Day 254 - Baked Cheese Crunchies (Cheese Flavored Corn Snack)

I have recused myself from reviewing this product.  I like regular style Cheetos, but not the crunchy ones, and these just look too much like Crunchy Cheetos for me.  I fear my dislike of Crunchy Cheetos would negatively and unfairly color my review, so I am allowing a CHEETO EXPERT, David, to review these alone. 

David munching on Baked Cheese Crunchies while on a road trip ON HIS BIRTHDAY!

We picked up this snack in the Columbus (Easton) Ohio Trader Joe’s.  We saw this AWESOME sign there, which reminded me of another reason why I love TJ’s:

As if their good quality food, great prices, friendly employees, and clean stores weren't enough reasons to HEART Trader Joe's - here is yet another - THEY GIVE BACK TO THE COMMUNITIES they are in!!  Thanks TJ's!

Ok, on to the review of the product!

David:  (While snacking on these Baked Cheese Crunchies in the car on our drive home from Cincinnati) These are good…  They have less CHEESE and SALT taste than Cheetos.  But the bready taste of the actual corn thing-y inside is quite pleasant and flavorable.

Here is what the bag looks like

Susan:  Do you prefer THESE or the Crunchy Cheetos?

David:  CRUNCHY CHEETOS!  Cuz I like the salt. 

Susan:  Do these taste HEALTHIER than a Crunchy Cheeto?

David:  Yeah, I think they do…

Susan:  They come in a smaller bag.

David:  Yeah.  And it feels like I’m not eating as much powdered, flavored stuff.

Susan:  So what rating do you give ‘em?

David:  a 3.75

Susan:  Are they a good road trip snack??

David:  They are a good road trip snack.  IF you can’t get your hands on Cheetos…

Susan:  Have you ever eaten so many Cheetos that you threw up??

David:  Why, yes I have…

Susan:  (giggling) Last question – would you like a taste of this COCONUT WATER that I just opened to wash the Crunchies down with??  (giggle)  (Note - to read the super bad review Coconut Water got recently, look here:  http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/09/day-251-coconut-water.html

David:  …  I am good, thanks…

As you can see, he was not sure he would like them while we were at the store, but all turned out okay

Price - $1.99

Rating – 3.75

Day 253 - The Pass Sauvignon Blanc (2014)

This is a New Zealand wine.  The signage told us it was, “Bright and crisp with grassy and tropical fruit notes”.  Even before reading that I identified my first note as GRAPEFRUIT.  I really liked it.  It is not an overwhelming grapefruit, but just enough to make your mouth water and make you drink more wine.  Good on ya, winery, you have a product that will keep people chugging your wine!  J 

The Pass

It is a lovely wine and I think would pair well with everything! 

David agrees and says it is “Great.  Fruity.  Very crisp.  Very, ummm, puckery.  Acidic in a good way – not at all pejorative.”

Here are some adjectives we came up with to describe this wine:

·         Clean

·         Bright

·         Fresh

·         Light

·         Lovely

·         Bold

Then we realized “bold” probably wasn’t right but we were just trying to think of more adjectives…

See - they came up with some of the same adjectives we did!  :)  

I am going to include a photo of a sign in a Trader Joe’s I saw recently that I really like!  It was in the Cincinnati Ohio store.  That is NOT where we bought this wine (however we did buy two bottles of another kind of wine as thank you gifts for people in Cincy!).  Anyway, I am a sign language interpreter so really thought it was cool that they had a sign where the letters W I N E were spelled out in old time looking ASL!  Check it out!  Cool, eh?

Great signage in Cincinnati, OH

The TJ’s in Columbus, OH was sampling this wine when we went through on David’s birthday, so of course we grabbed a teeny tiny sample.  We already KNEW we liked it since we had drunk a bottle a week earlier, but a little sample never hurts! 

Price -$8.99

Rating - 4

Day 252 - Salmon and Vegetable Croquettes

This product, found in the frozen food section, contains salmon, edamame, broccoli, kale, and chia seed.  I cooked them the quick way – nuked them in the microwave for 45 seconds, then pan fried them. 

They looked pretty much like the package after I cooked them - truth in advertising here.

The box says they could be, “Served as an hors d’oevre or a main course and be a super star in your own kitchen.”  I say, “If there is one thing I wanna be, it is a super star (just kidding, not really my life goal).”  The serving size is two and there are four croquettes in the package, making this a perfect size for a main course for my main squeeze and I.

