Day 309 - Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels

David:  “This is a nice concept.  I’m not sure they quite got the peanut butter right….  The outside of the pretzel is crunchy and salty as it should be.  The plump pretzel is a nice tasting pretzel.  But the peanut butter inside is kind of dry and cakey and so it dries out your mouth and doesn’t have that luscious buttery-peanut-butter mouth feel that makes such a nice contrast to the crunch of the pretzel.”

  

See how EXCITED he was when we bought these???

Here is my take:  David was quite excited when we got these and he expected to reallllly like them. However, he has taken the same little Ziploc baggy full of them in his lunch 3 times, and the baggy keeps coming back with almost the same exact amount of pretzels in it…  (He counters, “I did eat a few of them today on my long drive home, because they were all I had and I had a little bit of Pepsi to wash them down…”.)

Seriously people, if you have read any of the other 300-some-odd days of this blog, you know that there is not a lot of snackin’ that David does not like. 

Are you gonna EXAMINE it or EAT it, dude?

I totally agree with him that that peanut butter is too dry.  I think he was playing it nice when he described it now.  It is not a “wee bit dry” – when he described it to me the first time (before I wrote this review) he used MUCH HARSHER words to describe the peanut butter… 

To me, the pretzels themselves are too hard or too big or something.  Believe me when I tell you that I have never in my life eaten a DOG TREAT, but something about these screams DOG TREAT to me!  (We don’t own a dog, heck I do not even LIKE dogs (don’t shoot me, I am scared of them) but if we ran into a dog while I had David’s never ending Ziploc baggy of these pretzels filled with peanut butter, I would whip one of these things out and feed it to that dog.)  David agrees that they are dog treat sized and shaped.

The bag looks sorta classy, but they taste dry

That's $2.99 we won't be spending again

David says that this is a “Missed opportunity for TJ’s.  However, I WOULD take a little baggy along on any trip!  They are perfect “save your life” and “not so bad trail bites” for eating something that is not sweet.”

Ok, so he is basically saying that if he was on “Survivor” or “Naked and Afraid” and they permitted him to bring a bag of treats, he would bring THESE…  This makes no sense to me, as I would squirrel away something that I actually enjoyed eating before I was sent to a deserted island…  But he justified this weird idea by reminding me that these have PROTEIN in them and FAT.

It is as if all the sudden I was married to a prepper…  (Though he later told me that he would also bring a couple of chocolate bars…  Ah, THAT’S my sweetie!!)

Price – $2.99

Rating – 2.75

Day 274 - Peanut Butter and Jelly with Nonfat Greek Yogurt

Look, I thought this product sounded disgusting.  I wasn’t gonna try it.  I like yogurt.  I like peanut butter.  (OK, I dislike jelly…)  But the thought of those flavors TOGETHER sounds inedible to me!

You have to admit this sounds gross...

I don’t want to purposely buy anything to eat and review during this year long blog that I know I will hate.  That’s not fair.  And I only have 365 reviews in total to do, ya know.  So this was one new Trader Joe’s item I was prepared to leave on the shelf.

Until…

Until one of my Facebook friends, Peter Marino said something like THIS WAS HIS NEWEST FAVORITE FOOD EVER.  I had to ask if he was being sarcastic or serious (cuz with him it is hard to tell sometimes).  He said he was being HONEST, that he adores this stuff.

Not a bad price, but is it a BAD TASTE???

Welllllllllllllllllllll……  If LANCE likes it, I wanna try it!  Lance is Peter’s character in his solo show “Late with Lance”.  We saw it this summer at the Orlando Fringe Festival and it was great.  Cracked.  Us.  Up.  You should really check out his site and watch the preview clip here:  Lance Show Preview   So if Lance is in, I am in baby!  Throw some of that crap, errr, yogurt in my cart!

When I opened the container I was really surprised.  It didn’t look at all like I expected.  Because the name is PEANUT BUTTER and JELLY WITH Greek Yogurt I thought it would be actual real live swirls or chunks of peanut butter and jelly in or on top of the yogurt.  Nope.  It is just a mixed up yogurt that smells like peanut butter. 

Does this look appetizing to you?

When I TASTED it I was disgusted.  Bleck-a-rama!  Lance HOW can that be your favorite food???  Yogurt is good, but this stuff….  Ewwwwww.  The flavors do NOT go together.  I disliked it so much that I realized I needed to do the FIRST EVER Trader Joe’s 365 VIDEO REVIEW and record David tasting it the first time.  Honestly, I thought he would despise it and maybe even spit it out all over the table (which I would find hilarious).  So I grabbed the camera and forced him to eat some.  Here is how it went:

WHAT THE HELL?  HE LIKES IT????  David!!!!  You are on LANCE’S side here???

