The Trader Joe's Product Discussion Thread (S/D)

The folks and my (and Jenny and Jeff's) brand new local TJ are not quite as preternaturally gregarious as at others I've been to. Which is fine, just a little bit of a surprise. Still pretty friendly and helpful though, a stark contrast to the brain dead, gruff staff at my local non-chain store.

Bistro biscuits are great afternoon coffee cookies, if you're into that sort of thing.

Soy chorizo burrito is about as good as microwave burritos could possibly be. I actually like the chorizo in it much more than the kind they sell in the store.

Also like the Tofu Spring Rolls.

I have two exciting announcements:

(1) smoked sea salt (sure, it comes in a grinder, but it's cheap compared to the Maldon smoked sea salt I would have to order ON THE INTERNET) Excited about this
(2) floral pepper (also in a grinder, but you have to be kidding me -- pepper with flowers ground up in it? am i dreaming?!)

Both are tasty (I just tasted them plain, not on anything) and I'm pretty psyched to use them in dinners.

and lunches and breakfasts and let's be honest, straight from the container when i need a little boost of salt or pepper

oh shit, I saw those new grinders and thought they were ridiculous and ignored the salt since I hate salt grinders on principle but I didn't realize it was smoked. now I'll have to try it.

chocolate and coffee beans sounded interesting but I could just wash out an empty pepper grinder and try that myself.

I saw the smoked stuff the oth day!! Will try it soon. What kind of foods/dishes do you suggest for actually noticing the difference over other salts? On crudite with simple flavors so the salt can come through?

yes -- on simply cooked veggies
on simple whitefish or salmon with herbs
on salads
in olive oil dip for bread
shrimp
eggs
i could go on

also, i have a little salad kit at work with oil, vinegar, and salt/pepper grinders so that i don't have to bring anything to dress my salad, i can just throw some veggies in a container and eat it at work without much worry/fuss.

You're good, you make individual meals. I make one pot of something with the flavors all mixed together and eat it for 4 days. :) But maybe fancy salts will make me eat fresher!

Soy chorizo burrito is about as good as microwave burritos could possibly be. I actually like the chorizo in it much more than the kind they sell in the store.

i like soy chorizo more than i like most meat substitutes. and having recently looked at the ingredients of a package of real chorizo*, i'm willing to give up the authenticity of greasy animal guts for something less queasy-making.

*which, don't get me wrong, is delicious

ALSO I am now a fan of their little sampler of Spanish meats. The anchovies they sell at my TJs are pretty good too. Cento? I think? Their sardines are bad though.

ok i am getting some of this salt. they've had it at my local tj's for ages and i never realized it could be so great!

potatoes
greens
ratatouille or little individual vegetable pile-ups
might be gross or might be crazy good on watermelon?!

anything that adds a lot of flavor with little to no effort is worth trying in my book
it's also only $1.99 so it's not really much of a gamble, not like the half bag of scallops i lost to freezerburn ;_;

I make meals but I also make parts of meals and then assemble them in different ways. A crock-potted batch of black beans can yield a lot of different things. This salt would taste REALLY good in a pot of black beans, I think.

i bought the smoked sea salt.

also bought some fresh mozz, jarred pesto, "tuscan pane" bread -- thinking of adding roasted zucchini & tomato and making some crostini for dinner.

have been eating tons of the frozen wild coho salmon for the past 2 years and it's great and cheap but last week whole foods had fresh coho for 8.99/lb and omg the difference is insane. i will be sad when i have to go back.

I like the enormous bags of frozen chicken boobs and thighs. It's nice to have a couple around so I can make a huge basic curry, freeze it, then add various vegetables later.

i make very good "healthy" (yeah, i know) peanut butter and jelly sandwiches using tj's stuff. milton's multigrain bread, unsalted organic peanut butter, reduced-sugar preserves (apricot's my fav), maybe some sliced banana if i'm feeling elvis-ish.

bought a bag of the sweet potato corn chips & am proud of myself that i did not house the whole bag over last wkend

"trader ming's kung pao noodles & sauce" is sorta bad, but i expected it to be. everything i've bought from them that has come with an "asian" sauce has been bleh -- cloyingly sweet. i redeemed it by adding a little sriracha.

I am in luuuuuuuve with their individual frozen meals. Decided not to cook or buy groc for the last week b/c of heat and because I'm going away tomorrow, and their little pasta-with-spinach frozen bricks have been AWESOME.

