Trader Joe's New Pumpkin Flavored Stuff 2021 Part II

My co-worker brought some more snacks to the break room table...

Pumpkin Flavored Joe Joe’s with other natural flavors
Another delicious pumpkin fall offering from TJs. The cookie was flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg and wasn’t sweet, which paired well with the sweet filling. The filling was perfectly pumpkin and tastes like a homemade pumpkin pie and is actually made with pumpkin purée and pumpkin powder. So, in essence, it is a tiny pumpkin pie! These are a must buy if you come across them at TJs, but according to my co-worker, everybody else knows this, so they're out of stock more often than not.

Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread, soft pumpkin bread with warm spices
The crust was smooth and thin like pao de queijo, so I’m assuming it’s the tapioca starch that has something to do with that texture. Inside the loaf was soft, but not moist. The bread has a good pumpkiny, seasonal-spicy flavor, which is the winning point and why I’d consider purchasing gluten free pumpkin bread if I was ever in the mood for pumpkin spice sweets. I would reach for the Joe Joe's or blondies first.

Turkey & Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips

During Thanksgiving, Trader Joe's provided its loving customers with a special treat: Turkey and Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips: "All the flavors of Thanksgiving in each potato chip." I get very excited at the prospect of entree flavored chips such as 7-11's Big Bite Hot Dog Potato Chips or Lay's Classic BLT, but this bag of chips promised me the flavors of a Thanksgiving dinner! Move over Willy Wonka!

I brought these to a Friendsgiving potluck for my food-loving friends to taste with me and although no one thought they were awful, I was only one having a hard time eating just one. I closed the bag so I would have room to enjoy all the amazing food my friends made, but took the chips home, where I ate them by myself over the next few days, along with leftovers.
The back of the bag says "first you taste the turkey, then comes the stuffing, and if you close your eyes, you'll swear you can taste the creamy gravy, too."  My experience was slightly different. There is a distinct flavor of poultry, sage, celery and onion. They taste like I took a forkful of turkey and stuffing and popped it right into my mouth. No gravy, but I also didn't close my eyes while tasting them! As far as mouthfeel goes, they are a light kettle-style chip and therefore did not tear up my mouth and they also did not leave an oily feel nor a bad aftertaste.

Trader Joe's has successfully bagged the "traditional American Thanksgiving meal," although, and I am grateful, they did not try to squeeze dessert in on this chip!
Flavor: accurate
Texture: kettle style
Rating: Three Potato. I can't eat these all the time, but they're a great treat and worth buying one bag of during the holiday season.

P.S.
Two Thanksgivings ago, I found Boulder Canyon Brand's Turkey and Gravy and Pumpkin Pie Kettle Cooked Potato Chips (two separate chips). As you can see on the left, there was a time period I was not posting any blogs and I wasn't really doing a good job at chip tasting, either. I let those chips expire in my snack cabinet and I'm ashamed of wasting food, and more importantly of wasting possibly delicious chips. I'll keep an eye out for Boulder Canyon for next holiday season.

Where's the Beer?

I know. I've been slacking in my beer drinking and reviewing. That should be a good thing, but its not because the blog is about beer, too. I should be downing a sixer a week and posting review blogs while intoxicated, sloughing my phrases about. Just kidding! No, I haven't had anything to drink this morning except some liver-wake-up lemon water (A great liver starter tip for you beer drinkers).
So where are all the beer reviews? I have to be honest, folks. I don't really feel like I'm in a beer mood this summer.
I've had a couple that I didn't take the time to review, such as the summer staple, Sam Adams' Summer Ale, which I think is the best Sam Adams beer. Then Mr. Brown brought a sixer of Trader Joe's Summer Brew, which was nice and light.
Dante and I went to Stout in Hollywood and had burgers, fries and beers.I think we ordered three different beers and I tasted all three and drank one. Thanks, Dante!

Later, during the hot weeks of summer, Mr. Brown and I went to
The Stand and split a big cup of their house Honey Blonde Draft Ale.
Nice and smooth. I think there was an Asahi at a sushi place sometime,
but I wasn't taking note.

I type this post as I watch Ken Burns' Prohibition and after a quick trip to Ralph's where I discovered that Sam Adams' Summer Ale has already been replaced with the Oktoberfest selections and the Halloween candy aisle is already in full swing. Where have the summer beer-drinking months gone? I know now that I've let them slip by, while crunching heartily upon mostly potato snacky yum yums.

So what's my point? I don't really have one and I like to wax poetic. I just was trying to give a good excuse as to why there aren't many beer reviews as of yet on the Potato Chips and Beer blog.
Either way, I hope you keep reading.

Sweet Potato Tortilla Chip Rounds

From Trader Joe's May 2012 Fearless Flyer:
Think of these chips as the comestible equivalent of a musical mashup, only instead of pairing the Beastie Boys with Adele, we’ve paired the venerable corn tortilla chip with the orange wonder of the tuber family, sweet potatoes. Trader Joe’s Sweet Potato Tortilla Chip Rounds have only four ingredients: stone ground yellow corn, sweet potato powder, oil and sea salt.

Sweet Potato Tortilla Chip Rounds (SPTC) are denser- less crispy than regular tortilla chips, making it really a perfect chip for nachos or other heavy chip toppings and/or dips. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the addition of the sweet potato or not, because I've had thick tortilla chips before. Uhm....Yeah, I'll go ahead and venture to say its because of the sweet potato.

The exact ingredient is sweet potato powder: Sweet potato, maltodextrin, corn starch and sunflower lecithin. Sweet potato powder is supposed to be high in fiber, vitamin A, iron and calcium, which are all present in these chips, but not in any sort of exciting amount. Imagine a multi-vitamin tortilla chip? Ha!

SPTCs have a distinctive tuber-y flavor, that is not a mean, bully flavor. It blends very well with the corn flavor.

The question is: Is it worth it to pay $2.49 for chips just because they have sweet potato in them when Trader Joe's has tortilla chips for $1.99, or you can even get tortilla chips from the 99 Cent Store? I would say yes because I'm a chip fanatic, but if I were really being frugal, which I am with almost everything else, I would go with cheaper, 99 Cent Store tortilla chips because they're good.

Tonight I ate SPTC with my Black Bean Salad. They were great with the salad's mix of tangy flavors and mushy textures.