Archive for the ‘food’ Category
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
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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 »
08/03/2017
Honestly, I picked these up just to see what they were. Popcorn chips, how could that be? That’s making a snack food out of a snack food. It ain’t right.
If you’ve ever had mini rice cakes, these are very close to that experience. The “chips” are airy in texture and dry in the mouth. There’s just a hint of salt and sweet for flavor. Aside from that, there’s not much to these – except some calories. And as much as these are unexceptional, the whole bag disappeared within a couple of hours. That’s what a snack food is.
Price $1.99 (4.5 ounce bag)
Calories 110 per ounce (28g, about 17 chips)
Tags:calories, food, nutrition, popcorn chips, price, review, snack, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
08/03/2017
August 3, 2017
This might have been the first Trader Joe coffee that made it to the trash bin before the can was empty. Right now I’m salvaging the coffee by grinding it 50/50 with my everyday Tarrazu coffee.
In the grinder there’s a beautiful aroma when the beans are freshly ground. If only that could transfer to the brewed coffee. Once brewed and in the cup, the beans turned into a very bitter cup of coffee. If bitter is what you’re looking for in a cup of coffee, this one’s for you. That experience isn’t for me. A shot of Irish cream or half-and-half subdued the bitterness to tolerable levels. But even then, there was still something about the coffee that wasn’t fully enjoyable.
As for the low acid claim on the label, without using a pH meter, we’ll just have to trust Trader Joe. I did not feel any burn at the back of the throat or have any acid reflux problems afterwards. Your reaction may be different.
The coffee beans are smaller than most. From the color and the small amount of oil on the beans, these are on the light side of a dark roast. There is no country or region of origin stated for the beans. The beans are labeled 100% Arabica, as are around 80% of coffee beans overall. Price $7.99 (13 ounce can)
Tags:coffee, food, low acid french roast, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in coffee, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
07/26/2017
July 26, 2017
Trade wars be damned, this is some really good cheese. So before the great northern wall is built, get some of this. If not, you’ll be making trips up to the wall under cover of darkness to catch packages of cheese wrapped in duct tape being thrown over. Or Monty Python might be channeled catapulting whole cows north to south, the cheese curdling and aging in flight. Don’t worry Canada, the cows will be quickly deported! Street graffiti artists, please hold your enthusiasm.
Wisconsin cheeseheads stand on guard (oops!). There’s some real competition coming south. Have the secret cheese recipes been hacked? Stop any bulls going north. That lovely smiling red-headed heifer waving her tail over the border is a trap. Keep the DNA in the USA!
And how is the cheese itself? It’s perhaps the best pure cheddar in the TJ refrigerator case. It has a great taste and mouthfeel. It’s sharp, but not pointy. It’s just on the verge of being crumbly. A few Gouda-like cheese crystals are spread throughout. Or maybe that was one of my fillings starting to break up? According to the label it’s aged two years. That two-year aging accounts for all the good stuff in the cheese. It’s also how often my dentist keeps refilling that tooth. Hmmm?
Calories 120 per ounce, price $8.99 per pound
Heifer photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, here. Author: Black Angus Girl
Tags:calories, Canadian cheese, cheese, extra-sharp-cheddar, food, nutrition, parody, price, review, reviews, satire, trader joe's
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 3 Comments »
07/14/2017
July 14, 2017
Musical beans? That’s what they are. Whether scooping these out from the bag, or dropping them into the measuring glass, or even in the grinder, these beans had a clear almost bell-like ring to them. That’s very interesting and something either not noticed or not experienced in the past with any coffee beans. And in the cup, that smooth mellow music continues.
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Tags:coffee, ecuador, food, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's, vilcabamba
Posted in coffee, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | Leave a Comment »
October 3, 2017
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?
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