I am a big fan of those for lunch. They are better tasting and more satisfying than your standard frozen dinners. I love the green chili chicken burritos, the Indian food options, the green chili chicken enchiladas, and there was a tofu and shitake mushroom one that's really good, too.

Their frozen meals (including burritos, etc.) are kind of expensive, aren't they? I cheap out when it comes to that stuff, which is dumb b/c I have no problem spending way more on equivalent take-out.

i mostly just get the frozen indian food, cuz they do that well. sometimes the frozen vegetables, if they're something that's not in season.

xp I don't think so. More expensive than cooking food yourself and freezing individual portions to eat through the week but way cheaper than takeout. Not as cheap as like $1 Marie Callendar garbage but I am okay with that.

Yeah I feel their frozen dinners aren't too bad, compared to takeout or something. Looking forward to the new one opening up two blocks from my office!

The ones I got were like $3 and $3.69 or something. That's cheap to me! The alternative is trying to buy food in Midtown, Manhattan, so I'm fine with three bucks.

the green chili chicken enchiladas

probably my all-time favorite of the tj's frozen items. admittedly i have not had a ton of them.

These here, right? http://heateatreview.com/2007/07/06/trader-joes-chicken-enchiladas-verde/

They are super delicious. Pro tip: bring leftover rice (from when you made rice and curry tuna the night before, perhaps) and use that to soak up the extra sauce.

tj's frozen edamame are way tastier (and of course cheaper) than the ones at my local organic grocery. i also buy lots of tj's frozen strawbs & bluebs for my wife and kid's smoothies. (never been much on smoothies, personally.) tho it does feel weird to buy frozen when berries are in season.

they were selling fresh rainier cherries at my local tj's for $3.99 a quart (which is unheard of), but it was only for like a week or two. now they're gone, but the season ended around early august anyway.

but they're the most delicious cherries: they're tart but also have a nectarinish quality.

mmmmm. i think all the cherries we get on the east coast are from michigan

finally got around to trying the tuna curry. holy shit, you guys weren't kidding!

they have the green curry tuna at the toluca lake tj's! i thought it was gone forever.

my lunch was one of their lentil wraps. i scarfed it down while waiting at the bus stop and spilled a little of the tahini sauce on my dress, giving me a lewinsky-like stain that i was embarrassed about on the ride home. i hope no one saw it.

If they did, they probably just thought you were a sloppy prostitute.

that's a relief.

chile spiced mango is :O

Okay the green curry tuna. Whoah.

vegetable masala burgers are A+

i am perplexed by the "seaweed snacks" -- i got the wasabi kind and i found that it was basically pieces of seaweed with wasabi powder on them.

pros:
tasty/zesty
would be excellent crumbled on rice with edamame, avocado, tofu, whatever else you like
would make an interesting base for a light appetizer so long as it would hold up
sort of satisfies the need to eat salty/crunchy snax

cons:
packaged with desciccant (ew)
is basically like 12 pieces of seaweed in a box in a bag
the crunch does not satisfy like a good chip or cracker would, or even a carrot

mixed feelings about the seaweed snacks

oh I saw those yesterday and that's just their version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nori

sanpaku advocates them as an alternative to snacking on chips since they are very low calories

but yeah they are expensive for what you get since it's real seaweed and we don't do a lot of seaweed harvesting in the US! you also kind of need the dessicants, it turns into a chewy rubbery mess if you let it sit outside for even a day.

fwiw nori will be much cheaper at just about any asian supermarket you go to, which could make it more economical. if you want to sprinkle it over rice or something you could try to get http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aonori in a shaker

right -- i think i'll get it at my asian market instead, if i ever buy it again. they are very low calories, but also i would not rate them high on the crunch satisfaction scale. cucumbers or celery or even a bunch of lettuce is crunchier than these things.

i have nori in a shaker (2 kinds!) and i love it. lunches are so easy and don't need to be refrigerated if you save up soy sauce packets from takeout.

oh wow apparently nori is really high in b12, relatively speaking. I wonder if vegans utilize this fact?

random nori trivia:
nori gets lumped in w/seaweed but it's in fact marine algae (i guess "seaweed" is more marketable than "algae"). is also high in iron for you vegans out there

Bought some of the smoked sea salt LL recommended and am enjoying it immensely.