Archive for the ‘Recipes, food, cooking and related items’ Category
10/25/2017
October 25, 2017
This is not a very sweet tasting bar, but that’s part of the appeal. There’s a nice undercurrent of sour cherries and dark chocolate. Oats are oats. The oats in this bar are a little tough and tasteless, as they are in most of these types of bars. But the cherry and chocolate let this bar stand out above the rest. If you’re ever in the Black Forest or even the Eifel Forest take a few of these alone.
I suspect these were part of ALDI’s Oktoberfest. So they may not be around again until next Oktoberfest or next spring for Maifest.
Calories 130 per bar
Price $2.69 per box (8 bars in a box)
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ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, black forest cake, calories, dark chocolate cherry, deutsche kuche, food, granola bar, nutrition, price, review, reviews, snacks, trail mix
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 2 Comments »
10/16/2017
October 16, 2017
A cheddar with hints of an aged Gouda? This is a fine tasting, slightly crumbly, but still creamy in the mouth, cheese. While the length of aging of this cheese is not specified on the label, it’s just on the verge of developing those cheese crystals like an aged Gouda. This is a “mature” tasting cheddar, meaning it’s not a mild cheddar. But it’s also not a sharp cheddar. It’s an extremely nice and enjoyable cheese.
Collier’s refers to Welsh miners, called Colliers (think “coal ers”). The miners used to take this cheese down in the mines for lunch. And for an interesting movie, based on real events in 1984, explaining how these same miners found common cause with a seemingly unlikely group, try Pride (2014) while you snack on the cheese.
Price $7.99 per pound Calories 120 per ounce (28g)
Tags:calories, cheddar, cheese, Colliers Welsh, food, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 3 Comments »
10/16/2017
October 16, 2017
This coffee is somewhat: weak, bitter and bad tasting. The negatives go away some on cooling to a slightly sour taste. While not especially good for a Trader Joe coffee, this is still likely better than some coffees at other supermarkets for the same price. While taste is a personal preference, and some people may like this coffee more than other coffees, there are better coffees at Trader Joe’s for the same price or less.
The coffee is labeled as organic. The coffee is packaged in a tall, thin bag which makes it somewhat difficult to get the coffee out, especially near the bottom of the bag.
And if you look at the label this is a “honey processed” coffee. I guess some things don’t change no matter where people live. “Oh honey! Can you go process some coffee for me. And, take out the trash.”
Price $8.99 (12 ounce bag)
For another take on this coffee, try Become Betty here.
Tags:coffee, food, Nicaraguan, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's, whole bean
Posted in coffee, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 5 Comments »
10/03/2017
October 3, 2017
Oats, nuts, fruit loosely held together by a mildly sweet syrup. This is not a hard granola bar. In fact it will bend and start to break apart just getting it out of the package. There’s just enough syrupy binder to hold everything together. As a result, this is not a very sweet bar. If you’re looking to avoid something so sweet that your teeth start to hurt, you may like this. The other benefit is your fingers don’t feel like they’re covered with super glue. The mixture of ingredients in the bar should also help slowly feed energy to your body as the bar is digested. That will help to avoid an immediate sugar high. The fruit and nuts in the bar are more enjoyable than the oats in the bar. That’s to be expected. The chocolate was mostly hiding in my bars.
On the trail, the 140 calories in the bar should be good for about 1.5 to 2 miles down a relatively flat trail at a moderate pace. Off the trail, as a snack, that’s how far you’ll need to walk to burn off the calories. Did I just ruin your day?
Calories 140 per bar
Price $1.79 per box (6 bars in a box)
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ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, calories, dark chocolate cherry, food, granola bar, millville, nutrition, price, review, reviews, snacks, trail mix
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 1 Comment »
09/23/2017
September 23, 2017
Since espresso is a method of making coffee and not a particular coffee bean, the name is slightly misleading. However, since most coffees, including this one, can be used in espresso machines, we won’t quibble. And since I don’t have an espresso machine, this coffee was prepared by my usual French press method.
Typically coffee beans meant for espresso machines are dark roasted. This coffee fits in the Trader Joe’s medium-dark roast category (labeled dark roast on the can). It produced a nice cup of coffee in my press. It was largely indistinguishable from my everyday Tarrazu drinker. Perhaps it was a little more bitter. Regardless, it should work nicely in an espresso machine if that’s your preference.
For the extra two dollars per can over the Tarrazu, what are we getting? This coffee is labeled both organic and fair trade. That could be one reason to spend the extra two dollars. As for the word espresso on the can, it’s your decision whether this will produce a better espresso shot than your current coffee. Price $8.99 (13 ounce can)
Tags:coffee, fair trade, five country espresso blend, food, organic, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's, whole bean coffee
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
09/23/2017
September 23, 2017
I didn’t know cheese ate grass? This is a grass-fed sharp cheddar cheese from New Zealand.
