Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Ornaments

Well these look fun. Clearly each pack of hot cocoa mix comes in a plastic ornament you can put on your tree after you empty out the cocoa mix. Wait. What? You put the whole thing in your milk and let it dissolve like hot chocolate bombs? They're too big. They'll never fit.

Fortunately, Sonia has an oversized coffee mug that reads "I'm not a morning person." She's not. It's true. Ah, good. The ornament fits in there. And I'll let you know as an aside: these would have just barely fit into any of our normal size mugs too, however, I'm not sure if there would have been any room left for milk.

So first we nuked a bunch of milk and got it nice and piping hot. Second, we dropped in the ornament. Nearly immediately, the gold coloring from the ornament began to melt off and slide onto the surface of the milk like a metallic oil slick—reminiscent of the One Ring dissipating in the lava flows of Mount Doom, or if you prefer a different nerdtacular film reference: the T1000 destruction sequence at the end of T2 featured some nearly identical shots to what I saw going on in my mug of milk, but with Trader Joe's Hot Cocoa Ornaments maybe making fewer scary faces than the liquid metal terminator.

After about 30 seconds, there were a few puffs of air from the ornament, bubbles from its underside, and an audible "pfft" or two. At one point, the ornament let out a gasp so violent that a bit of scalding hot milk jumped out of the mug and landed on my hand. Ouch. Anybody else? Maybe we should organize a class action lawsuit against TJ's. Just kidding. It's the holidays. And as much as it burned for a second, I don't think I'd be able to prove damages in court.

After a few big bubbly emissions, the ornament capsized and succumbed to the milky recesses of the very large mug. I waited, eagerly anticipating the arrival of fluffy, buoyant mini marshmallows... waited... waited. But they never came. I grabbed a spoon and began stirring, dredging the bottom of the mug for any sign of my missing marshies. All I found were a couple wads of thick semi-melted, syrupy chocolate. What happened? I guess my milk was too hot and the marshmallows dissolved before even floating to the surface..?

The taste is like a very sweet milk chocolate hot chocolate. There's nothing dark about it. Practically no mint flavor at all. It leaves a funny aftertaste, too. Some of you might remember how I feel about pork gelatin. We've got that going on here too. Nothing like a bit of pork in your Christmas cocoa.

$6.99 for four ornaments. They really do look and feel like real plastic Christmas tree ornaments. Unfortunately, neither Sonia nor I were blown away by any other aspects of the product. Would not buy again. We'll be a little grinchy and throw out only two and a half stars a piece.

Bottom line: 5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Ginger Bread Cream Liqueur

Of course I love my kids. And I love holiday cookies. Heck, I even kinda love baking holiday cookies, but...

You ever try to make batch after batch after batch of holiday cookies with small kids clamoring to being 'helpful" each step, with limited space and tools,, what, with turn taking and problem solving and different abilities (sure, the nine year old knows how to crack an egg or accurately measure flour, but the three year old? Lol), with diminishing interest, the mess multiplied, with the only assistance in cleaning up afterwards is when it comes to licking clean the spoons and beaters?

Ay. It's a fun combination.

Want to know another fun combo to toss into all this, to make it all a lot more tolerable?

Grab your coffee mug, pour in a little Trader Joe's Ginger Bread Cream Liqueur, skip any other cream or sugar, and pour your coffee over. You're welcome. 

At only 29 proof, it's not gonna knock you down. Heck, if I were to drink the whole bottle, I think I'd be more buzzed from the sugar than the booze. Not gonna even attempt that though. Way too much dairy...

But anyways, this ginger bread liqueur is remarkably tasty. It's ginger infused vodka mixed with decent quality dairy cream that results in a cool, smooth, milky beverage that actually offers a pretty respectable gingerbread-esque flavor. It's mild yet full-bodied and plenty well balanced in all aspects. No boozy burn at all. It just flows. 

It is a bit too sweet and rich for me to entirely enjoy as a stand-alone drink. That's just me and my usual drinkable dairy aversion more than anything else - the gingerbready booze would make a killer ice cream flavor. Aside from  mixing in coffee, a small glass over ice would likely be an enjoyable after dinner/cookie time treat as well. 

Thanks, Ohio, for having cool laws that made this available in your TJ's stores. Wish we stocked up more. Get on board, Pennsylvania. 

Really good. My lovely bride was in love at first sip. Not gonna lie, we half contemplated playing hooky from all responsibilities just to make another road trip to procure some more. At less than $15 a bottle (I'm thinking $12.99 but I may be wrong) I cannot recommend picking up the TJ's gingerbread liqueur as a little holiday treat any higher if you see it. Tis the season to maybe be a bit generous here...so double fives. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Ginger Bread Cream Liqueur: 10 out of 10 Golden Spoons. 

Trader Joe's Fried Olive Bites

Kalamata olives I'm familiar with. It's one of the few foods Sonia is allergic to that I'm not. And that's one of the reasons I chose this app for elevensies yesterday—so I wouldn't have to share with the beautiful wifey. Haha. You think that's mean? Wouldn't it have been much meaner to share them with her under the circumstances? She actually has a pretty severe reaction that involves swelling in her extremities and face.

But there were also Castlevania olives, er Castelvetrano rather, in the box. Neither of us recognized that ingredient. If there's some way to tell the Kalamata olives apart from the Castlevania ones, we didn't figure out how to do it. It all tasted pretty much the same to me: salty, earthy, slightly bitter.

The fried breadcrumb coating was nice and crispy but didn't add a ton of flavor. As far as the stuffing was concerned, cream cheese was fine, but I would have preferred mozzarella or possibly even something more exotic than that. There's blue cheese listed in the ingredients, but it's pretty low on the list. Both Sonia and I are sensitive to blue cheese, but I didn't feel it at all. It might have lent an extremely subtle moldy tang to the filling, but for the most part, it's just plain cream cheese in there.

Trader Joe's put out a similar product stuffed with chicken a few years back. Not sure if Sonia and I tried those at the time. If we did, they weren't very memorable, and apparently the Shelly family wasn't super enthused.

Before it was all said and done, Sonia did take her life into her own hands and tried a bite. She was much more positive about these olive bites than I was, but I think that's mainly because she can't have them. "People always want what they can't have" and all that.

These would go pretty fast at a fancy Christmas party if they were piping hot straight out of the oven and people were quickly grabbing just one or two. I don't recommend them as a mid-morning snack or a substitute for lunch—although I'm thinking most normies don't do weird stuff like that like I do—at least not with the same regularity.

Anyway, these aren't bad if you're into olives and cream cheese, but we probably won't purchase again.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.