Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
08/06/2017
Aug 6, 2017
This is pretty good stuff, but you might not think so as it cooks.
Straight from the freezer this is a mixture of the frozen gnocchi (small flour dumplings) and frozen flying-saucer-shaped chunks of sauce. Heating in the microwave is a two stage process. After heating for 4 minutes, the mixture needs a good stir. At this point you’ll wonder, what have I done wrong, as the sauce and gnocchi appear very watery. After stirring, put it back in the microwave for another 3 minutes and the magic happens. The second heating totally changes the appearance, by thickening up everything into a coherent whole. Pan heating instructions are also provided.
Throughout the cooking process the gnocchi retain their consistency. After heating they have a nice chewy texture in the mouth. The sauce thickens nicely thanks to the cheese in the sauce (that’s the magic). This allows the sauce to coat and cling to the gnocchi. The combination of the complex, but not over the top, sauce and chewy gnocchi works extremely well. A sprinkle of parmesan is always useful, but really not needed.
For us, the package yielded two modest servings working out to around 300 calories each. The package claims three servings. Even though our portions were only 300 calories, the gnocchi were very filling – and tasty.
Price $2.99 Calories 200 per serving (3 servings per carton)
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Tags:calories, food, frozen entree, gnocchi alla sorrentina, italian, nutrition, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 11 Comments »
08/06/2017
Aug 6, 2017
With cold, or at least cool, weather just around the corner, soup is in season. This is a surprisingly good soup for those kinds of days, or really any kind of day.
The broth for this soup is very nice. There’s a slight sweetness to the broth, but also a bit of rebellion from green onions. As you work your way to the bottom of the bowl, where the white and black pepper settle out, the broth becomes more adventuresome. The broth has a medium consistency.
The wontons (dumplings) in the soup contain a chicken-based filling. While not as flavorful as the broth, the wonton filling is still good with noticeable vegetables interspersed throughout. If you can manage to cut a wonton in half, letting some broth seep in, the filling is even better. The package contains a caution to, cook thoroughly. If I had to guess, the soup is not precooked. It took the full five minutes in the microwave to reach the required 165 degrees.
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Tags:calories, chicken vegetable wonton soup, chinese, food, frozen entree, nutrition, price, review, reviews, soup, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 4 Comments »
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 »
07/26/2017
July 26, 2017
The wine has a mild earthy and mildly strong aroma in the glass. The wine feels slightly dry in the mouth and is not fruity to the taste. It’s a little different flavor profile than experienced in the past from a California Cab, but still of the same genre. The second glass and thereafter has more of a California Cab experience. There’s nothing odd or off tasting. While mildly strong as a wine, the wine is also smooth to drink. This is a fairly good California Cab for people who might want to expand their tastes in that direction or for people who just want to chill after a hard day’s work without challenging themselves too much. The wine works well as a sipper. It didn’t pair well with some cheddar cheese. It paired much better with some mildly spicy Indian food, and some not so spicy Chinese garlic chicken. It was a matter of having enough food in the mouth to stand up to the wine.
The wine seems to be generally available at other outlets for a similar price, sometimes even a little less and sometimes a little more. The wine receives average to slightly above average reviews by others. Price $8.99.
Tags:2014, Bogle Cabernet Sauvignon, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, trader joe's, wine
Posted in Trader Joe's, Wine | Leave a Comment »
07/04/2017
July 4, 2017
Normally I limit my food reviews to ALDI and Trader Joe’s products which have a national presence as opposed to many supermarket chains which are more regional in nature. However I’ve recently discovered these in the “plant-based protein” freezer at Target and was impressed with them. So here’s a review. If there’s a Target near you with a grocery section, you might want to check these out.
As noted above, I like these. Unlike many frozen burrito products which seem to lack texture and flavor, these have both. There are several types of Sweet Earth burritos which vary slightly by ingredients and spices. All are reasonably good, but this one stands out because it is the most flavorful and has a bit of a kick to it. Those are two things I like.
The product is labeled as vegan and “Non GMO Project Verified.” As a meat substitute it has 19g of protein – not bad. Most likely due to being wrapped in a flour tortilla, carbohydrates are moderately high at 45g. It’s surprisingly filling and long-lasting at only 320 calories each.
Calories 320 per burrito (1 serving, 198g) – Price $2.99, $2.50 on sale
Tags:burrito, calories, curry, food, nutrition, price, review, reviews, sweet earth, target, vegan
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Vegetarian | 2 Comments »
07/04/2017
July 4, 2017
This is not a great eggplant parmigiana, but a pretty good eggplant as an eggplant.
This is another one of the seemingly endless variations of Trader Joe’s “eggplant with tomato sauce and melted cheese” products. This one features eggplant which are “grilled”. Now I suspect the grilling was done on one of those industrial strength machines that moves a conveyor belt of eggplant slices through some kind of flame. But the pieces had grill marks on them, so who are we to quibble about the method.