While the package says aged 6-12 months, I suspect my package was aged at the low-end of this range. The cheddar was not very sharp at all. The cheese was dense and semi-soft with no crumbling while being cut. There was a mild cheddar flavor and sharpness to the cheese.
At $6 per pound this is a good cheese, but nothing special. The price is right for using this as you would any other mild cheddar that fills the refrigerator cases in most supermarkets. But the good news is, once it’s wrapped for sale, it no longer needs to be fed grass!
Price $5.99 per pound Calories 120 per ounce.
Tags:calories, cheese, food, new zealand, nutrition, price, review, reviews, sharp cheddar, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 2 Comments »
09/06/2017
September 6, 2017
Looking for love in all the wrong places. Yep, just like the song says, that’s what I was doing. But wait, no, no, no, not that kind of love. And, . . . not that kind of love either. I was looking for the love of a sharp cheddar. Don’t anyone urban dictionary that. And if you do, don’t tell me what it means. Please don’t.
This cheese is a mixture of English aged cheddar and sriracha sauce. And that aging of at least 8 months, according to the label, is one of the factors that helps produce sharpness in a cheddar. But the sriracha is the thing that puts this over the top. Here the addition of sriracha is more than a marketing gimmick. The sriracha is actually noticeable and good. Mixing in the sriracha sauce gives the cheese a looser, more crumbly, texture. There’s a nice contrast between the noticeable, but still not extreme, hotness of the sriracha and the smooth creamy feel of the cheese as it warms in the mouth. As those two factors meld together, the sriracha starts to take over producing a sharp finish as it all exits the mouth and starts down the throat. It’s a different kind of sharpness than a 100% cheddar. Still, it’s a nice flavor and experience.
This is the third or fourth cheddar mixture I’ve tried at Trader Joe’s. All of them, including this one, have been winners.
Price $8.99 per pound Calories 100 per ounce
Tags:calories, cheese, food, price, review, reviews, sharp cheddar, sriracha english cheddar, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
08/28/2017
August 28, 2017
These are wonderful biscotti.
There’s a nice chocolate coating on the bottom edge of each biscotti. As the coating is sometimes a little uneven from end to the other end, there can be a slightly different experience with each bite. When the proportion of chocolate in the mouth is right, there’s a nice contrast between the semi-sweet chocolate and the mildly sweet almond flavor of the biscotti. When the proportion of chocolate is less, the almond flavor takes over and provides just as an enjoyable experience. Along with the plentiful almond flavor are slivers of almond laced throughout the biscotti. These are a crunchy biscotti.
These are a nice accompaniment to coffee or just as nice by themselves. However, at 120 calories each, it’s not something that can be readily indulged in. So if you can, I couldn’t, ration yourself to one a day, and thoroughly enjoy the experience.
Price $3.99 per package of 8 Calories 120 per biscotti
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Tags:calories, chocolate almond biscotti, cookie, food, nutrition, price, review, trader joe
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 2 Comments »
08/28/2017
August 28, 2017
The package says, “with just a hint of anise”, but for me that was the whole story. This is more like anise toast than almond biscotti. For anise toast, it was fairly good. There was a nice and proportionally strong anise flavor to the biscotti. The biscotti were firm, but still a little soft and not very crumbly. There were small pieces of nuts occasionally sprinkled throughout the biscotti. The package says almond and walnuts. But there was very little almond flavor to match the package label. So maybe the wrong biscotti got in the wrong box, or something like that?
Calories 90 per biscotti Price $2.89 per package of 8
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ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, almond biscotti, calories, food, nutrition, price, review, reviews, specially selected
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | Leave a Comment »
08/28/2017
August 28, 2017
With a fair amount of heat, but missing most of the different flavors of Indian cuisine, this is just an “okay” chicken tikka masala.
The heat in this product starts out mild and builds up to a medium-hot heat on the back of the tongue. While the heat level is good for people liking heat, many of the traditional flavors of Indian food are missing. The sauce has a medium tomato flavor with plenty of small pieces of tomato. Along with the tomato are ample amounts of tender chicken pieces.
The rice is the biggest disappointment. The rice cooked up rubbery, maybe indicating some over cooking after 6 minutes in the microwave. However after 6 minutes the sauce and chicken were merely very warm. While the rice is labeled basmati, the flavor was different, but not better, than the basmati I’m used to. There was a very mild heat to the rice.
There are better frozen chicken tikka masala products out there. If you’re in a pinch, or don’t have access to other sources, this will do – but not more.
Calories 370 per container Price $2.99 per carton
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ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, calories, chicken tikka masala, food, journey to india, nutrition, price, review, reviews
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 3 Comments »
October 25, 2017
Ain't Found A Good Title Blog 