Favorite Item from Trader Joe's?

[Addie]

Where I do my grocery shopping is a brand new shopping mall. They tore down the old one completely. Didn't even leave one brick. Now it is a beautiful place to shop. Each month I go there I notice a new store has been added. And yesterday I saw a TJ store. Not open yet, but will be by the time I go shopping the next time.

I like the way they are now building shopping malls. No more inside spaces where teenagers can hang out. And any food stores are separate from other stores. They also are attracting higher end stores. Not the shops teenagers would be interested. There are no little boutiques that sell earrings and necklaces that somebody with a demented mind put together. The only drawback is that here in the Northeast, in the winter you have to go outside to go from store to store. They have wide open spaces and parking areas. The wind blows like you are in the North Pole. Of course by the time you have finished with the last store you are going to visit, you are so far away from your car, that you now have a walk from hell to get to it. And you are carrying a bunch of bundles. So much fun!

 

[roadfix]

And every single one of them is crowded and you can't get through the aisles with your cart and the lines are long....

The new TJ's on Vine St in Hollywood has the widest isles with a huge parking garage beneath it. It's almost as big as a regular supermarket and it's just over the hill from where you are.

I don't feel guilty for living in a town with 50 TJ's. Other regions have other nice things we don't have, like snow in winter and cheaper cost of living.

 

[mollyanne]

I tasted a store sample of a new item Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie that was like a sandwich cookie using two Pecan Sandie's (but hazelnuts) with a chocolate-hazlenut icing filling that was a little chewy like caramel....in fact caramel may have been in it too. It was the best store-bought cookie I ever tasted.

Then I found the Holy Grail of the cracker world, Raisin Rosemary Crisps...a sweet and savory cracker with lots of healthy ingredients (sunflower seeds, raisins, flax seed, millet, rosemary, and unbleached wheat flour). Very crispy and tasty, VERY.

Have you tasted their 3 Layer Hummus? Traditional hummus, Roasted-Red-Pepper hummus, and Cilantro hummus. Looked good but I'm a little sketchy about cilantro. I opted for their Organic Traditional hummus which was really good.

 

[salt and pepper]

Peanut butter RECALL , Trader Joe's inclueded

 

[Barbara]

The new TJ's on Vine St in Hollywood has the widest isles with a huge parking garage beneath it. It's almost as big as a regular supermarket and it's just over the hill from where you are.

I don't feel guilty for living in a town with 50 TJ's. Other regions have other nice things we don't have, like snow in winter and cheaper cost of living.

I time when I go to TJ's in my area, underparked and narrow isles. It is a little better since remodel, but still very crowded. Whittier area. I dont know how the Hallmark store that sits next to them survives. We had three of our grandkids over the weekend and I pretty much fed them all TJ's food. Pizza, string cheese, hummas, banana bread, mac & cheese, oatmeal cookies, burgers and fries.

I am still exhausted!

 

[4meandthem]

We just tried the pumpkin waffle/pancake mix and it was great, They were also serving samples of pumpkin coffee cake mix with pumpkin cream cheese and candied pecans on top.That was so good we got a couple of boxes along with the other ingredients.

I also am in love with Trader Giotto's Gorganzola. I keep buying it for recipes and wind up eating it all plain.

The Saproseta Salami is really good.

Spiced cider is back so I stocked up that.

 

[mollyanne]

We just tried the pumpkin waffle/pancake mix and it was great.

They were giving out samples of that in our store here today too...It really was delicious.

 

[4meandthem]

Going back today to replace some of the boxes of Pumpkin waffle mix.They are great.
I am also going to get some pumpkin butter they had adverstised on the radio.It has no dairy and sounded good. (Just lots of sugar)

On edit: The mix makes better waffles than pancakes IMHO.

 

[tinlizzie]

Thanks, folks, for passing along the TJ seasonals. TJ may be into the Christmas season before I do the 60-mile roundtrip, but just in case I'll write down these good-sounding pumpkin-y things.

 

[Addie]

There was a short news item on our local TV station this weekend. Dunkin Donuts is having a run on Pumpkin anything. Donuts, muffins, drinks, Pumpkin Latte, etc. It seems that Pumpkin is the IN flavor of the year. Once the pumpkin growing season is over, it is going to be hard to find it on the shelves. I would suggest that those of you who like pumpkin, buy a bunch of small ones right after Halloween and start freezing the meat from them. The price drops drastically on Noveber 1st. The small ones are the sweet ones and suitable for eating and cooking. I would suggest that you freeze it in 16 oz. containers. Most recipes call for that amount. Imagine waking up to some pumpkin/cranberry muffins on a cold Sunday February morning. Wouldn't it be nice to bring a couple of dozen to church for the social after service coffee hour? I will be using what I have on hand to make the pumpkin/cranberry bread for the church fair in November.

 

[Andy M.]

