Day 303 - Butternut Squash and Creamed Spinach Gratin

The package of this dish says “An ideal vegetarian entrée and excellent side dish”.  For truth in advertising, I think they need to delete the words “ideal” and “excellent”.

This is a seasonal product, so if you want it go to your local Trader Joe’s NOW and get it, because they won’t have it for very long.  And not to worry, you will not have to fight us over it…

I THOUGHT it looked super tasty...

I followed the conventional oven heating directions and baked it in the oven at 350 degrees.  The end result was a dinner that was extremely boring with almost no taste.  We cut the Butternut Squash and Creamed Spinach Gratin in half and ate it as if it were a non-meat lasagna (as it is described on the back of the package).  It would be BETTER if you served this as a side dish with something else that had a good flavor that this was just trying to “play off of” instead of eating THIS as a meal. 

David agreed that it was “kind of bland.  Sort of “Midwestern” in its palate, no strong flavors.  But it is kind of “comfort foody” in its pasta-ness and the cheesiness.  When you hit a patch of vegetables those are nice (the squash a bit less interesting taste-wise). “

I should have listened to David, who was less than thrilled when I put this product in our shopping cart.

I would describe this as HOSPITAL FOOD.  The texture is soft and mushy and the taste is bland.  This is a dish I would expect someone with a hairnet to serve to me.

Host/Hostess tip:  I do not recommend that you put this out with your Thanksgiving meal and try to pass it off as something you cooked yourself.  

Maybe it is just cuz I have eaten it and know what it tastes like, but now that I look at this
photo of it on a plate it even LOOKS dull...

Trader Joe’s has a lot of seasonal products. When I saw this one I thought it looked good, so I wanted to get it and review it early while they still had it so you would have time to go get it.  But I was wrong, wrong, wrong.  My bad.  Don’t bother.  Buy OTHER seasonal products, but not this piece of crap. 

David says, “It miiiight be to your taste if you don’t like spicy or flavorful foods…”.  Sigh.  That David, always trying to put a good spin on things.  I say – IF YOU ENJOY EATING IN THE HOSPITAL, THEN GET THIS, PUT A PAJAMA SHIRT ON BACKWARD SO YOUR BUM HANGS OUT, LAY IN YOUR BED, AND EAT IT.  THIS IS YOUR DISH.

David had a perfect line for this product:  “If you want to make the argument that you don’t have to give up taste in order to eat vegetarian, this is not your dish.”

BAM!

Oh sure, it is a flyer item.  It is also overpriced and dull.

Price – $4.99 (way too expensive for this product IMHO)

Rating – 2.25

Day 285 - Pumpkin Body Butter

I was not going to buy this.  One of the premises of this blog is that I would not buy anything that I anticipated before even trying it I would dislike it – that does not seem fair to the ratings to go into with a negative attitude.  But I was curious about this body butter…  I love lotion – I use it every single day.  And I really like body butters (oh man, the unscented generic one from Sephora is amaaaazing and David often gets me a tub of it for Christmas!).  So I wondered about this Trader Joe’s one, but I was afraid I would not like the scent.

Look, it is LUXURIOUS, it says so right on the label!!!

One night recently when I was checking out at Trader Joe’s I asked my checker if he has tried this product yet.  He had a stack of them sitting at his register.  He said he hadn’t tried it (secretly I was hoping he would say, “Should we open one up and give it a whiff??” but he didn’t).  But then I overheard the cashier right behind me offering some to HIS customer to try!  Well, you don’t have to ask me twice (technically, no one had asked me once, but go with it…)!!  I turned around and inserted myself into their conversation and grabbed a blob of the body butter to rub on my hands.

Of COURSE it is a "Flyer Item" - it is OCTOBER!  Every pumpkin product is a flyer item this month.  :)

It was nice!  The texture seemed good and the smell was not overpowering (as I had feared it might be).   It seemed to smell more like AUTUMN, more like SPICE, than stinking like a PUMPKIN PIE.  It was nice.  I thought maybe I had previously just had a bad attitude toward pumpkin scented things and I should get with the program. 

In store selfie...  I was a little bit nervous about this product...

I would have picked up a tub of it then and there but my cashier was done ringing me up and had everything bagged so I finished up and left.  But the next time I went into a TJ’s I got a tub of the Pumpkin Body Butter.  I was still NERVOUS, mind you, but the little sample on my hands had gone well enough that I thought a tub might be just the thing for the autumn weather.

That charge of $4.99 for this product will soon be a refund…

I put this body butter on today after my shower.  I mean – I PUT.  IT.  ON.  Everywhere.  All over my whole body.  It is sticky going on.  Once it was all on and rubbed in it was not too sticky, however…

I SMELL LIKE A CANDLE.  I smell like a rust colored pillar candle in the middle of a harvest centerpiece on the Thanksgiving table.  David said, “You are bloody AUTUMNAL is what you are!!”.

If you like smelling like a human sized pumpkin pie this is the body butter for you.

I don’t really smell so much like – well – I smell more like a PIE than I would like.  I am not the sort of person who likes fragrances that smell like FOOD.  Case in point, you will not see BIRTHDAY CAKE scented lotion in my cupboard (even though I really like one manufacturer who mistakenly (IMHO) makes that scent…).  That is disgusting!  If I want to eat a birthday cake I will EAT A BIRTHDAY CAKE.  I don’t want my ARM to smell like a birthday cake!!!

So, to wrap this up, this body butter goes on sticky.  After you get it on the texture is okay.  And the scent is good IIIIFFF you want to walk around smelling like a big pumpkin pie (or centerpiece candle).  If you do not want to smell like a pumpkin pie, just use some from a sample jar one time on your hands when you are at Trader Joe’s.  Trust me.  Learn from my mistake.

