(upbeat music)
- Hey Munchies, welcome to the channel if you're new.
I'm Alyssia.
- And I'm Christian.
- And usually you don't see Christian on this channel,
but for those of you that don't know, he is my boyfriend
and business partner, he actually helps run Mind Over Munch
with me and we have a channel together called Eat the Pizza.
- [Christian] Which you should go check out now,
well after you watch this video.
- After you watch this video we will link it in
the description box, but we actually have a video
going up tomorrow on that channel.
That channel is not health related at all.
- It's just pizzas.
- It's not just pizzas but it's always pizza related
and it's really fun and actually speaking to the health
freaks out there, this video may not be for you either,
because this is a Trader Joe's haul of some of my favorite.
Well I can't say favorite I haven't tested them yet,
but this is a Trader Joe's haul
for their winter specialty items,
I didn't get everything, but I got a lot of things
and I haven't tested most of these,
so we will see how it is.
- This is not sponsored, right?
- This is not a sponsored video, I just love Trader Joe's
and I love Christmas.
We're going to test these together,
let you know our thoughts and
I think we'll just get started.
Before we get started, oh that makes a noise.
- It's like a drum.
- Um, before we get started, uh I wanted to light up this
candle so we can all enjoy the scent, I know there is not
smellevision yet.
Ahh this is a gingerbread candle and I've
been wanting to light it,
- [Christian] Oh it smells so good.
- [Alyssia] I know, I wish I bought like 12 of these.
I'm probably gonna go back and get more, but we were
waiting to light it for the filming so.
(bells)
- Oh it's smelling good.
- We're not going to eat the candle,
but we're gonna enjoy it
while we try our first item, this winter tea.
I have been seeing this winter tea pop up on Instagram
and everybody says it's great, but I haven't tried it, so.
- Cheers!
- Mhm, there is black tea, cinnamon, orange peels,
licorice, ginger, natural flavors, and cloves.
It does taste holiday, it taste holidayish.
Actually, I'm not usually an orange person but,
I taste the little bit of citrus and it makes it taste
holidayish.
I want just a little splash of milk, I like
milk in my tea.
- I want a splash of milk in my tea too.
- Cream I mean, I enjoy that tea.
I'm on sip on that
while we taste the rest.
- I get to say I'm pleased with the tea.
- I'm pleased with the tea.
I've been waiting to try these
they smell so good.
These are gingerbread molasses cookies
and dough the comes, you know pre cut so you just put the
little doughs on and just bake them up.
- You're a gingerbread head.
- I am a gingerbread freak!
- Which I am too, but I feel like this year you've gonna
heavier on the gingerbread and molasses type cookies.
- Yeah, I've been making a lot of molasses crinkles.
These look really good, but I gotta say and it's nine in
the morning and I love being an adult.
These are really good, how about a little dip in the tea.
- Dip of the tea, taste of the cookie.
- Little big for this mug, that is a good combination.
- That's really good.
- That is really good, these cookies I mean I love
making homemade from scratch cookies for the holidays,
but these are really good to eat.
Crispy on the outside,
chewy on the inside.
- Look, did you see this for a big cookie.
- What?
- Place one dough piece a top another on an ungreased
baking sheet and place on center rack, you can double
them and make them double sized.
- Oh dang! I didn't even see that.
- There are even instructions to make them double sized,
so they are highly recommended.
I'm about to have
another bite of the cookie.
Kristin, baby.
- Kristin, do you want a cookie, you can't have one
of these cookies, but we did get a cookie for Kristin.
Cause Trader Joe's has these gingerbread flavor dog treats,
and they're corn free, oh these are actually shaped like
little gingerbread guys.
Now I've shared this with you
before, some of you may remember, Kristin has liver
disease, so we are really picky about what treats we
give her.
These are not the treats I would typically give
her, not that they are bad, I haven't really looked at
the you know, flour, oats, molasses.
