“The traditional grilling cheese of Cyprus”. A great addition to a barbecue skewer. Browns rather than melts when grilled
IMPORTANT NOTE: They have this cheese as a “seasonal item” in the Spring/Summer, so that’s when when you will find it on the shelves
This “Atalanta brand HALLOUMI cheese” I got at Trader Joe’s at some point last year was one of those items I tried just once and fell absolutely in love with instantly. However trying to find it a month or two later, I could not find it. It was MIA. I was afraid they discontinued it. Say it’s not so, Joe.
Well, I learned they carry this cheese seasonally. It’s one of their “seasonal” items. In this case, they bring it back for warmer months. Starting in the Spring and available most of the Summer (till mid-August maybe?). Trader Joe’s seems to peg this cheese for “grilling” outdoors. Summer grilling. So just note that you will only see this part of the year.
I wish they had it all year round. But here’s a useful Tip: the shelf life is quite long as it’s a cured, brined hard cheese. My package date was good for six months. So I might just stock up on a few packages, for that half+ of the year they don’t have it. You could probably even freeze it. Most cheese, especially harder ones, actually can be frozen (cheese needs to be slow defrosted in the fridge)
If you haven’t tried HALLOUMI before, you have got to check it out. It’s so good grilled. Just delicious.
Halloumi originates from the island of Cyprus. It’s a semi hard cheese brinded made with sheep’s milk with a unique quality: it browns rather than just melts. Therefore you can grill, broil, or pan fry it, until it gets golden brown & delicious. It gets a chewy, meaty texture that is so good!
TJ’s website says: “Atalanta® Halloumi” is made on the island of Cyprus using sheep’s milk. During production, the curds are heated to high temperatures, a process which gives it both its “squeaky” texture and ability to hold its shape when cooked or grilled. Atalanta® ‘s cheesemakers also include a bit of mint, which adds a slight refreshing counterbalance to Halloumi’s natural brininess.”
Some people are making “Halloumi Croutons” with it, which you could make by cutting the cheese into cubes, brown them in a little olive oil and remove for adding to salads or other dishes
The picture below is of a dish I made with the halloumi, tomatoes and a can of white beans. “Crispy halloumi, white beans and tomatoes” I had seen in the NYTimes. The dish is DELICIOUS and its a fairly healthy (vegetarian) dish that we all found to be an excellent; a keeper recipe that is now on monthly rotation for us. I got the recipe from the NY Times (may need registration)
Says “4 servings” (2 of us easily ate the whole thing!)
Olive oil, as needed
1 pound cherry or grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley, plus more for serving
1 teaspoon honey, plus more for serving
½ teaspoon dried oregano or thyme
Salt and black pepper
1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, butter beans or navy beans, drained
1 (8-ounce) block halloumi, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
½ lemon
Crusty bread (optional), for serving
Preparation
Set broiler to high heat, with a rack positioned in the upper third of the oven, 3 to 4 inches from the heat source.
In a large, ovenproof pan over medium heat, combine 2 tablespoons olive oil with the tomatoes, garlic, parsley, honey and oregano. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes soften and release their juices, about 10 minutes.
Stir in the beans and cook until heated through, about 3 minutes. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed. Turn off the heat.
Arrange the halloumi slices on top of the tomato-bean mixture in the pan. Transfer the pan to the oven. Broil until the halloumi is golden and crispy on top, about 5 minutes, depending on the oven’s broiler strength.
Drizzle generously with olive oil, squeeze the lemon half over the pan and add a light drizzle of honey. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately, with bread if desired.
Her Halloumi Crouton Salad recipe looks great! (TIKTOK)
Trader Joe’s latest dip is called ROASTED TOMATO LABNEH DIP. Its thick and creamy, tangy, cheesy, and herby from dill and parsley.
It has roasted tomatoes on top. Labneh is made from very thick strained yogurt. Trader Joe’s dip incorporates ingredients like balsamic vinegar, herbs and garlic as well. You can use this as a spread or a dip. This would be great on top of chicken or fish. Try it with Pita chips or your favorite crackers. It worked great when I put this out as a dip along with veggie sticks (celery, carrot, yellow pepper….) T
“Try dunking Trader Joe’s Roasted Tomato Labneh Dip with pita chips, fresh Lavash, or really anything tasty and dunkable…. carrot sticks, pitted olives, French fries, you name it. Try spreading it on a sandwich, a Falafel wrap, or even just a slice of sourdough toast. Try dropping it by the spoonful over salads, hearty grain bowls, or tomato-based soups. Whatever you do, just be sure you try it! It’s a tart, cheesy, herby, phenomenally full-flavored eating experience, and it’s now available at your neighborhood Trader Joe’s.” – Trader Joe’s
I liked this quite a bit. The Labneh dip is good with most anything: vegetables, chicken, meat or fish like grilled salmon, as a dip, as a shmeer on a bagel or sandwich, with falafel, mixed with hummus, or chickpeas. Spread some on TJ’s Lavash. Labneh is especially good with eggs, Turkish style. Try putting an egg, fried or poached egg on top of a spread or bed of the labneh. It’s a little tangy/sour. I liked that taste, however my wife found it a little too tangy. After I finished half of it as-is, I decided to see how it would be mixed with a mashed avocado. It was very good mixed with the avocado. After doing that my wife loved the Avo-Labneh mixture, so you may want to try this hack too. Speaking of which, this would be great as the base of AVOCADO TOAST.
