la.foodblogging

More blogging about some recent TJ’s buys.

TJ’s Frozen Organic Brown Rice: What happened to me? I’ve gotten too lazy to cook rice! The fact is, Trader Joe’s frozen bags of white or brown rice have become a staple in our culinary life. The baby eats it, my wife eats it, and I eat it. For time-ravaged folks and lazy-assed bums everywhere, this stuff works. It’s a very convenient way to turn simple cooked vegetables into lunch or dinner. This one’s more than a pick, it’s become a standby.

Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds: Imagine a teeny-tiny peanut M&M, but instead of a peanut, there’s a sunflower seed inside. Now imagine that the milk chocolate is blah on flavor, and that their size is so, well, teeny-tiny, you wonder why they’re not cake decorations. That’s the product here. I love Trader Joe’s for their candy, but in my opionion, this one’s a dud. I can’t figure out what the practical use is here. My wife likes sunflower seeds, but even she agreed these didn’t appeal in that way. I find them too big to be a cake decoration, too small to eat, and not good tasting enough to simply enjoy as candy. Pass.

Frozen Ginger Thai Carrots with Almonds: This is a frozen bag of shredded orange and yellow carrots with slivered almonds in a mild sauce. As frozen carrots tend to survive both freezing and microwaving well, this is a fairly successful frozen vegetable item. They lose a point in the judging from not being very well seasoned though. Folks expecting the actual taste of ginger, or the quality of Thai food will be disappointed, as the seasoning is pretty spare, but the sauce does taste good, with a fairly buttery quality. These pretty little matchsticks could be a side dish to many a meal, or toss well with pasta. The high percentage of the tender, sweeter yellow carrots is what sells it. I’ll get this one again. Pick.

Frozen Fire Roasted Vegetables in Balsamic Butter Sauce: Here’s another bag of frozen vegetables, but this one has a sauce that comes in the form of what look like frozen Hershey’s Kisses. I expected anything called balsamic sauce to be too vinegary, and it wasn’t exactly that, but I over all felt the sauce needed doctoring or diminishing. Before cooking, I wish I had picked out some of the sauce kisses. We’re still without a stove at our house, and I found myself wishing for a pot of boiling water so I could add pasta to this one. I think it would have have balanced the sauce and texture into an actual meal. Instead I added some Trader Joe’s Frozen Scallops (which were good, not fishy tasting), and that made me feel a little better. The vegetables themselves were unique in that there were whole cherry tomatoes mixed in with big zuccini chunks, baby carrots, pearl onions and (I think) cauliflower. I kept looking for the “fire roasted” quality in these, and couldn’t find it. In the end, and perhaps for obvious reasons, this one was a dud. After picking out all the scallops, there were a lot of leftover vegetables, which didn’t call anyone’s name the next day. Pass.

Pompelmo Grapefruit Soda: This is not a new Trader Joe’s product, but I had to include it here, because it is probably my (current) single favorite item in the store. I think this is an amazing grapefruit soda, full of juicy flavor, with a nice quality of fizz, very drinkable, very refreshing, and you should offer me one next time I come over. Pick.

By Why We Type (see more of his posts).