Well, fine, I said, mostly to have a seat in the shade and cool down for a bit. That's not the unbelievable part. The crazy part - the line. Oh gracious. It wrapped around the building and halfway to Albuquerque. I thought we were doomed to spend an hour in line just to have our ear drums and sensibilities assaulted by a chorus of robotic parrots.

Well, it's a good thing I made some offhand comment to Mr Mustache and Fannypack in front of us about the absurdity of it all, as he said, "Tiki Room? Seriously? This is the line for fresh-squeezed pineapple juice. The Tiki Room line is over there!" Indeed, we zipped right in and the show was barely half-full. That goes to prove two things: 1. Reasonable people will go to absurd lengths to get (presumably) good, quality pineapple juice. 2. Most reasonable people will avoid the Enchanted Tiki Room at all costs. I personally think the whole experience in there (and also on the "Its a Small World" ride) would be greatly improved if they gave you a BB gun as you entered.

Anyways, it's a lot easier to get Trader Joe's 100% Pineapple Juice. It's just there sitting on a shelf, a fourpack for $2.99, just waiting to be bought. As the name implies, it's all pineapple, no more, no less. I think when purchasing it I had in mind it'd be kinda like the leftover juice from canned pineapple (which I'll admit, I like) or at the very least, some pulpy/clumpy sugary bonanza. It's kinda sad that's how I anticipated this pineapple juice will taste, because of course pineapple is one of nature's tastiest fruits, and the canned version does it no justice. Instead of what I assumed it'd be inside, the TJ juice turned out to be a light, slightly sweet, pulp free juice. There's definitely not anything extra they're trying to sneak in. It's just simple, clean, delicious juice. It's as if Gallagher used his Sledge-O-Matic to smash pineapples and then filtered and funneled all the juice into these cans. You gotta do what you gotta do in this economy, and, well, when's the last time you saw Gallagher anywhere?

Anyways, yeah, both Sandy and I liked it. The can size (8.5 ounceish) seems more conducive to a quick grab on the way out the door then lounging around the house, but, well, that's what we did anyways. Unlike most of our juice purchases, I will attempt to share the remaining two cans equally with her; however I make no guarantees. Also I will resist the urge to gulp this down in about 5 seconds as I easily could, and instead try to actually taste it. Really, I have no real complaints about it, except I was still a little thirsty after I finished mine. Sandy didn't have much to say about it except to give it a good solid four, which sounds just about right to me.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's 100% Pineapple Juice: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons