Trader Joe's Peppermint Macarons

As I alluded to a few posts ago, I am actually trying to eat a little healthier the past few weeks when I'm not bouncing around from holiday party to holiday party. It's kinda slowly but surely working. My typical weekday breakfast is now an apple followed by a few cups of coffee at work, with a Clif bar (only a buck each at TJ's!!) for a mid-morning snack, followed by another apple, some baby carrots and a reasonable entree for lunch. I stash a little dried fruit in my desk for the drive-by rumblies I sometimes get. At dinnertime, I kinda eat whatever but keep it to an actual serving, instead of whatever I can jam into my tummy. I've heard it advised to try and cut about 250-300 calories a day from your diet, and although I haven't been keeping a strict count, I'm pretty certain I'm in that range. It's slow, small steps, and they're actually beginning to work, as evidenced by my decision on a recent solo TJ's trip that, while very hungry, I opted to pass up one of these delectable treats (which I totally could have gotten away with) for yet another apple instead. I'm getting there.

That whole mentality I'm trying to live into is what initially made me protest us buying Trader Joe's Peppermint Macarons. If there's two things I know about macarons, it's that they're tasty, nutritionally unnecessary, little bits of decadence, and that they're French. In my mind, however (in)accurately, I equate French food with lots of fat and calories, kinda like these. Like I said, I protested, however meekly. Sandy protested my protesting, and then pulled out the number one irrefutable reason to buy them: "Review them for the blog!" That love of mine sure knows to twist my arm. Okay, okay, for the blog, for no other reason, it can't be that they look amazing and their autumn cousins were hit with the rare perfect score back in September....nope.

All that being said, I feel a little let down by them. Maybe it's because I was expecting more out of them. It's not that these macarons are bad. Like their similar TJ cohorts, they're frozen and you sit them out to thaw for half an hour before eating them. Unlike other desserts prepped in a similar fashion, there wasn't any trace of freezer-y taste. So there's a plus. The peppermint cookie part is juuuuust minty enough for my taste, and has the typical tougher outside/softer middle ratio going on. As for the chocolate ganache in between, well....it's been a few days since we ate them, and I don't recall too much about it one way or another. Let's say that means that it's neither outstanding nor revolting. It probably leans a good bit more towards good than bad on the taste-o-meter, but it certainly wasn't redlining. Altogether, it's not a bad macaron (if such a thing even exists), but I'd relegate these to a supporting role on your holiday cookie tray instead of center stage. Maybe I'm just spoiled by my mom's cookies.

Anyways, I was happy to see at least a serving of these were reasonable enough fat and calorie-wise, especially in comparison to some other TJ cookies. I'd buy them again, but probably not until they semi-hopefully reappear next holidays as the Annual Shelly Family Christmas Cookie Onslaught looms ever closer. I'll be a little generous and swing these guys a four. Sandy? Not as impressed, which I found surprising. "If these were fresh and not frozen, they'd be way better," she says. She's had more macarons in her life then I've had in mine, so I'll presume she knows what she's talking about when she gives 'em a three.  

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Peppermint Macarons: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Vegetable Bird's Nests

Whenever Sonia and I see something that we've never heard of before in the aisles of Trader Joe's, we make a beeline for it. Inevitably, one of us will think it sounds delicious and the other will turn up their nose. In this case, I was the more interested party. 

Neither of us had ever heard of a food called a "bird's nest" before, but TJ's has done magical things with veggie-based dishes in the past, so I figured it was worth the gamble.

I'm a fan of tempura-anything. I've had scrumptious vegetable tempura from a number of Japanese restaurants, not to mention some excellent meat and seafood tempura's as well. We've reviewed one other tempura dish from TJ's, which got a low-ish score, although this extraordinarily unique vegetable tempura concoction redeems Trader Joe's reputation with tempura completely, at least in my book.

If you've had vegetable tempura before, you'll know that it's usually just one tempura-ized vegetable at a time. In this case it's several, including onions, which I've never seen in the form of tempura before. But I think it's the onions that really make this dish extra flavorful...just don't kiss anybody right after eating it. There are also carrots, kale, and of course, tempura batter. It's a delicious combination that winds up resembling the conglomeration of twigs, strings, and mud in a typical bird's nest. And if that comparison isn't very appetizing, just try the product, and you'll quickly forget about any negative images in your mind.

To add to the taste-tacularity, the dipping sauce is simply brilliant. It's a simple soy sauce, but with just enough sweetness and savoriness to make it seem like a gourmet chef's original creation. It comes right in the package with the bird's nests, and there's plenty of it.

One complaint: it's greasy. The nutrition info makes it seem relatively lean and low-calorie, but for crying out loud they claim that one piece is the recommended serving size! Sonia and I each ate 4 within minutes of pulling them out of the oven. If you're like us, you'll put away more than half your RDA for fat before you even have time to think. There's just something about these things that make them melt in your mouth and slide right down into your tummy. If we had bought two packages instead of just one, we would have immediately thrown the second one into the oven right after finishing the first. For the sake of my gut, I'm glad we didn't.

But other than the fattiness, I can't recommend this product enough. It was a pleasant surprise for both of us. Just click here to watch Sonia and I tasting it for the very first time.

I give it 4.5 stars. Sonia does too.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10 stars.