Trying this for the first time, left me impressed. It is quite good. A very tasty English cheese. Here I find the addition of the onion/chives enhance the cheese, they don’t overpower it.
This is the kind of cheese you might find at an English pub. A semi soft cheese. Neither hard nor soft, its a bit softer than regular cheddar. Speaking of which this is fairly different than regular Cheddar cheese; as a “Gloucester cheese” is its own thing.
I first tasted it on its own, then on some plain crackers and found the flavor really lovely in both cases. Just very tasty. I think this would be great on a cheese plate or cheese board.
Equally nice is the way this cheese melted, which was very easily, as its not very hard to begin with. So this will be great to melt on things and cook with. I put it on a taco and it melted easily and was delicious especially when I let it get little brown. It would be great of course mixed into scrambled eggs. Would this make a great Welsh Rarebit? I think yes, so I intend to try that sometime.
This cheese is going for $10.99/lb, my hunk coming out to about $5. It is an Imported premium cheese, so that is not bad.
Many people wonder how to use Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo, so here’s one idea that I use it for quite frequently. I cook up potatoes and onions and add the Soy Chorizo to it for a very tasty (vegetarian) version of the famous Mexican dish “Papa con Chorizo” (potatoes with chorizo).
Here’s my recipe . We substitute Trader Joe’s soy chorizo for real pork chorizo making this dish vegetarian. Some people may not even know that its vegetarian when they taste it. In fact, though I’m not vegetarian I like this quite a bit as its a bit healthier. I make this dish about every other week as an easy dish which is good to have on hand in the fridge as it can make a few things. This is especially good as a filling for quesadillas, tacos or burritos, it works really well with eggs too mixed into it. You can make up a whole package of the Soy Chorizo to have on hand for the week.
INGREDIENTS
Trader Joe’s SOY CHORIZO
Trader Joe’s TACO SEASONING (optional)
Potatoes (waxy potatoes are best, like Red potatoes, Yukon Gold or similar) 1 pound
Onion (medium – diced)
Fresh garlic (optional, chopped)
(optional – fresh cilantro)
I usually make this for about 2 people/portions. Adjust amounts as needed
RECIPE – Soy Chorizo with Potatoes
Boil about a pound of potatoes cut in half in lightly salted water. Cook for about 12 minutes or so or just until done, meaning when a knife goes in pretty easily.
Drain and rinse them with cold water until they are cool enough to touch. Cut the potatoes up into bite size pieces.
In a cast iron or non-stick skillet, sauté an medium size onion (diced) in about a tablespoon of olive oil for a few minutes (add a few cloves of fresh chopped garlic too if you like). Toss in the diced potatoes. Let potatoes and onions sauté together on medium heat until the potatoes take a little bit of color which may take about 10 minutes or so, stirring gently every 3 minutes. Sprinkle on some Taco Seasoning (optional) if you like. If you are not using it, just add a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
Next add your Soy Chorizo. Lower the heat. Gently mix in and combine the Soy Chorizo into the onion and potatoes. How much chorizo to use is up to you. I usually add about 1/2 the tube for about about a pound of potatoes but you can add more or less as you see fit.
Saute the mixture on low heat for about 5 minutes or so and it’s ready. If you like cilantro, sprinkle on a big handle of it, chopped up, which brightens the dish really nicely.
Optional: Eggs work great with this mixture. If you want them at the end just mix in 3 beaten eggs and let the eggs cook slowly until done. Serve immediately with warm tortillas or make quesadillas with this as your stuffing.
PAPAS CON CHORIZO is a tasty mixture which is great for tacos or burittos and my favorite, cheese quesadillas. To make those,use flour tortillas, (or corn if you like) and sprinkle some grated cheese on the tortilla in a lightly oiled pan. Top with the potato mix, fold in half and cook for a few minutes on each side until the cheese is melted. For even cheesier ones, also put a little grated cheese under the tacos and let them get golden brown and a little crusty. These are really my favorite. And if you want to use corn tortillas instead, those will also be great with this filling.
Besides tacos or tortillas, mix this potato mixture into scrambled eggs for a great dish.
Getting near St. Patrick’s Day, I saw two new Irish cheeses in the cheese case at Trader Joe’s.
They looked interesting so I decided to try them.
The first one is called IRISH PORTER CHEDDAR CHEESE. As you can see, it’s got yellow areas mixed with brown areas which I imagine is the porter beer (the brown color makes me think of Guinness though that is technically a stout) Its a nice mild cheddar cheese. I think the porter mellows it out nicely. When you slice this cheese it looks really interesting with a pattern of swirls of brown and yellow.
