12/09/2017 by steveo
December 9, 2017
ALDI has some surprisingly good chocolates. This is one of them. Without saying another word about these, they are really really good.
If you’re on a budget pick up one of these as a holiday present for your kid’s teacher. If you’re not on a budget, get two. They’re worth half a grade point on the kid’s next report card. Cheaper than a tutor!
Price $3.99 per box
Calories 190 per 3 piece serving (16 pieces in the box)
click on images to enlarge
ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags: aldi, calories, candy, chocolate truffles, confection, food, moser roth chocolate, nutrition, price, review
Posted in ALDI, cooking and related items, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 5 Comments »
12/09/2017 by steveo
December 9, 2017
The box says, ‘with 11 vegetables’. How do they fit them all in a 4 inch diameter circle?
One good thing, you can actually see the little veggies in the circle. Being that the veggies are of a size that makes them visible, the burgers tend to fall apart if handled too much while cooking. Like many veggie burgers, the flavor of these is on the bland side. I saw the word chipotle through the glass freezer case, but somehow when I got home they had changed to just plain veggie burgers. I’ll look twice the next time.
Along with the bland flavor, these tend to dry out while cooking in the microwave. Both problems can be overcome with the use of condiments. For my purposes I topped with a spoonful or two of pickle relish which added a little flavor pop and also some needed moisture. Problems solved.
While comparable to other veggie burgers on the market in texture and taste, these are also labeled ‘certified vegan’. What’s also nice is they’re in the ALDI freezer case, meaning you won’t have to go elsewhere looking for a vegan veggie burger. Now the potential downside is, I don’t know if these are a special item which will soon disappear or whether they’ll be a regular item in the freezer case.
Calories 90 per burger – 4 servings per container (10 oz. total – 284g)
Price $2.49 per box
click on images to enlarge
ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags: aldi, calories, earth grown, food, nutrition, price, review, vegan, vegetable burger, vegetarian, veggie burger
Posted in ALDI, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Vegetarian | 10 Comments »
12/02/2017 by steveo
December 2, 2017
Well this is another experiment in spending an extra couple of dollars for an older red wine. The general principle being tested here is that red wines improve with age. With most of the inexpensive red wines on the shelves being sold at around the two to three year mark, does another couple of years aging make an inexpensive wine better?
At five years this wine is decidedly better than most of those other two to three year olds. The wine has had time to blend itself together into more of a whole. The wine is generally smoother than a younger wine, with less rough edges. What does that mean? Consider a new t-shirt, put it on straight out of the package and it feels stiff and rough. Wear it for a while and put that t-shirt through a couple of washes and it gets softer and cozier.
This wine is relatively cozy. There are less of those little sharp edges. There are still a few, so maybe another two or so years in the bottle will make the wine cozier still.
Just because age tends to make the wine cozier, doesn’t mean the basic characteristics of the wine have changed. After all, a blue t-shirt is still going to be blue after a few cycles. This is a strong wine, very much like a strong Cab, even though the grapes are 100% Tempranillo. In fact rather than a nice mellow blue, this is more of an in-your-face red, a red that doesn’t fade in the wash. So buyer beware, there’s lots of character in this wine. If you’d like to see how the various styles of Rioja wine compare, check out this. If you like a strong California Cab this may well be the best $10 “California Cab” you’ll ever buy. In general, the wine gets a little above average reviews on the web, 3.5 out of 5, with a few nods to the relative value of the wine (quality/price). Price of $9.99
Tags: mindiarte, price, red wine, reserva, review, reviews, rioja, Spain, tempranillo, tj, tj's, trader joe's, wine
Posted in Trader Joe's, Wine | Leave a Comment »
12/02/2017 by steveo
December 2, 2017
The corn is there. The dog is almost there. This dog will hunt.
I’m always on the lookout for a veggie meat substitute. More specifically, I’m always looking for a good veggie meat substitute. The best I’ve found so far is Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo. These veggie corn dogs aren’t quite up to that standard. But still, they’re pretty good. What’s better than that is, they’re pretty good veggie “junk” food.
The texture of the dog is just about right. Even the color is about right. The taste is more of a neutral taste than a real hot dog. The fatty moisture from a real hot dog is obviously missing. However as long as it’s not overcooked, the dog remains fairly moist. Watch the time in the microwave, just a little too much time (even just 10 or 15 seconds) dries out both the dog and the corn.
Overall, just like a real corn dog, the corn bread makes up around half of the taste and texture. The veggie dog in the center adds some flavor and texture, but more importantly does not take much away in the form of negatives.
These are slightly smaller than a standard corn dog and missing the animal fat, so the calories are lower. Unfortunately, the sodium content is relatively high just like a real corn dog. They’re labelled as meatless and veggie, but not vegetarian. So check the ingredient label to make sure this conforms to your personal vegetarian standards.
Price $2.99 (4 veggie corn dogs, 10 ounces )
Calories 160 per veggie corn dog
Tags: calories, corn dogs, food, nutrition, price, review, snacks, tj, tj's, trader joe's, vegetarian, veggie
Posted in food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's, Vegetarian | 4 Comments »
11/29/2017 by steveo
Stone to sand
Sand to soil
Soil to stem
Stem to stunning
To see other transformations, click here.
Tags: GIMP, image manipulation, photography, photos, postaday, postaweek, transformation, weekly photo challenge
Posted in Photos | 2 Comments »
11/29/2017 by steveo
11/29/2017
The coffee is not bad, bearable and actually fairly good. There’s some bitterness in the cup, but not enough to stop drinking. The bitterness subsides as the coffee cools. The coffee has a decent body for a medium roast. On the scale of coffee goodness, this one falls above a McDonald’s or Denny’s coffee and below most Trader Joe’s offerings. The coffee is entirely drinkable black, which is how I review all coffees.
I picked this up because Trader Joe’s Honduran coffee is one of the better coffees I’ve reviewed. This isn’t as good, but still fairly good, especially for the price. Coffee plants just might have a thing for Honduras.
If you’re on a budget or just happen to be close to an ALDI when you find your cupboard bare of coffee, this one just might be good for you. The coffee is labelled fair trade and organic, so it may be good for the farmers and environment also. Price $4.79
Tags: aldi, coffee, fair trade, food, Honduras, organic, price, review, whole bean
Posted in ALDI, coffee, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 5 Comments »
11/29/2017 by steveo
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
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 by steveo
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 »
December 9, 2017
Ain't Found A Good Title Blog 