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

Steaks ime don't know about hamburger meat/roasts

I've bought those pre-cooked (heat and eat) rice bags before, which is silly because you're probably paying like 4x as much per oz, but they're kind of convenient for work or for nights where you say "oh shit, forgot to start the rice"

I do homemade pre-cooked, frozen rice. It's nice having rice at the ready any time, with no cookware to clean up. The only time I eat rice that I just made is when I'm fixing a big batch to freeze. Now that I'm thinking about it, virtually all of the cooking I do these days is making my own convenience foods. Or doctoring up store-bought convenience foods.

you're our very own sandra lee!

actual laughs

tell us about yr tablescapes

The cats sit on it and leave their asshole stamps, nothing fancy.

Lime fruit floes are p great, but not as good as carribean. Guy at store told me they discontinued chili mango for good :-/

No flower pepper OR smoked salt at the uptown TJ's I went to on Monday. Bought the pink salt instead but my hopes are not so high.

OH GOD

they have these little shortbread cookies with the stella d'oro style chocolate button in the center. yowza they're good.

listen y'all
i am desperate for flower pepper
if any of you see it at your TJs, i will buy it from you (and compensate you for shipping) OR send you something in return (if you desire)

lately i've been wondering what flower pepper would taste like on vanilla ice cream but i have like 2 tablespoons left and don't want to waste it

I will keep an eye out

This tomato basil marinara is not that great!

I will keep an eye out
:D thank you!!

"This tomato basil marinara is not that great!"

which do you guys think is the best out of the $1.99 class of TJ sauces?

That's a good question. I remember not loving the roasted garlic either. They just taste like cheap jarred sauce

i've never really liked any of the sauces i've had from there except the spicy one w/ some name i can't remember... it starts with an "a". it's kinda chunky, very good.

arriabata

yes

i was thinking ariancata but i knew that wasn't it

I liked the garlic sauce but I am also a disgusting savage who likes sweet tomato sauces

The one by me now sells these "heirloom tomato" boxes that might be a local thing, b/c it says the tomatoes are from pennsylvania. Anyway, they're really good - you get a wide variety of large and small tomatoes of various varieties and the quality is comparable to what you get at my farmers market. But the weird thing is that they're kind of stuffed into this box, and the box has openings, so it's really easy to just take tomatoes from other box and add them to your box if there's room (it's one price per box). At first I felt like this was wrong somehow, but then I thought "Wait, how do I know someone didn't already take tomatoes out of MY box? Maybe I'm getting gypped!"

Oh btw in re sauces the best one is the Robusto, but I don't know if they still have it. Protip for buying tomato sauces: pick the one with the lowest sugar content.

;_;

Was going to correct you about "gypped" but felt like I could be walking into a racist Roma (tomato) situation

I usually go with the highest fat content; will also try low sugar!

Their new 'coconut chips' are perfect
the ultimate sweet toothin' it snack for me
otoh it's $2 for a little bag I'll inhale in 10 mins
maybe a quarterly treat

thumbs down on the Wild Arugula salad bags, they go bad waay before the date

thumbs up on Banana Bread mix, light and banana-y not too sweet

I'm intrigued re: flower pepper now

btw TJ's is recalling all its Valencia peanut/almond butters: http://www.traderjoes.com/about/customer-updates-responses.asp?i=86

I bought like 5 PBs during the peanut shortage last year so I am preparing myself for some serious sideeye when I return them all

Argh, that's my peanut butter!

I have an open one in the fridge right now and another two in the cabinet. Guess I'm not sick yet, at least.

A friend claims to have been sick all year, mysteriously, and is willing to pin it on the peanut butter. I wouldn't take my chances, personally.

oh for sure I'm taking them back for a refund. Fuck, the other day we were just saying how maybe the baby would like peanut butter. Luckily we had the crunchy kind in the house so we weren't going to give her any.

Imma look for the pepper and salt varieties at other locations, too, because where I was on Monday was out of like half of the inventory. They actually had signs up across the entire produce refrig case saying, "Please forgive us, we're restocking," and it was completely empty.

that peanut butter mnfctr just sent out a huge ADDENDUM to the recall list... it's scary (and not just TJs)

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2012/10/peanut_butter_recall_expands_t.php

Sunland Onion Parsley Peanut Butter

What the hell...

shelf stable small container of whipping cream -- YES
got one of these today, it's gonna be baked goods time this week!!

I've definitely polished off at least 5 jars of TJ's peanut butter within the last year : (

Isn't it a salmonella outbreak? If so, you haven't been ill so dr. mh rates you a-ok

who knows what low-level havoc the disease hath wrought

wow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

iirc salmonella does high-level havoc, then typically is gone within a few days

woah
xpost

I asked my checkout guy today about the fallout from the peanut thing, and he said that there have been a steady stream of returns, but not much outright hysteria. I was a little disappointed, but maybe he just didn't want to dish about customers. I guess that's the right thing to do.

if he showed any signs of not being completely happy they would have to fire him on the spot

pretty sure it was salmonella I got sick with one time, would not recommend

hey guy i saw that you furrowed your brow briefly, mind if we have a chat in the stockroom

of possible interest if you want to avoid salmonella poisoning: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11880766