The second cheese is also a cheese with a little something extra, here an IRISH CHEDDAR CHEESE with Irish Whiskey. This cheddar is a bit more robust than the other one, and this is very tasty too. It has a little more sharpness to it. However to be honest I could not distinguish the taste of whiskey but the cheese has a nice blend of flavors. Maybe a hint of whiskey is in there so very subtle; don’t expect this to taste like a big slug of Jameson’s.
Both of these cheeses were $11.99 a pound; a bit more expensive of course than many other imported cheddar cheese’s such as one my top favorite cheeses at Trader Joe’s: the excellent New Zealand Grass Fed Sharp Cheddar, which is now $6.99 a pound (used to be 5.99)
Still if you want to have some Irish cheese on the table for St. Paddy’s Day you may find either of these Irish cheddar cheeses worth trying. They would be nice on a cheese plate with an assortment of crackers and fruit. Or I imagine would match nicely with some Irish Soda Bread.
I assume these are “Seasonal” cheeses put out around the holiday; they may not be stocked forever, maybe just for a few months?
“Tangy creamy cream cheese speckled with fermented black garlic for unique, earthy, slightly sweet, umami rich flavor.”
Trader Joe’s says: “It’s a tangy cream cheese flecked with savory, fermented Black Garlic throughout, its flavor further bolstered by dried garlic and roasted garlic powder. A generous schmear of the stuff is an instant upgrade to your morning bagel and a delectable dip for crackers, crudités, and roasted Shishito Peppers. It also makes a splendid sandwich spread, and it enlivens everything from pasta sauces to baked potatoes.”
“Umami-rich flavor. A savory shmear for sandwiches, crackers and bagels.”
You may have heard Trader Joe’s new BLACK GARLIC CREAM CHEESE spread. I heard it was really good and a hit, so got some to review.
My take? I’m all in. Yes this black garlic cream cheese spread is delicious. I loved it immediately and found it so good. Full of umami from that mellow black garlic. (something that they used to actually sell fresh)
I put some of this spread on a bagel and topped it with cucumbers and the combo was of course so yummy.
This stuff is going to be great spread on toast, any bread or crackers. I tried it on some rice crackers. Yum. Next, I tried it as a dip for sliced veggies dipping in spears of cucumbers and carrots. This makes a perfect dip for crudités. Dip your baby carrot snacks in a little!
Honestly this is one of those “what wouldn’t this be good on” Trader Joe’s products. I am sure when you taste it you will get a few ideas where to use this. Putting this on Baked Potatoes is one No Brainer. Pasta? Yes, put a spoonful or two into almost any pasta dish and stir it in with a tablespoon of pasta water. Could I thin it with a touch of greek yogurt and serve on the side with a piece of grilled chicken, shrimp or fish? Why not indeed. So experiment away! Take it out and leave at room temp for an hour if want to let it get softer and more spreadable.
Black Garlic Cream Cheese Spread is $2.79 for an 8 oz tub.
“Made with cream, Italian tomatoes and Grana Padano. Creamy, velvety and savory”
Product of Italy
Trader Joe’s introduced a new imported Italian pasta sauce called “ROSATELLA Pasta Sauce”. The sauce seems to be getting a lot of attention online. Sauces that mix cream or milk and tomato are known as “pink sauces” (rosa means pink), for example, Vodka Sauce.
“This ‘pink sauce’ really delivers on flavor….Our supplier in Italy sources all of their dairy from the Piedmont region—a region renowned for its milk and cheeses. They start with a cream & milk blend, to which they add a short list of ingredients, including tomato paste, onion & garlic purées, basil, oregano, and Grana Padano.“
I woke up today with an idea: what about using this sauce to make a pizza ?! Putting the idea out there….If anyone tries it, please let us know how it turned out.
This sauce is good! Creamy, nice and tomato-y and cheesy from a generous amount of authentic Grana Padano PDO cheese in the sauce. Online, people are calling it amazing, and frankly I agree. I found this new Rosatella sauce to be absolutely delicious.
When I opened the jar and took a taste, even at room temperature, I could taste that this sauce is real deal Italian. It has a nice balance of ingredients with the tomato, cream and cheese (PDO Grana Padano)
I thought a shaped pasta like rigatoni, penne, farfalle, or trofie might work best with a thick creamy sauce like this. I went with Rigatoni, as its a big and hearty shape that holds sauce well, and the rigatoni was a good choice. It went perfectly with the Rosatella sauce. Of course any pasta you pick should work fine too.
