“Classic English Muffins – A breakfast essential” – I agree 100%!
I buy Trader Joe’s “English muffins” all the time. I just love these for breakfast, plus. They come in two versions, the regular classic one and a whole wheat version. Both are good versions of a classic English muffin with lots of nooks and crannies. They come already partially “fork split”. Just use your fingers or a fork to complete the job and gently open the muffins slowly. You want as many nooks and crannies as possible. Never ever cut a muffin open with a knife as you get a flat surface with no crannies.
Toast them until golden brown and delicious and enjoy with some good butter and maybe some strawberry or apricot jam. Muffins do kind of burn easily so watch them carefully when you toast them, a few seconds can take it from perfect to a little burnt.
Other than breakfast, can you do other things with them? Sure. These make a great base for many things, like a sandwich of say a fried or poached egg with ham, or some peanut butter and banana? The base for some avocado toast. Finally of course Americans came up with a great use, our famous kid and adult beloved Pizza Muffins maybe? Toast, top with a little sauce and mozzarella and voila.
There are six muffins in a package (12 oz). Now $1.99, still a pretty good deal. I would buy them again. The other Brit style breakfast treats are also good and I’ve previously mentioned are TJ’s English Crumpets (though they cost more).
TIP: What I do after a day or two in the fridge, is open all the muffins up and then put them back in the package and then freeze them. This makes it easy to just take them out and toast them.
Here’s a funny story about these! A few weeks before I wrote this review, my neighbor just happened to ask me to check if Trader Joe’s sold Oyster Crackers. She wanted them for soup. I told her I didn’t think so, but promised I would check.
A few days later looked for them at Trader Joe’s, didn’t see any checking among the many, many kinds of crackers they offered. I was passing Fairway who did have them and got them for her, however we both got a bit of sticker shock at the price. Fairway’s crackers cost over $4 for a box?!
Then funny enough, not even a week later, I’m at Trader Joe’s looking at the cracker section. What do I see? Yup. I saw they came out with Trader Joe’s “Soup and Oyster Crackers!” Did they read our mind? Is this a new product? Anyway TJ’s has them and they are about 1/2 the price of the ones I bought at Fairway.
What are Oyster Crackers you ask? A classic old fashioned simple little round cracker shaped like an oyster kind of like a Saltine. I’ve seen them as long as I can remember, since I was a kid.
They are a traditional American cracker, very popular for soups, chili, stews, clam chowder. From back in the day. You used to usually get a pack of these if you ordered soup in a diner or restaurant. Pretty classic. Maybe they are even a bit Retro by now ready to become cool.
“For ‘chowdah’, soups, stews, chili, salads or snacking. No hydrogenated oils, no cholesterol, no preservatives”.
You may have heard about how good this $5 cake Trader Joe’s is. It’s terrific. This cake quickly became a famous Trader Joe’s dessert and I have to agree with how good it is.
TJ’s Chocolate Ganache mini sheet cake is really delicious. I am a big chocolate fan and this hits the (chocolate) spot right on the nose and satisfies it. The cake is moist and the frosting is perfect with a rich dark chocolate flavor. I am actually not a big fan of butter cream frosting, which I find too rich and heavy, however this cake has a cream cheese frosting instead of butter frosting and which is perfect. I love it, it’s so good. The only problem I have with the cake is how hard it is to stop eating it.
There is also a vanilla version of the sheet cake, called Chantilly Creme, also with a cream cheese frosting. I’d seen online many people say its also wonderful as well. I still haven’t tried that one yet but both are no doubt worth trying.
One of my go-to items for an inexpensive and easy dinner is Trader Joe’s Organic Polenta, which I’ve mentioned before. Still it’s worth mentioning again as this is one of their inexpensive items, even one of the few products that is the same price as it has been in the past for years (shh.. I’m afraid if TJ’s see this they may raise the price)
A package of the Organic Polenta ($1.99) can make a meal for two, say with some sauce plus maybe some salad and bread. It’s easy to prepare too. You just slice up the polenta and then bake, broil or sauté it until it’s a little crispy and browned (do NOT microwave it thought they say that’s one way).
When it’s nice and crispy, just top it with your favorite sauce and grate a little cheese on top. If you want a change from a tomato sauce, a good thing to match the polenta with would be TJ’s frozen Mushroom Medley ($4) or sauté some mushrooms ($2.29).
Trader Joe’s Organic Polenta is shelf stable and can safely stay for a couple of months in your pantry, just like pasta. I always have a package of the polenta on hand and suggest you do too!
Want to spend less than $1.99? Well fortunately you can still buy some bags of pasta at Trader Joe’s for just 99 cents! Plus they have some sauces for $1.99.
Trader Giotto’s CHICKEN PICCATA – Seasoned, breaded boneless chicken breasts with a lemon and caper sauce
“Our Chicken Picatta is made for us using a special family recipe. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are seasoned and breaded then baked in the oven until crispy. We then add a buttery, lemon and caper sauce to complete the dish. A timeless Italian American classic that tastes like you made it from scratch” (-On the package)
This is actually pretty good. So if you want a tasty dinner that all you have to do is Heat & Eat, Trader Joe’s CHICKEN PICATTA with Lemon Caper Sauce dish could do the trick. Especially say on a hot day when you don’t want to cook? Or make that any day you don’t want to cook.
