Low Sodium Minestrone Soup

Rating:
Price: $1.49
Features: low sodium, vegetarian, convenient
Found in: soup/sauce/bean aisle


This minestrone soup is a classic 3! While definitely not bad, it had nothing that made it extra special. In a convenient single serving can, this soup is a great option for lunch at work, or as a side to dinner. Full of pasta, beans and vegetables, this version of minestrone is a bit sweeter than most canned soups (maybe due to the low sodium?). My girlfriend introduced me to this - she uses it to stay warm in Michigan!

Small soup - small post. Enjoy!

Trader Joe's JOE - "An exceptionally smooth cup of coffee"

Rating:
Price: $3.49 (14 Oz, 100% Arabica, whole bean)
Features: Decent generic coffee for a crazy low price
Found in: Coffee section labeled "Super Cheap!"

 "Joe brews a good satisfying cup of coffee. No Frills. Nothing fancy. Just good coffee at a great price. We created an excellent blend of Arabica beans and roasted them to that place where drinkability, smoothness and enjoyability meet - a medium roast, to be precise. Your kitchen table. The office. A to-go cup on the road. It doesn't matter where you are, as long as you have a good cup of Joe."

This product speaks for itself, which makes reviewing it easy on me! I agree that this is a smooth coffee at a great price. It has a good generic coffee taste - nothing really striking, yet nothing bad, like dreaded sour burning acidity, either. I like that it comes as whole bean so you can grind it right before you brew. Like they say, nothing fancy, but it gets the job done! Far and away better than other coffee you might find for $3.49!

If you are struggling along making your daily brew with pre-ground "coffee" that comes in a big metal can because you don't know any better or don't want to pay more - here are the beans you should switch to. Invite JOE to your mornings - do it now!

Chicken Tikka Masala with Cumin Flavored Basmati Rice

Rating:
Price: $3.49
Features: Spicy sauce, tasty chicken and nicely flavored rice, tastes "authentic"
Found in: Freezer at demo booth

I had a sample of this chicken tikka masala at the demo stand the other night and was really impressed with the flavor, so I decided to buy a box thinking it would make a good lunch at work. The chicken is tender and good quality white meat, the sauce is flavorful with a nice level of spice, and the cumin basmati rice makes a great accompanyment. The cardamom and lemon juice in the sauce really come through, making this about as good as tikka masala from my favorite Indian restaurant.

The only problem with this frozen entree is that you don't get that much food for your money. My box only had four (decent size) pieces of chicken in it. They should package it with a piece of garlic naan to soak up the sauce to make it a more filling meal.

Beer Bread Mix

Rating:
Price: $1.99
Features: Add 12 ounces of beer, 1/4 cup butter, and in 40 minutes you get a dense 9"x5" loaf of yeasty bread with a tangy bite and crisp crust
Found in: New products section

We all enjoyed eating this beer bread fresh out of the oven, it even made the house smell like real fresh baked yeasty bread. So, why only 3-stars? I can't help but wonder why this mix is really needed. Sure, it is fairly cheap at $1.99 per box, but all you are getting is a packet of pre-mixed flour, sugar, and leavening, and some baking directions. If I make beer bread again, I will be mixing my own dry ingredients, but I suppose the mix may inspire people to make beer bread when they would not otherwise think of it (hey, it happened to me), so that's cool.

I made this with the last can of a light ale we had sitting around (better for baking than drinking on its own). The bread turned out fine with a good beer flavor, but I am really curious how it would come out if you made it with a nice dark stout or porter. According to the box, any carbonated liquid will do. You simply dump the mix in a bowl, pour a beer over the top, and mix sparingly to combine. Mixing even a little more than necessary will make the bread tough, which I may be have been guilty of. I didn't want dry flour globs in the finished product!

If I was to make this again I would make biscuits following the directions on the package rather than the one big loaf. The loaf had a crazy crisp crust on it from the 1/4 cup of melted butter you pour over the top of the batter in the loaf pan prior to sticking it in the oven. Honestly, eating the heal was like having a crisp beer doughnut fried in butter. Too over the top for my tastes, but the rest of the loaf with crisp crust all the way around the soft warm center was better. I had mine drizzled with honey, which I highly recommend. Hence the biscuit suggestion - brush, rather than drown, with butter prior to baking, then split open whilen still hot and let the honey melt in! These would make a fantastic companion to a bowl of hearty chili on the blustery fall days we've had recently.

Hansen's Diet Ginger Ale

Rating:
Price: $2.49 (6 x 12 Oz cans)
Features: Natural flavors with very specific origins: "African ginger, Mexican limes, Californian lemons, and Madagascan vanilla"
Found in: Beverages, where Reed's Extra Ginger Beer was not on the shelf :-(

Lurking in the background of my previous post is a can of Hansen's Diet Ginger Ale. I purchased this as a stand-in for Reeds Extra Ginger Beer since it was nowhere to be found. I knew this was not going to be the same as Reeds, which has "26 grams fresh ginger per bottle!" But, I wanted something fizzy and gingery, and expected this would have more of a ginger kick than Canada Dry (not that they sell that at TJ's).

It does have a stronger flavor profile, I tasted just as much Madagascan vanilla as African ginger. The Mexi-calian citrus was lost in the crowd, but I am sure I would miss it if it were not at the party. This diet soda is sweetened with Splenda, which means it is incredibly sweet. It is also highly carbonated with little tiny fizzy bubbles that caused me to sneeze three times while attempting to drink it. Overall, it did the job washing down the tamales for tonight, and I would consider this pretty good for a diet soda. But it's no Reeds, they better get that back in stock again!

"It's that damn Hansel! He's so hot right now!" -Mugatu

Pad Thai Noodles and Sauce

Rating:
Price: ~$3.00 (?)
Features: Dry rice noodles, packet of sauce. That's all you get.
Found in: Unrefrigerated prepared food aisle

I have had this box of Trader Joe's Pad Thai sitting in my pantry for at least a year and a half now. I remember being excited when I saw it for the first time at the store. I had just seen an episode of Good Eats in which Alton Brown makes Pad Thai, but unlike his usual recipes, he makes it look insanely complicated. Part of the episode shows him going through an Asian grocery store picking out all kinds of ingredients that, at the time, I had never seen and would not know how to seek out. He tries to convince the viewer that they should step out of their shell and give it a go, but the final product on the show didn't look great. Sorry Alton, I'm sure your recipe is delicious, but it looked flavorless on TV even though so many exotic ingredients went in.

So, back to the boxed version. I was looking for instant gratification, which a heat and eat product should provide. I wanted to have some Pad Thai I had a hand in making, but not cook all day. I planned to go home and make it for dinner the same day I bought it. Why has it taken me over a year to get to eating? Because I neglected to read the extensive list of additional ingredients not included in the box. I was expecting to need to add some chicken or tofu, stir-fry, and have dinner. Not so! Here is what the box suggests you add: Egg, chicken / prawns / tofu, bean sprouts, peanuts, lime wedges, and fresh chiles. Plus, you have to cook or soak the noodles too (I know, not that big a deal, but I was expecting to just add them to a hot pan with the sauce). That certainly took the fire out of my wok, it's like having to go through an additional grocery list just to get all the stuff to make the dish.

Over the past year and a half there have been multiple occassions on which I have considered saying screw it and just eating the noodles with sauce. Sometimes there is nothing else around to eat, ya know? However, several months after I purchased this boxed version, I learned to make my own Pad Thai from scratch. It requires about 3 more ingredients and I can control the flavor, and make a much bigger batch at a low cost. So TJ's Pad Thai sat lonely and unused on the back of the shelf.

Finally, the big day: Today brought a mix of hunger, lack of other food in the house, laziness, and a coincidence in which I happened to have peanuts, cilantro, limes, cabbage, and carrots that needed to be used up. The box and I had a brief stare-down in the pantry, after which I went to the store for 1/4 pound of frozen peeled prawns.

I soaked the noodles in hot water while I sauted the prawns. I should have soaked the noodles longer, because they were not soft enough after the prescribed 5 minutes. Oh well, I went ahead with the cabbage, carrots, and sauce packet. Then I finished it off with some peanuts and cilantro. Here is the finished product:


Sure, looking pretty good, but let's remember that everything but the noodles and sauce had to be purchased separately. I know that a full pound of rice noodles costs about a dollar at the Asian market, here you get about 150g of noodles and a sauce packet for $3+. Anyway, about that sauce packet. The sauce is acceptable, but too sweet for my tastes, and super salty. The box claims to have two servings, but I ate the entire thing myself and I wasn't even that hungry. Mmm, 50% of my daily intake of sodium right there. As I mentioned before I would rather have more control over my sauce, especially since I know it can be made with about 4 ingredients, none of which are that hard to find.

Is Trader Joe's box of Pad Thai the worst thing ever? No. Is it worth the one and a half year wait to consume? Nope. If you want to make Pad Thai, I would suggest finding an easier recipe than Alton's and making it from scratch. You will come out with a better product and be able to take all the credit! And you will have to get to know your way around the Asian market, which opens a whole world of possibilities...just stay away from the strangest gelatenous ones...unless you are into that.

Mushroom Turnovers

Rating:
Price: $2.99
Features: "Sauteed mushrooms & onions in a cream cheese pastry."
Found in: Frozen appetizers

I got talked into buying these by the guy running the sample stand. They seemed ok, not a bad deal for $2.99 per box. I felt like they needed some dipping sauce to go with them though. So, when I ended up making them for "dinner" at home I used the only thing I could find for dipping: Trader Ming's Gyoza Dipping Sauce.

Upon opening the package I realized there wasn't much in there, and I felt silly heating up the oven to make only six tiny turnovers, so I just made the whole box (12, still not a lot of food). They cooked up from frozen in about 10 minutes. I think the best use for these would be to serve them as an appetizer during a cocktail party (better get 2 boxes to fill up a plate). They don't really go with anything as a side dish, and they are not substantial enough to fill you up as a quick meal.

The Gyoza dipping sauce is good, but not the best with mushroom turnovers. I bet it is really good on...hmm...pot stickers! Only problem is that the sauce has a huge amount of sodium. Almost 60% of your RDV in 2 Tbsp! Maybe the turnovers would be better accompanied by BBQ sauce, or a sour cream type dip?

The cream cheese pastry was an interesting touch. Lighter than regular pastry, but not as airy as puff pastry. Works well with the mushroom and onion filling.

Fire Roasted Vegetables with Balsamic Butter Sauce

Rating:
Price: $3.29
Features: Frozen blobs of sauce instead of a separate sauce packet.
Found in: Frozen vegetables

I sampled these fire roasted vegetables in the store a few weeks ago. At the time I remember thinking the balsamic butter sauce was pretty potent stuff. So the next week, when I was wondering around the Capitol Hill Trader Joe's aimlessly searching for something to make for dinner. I couldn't settle on anything, so I ended up throwing a bunch of prepared side dishes in my cart and cooking them up quickly at home.

I opened the bag and dumped everything into the frying pan expecting to find some packet of sauce to add after cooking. None to be found. But the Hershey's Kiss-like blobs I had incorrectly identified as mushrooms soon began to melt and from the sauce. Ok I thought, maybe that is why it is so concentrated?

When these finished cooking up we all tried them, but I didn't find them as flavorful as they had been in the store. I think the pan they were using in the store to make samples really concentrated the sauce blobs from several bags down and made it extra strong. So I was less impressed with these than expected. Vegetables are good for you...butter sauce not so much. I feel like there should have been more veggies in the package for $3.29!

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Crunchy Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Rating:
Price: $2.29 (6 packets)

Features: Crumbs all over the place, 20g whole grains, vegan

Found in: Granola bars

I suppose these are a good value, and they taste fine, but somehow I am not that enthusiastic about them. I get exactly what I would expect from a crunchy peanut butter granola bar, but nothing special. They work as a mid-morning or afternoon snack, just be sure to stand up and brush off all the crumbs if you are eating them at your desk!

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