But about a week later I tried the rosatella sauce with Pappardelle and that was as good as it was on the rigaton, if not better. The flat noodle with this sauce was great. Super comfort food.
Rosatella sauce with Trader Joe’s Organic Pappardelle noodles
This sauce is quite thick out of the jar. Just to give you an idea of “how much to use”, for two portions of pasta I used about half the jar. Figure for four portions of pasta you will probably use a whole jar,. This sauce will easily stand up to a bit of your starchy pasta cooking water (all chef’s magic ingredient for pasta).
As always, I cook a pasta as per the classic (Italian) method, meaning you don’t just top naked cooked pasta with a spoon of sauce, the way many American’s tend to do (ugh!). The “correct” method is that you finish cooking the (undercooked) pasta with the sauce while tossing it and adding in some of that precious starchy pasta cooking water. I mean a few tablespoons at a time, just enough, not a cup as the pasta absorbs some of the sauce. Save about cup of your pasta water when you drain it, just in case. I just put a heat proof cup under the colander when I dump out the water.
My pasta technique: I take out the pasta about a minute before it hits al dente, toss it in a pan, adding most of the sauce plus a few tablespoons of (reserved) pasta water- the water a few tablespoons at a time tossing constantly (tip: always reserve a cup of your starchy pasta cooking water). In the pan, you toss the pasta with the sauce, again and again, and let it finish cooking until it all blends up together. Maybe about 60-90 seconds, or until the pasta is done “to the tooth” al dente, not over cooked. A little extra sauce on top is good. Plate and serve and eat it asap. I topped it with a bit of fresh basil plus, a bit more grated cheese and a drizzle of EVOO. The pasta dish with rigatoni and the sauce was so yummy. (I tried the Rosatella sauce a second time a few days later using Pappardelle and that combination was as good, if not better!). My recommendations pasta wise would be a shaped pasta, or the flat pappardelle.
We both really enjoyed the finished pasta with this excellent Rosatella pink sauce. I thought this sauce is so good, you could think about using it way beyond just for pasta. I can see it with lots of food. Say serve some on grilled chicken breasts? Or grilled shrimp or fish or meats? Certainly as the base for a homemade pizza. Really this stuff is yummy. You can’t go wrong with this.
I tried it spicy too – zhushing it up with a little spoon of my beloved spicy TJ’s “BOMBA” hot sauce (fermented Calabrian chilis). Even better! I just loved the now spicy Rosatella sauce as well.
This is a great new addition to the pasta sauces at TJ’s. It’s getting a lot of notice and plaudits online.
Trust me this is worth checking out. The Rosatella is $3.99 for a 14.5 oz jar.
I would buy this again
TIP: I look at the recommended cooking time on the package. If it says for example 11 minutes, I drain it at about 9 1/2 minutes. It goes into a pan as I add my sauce and cook it the final approximately 90 seconds cooking, so total time, about the recommended 11 minutes as I finish it, tossing it with sauce and a little pasta water. The mixing adds starch as the pasta releases it and makes your sauce creamier, thicker and stickier to coat all the pasta. And Serve immediately! People should be sitting down ready to eat as soon as it hits the plate. BUON APPETITO!
This creamy soft log of goat cheese is actually one of my favorite cheeses Trader Joe’s carries. Along with it’s cousin the “honey chevre” log which has a tiny bit of sweetness from honey.
Chevre means goat in French. The cheeses are of course made with goat’s milk. If thought sounds off putting dont worry. TJ’s version is really a very mild, creamy chevre cheese with a light pleasant taste and aroma. The “Honey Chevre” is the same cheese but they’ve added a tiny bit of honey. I really like that version. I would suggest you to buy the Honey Chevre version first, if you’ve never tried any kind of goat cheese before. Goat cheese and some sweetness go so well together which is why chevre is often paired with fruit or coated with chopped cranberries or blueberries, and TJ’s has those fruity coated cheeses too.
These goat cheeses will be a great addition especially for a cheese board, and goat cheese matches wonderfully with fruit. Slice it up and serve with apples or grapes in addition to crackers and a crusty baguette.
TJ’s says “This lovely Chevre is fresh, soft, and unaged – lower in fat, calcium, but higher in vitamin A than cheese from cow’s milk. And with a lower lactose content, makes it more tolerable for many children and elderly people who may have a tougher time processing lactose.
As a side note, TJ’s has one goat log coated with dried herbs. I am not crazy for that one, I just don’t think its as good as these other two as I found the dried herbs had a slightly bitter aftertaste. You can make that yourself fresh chopping up some herbs and rolling the log in them.