I have to give them points for the lid.  It's quite ingenious.

Because this is not sticky after you get it on, and because some people actually want to smell like walking desserts, I do not feel I can give this product a zero score (even though I am going to return it and ask for my money back).  I mean, some people might LIKE this…  It is not HORRIBLE.  It did not make me throw up and I did not jump in the shower and wash it all off.  Oh, it also has a really cool lid , you can either unscrew it like a traditional body butter lid or you can pop the middle of the top off. 

Because of those positive, I will not give it this product a zero.  J

P.S. – lest you think I hate all things pumpkin, make sure to read tomorrow’s review of MINI PUMPKIN PIES!

Price - $4.99

Rating - 2

Day 249 - Emma Pearl Pinot Noir

I cannot believe this Pinot Noir is only $3.99.  Oh I hope, hope, hope Trader Joe’s keeps carrying it and I hope they don’t raise the price.  It is great!  

Simple label, lovely wine.  Flyer item!

Maybe it tastes so great because we have been drinking mostly white wine this summer and it is a nice change of pace to have a red.  But seriously, this really tastes good!  It is good with vegetables – I guess I think it would be good with ANYTHING.

David agrees with my assessment on this one and says, “It is a Pinot Noir, so it is light but it has some body to it!  It is really well balanced.  It even borders on a hint of “earthiness” but not too much, you know, like a heavy Cabernet Sauvignon or something.  It is really a good “go with everything” wine.” 

CHEERS - to a good, cheap Pinot Noir from Trader Joe's!

This is an all around good red to have on hand at all times.  We will be stocking up and squirreling away a few bottles as the weather gets colder. 

OH NO – before I posted this review I checked the Trader Joe’s site to see what they had to say about it.  Here is what is ringing in my ears, “When it’s gone, it’s gone…”.  NOOOOOOOO SAY IT ISN’T SO!

Holy smokes I need to get to Trader Joe's...  Gotta stock up!
 I am thinking perhaps I should not have told all of you about this one...  I should have kept it for myself!

Looks like I need to make a stock up trip even sooner than I expected.  I am coming, Trader Joe’s, I am coming!  Save me some Edwin Pearl Pinot Noir!  (Here is the link to the bad news - http://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/2491 )

Price - $3.99 (insanely cheap)

Rating - 5

Day 237 - Cold Pressed Watermelon Juice

So, we visited ANOTHER TRADER JOE’S in yet another state!  This time we were on a road trip – driving from Indianapolis back home to Arlington, VA.  I took a nap while David drove and when I woke up I said, “Wait, are we near a Trader Joe’s???”.  Lucky for me we were!

Tada!  The 16th Trader Joe's int he 10th state we have visited since January 1, 2015 - DUBLIN, Ohio!

Dublin, Ohio has a very nice TJ’s.  We talked to a super sweet and cool employee (whose name I have forgotten…) and he told us there are only 5 or 6 Trader Joe’s locations in all of Ohio.  And guess what?  There is no special OHIO REUSABLE SHOPPING BAG!  Trader Joe’s corporate, are you reading this?  We need an Ohio bag, stat!  You could put the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on it!  Or heck, you could put Cornhenge on it, which we stopped at right before shopping at TJ’s!  There are loads of Ohio things you could choose, just pick one and make a bag for those poor people.  I feel sorry that they do not have one.

The miracle of CORNHENGE, very near the Dublin, OH Trader Joe's!

Anyway, I picked up a Cold Pressed Watermelon Juice.  You must understand, the concept of this product sounds gross to me…  I have seen it in stores before and skipped it because I wasn’t sure I could give it a fair review.  To me, DRINKING watermelon sounds yucky.  But for some reason, on this sunny Ohio day I decided to give it a shot.

Isn't it a pretty color??

I am glad I tried it.  Granted, it doesn’t go into my “favorite juice” category, but it was not nearrrrrly as horrible as I had feared.  In fact, it was not HORRIBLE at all.  Here is what David and I thought of it:

David – It is good.  It’s light, refreshing.  It needs to be drunk cold but the little bit of lime juice is a good balancer.  (Editor’s note – it tasted like lime to David but is actually lemon juice.)  I guess I would give it a 4. 

As you can see from this photo, David didn't expect to like it either...

Susan – I expected to hate it.  Even when I opened the bottle and smelled it, it smelled disgusting…  To me, watermelon is something to be eaten, not DRANK.  The first drink was surprisingly refreshing!  We drank it right after leaving the store – it was very cold.  It’s light, not at all thick, gloppy or chunky (which is what I feared).  It is a very pretty color, but it looks gross on the shelf because all of  the watermelon pink part separates and goes to the bottom of the bottle. That is very visually off-putting to me.  You need to shake it really good before drinking.  I would give it a 3.5.  It is everything it is advertised to be – cold pressed watermelon juice.  It is just not the best taste for a juice for ME it is not disgusting like I feared it would be.

A little taste of summer in the Ohio sunshine

It is cool – the side of the bottle explains exactly what is in it.  That one little 15.2 oz bottle contained 2 lbs of watermelon and ¼ lemon.  I think that explains why the cold pressed drinks at TJ’s are so expensive!  2 lbs of watermelon squished into one bottle!  Yowsa!!

See how it looks BEFORE YOU SHAKE IT?  Bleck - the watery part on top doesn't look great

If you want to see Trader Joe’s info on this product, read here:  http://www.traderjoes.com/digin/post/cold-pressed-watermelon-juice

Overall, though this is a good product, I still would rather EAT a watermelon than DRINK one.  J

Price – $3.69

Rating – 3.75 (average of 2 ratings)