My upstairs neighbor actually wanted to check out this Heat and Eat dish to see if it was worth it. She invited my wife and myself to dinner for a review and tasting.
So how was it? Well I was at bit surprised at how good this dish actually tasted. In fact, all three of us who tried it all said it was quite tasty, though we all thought there were a few things that could be improved. Like is should have more capers. My neighbor who loves capers almost as much as I do, wanted more capers. Since we had them in the fridge, we tossed in a tablespoon of capers in the sauce, and that did make it better.
We also thought some fresh lemon would improve it so we added a squeeze of lemon juice. Those simple things really improved the whole dish and made it taste almost homemade.
If you don’t have a jar of capers in the fridge (I do) then at least give this a squeeze of a quarter of a lemon, as that will really improve the sauce to make it taste almost homemade. If you add a tablespoon of butter that would not be amiss either!
To cook the dish, we followed Trader Joe’s “recommended method” instructions to bake it in the oven. I really recommend baking this over nuking it. It will be best baked in the oven, as in the oven the chicken will crisp up a bit. PLUS when you add the sauce at the very end, it will reduce a little and get a little browned and bubbly, both of which adds flavor. So baking is best and worth any little extra effort.
The chicken breasts were actually tender and juicy, and of course the sauce helps a lot with this as you bake it with sauce so they were moist. The included lemon caper sauce was tasty, however they don’t give us enough capers IMO. If you add capers, lemon juice and a pat of butter it will really make this dish taste almost like you made it yourself.
RECOMMENDED HEATING INSTRUCTIONS (OVEN): Preheat oven to 375. Set sauce packet aside. Remove packaging and place chicken pieces on a rimmed baking sheet or pan. Place in oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until hot. Remove from oven and pour sauce over chicken. Return to oven for about 3 minutes or until sauce looks bubbly and slightly browned. Optional: add a few tablespoons of capers, a tablespoon of butter and squeeze a quarter of a lemon over your dish. To serve restaurant style you can plate with thin slices of lemon on top.
SERVING: Plate the chicken with sauce. If you add some slices of lemon on top it will look like it came from a restaurant.
PORTION: The box states “Serve 3”. Ha! Maybe it might serve 3 kids? No, this package does not “serve three” adults. They do include a generous amount of sauce but there is not that much chicken. In the package we got, there were 2 large pieces plus 2 small pieces of chicken. So think realistically that it “serves 2“.
I did manage to make this serve three ONLY because I made some sides. I made a little quick easy zucchini, garlic pasta to have enough food to feed three for dinner and some pasta goes perfectly with this. So realistically this will make 2 portions for dinner, or 3 slightly skimpy portions, which you could stretch by adding sides. Serve this with some rice, potatoes or pasta and maybe a salad and/or a veg. Some nice crusty bread for mopping up that lemon caper sauce?
So in short we thought that Trader Joe’s Chicken Piccata with Lemon Caper sauce was good, and improved if you add some more capers to it. Find this in the refrigerated section with other prepared dishes. It’s $8.99 (16 oz).
I would buy this again.
Addendum: Many months later. I wanted to try my hand at making this dish myself so I did it. Here’s a shot of my own home made CHICKEN PICCATTA from scratch. Fantastic and not terribly hard to make. Recipe I used as a guide line follows (I did not use heavy cream as per the recipe, I made a roux with some home made chicken stock) And added a TON of capers!
This flavor is the one I’m now seeing of TJ’s yummy “bread cheese“. This “pizza seasoned bread cheese” is quite good, perhaps dangerously good!
Just grilling it with some halved cherry tomatoes basically I came up with kind of a “deconstructed pizza” when I served the soft warm cheese with grilled cherry tomatoes and toasted bread. A drizzle of EVOO and a sprig of fresh basil completed the picture. What’s not to like? All the flavor and fun of pizza in five minutes. Eat it while it’s still gooey and melt-y. I would say a package made roughly two portions. I’d go with “sauté” and not microwave as grilling it will brown it more and so be better that way. This Pizza Bread cheese version is now $1.99 (!) Used to be over $4.