If you are lactose intolerant goat milk & cheese is supposed to be easier to digest.
“Aged Sheeps Milk” is a new Spanish cheese at Trader Joe’s. It’s been aged in a regional extra virgin olive oil (“Cornicabra”) for about 4 months.
it had a nice nutty and slighly tangy taste and reminded me slightly of a Pecorino, which is also made from sheep’s milk. I tried a small piece by itself and then tried it sliced thinly on some crackers. Very nice. I then added a little fig jam on that, and really like the salty / sweet combo. I think this cheese would work well on a cheese plate.
I also tried some of this cheese grated onto pasta, where it works just like Pecorino. I would buy it again. $5.99 for a 6 oz hunk.
“Serve this firm-yet-creamy Cheese as an appetizer before the big meal, alongside a bowl of Nuts About Rosemary Mix and juicy Honeycrisp apple slices. Or let a freshly toasted Ciabatta Roll soak up the olive oil as the Cheese accompanies an array of leftovers in sandwich form.”
“FRESH CHEESE TOSSED IN PICKLE SPICES – Perfect for snacking on the go, our fresh cheese curds pack a serious squeak and just the right amount of pickle goodness”.
We know that Trader Joe’s loves “all things pickle”, a food trend that TJ’s is quite fond of. One more addition to it is these PICKLE CURDS made in partnership with a cheese producer Beehive Cheese in Utah. These curds are squeaky little nuggets of fresh cheese lightly coated with dill and pickle spices to add extra flavor. They’re simple but tasty especially if you like pickles (raises hand). I can see these being good for a picnic, or just as a snack, or on the go, or even as part of a cheese plate – with some cornichons too of course! Take them out of the fridge before eating as you want these at room temperature. A bag has 4 oz.
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.
For a long time I planned to review Trader Joe’s Cottage Cheese (in short, it’s quite good) but frankly I thought I’d be talking to the wind, reviewing an old fogey food that nobody buys anymore except me. I love cottage cheese and usually have some in the fridge.
I was really surprised to read recently that Cottage Cheese is now a thing. Due to lots of people posting on TikTok, cottage cheese has become a viral phenomenon among young people. Especially with their recipes like how to make “cottage cheese toast” (you need a recipe for that. Gotta laugh). So cottage cheese has gone viral? Funny but now I can write a review and offer my “recipe” for Cottage Cheese Toast:
Cottage Cheese Toast: Lightly toast a slice of bread. Spread with a little butter. Top with a good scoop of cottage cheese. I like to sprinkle on seasoning such as TJ’s AJIKA seasoning and black pepper. Or zing it with a little BOMBA or PERI-PERI (cottage cheese is bland) to jazz it up. A little chopped parsley or scallion on top would be great.
Trader Joe’s cottage cheese is very good. I like the Small Curd 4% version but there are other versions like low fat as well as Organic. The small curd one I get went up from $2.49 to $2.99 (1 lb). Strangely TJ’s sells a 2 lb container (twice as much) for only one dollar more ($3.99)! So the big container is a much better deal at $2 per pound. Nutritionally, it contains a whopping amount of protein (12g in a 1/2 cup serving) with only 110 calories (4% cottage cheese).
By the way, I think cottage cheese is great to eat with the super spiced ORGANIC ELOTE CORN CHIPS or CHILI LIME ROLLED CHIPS as a “dip”. The blandish cottage cheese balances out the spices and they make a great combo together. Obviously its easier to eat and scoop with the corn dipper chips than the rolled chips.
This is a very old recipe my mom used to make and it probably comes from my (Jewish) Grandmother a long time back. I assume its probably Eastern European in origin. Its like the inside of a blintz, minus the blintz. Cottage cheese is similar to “farmer’s cheese” which is drier.
RECIPE: BOW TIE NOODLES WITH COTTAGE CHEESE AND CINNAMON SUGAR:
Cook Trader Joe’s Farfalle (bowtie) noodles and when they are done, drain them and put them back in the pot. Turn the heat to the lowest possible setting. Now add a tablespoon or two of butter and then a good amount of powdered cinnamon (a teaspoon). Next add a few teaspoons of good sugar like Organic Sugar or Turbinado or Coconut Sugar. Stir in a cup of cottage cheese, or more if you like. Stir gently until the cheese just so slightly starts to melt into the noodles and everything is well mixed. Eat immediately. This is delicious as a snack or kind of dessert.
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