This is one freaky, gross product.  I can only imagine 7 year old boys liking it.  Well, 7 year old boys and Lance and David.

David gave it a 3.75, I give it a 2.5.  It is not for me – so Lance and David have at it! 

Price – .99

Rating – 3 (average of David’s way over the top rating and my very generous rating, If Lance rated it it would probably have a 5….)

Day 115 - Brownie Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies seemed to have a LOT going for them – first off, the name itself starts with BROWNIE, that’s a good sign.  Then CHOCOLATE CHIPS, hello, those are tasaty!  And wait a minute – WALNUTS, TOO?  Stop the goodness before you overload me!   There were a few varieties in the same sweet, down home’y” looking packaging and they actually took up a bit of prime real estate on the shelves.   I figured we might have hit a homerun with this one!  I mean, who doesn’t like a good cookie? 

Don't they look delicious from the packaging?

Maybe that’s the problem – this is not a good cookie.  Turns out, these cookies are bleck.  The ingredient list swears otherwise, but they taste really ARTIFICIAL.  The sugar in them does not feel all the way dissolved, either, so there is a grainy quality.  And David felt they were undercooked.  (I felt they were UNDERWHELMING…)

We do not take returning products to Trader Joe’s lightly.  Seriously, we do NOT return things very often.  But we each ate one of these and then said, “Nah, we do not need these in our lives.  They are NOT good”.  After returning them, we later found one of the cookies at home that David had taken a bite out of and left on a plate not finished.  He THREW IT AWAY rather than eat it.  If THAT doesn’t tell you something, nothing will.  Because NOTHING will get between David and a good cookie!!!

$4.29 is nothing to sneeze at - we took them back

When we returned these, the nice guy working at Customer Service suggested we TASTE the bag of cookies that we were exchanging these yucky ones for before buying them.  The replacement ones were in the same cute packaging but were called Sutter’s Formula – peanut butter cookies with milk chocolate chunks.  I thought for suuuuure they would be better than the Brownie Chocolate Chip ones!!

Same price, still yucky

David was worried before we even opened the package and tasted these....

I was wrong again.  And boy was I glad the Trader Joe’s guy recommended we taste them before buying, because in the end we just said, “No thank you!  We will just stick to the big pile of stuff already in our cart,”.   So, although David and I each only ate part of one Sutter’s Formula Cookie, this will be their only mention in this year long blog.  I don’t feel as if I can give them a complete review on their own, or a score of their own, since we didn’t even purchase the bag and take it out of the store with us.

The score below is based only on the Brownie Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Price – $4.29

Rating – 2.25

Day 96 - Sunflower Seed Butter

Wait a gosh darn minute – I haven’t reviewed Trader Joe’s SUNFLOWER SEED BUTTER yet??  I could have sworn I did that much closer to the beginning of this project!  How can I be on day 90 and JUST NOW reviewing this lovely product?  Shame on me.

Ok.  Here we go.

This is what you are looking for - isn't it pretty?

We are not “crunchy granola” type people.  Oh sure, we eat some weird stuff, and we drive Prii (the plural of Prius, I think…).  But we are not extreme-health-nuts-never-eat-ice-cream-only-buy-organic-meat-is-evil types.  So we were not looking for an alternative to peanut butter.  In fact, we don’t even buy the organic peanut butter that gets all oily on top and you have to stir it every time you use it (ewwww).  But a couple of years ago when we saw this Sunflower Seed Butter at Trader Joe’s and we were out of peanut butter, I was like, “Why not try it?”.  So we did.  And we were happy.

Sunflower Seed Butter is lovely.  It has a smooth, creamy texture and a mighty delicious taste.  It doesn’t have to REPLACE your peanut butter, it is just an alternative to it!  Why not have BOTH – some mornings you will be all, “Hmmm, this bagel could use some peanut butter…” and other mornings you might think, “Hey, where is that SUNFLOWER SEED BUTTER – Ima spread that stuff on this toast…”.  Life is about BALANCE, eh?

So yeah - get this.  It is yummy.  And to be honest, I always thought it was sort of pricey, until tonight when I was at Giant and saw their "Sun Butter" (which is what got me to thinking about it…) – man – the Trader Joe’s version is CHEAP compared to the one at Giant!

Ouch - really Giant?  That is some PRICEY spread...

Ahhh - thanks Trader Joe's - that's more like it!

Get some.  Spread it on hot toast.  You will thank me.

Price - $4.99

Rating – 4.75