Trader Joe's Pumpkin & Roasted Pepitas Cookies

New coffee-flavored products, fruit preserves, and 85 degree heat in the northeast? What season is this anyway? Even the fall foliage is behind schedule. If this pattern keeps up, we'll be celebrating harvest time in December and all these corn mazes and hayrides will feature Santa Claus instead of scarecrows.

But enough complaining...for now, anyway. These cookies are decent enough snacks to curb my pumpkinsatiability into next week at least.

They're a lot like those gluten-free cookies we checked out last year, but with pumpkin spice instead of ginger...and gluten instead of...not gluten. If I weren't looking at the ingredients list right now, I might assume that this was rice flour instead of wheat. But I'd be wrong. Hey, there's a first time for everything. This is the crispiest wheat flour I've ever had.

Sonia thought the cookies were going to be salty and not necessarily sweet since, you know, pepitas tend to be present in salty stuff. But she was wrong. But that didn't surprise me since she's wrong all the time.

—At this time I should point out that I am very much JOKING about my wife being wrong since a good part of our readership is female. I, like all husbands, know that wives are NEVER wrong. I don't want to get on the wrong side of the Mommy Blogger Mafia.—

So yeah, like I was saying, these cookies are indeeed...well, cookies. So they're sweet, slightly buttery, and pumpkin spicy. When I eat more than two or three at once, I get the faintest warm tingly sensation at the back of my throat from the pumpkin spice. It's not altogether unpleasant, but it's a little unusual for a cookie. The pepitas add some extra crunch and a hint of nuttiness—but they don't even come close to being a dominant flavor.

If you like pumpkin spice and thin, crispy cookies, these should most definitely go on your shopping list. I'd love to try a soft version of this recipe some day. You'll pay $2.49 for a five ounce bag that your family will probably go through pretty quickly. Three and a half stars from me. Sonia gives them four.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Organic Reduced Sugar Cherry Preserves

This originally was gonna be a post about Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice Scone Mix with Maple Flavored Frosting. Cuz, you know, it's seasonal and all, and I for whatever uncharacteristic reason am on some sort of pumpkin spice kick, and given the Rodgers' historic oven-related troubles, Sandy and I figured we were the ones for the job. But somehow in between taking pictures and transferring to my computer, they got eaten. The pictures, not the scones. Well, the scones did get eaten too...but that's another story, and won't go into too much detail on them in case they get revisited later.

Late night scrounge the fridge time then, gotta find something to review...well, hey, here's Trader Joe's Organic Reduced Sugar Cherry Preserves. What else are we gonna do? Got a lot of time left in pumpkin spice season after all.

You might remember that a little while back us yinzers here went on a whole spree with the blueberry preserves. That stuff was the bomb, so would that make this a...cherry bomb? Eh, not quite. I'd say the overall quality of the product is about there - similar mouthfeel, similar texture, spreadability factor high, etc - but at the same time, it's missing a small something, and what it is, I'm not sure.

It's still very good. There's a mild, smooth tartness that ends with a slightly sweet finish. It's almost - but not quite - just like eating straight cherries, except without the pits, of course. But maybe that's it right there. Fresh, juicy ripe cherries are sweet and tart and vibrant and just downright delectable in almost every way. That's not that sense here, not in the same way as the blueberry preserves. Some of the potency gets a little lost in translation.

No matter. It's the current jam of choice for our oldest daughter, who loves it matched with some sunflower spread for a school lunch sandwich. Sandy and I will slather some on some fresh baked bread from our local coffee shop, and really, we've been slacking on the opportunity to put it on a grilled cheese sandwich. Our youngest daughter hates it, though, which I think is hilarious. I *think* she normally like cherries...she's a little weirdo. Eh well. Decent enough jam, and maybe it's a last little remnant of summer to bring into the fullness of fall. Pumpkin spice can wait.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Organic Reduced Sugar Cherry Preserves: 7.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.