Archive for the ‘Recipes, food, cooking and related items’ Category
11/29/2017
11/29/2017
So far the lighter roasts at Trader Joe have been in general, disappointing. The beans tend to have some oil on them, which indicates the roast is bordering on the next shade of dark. But worse than that, the coffees tend to be bitter. Bitterness is something that’s not supposed to happen with a lighter roast. So, in a late night supermarket run, and in a moment of weakness towards my checking account balance, I picked up a local roaster’s light-medium roast coffee at an on-sale but still significant price. The beans were also Ethiopian according to the bag. This was another point of curiosity for me, as I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the African coffee beans at TJ. So I was able to try another source for African beans. And don’t forget Ethiopia is the home of the very first coffee beans discovered by man. Women discovered coffee beans about 362 years earlier, but I’m not going to get into that.
(more…)
Tags:coffee, Ethiopia, food, price, review, stringbean coffee company, true blue, whole bean coffee
Posted in coffee, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | Leave a Comment »
11/29/2017
November 29, 2017
Crispy is the key word on the bag. Pay attention.
Homemade might be another word for the bag. What’s meant by that is; not your homemade, nor grandma’s homemade, but my homemade. Cookies and my oven don’t get along. I blame it on the oven, of course. Any kind of cookie I’ve ever attempted came out thin and so crispy that they bordered on just this side of burnt. That’s the feeling I got with these oatmeal raisin cookies from our favorite Trader.
The cookies were so thin that the pretty much hard and dried out raisins tended to pop out of the cookie on their own leaving small holes in the cookie. Look in the bottom of the bag for the raisins. The cookies were crunchy, as most things toasted beyond tan tend to be. Now of course, even in their current condition, I ate them up, because any oatmeal raisin cookie is better than none. But if you prefer the softer thicker chewier kind of oatmeal raisin cookies, like I do, pass these up.
Price $3.99 (7 ounce bag)
Calories 130 per ounce (2 cookies)
Tags:calories, cookies, crispy, food, nutrition, oatmeal raisin, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
11/17/2017
November 17, 2017
Unexpected? You bet it was unexpected. After months of searching for this on the top shelf where all the other Cheddars live, I found this in with the Bries, Camemberts and who knows what else.
TJ says there’s a touch of Parmesan in the taste which makes this Cheddar unexpected. By my taste buds, I didn’t detect any Parmesan. And also by my taste buds, this doesn’t really taste like other Cheddars. But the taste of this cheese is very nice, having a touch of tanginess mixed with a touch of sweetness. The texture is similar to other TJ cheese blends, firm but tends to crumble when cutting. That’s not a negative, just an observation. In the mouth, there are a few bits of what seem like cheese crystals characteristic of an aged cheese. Whatever the blend of cheeses here, or whatever the process that went into making this, this is a nice cheese, perfect for enjoying by itself or even better with a glass of wine.
Price $3.99 per 7 ounce package
Calories 120 per ounce
Tags:calories, cheese, food, nutrition, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, trader joe's, unexpected cheddar
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 6 Comments »
11/05/2017
November 5, 2017
The first bad sign was the tear-off tab failing while trying to open the bag. I had to resort to a Kelly clamp to fix that. The second bad sign was the aroma of slightly burnt coffee beans coming from the bag. It should be difficult to burn a light-medium roast. The third bad sign was the aroma of almost tea coming from the cup. Or maybe it was bouillon? The fourth bad sign was the weak bitter coffee coming from the cup.
Well I’ve had worse and despite the four bad signs, the coffee is still drinkable. For those who prefer less body in a coffee, this one’s for you. This coffee reminds me of the recently reviewed Nicaraguan Coffee. Trader Joe does a really good job with their medium-dark roasts, so far the lighter roasts have generally been not as good.
And Boquete? Boquete is a small city in Panama in the western coffee growing region.