So these actually
don't have a lot of protein which is good for Kristin
who can't consume an excessive of protien, but I wouldn't
give her these all the time, these would be like a
bath time treat.
(happy music)
So to keep this moving were gonna kinda pair things,
these are two peppermint items, uh which one
should we start with?
Let's start with yours.
- Peppermint cremes.
- Dark Chocolate covered peppermint cremes.
I'm not
huge on dark chocolate either but when
it's paired with peppermint.
- These are soft, creamy and minty bites.
Oh dang, so its like a York.
- Its more like a Junior Mint, that's what it's like.
- Oh yeah, the inside is like a Junior Mint.
- Like the Seinfeld episode.
(laughing)
- Yeah, these aren't, none of this stuff is healthy, but.
Those are yummy, if you like chocolate and mint you'll
love them, if you don't love dark chocolate, you
still might like them, because I still think they
are pretty good.
- If you don't like chocolate or mint, steer clear.
- Peppermint bark popcorn, cameral popcorn coated in
dark chocolate and inroped in a white chocolate and
peppermint candy coating.
- Who's doing this copy writing for Trader Joe's,
you're killing it.
- I love popcorn and I love white chocolate and I
love ceramal.
- I like peppermint.
- There is Dark chocolate in this,
oh like a pop.
- That's got a crispy crunch.
- Mhm, so there is a popcorn kernel, or a popped
piece of popcorn inside.
- That is really good actually.
- Actually so good, the mint is perfect and I love
because of the white chocolate, you don't taste the
dark chocolate though so much.
- Yeah I'm not usually a huge white chocolate person,
but this is very good.
- Okay, so look you can see there is the popcorn with a
I think that is ceramal and dark chocolate and then
the white chocolate and peppermint on the outside.
Oh it is really good.
Uh, we got two spreads from
Trader Joes's, now this one I actually bought a while ago
and we've eating, its the carrot cake spread.
Oh my gosh, I already know it is so good, but we're
gonna taste it again for you and then this is an apple cider
jam.
You're an apple, you like apple butter.
- I love apple butter is the ultimate spread, challenge
me in the comments tell me its not, no spread can compare,
but this may just come close.
- Carrot cake, you see we've been um digging into
this quite a bit.
Oh you know what is really good though
with this spread, cream cheese with the spread its like
carrot cake icing, with the carrot cake but its savory.
- Cheers!
- Mhm!
Just as good as I remember, sweet carrot cake spread
on a buttery cracker, this actually taste like carrots,
like it's not just like sweet spread it taste,
it has a carrot cake flavor, I don't know how
they did it.
- So this is the one I'm looking forward to the most.
- You're looking forward to this one more.
- Mhm!
It is appley and Delicious.
- It taste like apple butter to me.
- Me too.
- Like the texture even taste like apple butter,
I don't if it really is a jam.
- I think it is a little more gelatinous than
a regular apple butter.
The flavor is perfect.
- It spreads so smooth like a butter, it doesn't spread
like thick like a jam.
- Wow!
That is so good too.
- That is really good.
- I am not disappointed at all by that.
- Alright so now we have our cold beverages,
I had never seen this before organic cold pressed
fuji apple spiced cider with cinnamon and clove
not from concentrate, I mean there is no added sugar.
Organic apple juice, cinnamon powder and clove
that's all it is.
- Well lets taste it up.
- Let's taste it up.
Mhm that is yummy.
That taste like, kinda like soda-ey.
- Oh yeah it is.
- Like its a little, its not carbonated, but.
- It's actually not like it's sweet it's
really sweet.
- Its really sweet from the juice.
- It's not sweet like you'd expect, like a
- The spices are perfect.
- Wow, that is really good
- That is yummy
- Would you like some Joe.
- If you want a healthy Trader Joe's treat,
not a bad option.
Next up,
- The good stuff almond nog.
- Christian loves nogs of all kind.
A half cup is
50 calories with eight grams of added sugar and
one and a half grams of fat.