These were good.  They were “salmon-y” without the taste of the salmon being overpowering.  It was nicely balanced by the other ingredients.  I couldn’t really single out any of the veggies involved – they all sort of blended together.  We served them with mashed potatoes, broccoli, and fresh corn.  It was a good meal.  We drank The Pass Sauvingon Blanc with the dinner, which will be reviewed tomorrow.

Here are the croquettes in "action", ready to be gobbled up

David says, “These were meaty enough to be a main course, but had crunch and vegetable enough to be interesting (whatever that vegetable was, maybe celery?)”.  SEE!  He could not distinguish the veggies either!  He continues, “The outside breading was nice and crunchy without seeming just be trying to provide filling.”

These work out to cost $1.37 per croquette - not bad really

We will get these again.  They do not go on my mental MUST EAT OFTEN list, but they are good and a nice change of pace for us.

Price – $5.99

Rating – 4.25

Day 251 - Coconut Water

We hit up yet ANTOHER Trader Joe’s!!  This one was in Columbus, Ohio in an area called Easton Town Center.   And man sakes ALIVE is it in a fancy outdoor mall!  There was just about every store there you could imagine – J. Crew, West Elm, PF Chang’s, heck, there was even a VITAMIN WORLD and a WORLD OF BEER!  Talk about a good combination of stores, eh?  J 

Look - our 18th Trader Joe't to visit in the last 251 days!  This time in Columbus, Ohio

The Trader Joe’s was nice.  There was a wine tasting (wheeee!) and little bits of cheese.  One of the wines being sampled was the Grand Reserve Meritage that I reviewed on day 13 of this blog.  It has the distinction of being one of the few (perhaps the only??) product to get only half of a star! 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-13-grand-reserve-meritage-2011-red.html

But I won’t hold the fact that they were sampling what I consider to be a really crappy wine.  The store was nice.  The employees were friendly.  The shelves were stocked.  (Well, they were out of the infamous Emma Pearl Pinot Noir that I reviewed a couple of days ago that we have fallen in love with…  They are the second store we visited that was o-u-t of Emma Pearl…)

Anyway, we were not there for wine.  We were there to find products we had never tried before!  And that we did. 

For a few months I have been curious to try COCONUT WATER.  I have seen it in stores (including Trader Joe’s I think) in strangely shaped cardboard-ish containers…  But the containers have always been LARGE or sold in packs of 4 or 6.  And, being a commitment phobic, I did not want to COMMIT to that much coconut water.  I just wanted to taste it.  So when I noticed a bottle of it in the refrigerated section of the Columbus Trader Joe’s I decided that was my chance.  I would risk it!

Here you have it - 355 mL of 100% pure COCONUT WATER

Though I am a fan of coconut, for some reason I was not a true believer that this product would be delicious.  I like coconut, as you will see if you do a search on the word “coconut” on this blog.  But I was LEERY of coconut water.

See - even before cracking the lid open I was leery...

And now that I have tasted it, I can say without a doubt that I was right to be cautious.

Bleck.

Basically, to me, this is the poopiest part of the coconut squeezed into a bottle and slapped with an expensive price tag.  I know by reading the label that there are one and a half coconuts in this one bottle, so I understand the high cost.  But the water is not “thirst quenching” even though I thought that was one of the claims to fame for coconut water. 

I don't begrudge them the price.  The TASTE, however, is another matter.

I drank it really COLD – right out of the refrigerated section at the store.  I think it would be even worse if it were room temperature.  In fact, I think it would be gaggy if it were room temperature… 

Ok - I am willing to try this...

Taking a sip

Oh yuck...

Ummm, no thank you.

Even though it was David’s birthday, I basically forced him to try the coconut water.  Poor fella.  Here is what he thought:

The birthday boy, willing to give the coconut water a go...

NOT enjoying it.

Ewwww gross.

David wishing I had not forced him to try this one.  Especially on his BIRTHDAY.

David:  “TERRIBLE.  Umm, uhhhh…  Really remarkably UNPLEASANT.  It is like drinking coconut milk but with none of the niceness of that.  I think I can unquestionably give this a ZERO rating.  I would give this a zero rating.  Because I would not take another drink of that even if I were thirsty.”

I disagreed with him on that regard.  If I were super thirsty and say, like on the trashy reality tv show “Naked and Afraid” and someone brought me a bottle of this coconut water from Trader Joe’s, I would drink it.  I give the product a 1.25.

