Trader Joe's Nog Protein Beverage Smoothie

If you have high expectations of anything in life, be prepared to be let down. That goes for food, beverages, movies, tv shows, sports, jobs, friends, family, politicians, government, blog posts—in other words, just about anything.

On the other hand, if you go through life expecting very little, things will either turn out the way you thought they would, or you'll be pleasantly surprised. Sure, there are those who will tell you that you'll manifest a negative outcome if you envision a negative outcome from the beginning. So I've been getting good at the mental gymnastics involved with that whole "hope for the best but prepare for the worst" philosophy.

In short, I had very low expectations for this beverage. But I was hoping I was wrong.

And I was. It's actually surprisingly tasty in my opinion. It's very much akin to a "lite" or "reduced calorie" eggnog by my estimation, flavor-wise, but with a better spice mix and background flavors. It's much thinner than regular nog, by virtue of reduced fat milk and nonfat milk in the beverage. I was almost surprised to see they do use egg yolks in there, too. There are other noggy ingredients like vanilla and nutmeg, as well as typical protein shake ingredients like whey protein concentrate and soy protein isolate. Fortunately, I feel like the nog flavors outweigh the protein ones in this mixture.

The texture is remarkably smooth, with very little of the grit or chalkiness typically found in protein shakes. It's even smoother than the pumpkin spice version we saw a couple months ago. Speaking of the PS version, Sonia's immediate reaction to this smoothie was, "Whoa I like the pumpkin one way better!" We'll have to agree to disagree, my love. She thinks this one tastes too much like bubblegum. It does have that faint bubblegum-ish aftertaste that many eggnogs and eggnog derivatives bear.

While I'd never buy this eggnog solely for its flavor, I'd take it over any other reduced calorie or diet eggnog I've ever tried, and I have to say I like it better than Trader Joe's Almond Nog, though this one is most definitely not dairy-free or vegan. It's one of the most palatable protein shakes I've ever had, though I must throw out the disclaimer that I'm not a fan of them in general.

This gets three and a half stars from me. I'll happily finish the bottle since the wifey did me a solid and polished off the pumpkin one. Since it has a good amount of protein and significantly less fat than regular eggnog, Sonia will be nice and show her holiday spirit and give it three stars.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Candy Cane Chocolate Covered Almonds

With it being only about two weeks before Christmas, you gotta break out the Christmas item reviews as much as possible. Couple years ago, we did one a day for a whole month, and subsequently since many of those same products returned, there's a whole bevy of them in the archives ready for you to search and find. it's actually kinda tough for us to find a new, seasonally appropriate review subject after ten years of writing for the blog. Gotta hear about it, find it (which may be the toughest part), buy it, eat it, review it...it's not that hard a life, but that's sometimes how you end up writing about things like trail mix crackers in early December. It's not a mild case of the bah-humbuggeries and absolutely not any poopy-pantsery, it's just how it is.

On to today's feature: Trader Joe's Candy Cane Chocolate Covered Almonds!

In yet another entry into the ever expanding catalog of TJ's chocolate nut varieties, these almonds are fairly new to stores within the past few weeks. Nothing says Christmas like a candy cane, and feeling a little nuts. 

Please forgive the close up pic of the packaging, and the product pic of a paltry pile. That's the aftermath, courtesy of my lovely bride, for once, and not myself, with packaging pics trying to disguise the carnage as much as we can. She demolished them. Have no shame, love. You know how often I do it. 

And I can see why. These candy-coated almonds make quite a tasty treat. There's a few layers at work here. At the core is your average tasty roasted almond. Who can hate that? No one, unless you're allergic or something. Then, like the rest of us, they're clothed in layers. For the under garmies is a decent, maybe half millimeter thick layer of dark chocolate. As expected, it's the typical tasty TJ's variety. Yums. Then atop of that, for warmth, is the outer layer of white chocolate. Can't argue there. And lastly, for final touches, are little teeny nuggs of candy cane for a minty touch. The more you eat, the mintier they get. 

At first, for everything going on here, they seemed a bit mild. A bit...under-flavored, maybe? The candy cane factor isn't overly strong for the first couple bites, and I was thinking it was somewhat muted by the chocolate layers a bit too much. Maybe too much chocolate, just pick one and go with it? Or heck, even split the difference between dark and white and make it milk chocolate? But then, when the candy canes begin to assert themselves a little, there's much better balance to everything, and while still not aggressively flavored, will keep you going back for more. 

So yup, we liked them. Sandy, even after being dealt with a weird random case of heartburn from them, had a few more bites and we had to negotiate the fate of the last handful of survivors. Tasty stuff. 

At $3.99 for the small tub, it's not an awful deal either. I could definitely buy 'em again and put them in a candy dish somewhere...or more likely stash away so i can eat 'em all myself. If someone took all mine, then i could be all bah-humbuggery and poopy-pantsery about that. Good stuff, calling it a double fours de force. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Candy Cane Chocolate Covered Almonds: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Trail Mix Crackers

This has been a year of curveballs and surprises—mostly unpleasant ones. That's been true for the world at large and very much true in my own personal life, as well. So I decided to do a surprise review of a non-Christmas item right in the middle of the Christmas season. Crazy, right?

I've got a sinking suspicion that this year isn't done with big surprises just yet, either. Be prepared for anything. Hopefully this review of Trader Joe's Trail Mix Crackers is a more pleasant "surprise" for most of you than what the remainder of 2020 has up its sleeve.

I mean it's not unheard of for us to look at "normal" products in December. And this one definitely deserves a looksee, as it slipped through the cracks review-wise for the past month and a half or so, and it's pretty darn unique and tasty. How many Trader Joe's products have we seen that prominently feature mung beans? Not many.

Combining all the best properties of crispy, crunchy, salty, cheesy crackers and the satisfying snacktasticality of a typical trail mix, this fun bag of munchy morsels is right up Trader Joe's alley. Each cracker is studded with cashew nuts, raisins, sesame seeds, and fried mung beans. All I really know about mung beans is that they're in a lot of Asian snacks and desserts. It's hard to isolate their flavor here because they're surrounded by so many other ingredients, but I believe they're slightly sweet and a little nutty.

And they work quite well with the nuttiness of cashews, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. A bit of extra sweetness from the raisins helps balance out the mixture of flavors. There's also a "sugar syrup" listed in the ingredients, which I'm guessing served as the "glue" that attaches the trail mix pieces to the crackers.

Surprisingly, most of the crackers were fully intact when we first opened the package. A few broke into smaller shards. No biggie. The bag isn't resealable, which in larger families probably wouldn't be a problem. Since it's just Sonia and me, we didn't finish ours in one sitting, so we broke out the chip clips to preserve the freshness. Again, no biggie.

$2.49 for the 4.5 oz bag. Good for curbing hunger and pretty tasty. Four stars from Sonia. Three and a half from me.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.