You can what I am pouring
it is not as thick.
- Oh that is very good though, that is very good.
- The flavor is great, it is the difference the texture.
- It's thinner.
- It's not as thick, like when I have egg nog,
it's like it should get stuck in my mouth almost
it's so thick, so this is not bad.
This is,
you can see it sticks glass a little bit but not much,
it's the texture of like thick almond milk.
- But I'd say if you're going for a dairy free
egg nog alternative, this is a good one.
- And if you want the flavor of the nog and you want
to indulge in it a little more frequently go for it.
And the chocolate peppermint almond beverage, now
this is also sneaky, one cup is 110 calories with
17 grams of sugar, it doesn't say how much is added,
but I imagine a lot.
Your second favorite beverage
at Starbucks is peppermint mocha.
- That's right!
- So perhaps there is opportunity to mix this with
coffee for you.
Oh wow!
- Look at that.
- Its chocolatey,
I don't taste the mint.
- I taste the mint.
- Oh yeah I taste it now, it's like a secondary flavor.
- Yeah and its not that sweet either actually.
- Yeah, I like if I'm gonna have chocolate, I want
it real sweet, cause I don't like the bitterness.
I mean it taste like chocolate milk to me,
if you didn't tell me it was chocolate peppermint,
I don't think I would have noticed the mint as much.
- No it's not that strong of flavor.
- We have two more, and this is the one I've
been wanting to try since I bought these in the
store three days ago, so lets try the other ones first.
What is this?
- This is butter toffee pretzels, this is right
up your alley.
- I love toffee, I love butter and I love pretzels.
Oh man, okay so they have like a crusty coating
on the pretzel.
- A crusty coating!
- Taste just like what you think its gonna taste like.
It taste like they coated the pretzel in butter,
dipped it in toffee crumbs.
- That is an outstanding snack.
- Oh man, in nine pretzels there is 130 calories
seven grams of added sugar.
- That is not to bad.
- This will be the snack that will be hard to put down.
- Snack of the year.
- Well I don't know, we still have this one.
- This is what you've been waiting for the longest,
for the last three days that we've had these
snacks in the house.
- Salty honey toffee milk chocolate covered crackers,
ohhh okay, first thing though, they are fully
I didn't realize they're fully coated in chocolate.
Might be to much chocolate for you, I don't want to
project, lets just see how this goes.
- The thing is it is milk chocolate.
- I do prefer milk chocolate.
Ready to try it.
Mhm
That is definitely a saltine in the middle,
I don't know the toffee is good but I want more.
I like the pretzels better, I am more of a salty sweet.
This is salty sweet, but it is more sweet salty.
- Yeah, its like and the chocolate is a really
thick layer of chocolate.
- Yep, I think if there was less chocolate and
more toffee I would be down and I gotta say this box
is kinda disappointing, because a few of these
are broken look.
- They are busted, look you can just see the saltine.
- These are okay, I would say the pretzels are the best.
So, best thing you tried today?
I have three best.
- You have three best, I'm trying to pick one and
you're like I have three.
- I have three best.
- What are your Three?
- My Three best, the winter tea, the gingerbread cookies
and the toffee pretzels.
- I would say the gingerbread cookies and the winter tea
are both number one, those are awesome and
the apple cider spread.
- So that is our Trader Joe's holiday haul taste test,
I hope that you enjoyed it, of course I couldn't
get all of the Trader Joe's holiday treats,
they had so many, that I would have spent 100's of dollars
and this video would have been like three hours long.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed it.
If you want more
videos like this, where it kinda more casual
and maybe Christian is up here with me and
we're talking to you, let me know in the comments
and if you did like this format, defiantly check
out our other channel eat the pizza,
we've got an episode going up tomorrow!
Thanks so much for being here, I will see
you next week and remember.
- Its all a matter of Mind Over Munch.
- Now I need a cookie.
- Get a cookie, I need a sip of tea.
- These are so good!
- I get to have a sip of tea.