Trader Joe's Gluten Free Multigrain Bread and Trader Joe's Spanish Olive Cream Cheese Spread

I think my lovely wife fulfilled the creativity quota for this review in the short video below, so I'll just jump right in to the nitty gritty of these products:

We've seen sliced gluten free bread from TJ's before. This stuff is even better. The flavor is richer, nuttier. The texture is even closer to traditional multi-grain offerings than the previously-reviewed "Whole Grain" variety. It's roughly the same price at $4.49 for the loaf, and it might just be the best gluten-free bread I've ever had. Four and a half stars a piece on this product.

The cream cheese is moderately olivey. I think it tastes more like "olive juice" than actual olives—like they just mixed the olive brine water with cream cheese. It's not bad, though. There are very tiny pieces of olive in the mix. I wouldn't have minded them a little bigger—or maybe even olive slices rather than teeny-tiny little bits. Sonia seemed to like the creaminess and lack of olive chunks more than I did. It's an earthy, salty, savory flavor mixed in with the milky creaminess of traditional cream cheese. Four stars from Sonia. Three and a half from me.

For more of Sonia's thoughts, check out the video review below!

Trader Joe's Gluten Free Multigrain Bread: Bottom line: 9 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Spanish Olive Cream Cheese Spread: Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Ramen Soup

Might not yet be back-to-school time for all the pre-college crowd, but university arrival is in full swing out here in the 'burgh. As home to several major schools in close proximity to each other, the local Targets and Walmarts are over-flooded right now with masses of aspiring scholars getting their futons and table lamps and God knows whatever else.

And chances are, ramen noodles too. Need your stockpile.

Amazing I didn't suffer from malnourishment during college, as for three years I literally lived off of ramen and Papa John's pizza. Can barely touch ramen since, let alone it's slightly fancier cousin, that Cup o' Noodle feller.

There's a new twig on the ramen family tree: Trader Joe's Ramen Soup. There's presently two varieties as you can see: miso and chicken. Not that typically "flavors" matter for ramen - it's super salty cheap carbs. It's only a matter of what color the seasoning packet is, right?

Well, I've admittedly only tried the chicken variant, but even from it, I can tell these soup cups are a decent buy. There's not just a seasoning (read: salt) packet inside, but also a small flavoring oil baggie, which when mixed with hot water makes a frothier, almost "creamier", slightly richer soup broth. The noodles are pretty basic ramen, with nothing too fancy about them, so the decent broth is a real nice plus.

A word about the noodles, though: There's two ways these can be prepped. You can either pour in tap water and microwave, or pour in hot water and let it sit. Sandy said the second non-nuking method seems to work better, as the noodles seem to "cook" better and have a better texture to them.

At a little over a buck each, these TJ ramen cups seem a little pricier than any I'd remember from college...then again, everything's more expensive than 15 years ago and I was being spoiled by 1o packages of ramen for a buck back then, too. Haven't really kept tabs on ramen market prices since then. We'll be picking these up, especially as the weather finally begins to cool, for a quick and easy lunch / small carbo-loading boost at work type deal. It's not the fanciest in the world but for what they are, they're pretty good. Double fours.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Ramen Soups: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons.