Price: $2.99
Serving: 1 cookie, 1oz.
Servings per package: 16
Calories: 110 per cookie
Fat: 7%, 4.5g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 3%, 70mg
Protein: 2g
Carbohydrates: 6%, 18g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Sugar: 10g
Weight Watchers Points: 2 points per cookie

Trader Joe says: Trader Joe’s Oatmeal & Cranberry Cookie Dough is preformed for 16 perfect sized cookies and is ready to bake and enjoy in a matter of minutes. The cranberries in the cookies add a refreshing tartness to a rather sweet dough. . . these are a scrumptious twist on the more traditional oatmeal raisin cookie.

Abi says: As an adult with a palate accepting of a great many things I still do not understand how anyone could ever think the raisin is an acceptable ingredient in baked goods. Raisins are a form of chewy contamination, destroying the goodness of carrot cakes and cookies and making unfamiliar baked items instantly suspect. Cranberries, on the other hand, are fruity little nuggets of joy, adding delight to any item. I’ve used cranberries in making everything from muffins to cookies to biscotti. I love cranberries.

In Trader Joe’s Cranberry Oatmeal Cookie Dough, the cranberries are present without being overwhelming. There are 2-5 cranberry chunks per cookie and each one is a nubbin of chewy bliss. If you want your cookies cranberried-out, this could be a problem. However, each cookie is only 2 inches in diameter, so the cranberries are appropriately present.

The cookie dough itself is just okay, it has a nice balance of sweet and salty, but the texture and taste of oatmeal is missing, resulting in a cookie version of flabby, overcooked pasta. These cookies, whether baked for just 11 minutes (chewy) or 14 minutes (crispy) fall apart if handled with anything other than utmost care (just like the peanut butter cookies). I want an al dente cookie, one that stands up to a train ride to work and gives me an opportunity to enjoy it in forms other than tiny chunks.

A rather intense investigation revealed that rolled oats are the fourth item in the ingredients list after flour, brown sugar and butter. That might seem just fine until one does some further scouting and learns that the Quaker Oats recipe for vanishing oatmeal cookies uses 3 cups of rolled oats to just 1.5 cups of flour. Why are you skimping on the oats, Trader Joe’s?

The other downside to these cookies is that fresh from the oven they’re sort of creepy. Maybe it’s just a personal thing (like my dislike of baked raisins), but warm cranberries give me the willies and detract from what should be a great fresh-from-the-oven experience.

All in all, Trader Joe’s Oatmeal & Cranberry Cookie Dough is an alright way to make some easy breakfast cookies or an after-dinner dessert, but they don’t measure up to the quality of Trader Joe’s frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. Then again, does anything?

Price: $2.99
Serving: 3/4 cup, 3oz.
Servings per package: 8
Calories: 90 per serving
Fat: 2%, 1.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 18%, 440mg
Protein: 2g
Carbohydrates: 5%, 16g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 2 Points

Trader Joe says: Trader Joe’s Roasted Potatoes with Roasted Peppers and Onions will be a savory addition to any meal. Our potatoes can be served as a side for many dishes, like filet mignon, herbed chicken breasts or a polska kielbasa. They offer the sightly sweet flavor of a roasted pepper and onion medley blended with the mellow taste of red potatoes. They’re wonderful served with salsa, or with some sharp cheddar cheese melted over the top. For breakfast, lunch or dinner simply bake or skillet fry this wonderful potato medley for a quick and easy compliment to your favorite entree.

Abi says: When it comes to breakfast potatoes, I stick with Simply Potato items. They contain potatoes and some sort of powder that keeps the potatoes from turning brown. And that’s it. However, Simply Potatoes are a) not cheap and b) not for the freezer, meaning that they will go bad after a certain time period. I am not the kind of girl who knows if she’s going to be making hash browns in the next four days, which is why I opted for Trader Joe’s Roasted Potatoes this time around.

In conception these seem brilliant: roasted red potatoes, onions and red bell peppers combine to create a breakfast potato medley that requires neither salt nor ketchup. Nor the assistance of that Lipton’s Onion Powder Stuff (I am addicted to it - so amazingly delicious - and bad).

The cooking process is simple: heat a bit of oil in a skillet (you could even use Pam), dump in potatoes, heat for 10 minutes, dump in onion/red pepper pouch, heat for 8 minutes, serve. Unfortunately, the potatoes leave something to be desired. Each little roasted starch cube is akin to a packing peanut: styrofoamy. Red potatoes don’t freeze well and it shows in the reheating process. I know, red potatoes are just lovely and easy to prepare (try this recipe, but with fresh herbs instead of dried - easy and mouth-watering), but they aren’t hardy the way Russets are. Additionally, the supposed 8 servings in the bag are actually 4 servings. I don’t know when Trader Joe’s made the 3/4 of a cup measurement, but it is not accurate when it comes to these potatoes. If you’re planning on serving eight people, buy two bags of potatoes.

Yes, the peppers and onions make these potatoes a decent breakfast item, but my overall feeling was ‘Meh.’ There’s nothing offensive about them, but nothing great either. Looks like I’ll be sticking with Simply Potatoes for the foreseeable future.

Price: $?.??
If you know, let us know!
Serving: 2 Samosas, 2.93 oz.
Servings per box: 3, 8 oz. total
Calories: 170 per serving
Fat: 10%, 6g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 15%, 350mg
Protein: 5g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 22g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 per serving

Trader Joe says: There might have been something on the box, but it wasn’t included with the review and Trader Joe’s doesn’t put any product information on their website.

Katie Hall says: I had never eaten Indian food before I met my husband. When introduced to the goodness that is the food of India, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I developed a weekend ritual, that proved a sure-fire way to pack on the pounds:

1. Gorge on the delicious meats bathed in exotic sauces and wafting with far-away spices, piles upon piles of naan bread and sweet-smelling jasmine rice, and top it all off with some galub jumun at the local Indian food all-you-can-eat buffet for the ridiculously low price of $7.99.
2. Stop by 7-11 on the way home to by the biggest tub of coffee you can, so as to stem off the coming sleep-inducing carb-overload your body is about to endure. Be sure to take full advantage of all the “free” extras 7-11 offers: dump heaps of mini marshmallows in your hot chocolate, splash as many pumps of flavored syrup into your coffee as you can, stuff some extra chocolate flavored creams in your pocket for later!
3. Proceed to spend the rest of the day leveling up your night elf druid with said boyfriend in an appalling attempt to prove to him that, “Yes, we have TONS in common! Look! I LOVE to play pointless video games that have no end. EVER.”

But I digress…

Trader Joe’s Vegetable samosas are tasty triangles of tangible heaven. Though they are a little spicy for my taste (hence the 4 stars), but really, its nothing that a gulp of milk can’t tame. The outsides are crispy, though a bit greasy. Although the box says to bake at 350 for ten minutes (turning halfway through), mine came out of the oven a little cool inside so I put them in for a few minutes longer.

The box comes with some handy space-age metal coating on the inside top and bottom. This means you can cook the samosas in their carton, in the microwave. I have done this before and they have come out pretty good; I only decided to bake them this time because I thought they might come out crispier. They did come out marginally crispier, but I’d save time (and electricity) and nuke ‘em next time.

All in all, I like that I can understand all (OK, most, there are some wacky bacterial culture names that I have no idea how to go about pronouncing) of the ingredients on the back of the box. The calorie density isn’t that horrible — in fact, I almost always eat the whole box and never feel guilty/fat/horrible/gluttonous/stingy about it afterward.

Price: $3.99
Serving: 1 tart, 3.3oz.
Calories: 300
Fat: 20%, 13g
Cholesterol: 38%, 115mg
Sodium: 3%, 70mg
Protein: 4g
Carbs: 13%, 40g
Fiber: 2%, <1g
Sugar: 30g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points each

Trader Joe says: Refreshingly tart lemon filling in a flaky buttery crust. Simply defrost and serve Trader Joe’s Lemon Tartes, or decorate with berries and whipped cream. These tartes are the ideal pastry to serve at the end of any meal, whether rustic or elegant. If you love the idea of afternoon “high tea,” these treats would be the perfect sweet for that occasion, as well.

Abi says: In the last several months Trader Joe’s has added several fantastic items to the frozen dessert section, including the chocolate croissants and the gluten-free peanut butter cookies. The duds have thus far been limited to the no-prep brownies.

Unfortunately, these Lemon Tartes are joining the Pre-Made Brownies in the hall of Trader Joe’s bad dessert infamy. I look forward to dessert, so I defrosted these tartes in the refrigerator for 6 hours (the package recommends at least 4 hours of defrosting) and shortly after dinner plated them with no accoutrements. Yes, the photo on the box shows a dollop of whipped cream, but a bit of sweet dairy wasn’t going to counteract the ‘meh’ of these desserts.

These lemon tartes feature tart lemon filing, bursting with bright yellow flavor, but each bite is also accompanied by bland, dense pastry. After a few forkfuls of POW-ZAP followed by ‘ugh’ of pastry. I tried to eat a bit of the lemon filling on its own. At that point I realized that lemon filling by itself is not a delicious dessert, but a component within a delicious dessert. Lemon filling by itself is sort of like torture by citric acid, and this is an opinion coming from a girl who enjoys sour Skittles.

After this experience I’m not sure I’ll be trying any of Trader Joe’s pre-made no-bake pastries. The chocolate croissants and chocolate chip cookies are just way, way too good to go fooling around with these tarts.