Price $8.99 (12 oz bag)
Tags:boquete, coffee, food, panama, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's, whole bean
Posted in coffee, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 2 Comments »
11/05/2017
November 5, 2017
Almost burnt pumpkin pie crust, that’s what these taste like. You know, no matter what we do, some part of that pumpkin pie crust is going to be burnt. Now I’m not talking about the stuff we buy from the store. That never seems to have burnt edges. I’m talking about the stuff that comes out of our oven. Whether it be a store-bought frozen pie cooked at home or a from-scratch homemade pie, once it gets in our oven there’s some part of that crust that’s going to be burnt. Wrap the edges with foil or stick a pin in a voodoo doll, some part of that crust is going to get burned. The oven makers must program that into their ovens. There’s no avoiding it.
These chips don’t taste like the absolutely burnt portions of crust, but like the almost burnt pieces next to the very burnt stuff. More specifically, it’s the parts of the crust where the filling overflows onto the edges. You know what those are. In fact, those pieces of crust are actually the pieces I break off and eat first. They sort of build anticipation for the rest of the pie with the pumpkin filling covered with whipped cream. Hmm, sounds like I know what I’m having for dessert tonight.
But enough about pumpkin pie. The first ingredient on the label of these chips is corn. So these are mostly corn tortilla chips with pumpkin puree used to add some pumpkin flavor. The back of the bag suggests these will hold up to any salsa. I have no reason to doubt that since they are very stiff chips. But it’s the taste of most salsas I question. It seems to me that what’s needed is a pumpkin pie dip/salsa to make these complete.
Price $1.99 – 7 ounce bag Calories 140/ounce (28g) (about 8 chips)
click images to enlarge
Tags:calories, chips, food, nutrition, price, pumpkin, review, snacks, tortilla chips, trader joe
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
11/05/2017
November 5, 2017
There’s plenty of chicken meat. But read carefully, this is dark leg meat. While perfectly tender, the dark chicken meat has a stronger flavor than chicken breast.
At only 150 calories per serving, this is surprisingly filling. At 3.5 servings per bag or 525 calories per bag, if you split the entire bag with another person that’s only 265 calories. For those few calories there are 31 grams of protein, which is a big chunk of the daily requirement for protein. Combine this with some steamed frozen vegetables and even a little butter or olive oil on the veggies and we’re looking at a filling meal at around 400 calories total. That’s not bad.
The teriyaki sauce is thin, sweetish, and soy sauce based. The sauce is hardly what is commonly called a BBQ sauce here. But the sauce imparts enough flavor to the chicken. The sauce will not cover the flavor of the leg meat. I didn’t find that to be a problem, so the preceding sentence was just a note for you. There are two packets of frozen sauce in the bag. I suppose you could only cook half the chicken in the bag using just one of the sauce packets, leaving the rest of the frozen chicken and the other sauce packet for another day. Cooking is no more than heating in the microwave. Coming out of the bag, the chicken looks like various shaped dark rocks. Some of those rocks are so big you may wonder if they came from turkey legs instead of chicken legs. These must be some big chickens.
Price $4.99 Calories 150 per serving (3.5 servings per bag)
Click on images to enlarge
Tags:bbq chicken teriyaki, calories, food, frozen entree, nutrition, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
10/29/2017
October 29, 2017
Herring, the adolescent sardine, what’s not to like? If you’ve ever avoided herring because, well it’s herring, this may change your mind. This herring comes packed in a not spicy curry sauce. The curry is a little sweet, and a little pineappley. The curry disguises very well whatever preconceived notion of taste you may have of herring. The herring itself comes as fillets with a nice firm texture. And no, the herring does not taste fishy. The herring also does not taste or look like any of that pickled stuff people bring out for New Year’s. If you were worrying about that, forget about it. On top of that it’s nutritious with: low carbs, relatively high protein and a more fun way to get some omega-3 than one of those gelatin oil filled capsules. This is an ALDI Oktoberfest perennial offering, so you won’t be seeing it on the shelves until either next September for Oktoberfest or possibly next May for Maifest.