The reason I give it what seems like a “high score” for a product I really disliked is because even though I personally did not like it, I do not really think it is any worse than any OTHER brand of coconut water.   I think it is just coconut water itself that we probably do not like. 

I dumped over half a bottle of this crap, errr, I mean water out when we pulled over on our drive. 

Here is David MUCH happier with a big ice cream sundae for his birthday from a cool place we found in
Zanesville, OH called Tom's Ice Cream Bowl http://www.tomsicecreambowl.com/

Price – $2.99

Rating (average of David’s 0 and my 1.25 rounded up) - .75

Day 250 - Coconut Shrimp

Find in the frozen food section

Here is David’s take on these puppies  – “They are okay, but a little dry…  They need a SAUCE.  I used a shrimp cocktail sauce but I think a sweet and sour sauce would be nicer.  I would give them a 3.25.”

A little coconut shrimp "drumlette" looking thing

And my opinion – They are easy to cook.  Just preheat the oven to 450 and put them on a baking tray.  We left them in around 14 minutes (our oven always takes a little longer than recipes say it will).  Not GREAT, but not HORRIBLE…  Like David said they are a bit dry.  It would be cool if they came with a little sauce in the box. 

The sign suggests serving them at your luau, but I don't think they are good enough for a luau.  For personal consumption only. 

The coconut taste is nice.  We do not eat a lot of seafood so it is nice to have SHRIMP, but I think this might not be the best way to get them.  We served them with leftover garlic mashed potatoes, and I have to admit the mashed pots were better than the shrimp.

Here David models the box while we are in the Clarendon, VA Trader Joe's. 

Would I serve them to guests?  Probably not.  Would I buy them again?  Maybe not.  Will I eat the remaining 5 that are still in the freezer?  Yup – that much I will do.  (Serving size is 5 and there are 3 servings in the box.)

Price – $5.99

Rating - 3

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 248 - Field Fresh Chopped Salad with Chicken

This was a HEALTHY PURCHASE during our Indy Fringe craziness.  We grabbed on one of our trips to the lovely Indy Trader Joe’s, then ended up tossing it in a bag one afternoon as we ran out to see shows.  We ate it while sitting outside between shows – actually, I ate it then…  David was handing out postcards of his show (an act which we call “carding”) to people in line for other shows, trying to convince them that HIS was the show they should not miss.  Not to worry, I saved him some salad to eat after his carding!

David in a shot from the delicate and dangerous TIGHT ROPE scene!  :)

On first bite I was afraid that the dressing was too sweet, but it wasn’t.  The couscous also looked, how shall I say, too plentiful, but I was wrong on that count, too!  The couscous (of the Israeli variety) was lovely!  It was plump and cold and a very nice contrast to the other ingredients.  The lettuce was nice and crunchy and it was good to eat on a hot summer day.  The toasted pecans were also a nice addition.

Here is the salad in our cart - see the Israeli Cousous?  Yum.

David said, “It is lovely.  The crisp, crunchy lettuce is offset by the smooth but meaty body of the chicken and couscous.  And it is all united by the smooth but flavorful salad dressing, which is sweet but not too sweet.”

This is a very fair price for a crisp, fresh, healthy salad that you don't have to make yourself

We both recommend this as one of the grab and go lunch choices at Trader Joe’s.

Price - $4.49

Rating - 4

Day 247 - Vodka of the Gods

Vodka of the Gods - the GODS mind you!!

We are by no means vodka experts.  David’s father used to drink a vodka tonic, one every night.  When he was going downhill in his later years we moved in with him to take care of him, and every single night we would make his vodka tonic.  I had never really had that drink before that time, but boy did I come to like them.  We would sit in the study, which was also where the television was, and watch something (sometimes “Fear Factor”) while we ate dinner off little trays and drank our vodka tonics.  Nice memories…

Mr. Gaines - the world's best father-in-law

 So when we were at Trader Joe’s in La Jolla, California earlier this spring, I was very surprised to see VODKA!!!  Our local Trader Joe’s only carry beer and wine.  California was the first TJ’s I had been to that stocked hard liquor.  So even though we knew it was ridiculous because we would have to FLY with a big ass bottle of vodka, David caved into my giggling and we put it in the cart.

LOOK!  Liquor at a Trader Joe's!!  People in California have no idea how lucky they are...

It made it home safely in our luggage (it’s a plastic bottle) and got put away in the cupboard, with the other bottles of vodka that do not get drunk.

