Day 244 - Petite Pain Pauline (100% Whole Wheat Bread)

This is another one of those Trader Joe’s products where I reallllly wanted to like it.  We have tried several Trader Joe’s breads and they always fall short of my expectations.  Is it too much to want a bread this is not dry, tastes good, and lasts more than 2 days?  Maybe my standards are too high…

It is a cute boule of bread

 I hoped that this lovely little petite pain would be the one.  Alas, I fear instead of Petite Pain Pauline, they should have named it the even MORE alliterative Petite Poopy Pain Pauline…

First the good stuff: 

1.       It is a perfect size for our household of 2 people. 

2.       It is a pretty color. 

3.       It is cheap.

Now the not so good stuff: 

1.        It is HARD.  If you toast it, be warned, you will not be able to bite through the toast with any ease at all. 

2.       It goes stale very quickly, and by stale I mean EVEN HARDER than it was the first time you opened it, which, if you have been paying attention, was really quite hard.

3.       It is really DRY.

David's piece, toasted with bread and jelly

My piece, toasted with Sunflower Butter (reviewed on day 96 )

So even though there are an even number of “good stuff”s vs. “bad stuff”s, to me the bad stuffs outweigh the good stuffs in this instance.

Petite Poopy Pain Pauline is not perfect.  Not even close.

Note – David liked it better than me.  He says it is a particular French bread taste in a small package.

Price - $1.29

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