Calories 100 per serving (4 servings per can)
Price $1.69 per can
click on images to enlarge
ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, calories, deutsche kuche, food, nutrition, pineapple curry herring, price, review, reviews, snacks
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 6 Comments »
10/29/2017
October 29, 2017
This is more of a note than a review. I use anchovies on homemade pizza. I should expand that to include anchovies in other things. Now that cooler weather is here, at least north of the equator, it’s oven season in our house.
I don’t believe Cento is unique to Trader Joe’s. So you’ll possibly find these elsewhere. But at Trader Joe’s they cost $1.49. That’s not bad since a larger supermarket usually prices anchovies around $2 per can. And they seem to be a staple at Trader Joe’s. You’ll most likely have to look for them on the bottom shelf where other canned fish are kept. That’s where I find them at my Trader Joe’s.
The anchovies themselves seem to be a little less salty than other brands I’ve tried. But that doesn’t hold them back from adding that anchovy pop to a pizza. Good stuff at a good price.
Calories 25 per 16 gram (about 2 servings per can) price $1.49 per can
Tags:calories, cento anchoives, food, nutrition, price, review, reviews, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
10/29/2017
October 29, 2017
For a not-cheese, this is not bad. It has a neutral taste and a thicker texture than a real mozzarella. While the product name stresses the soy content, it also contains milk protein and milk as parmesan cheese according to the label. The label does not specify what kind of enzymes were used for the parmesan. While mozzarella is a mild cheese, it still has a better taste and texture than this alternative.
On heating in the microwave, the aroma of parmesan is liberally released. It smells good. However the melted “cheese” does not retain the taste of parmesan. This cheese also does not melt as nicely as mozzarella in the microwave. It becomes somewhat puffy and hardens. There’s none of that stringy mozzarella texture. The cheese was not tested in stove top or oven recipes. When diced up for some salad, it added some texture to the salad, but not much in the way of flavor.
With milk as one of the ingredients and an unknown source for the parmesan enzymes (some enzymes are animal based), what’s the purpose of the cheese? For people who might be allergic to milk, it contains some milk components. For those looking for a vegetarian cheese, it’s not labeled as vegetarian. The cheese is labeled as 99% lactose free. So I guess for people who are extremely lactose intolerant, this may be an alternative. However many milk-based cheeses are naturally relatively low in lactose. So for those who can tolerate some lactose, a milk-based cheese may work for you also. Regardless, only you know what kinds of food you need to avoid or what foods work well for you. And of course, only you know what foods you like!
Calories 70 per ounce, price $1.99 (8 ounce package)
Tags:calories, cheese, food, mozzarella, nutrition, price, review, reviews, soy-based cheese, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 2 Comments »
10/25/2017
October 25, 2017
Well this is somewhat misleading. But it will be eaten nonetheless.
I’m a sucker for cheesecake. The picture on the box looked really good. The title was enticing. How could anyone resist the words chocolate truffle and cheesecake combined in one place? The price was more than right. And the everyday cheesecake at ALDI is pretty wonderful. So this would be one step beyond wonderful. Right? Not exactly. But, like the mushrooms that share the same name, this sort of grows on you.
Rather than a cheesecake this is more like a chocolate mousse (with horns) sitting on a thickish chocolate graham cracker “crust”. “With horns” in this context means thick and beefy mousse. If I didn’t have the box to read, I wouldn’t know this was a cheesecake, even one of those light fluffy cheesecakes. The chocolate flavor is neither sweet milk chocolate nor dark semi-sweet chocolate. It’s somewhere in the middle with an earthy tinge to it (like a real truffle?). The graham cracker crust is crunchy in the mouth. That provides an interesting textural contrast with the soft “cheesecake” topping it. Even though it doesn’t taste exceptionally sweet, I’m sure there’s a bunch of sugar in it.
(more…)
Tags:aldi, belmont, calories, chocolate truffle cheesecake, food, nutrition, price, review, reviews
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | Leave a Comment »
11/29/2017
Ain't Found A Good Title Blog 