And that is where it sat for MONTHS until recently, when I said, “Hey, let’s have a VODKA TONIC!” and pulled that puppy out.

Supplies - a vodka tonic in the making...

Like I said, we are not experts.  This vodka tasted fine to us.  It brought back good memories of Mr. Gaines (David’s dad).  But the big 1.75 liter bottle is only $10.99…  I guess what I am saying is, if you are some fancy schmancy vodka drinker who wants only the super duper exclusive stuff and looks down their nose at regular vodka, this might not be your drink.

Yes, we know that is not the "correct" glassware to drink a vodka tonic out of.  I TOLD you are not experts, didn't I?
(But really, more than that, we are rule breakers...)

But if you are like us and just want a vodka tonic that tastes good, buy a bottle!  (That is, if your store carries hard liquor.  It all depends on local regulations.)

Only $10.99

Price - $10.99

Rating – 4

Day 246 - Shredded Parmesan

We normally buy a CHUNK of parmesan and shred it ourselves.  But I thought I would try something new this time, thought I would go the “lazy route” and buy some pre-shredded cheese.  After all, I need products to review, right?

12 Oz bag of freshly shredded parmesan

I really like parmesan.  And this was a good tasting one.  It was just a weird SIZE in my opinion.  The shreds were not big enough to munch on as chunks, yet were too big to throw on top of pasta and call it a day… 

  

The bits were just too BIG... Here they are on top of macaroni pasta (recently reviewed) and garden tomatoes

I guess the ideal use for this cheese would be on top of homemade PIZZA.  That way it would melt and, as so many people like to say, size wouldn’t matter.

We did find another use for it – we put it in homemade pesto.  Once a year we celebrate PESTO DAY by harvesting all of the pesto out of our garden, borrowing a food processor, and going crazy making pesto.  We put cheese in some of it and leave some of it “naked”.  So we used this shredded parmesan for that and it seems fine.

After midnight - the end of a very long PESTO DAY!  22 sealed bags of fresh pesto!

 Overall, an okay cheese.  I prefer to cut and shred my own so I can get the size I want, so I don’t think I will be investing in this one again. 

Price – $5.49

Rating – 3.5

Day 245 - Fage Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt is the bomb. 

Man, I have been reviewing a lot of GREEK items lately, haven’t I?  I never realized how much Greek food we consume – yogurt, olives, that recent bizarre cheese spiral (reviewed on day 212 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/07/day-213-5-cheese-greek-spiral.html ), tzatzaki (reviewed on day 129 http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/05/day-129-tzatziki.html ), and one of my favorite cheeses FETA (reviewed on day 232 http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/08/day-232-authentic-greek-feta-in-brine.html ).

  

Fage Greek Yogurt (2%) (but 100% tasty)

But man, if you like yogurt, you really need to try Fage Greek Yogurt.  It tastes more sitting on an outdoor patio having breakfast in Koufonisia than any other Greek yogurt I have had.

Yummy - Fage toped with loads of pomegranate seeds

I like it with pomegranate seeds (reviewed on day http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-12-pomegranate-seeds.html but if you are cooler than me you can buy a whole pomegranate and get your own seeds out).  It is also good with peaches or nectargines cut up in it.  And look – here it is with just plain HONEY on it (from a new bottle we just opened that will be reviewed soon!). 

Fage drizzled with honey....

You can also use Greek yogurt in smoothies or recipes.  We buy the one with the most fat we can find (2%) but if you are not into fat you can buy the lower fat one. 

So by this point in the review you must understand that this particular Greek yogurt is really good (you can compare it to my review of Trader Joe’s brand Greek yogurt that came out the very first week of this blog on day 6 - http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-6-greek-yogurt.html ).  But here is the kicker:

On a shopping price comparison trip FAGE YOGURT WAS A WHOLE BUCK CHEAPER AT TRADER JOE’S THAN A NEARBY SAFEWAY GROCERY STORE.  A dollar!!!  For the exact same product.

Rip Off ALERT - if you want to spend an extra dollar on the same product,
make sure to get it at Safeway instead of Trader Joe's

Either Safeway is royally ripping shoppers off, or Trader Joe’s is being ultra kind.  Either way – you know where I am going to grab my yogurt!

P.S. – the container tells you how to pronounce this brand.  It is pronounced Fa-Yeh! (exclamation point theirs – they obviously are as excited about their yogurt as I am).

Price – $3.59

Rating – 4.75

Bonus photo for anyone who scrolled down this far!  Me snorkeling in Greece in 2007!

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