Tried TJ's pork shu mai a couple of times. Really good and easy as pie to prepare.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Tried TJ's pork shu mai a couple of times. Really good and easy as pie to prepare.

They're good but they are totally exactly what you can get in any Asian market.

Here's a really good idea that my Chinese friend and colleague Yashan told me, to serve any kind of shumai, wontons and similar. You can take them out of the fridge frozen, put equal amounts of soy sauce and rice vinegar in a pan and heat it up, then flash fry/steam the shumai/wontons until they're thoroughly warmed, and serve them with the pan juices over. As the wontons or shumai cook, the pan juices reduce into a nice sauce. The vinegar gives them a nice bite.

In my career particularly the last few years I have enjoyed working with and becoming friends with many immigrant engineers and I often acquire great food ideas from them. Yashan throws some pretty mean Java code too, and that's good! (She's a software engineer in the medical devices industry.)

 

[bakechef]

There was a short news item on our local TV station this weekend. Dunkin Donuts is having a run on Pumpkin anything. Donuts, muffins, drinks, Pumpkin Latte, etc. It seems that Pumpkin is the IN flavor of the year. Once the pumpkin growing season is over, it is going to be hard to find it on the shelves. I would suggest that those of you who like pumpkin, buy a bunch of small ones right after Halloween and start freezing the meat from them. The price drops drastically on Noveber 1st. The small ones are the sweet ones and suitable for eating and cooking. I would suggest that you freeze it in 16 oz. containers. Most recipes call for that amount. Imagine waking up to some pumpkin/cranberry muffins on a cold Sunday February morning. Wouldn't it be nice to bring a couple of dozen to church for the social after service coffee hour? I will be using what I have on hand to make the pumpkin/cranberry bread for the church fair in November.

I've never seen so many pumpkin spice products as I've seen this year, and I'm really happy about that. I had a pumpkin donut and a pumpkin iced coffee at dunkin' and they were really good. The donut was excellent and spiced perfectly to my taste buds.

I have 15 cans of pumpkin in my pantry.... But that's not unusual for me.

 

[Andy M.]

They're good but they are totally exactly what you can get in any Asian market.

Here's a really good idea that my Chinese friend and colleague Yashan told me, to serve any kind of shumai, wontons and similar. You can take them out of the fridge frozen, put equal amounts of soy sauce and rice vinegar in a pan and heat it up, then flash fry/steam the shumai/wontons until they're thoroughly warmed, and serve them with the pan juices over. As the wontons or shumai cook, the pan juices reduce into a nice sauce. The vinegar gives them a nice bite...

I have bought pork shu mai at my local Asian market and they are good and just about the same.

Thanks for the tip on preparation. I'll try that with the next batch.

 

[4meandthem]

The pear cider is back! Pretty darn good warm. Thier gingerbread mix they were sampling is a winner too.

 

[roadfix]

About time! ..lol..

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

As of the last week, "two buck Chuck" has become "Two and a quarter buck Chuck" here in California. The $1.99 bottles are now $2.25 per 750 mL bottle. The market chain cited their long history of holding the price, along with increased production costs which eventually forced the approx. 12% price increase, the first in a dozen years.

But no sizzle here. "Two and a quarter buck Chuck" doesn't have the cachet of $2/bottle.

But I'm still buying it

 

[msmofet]

We have some new favs: beef tamales and cheese and green chile tamales.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

They're carrying my favorite crystallized ginger again. I've made this myself, peel fresh ginger and slice it, simmer it in a very sugary syrup (I forgot how much, at least 50/50 sugar/water), then remove the ginger pieces from the syrup and dry them in a rack, or toss them in sugar then dry them, depending on how much sugar you prefer.

By the way, try some of that New Zealand wine, particularly the Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region. If somebody blindfolded me and had me taste it without knowing what I was I would have guessed Chardonnay. The SV seems to have qualities of both varieties of wine. This is great for me because my recent wine taste tends towards both the SV and the Char, and the Marlborough SV seems to satisfy both my tastes.

Oh and also, TJ's Colombian coffee beans have been my favorite coffee for years.

 

[SoStoked]

They're carrying my favorite crystallized ginger again. I've made this myself, peel fresh ginger and slice it, simmer it in a very sugary syrup (I forgot how much, at least 50/50 sugar/water), then remove the ginger pieces from the syrup and dry them in a rack, or toss them in sugar then dry them, depending on how much sugar you prefer.

By the way, try some of that New Zealand wine, particularly the Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region. If somebody blindfolded me and had me taste it without knowing what I was I would have guessed Chardonnay. The SV seems to have qualities of both varieties of wine. This is great for me because my recent wine taste tends towards both the SV and the Char, and the Marlborough SV seems to satisfy both my tastes.

Oh and also, TJ's Colombian coffee beans have been my favorite coffee for years.

I routinely stop by TJs for a sample size of coffee before work.