While I usually have no patience for waiting on an oven to cook these kinds of entrees, this time I followed the oven directions. Instead of large slices of eggplant, these are actually smaller pieces of a slice. That makes it somewhat easier to eat without needing a knife to cut through the usual slices. The tomato sauce was not very flavorful. Much of the mozzarella seemed to have melted into the sauce instead of forming a nice cover for the eggplant. The result was a somewhat watery tomato/cheese sauce without much flavor intermixed with a few small islands of melted cheese. As a parmigiana, it was disappointing.
However as just eggplant, the eggplant was pretty good. The best bits and tastiest, were those with the skin on – more flavor and more chew. The pieces without skin we’re still tasty, but no as much. Being grilled, there was no breading on the eggplant as is often done with fried eggplant slices. Overall I liked this, but not because it was a good eggplant parmigiana, but because it was good eggplant.
Price ??? (lost receipt) Calories 270 per container (1 serving)
Tags:calories, eggplant parmigiana, food, frozen entree, italian, nutrition, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Posted in Recipes, food, cooking and related items, Trader Joe's | 5 Comments »
06/20/2017
June 20, 2017
This is the first item I’ve ever seen marked down at Trader Joe’s. But that’s not why I picked it up. I picked it up because an Amancay red I had a few weeks ago was an okay and interesting wine. This purchase didn’t fare as well.
The wine has a clear pale yellow color. There’s a brief fruity aroma on first opening which soon disappears. In the mouth the wine is earthy and tart with something of the taste of concentrated unripe green grapes. The wine worked surprisingly well with an anchovy pizza. The wine balanced the strong tastes from the pizza, especially the saltiness from the anchovy. The pizza balanced out the acidity from the wine.
This is not a white wine for me. It’s too harsh. The wine is better with food than by itself, especially stronger tasting foods. Chilling helps the wine some. A few days in the refrigerator sealed after opening seemed to help the wine mellow some. Balancing out the negatives is the very low price (marked down). Price $3.99.
Tags:2014, amancay, argentina, price, review, reviews, tj, tj's, torrontes, trader joe's, white wine
Posted in Trader Joe's, Wine | Leave a Comment »
05/31/2017
May 31, 2017
Garlicky, salty, crunchy, edgy and 89 cents every day – what more could you want? Add a little zest to your salads or just grab a few straight from the bag to snack on, they’re pretty good. Personally, I do both. Other, milder, flavors are available. But the best part is they’re 89 cents every day, meaning there’s no need to wait for a sale.
Calories 30 per 2 Tbsp (7g) Price 89 cents per 5 ounce bag
click on images to enlarge
ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, caesar, calories, croutons, food, price, review, reviews, tuscan garden
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | Leave a Comment »
05/31/2017
May 31, 2017
If you need a guacamole fix, these are unlikely to satisfy. As a chip, they’re okay and in some ways sort of a mild Doritos.
Rather than have the flavor sprinkled on as an afterthought, these chips seem to have the flavor “baked” into the flour of the tortilla. In addition there’s still the traditional sprinkle of seasoning coating the chips. There’s a faint hint of guacamole in the flavor. As a flavored chip, the flavor is not objectionable. These, or at least this bag, do not taste overly salty. And like almost any chip, you’re likely to eat many more of these than you should.
I suspect these are a seasonal item. Although they showed up well after Cinco De Mayo, which one would think is the appropriate time? For me, a regular tortilla chip dipped in some real guacamole is the way to go.
Calories 140 per ounce (28g, about 11 chips) Price $1.99 per 12 ounce bag
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ALDI customer contact URL – https://www.aldi.us/en/contact-us/
Tags:aldi, calories, clancy's, food, guacamole tortilla chips, price, review, reviews, snacks
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | Leave a Comment »
05/20/2017
May 20, 2017
In a seemingly endless number of nutty snack bars, here’s one more. To the possible delight of many readers, if this one becomes a permanent resident on the ALDI shelves, this bar seems to be a variation of the very popular but short-lived Simple Nut Bar.
Without having a Simple Nut Bar present for a side-by-side comparison, this Roasted Nut Bar seems very similar. From memory, my preference would be the Simple Nut Bar. But I could easily live with this one. Like the Simple Nut Bar, this one is mostly nuts. Comparing the back of the boxes (see Simple Nut Bar box here), the ingredients are very similar. Both are products of Canada. That leads me to believe these are produced by the same company and are just variations of the product formula.
There’s a minimal amount of sticky binder to hold all the nuts together (almonds, peanuts and sunflower seeds). If you’re looking for sweet, or chocolate, this is not for you. As the bar is mostly nuts, it is hard and crunchy. For a snack food, this has a reasonably good nutrition mix. Of course, being mostly nuts, a high percent of the calories come from fat (most likely the nut oils). Carbohydrates are lower than many other snack bars. While not a high power protein bar, these do have an okay 6 g of protein. Calories 180 per bar Price $2.79 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, food, millville, nutrition, price, review, reviews, roasted nut bar, snacks
Posted in ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items | 2 Comments »
Aug 6, 2017
For us, the package yielded two modest servings working out to around 300 calories each. The package claims three servings. Even though our portions were only 300 calories, the gnocchi were very filling – and tasty.
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