Many of us butter lovers were afraid Trader Joe’s had discontinued ALL three of the imported butters they had one carried including this one, Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. So this is to let you know I finally saw this one back at Trader Joe’s. This Irish butter had been Missing In Action off the shelves at TJ’s for months. Previously Trader Joe’s used to carry 3 premium imported butters but unfortunately that changed during the Pandemic probably due to rising production cost factors on the supply side. The other two butters, the French Cultured Butter from Normandy and the New Zealand Butter were also both excellent but got Discontinued at Trader Joe’s. Who knows if the Normandy or Kiwi butters will they ever return, but at least TJ’s has the Irish Kerrygold butter back finally. A TJ’s captain told me in this case the reason was due to a packaging problem that Kerrygold had which was now fixed. The Kerrygold was not available in any US stores for months but it’s finally back. Kerrygold Irish butter is a Very Good super premium butter. Kerrygold says its from “Grass Fed Irish cows” producing the “sweetest, richest milk in the world”. Even if that’ Blarney, this is a very good high quality premium butter with the most beautiful deep golden yellow color and it tastes great. The gold foil package of Kerrygold is their salted butter however it is very lightly salted. Its hint of salt will work well with most foods. Kerrygold also has an unsalted butter which is a silver package. I didn’t see that one back at TJ’s yet. Trader Joe’s sells the Kerrygold butter for $3.99 (for 8 oz or 1/2 pound). It may be not as cheap as it used to be, but Trader Joe’s price is less than Fresh Direct ($5.29?) and other vendors. If you’ve never tried this or any imported premium butter, give yourself a splurge at least once and try a really good butter. Spread this on a hot toasted Crumpet with some good jam. Quite heavenly combo. Link below to see what the company says…
(UPDATE: Reported to be Discontinued but they have a lot of similar items to check out)
“A FIERY snack that you may not be able to stop eating”
These snacks are Made in Japan, a place they are very serious about snacks.
Trader Joe’s CRISPY CRUNCHY SPICY RICE MOCHI snacks are (really) crunchy bite sized nuggets made from rice powder and coated with spices. A lot of spices! Now one never quite knows when Trader Joe’s calls something “spicy” exactly how spicy they mean. In this case I assure you TJ’s is Not Kidding with the spicy! These are SERIOUSLY spicy as in mouth on fire spicy (or “head on fire” spicy if you look at the the package) The cute pictures on the package are not by accident, they are warning that this Bag Contains Really Spicy Stuff! So yes while these – actually yummy – snacks are super hot, they are more than just “spicy”, they are really tasty (as long as you can handle heat). I actually liked these and I give them a thumbs up, if you like spicy stuff. They are super duper CRUNCHY bites liberally coated with spices including : Black pepper, white pepper, chipotle powder, habanero powder, red chili powder... If you read that list I’m sure you get the picture. Again these are not just fiery, they’re quite tasty with a bunch of other interesting flavors as well such as citrus peel, paprika, cumin, cardamon, ginger, cinnamon….. So we are talking fiery flavorful and yummy all at the same time. Even addictive as they say? I can eat one or two and then kind of take a break for moment before eating another one then drink something to cool down the tongue. You should have some drink near you eating these. They would probably be great with an ice cold beer. I liked them on their own. I also found I especially liked them and they were even better with a little something else to kind of balance and mellow out the heat a bit. They were good with some cheese and even with a little cream cheese and probably great with some kind of dip, especially yogurt based? Anyway, these are really something. If you like heat you will enjoy these, they are more than just hot, they’re super tasty. Oh and wash your fingers after you are done eating these, lest you accidentally touch your eyes or something.
“Inside this bag you will find captivatingly crunchy, satisfyingly sweet clusters of rolled oats and pecans, with notes of maple syrup and honey”
If you are a fan of the big clumps you find in granola, you may like this. Trader Joe’s “Just The Clusters” Maple Pecan Granola gives you lots of clumps. I do like these crunchy clusters made even crunchier than other granolas as this has some rice flour added in for extra crunch.
It has pecans in it, a fair amount if not loaded with them. I guess at this price (3.29) they can’t put a ton of them in there but there are quite a few very tasty roasted pieces of pecans, and the maple flavor of this granola is tasty. As per the Nutrition Label, I wish it didn’t have quite the amount of Added Sugars it says but I really don’t eat a whole bowl of this, or even the 2/3 cups they use as the serving size. What I use this for really is as a nice topping to add crunch on top of my breakfast yogurt bowl, usually something like chia seeds, mixed with yogurt and kefir and fruits (banana, apples, berries…) This would equally be great on top of oatmeal or overnight oats for a little crunch. You could even eat some as a snack, in moderate amounts.
$3.99 for a 1 pound bag. No weird ingredients, all pretty natural as you can see….
We really enjoyed this Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cheesecake. Especially after our upstairs neighbor gussied it up with some whipped cream when she invited us to her Halloween dinner (hence the black spider napkin holder) and served the TJ’s pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. What I liked about this cheesecake was it they did not over do it in the “pumpkin spices” department, it’s pretty subtle and tasted first and foremost like cheesecake with just a little something extra, with pumpkin. Its very yummy. $7.99 for a rather large cake (30 oz). This could make an especially nice dessert for Thanksgiving, or anytime you can get this during the Fall/Winter season when it may be available. Frozen, defrost in fridge overnight or 4 hours and leave at room temp for about an hour or so. I would buy this again.
Trader Joe’s: “We couldn’t fit an entire pumpkin into the box but we did fill it with rich pumpkin flavor…blended into the tangy sweet goodness of cheesecake….perfect for holiday dessert….”
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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