Trader Joe’s Roasted Tomato Labneh Dip $3.49 (8.5 oz) I would buy this again.
So as you can see from the Ingredients in this bread, you are getting a lot of variety of whole grains for one thing. You are also getting a good amount of fiber in this 100% Whole Grain High Fiber bread. Each slice has 5 grams of fiber.
That is about 18% of the recommended dietary amount. It’s not hard to eat two slices, perhaps in a sandwich or just as toast. Do that and you are getting 10 grams of fiber, which is about 1/3 or more of the daily recommended fiber amount (daily dietary fiber is recommended at 25-38 grams).
How does this bread taste? I like it. It actually tastes pretty good. Like a 100% whole wheat bread. I find it just the tiniest bit on the dry side, but you have to take all that fiber into account.
This tasted quite good when I toasted it up, and ate with butter and marmalade.
It’s got no preservatives, and no additives. Seems pretty All Natural. I would buy it again.
Is Trader Joe’s “BURRATA, PROSCIUTTO and ARUGULA FLATBREAD” worth buying?
Please read the review if you want to see if I thought it was worth $5.50
Here’s my honest review of this cheesy flatbread. But first, is this a Flatbread or is this Pizza? Are they almost the same? I’m pretty sure all of us look at this and think “pizza”, but if Trader Joe’s wants to call it “flatbread” that’s fine by me. I guess they think it sounds slightly classier? Actually this is pretty classy.
I was in the mood to try either this one or the MUSHROOM TRUFFLE flatbread shopping a few days ago. I thought I would try this first as I especially love these two things: Arugula and Prosciutto.
Here’s what it looks like right out of the box, frozen. You get two packages, one being the flatbread Plus a small package of a few slices of prosciutto. Why you ask is it separate? Aha! Because it will be added later, after the pizza is baked!
The picture on the box looks very good. Is Trader Joe’s BURRATA, PROSCIUTTO and ARUGULA FLATBREAD as good as the picture?
You be the judge. Here’s what it looked like after I finished baking it and added the prosciutto on top….
Pretty attractive, right?! Good enough that you could pretend this came out of the oven at a restaurant. It pretty much looked the same as their beautiful pizza in the picture. OK, theirs seems to have a bit more arugula that the one I got, but other than that, almost pretty the same.
Verdict? THIS IS YUMMY. VERY GOOD. We really enjoyed it as part of our dinner. Both my wife and I found this pizza equal to a good restaurants version. That prosciutto? It gives it a huge bump of Umami. It definitely adds a ton of flavor and really makes this great.
Trader Joe’s made a smart decision to keep the prosciutto to add after baking. If they had put the prosciutto on the frozen pizza, it probably would just melt away into oblivion during baking or burn.
The pizza crust base was good and all the toppings match perfectly with the crust. It says it has burrata, mozzarella, pecorino, and marscapone cheese in there as well. All these cheeses, melt together and blend into a nice very cheesy mix. The arugula adds a very nice vegetable note however I didn’t think there was quite enough of it. I wished they put on just a little more arugula. I did add a drizzle of EVOO olive oil just before serving, plus a few grinds of fresh black pepper.
We both enjoyed this flatbread and thought this was quite yummy. Our only complaint was we wished it was a tiny just a tiny bit bigger so we each could have more! Two of us ate this for dinner along with a salad and a side of vegetables.
With our salad and a veggie, this was just enough for two of us to share for dinner. I would say this pizza might make one very large portion for one. But if you eat this whole thing by yourself that would be about 900 calories. Me, I wouldn’t eat the whole thing myself I figure this realistically could serve two people – along with some other things. If two portions, I figure that half would probably mean about 450 calories each. Not terrible at all and it was just enough to be satisfying (though we said we could eat more if there was more!)
HOW TO COOK: Remove from freezer and remove the plastic. You will use the prosciutto later, just leave that out. Set oven to 450. Let it heat up for at least 20 minutes or until it lets you know it’s 450. While the oven is heating, they want you to let the pizza and prosciutto rest on the counter for about 20 minutes, to defrost a bit. When the oven is ready, put the flatbread on a baking sheet or baking tray and put it in the oven (without prosciutto!)
Let it bake for about 12 minutes or until edges a nice golden brown color and the crust looks nice and crisp. In our oven, I found 12 minutes was not enough time. I put it back for maybe another 2-4 minutes, and I think I could have still added another minute. If you look at the picture on the box you will see the crust is really well baked and very golden brown, which is exactly how you want it to look like, without burning of course. So as every oven is different you will have to judge the time. Keep checking it every minute or so after 12 mins.
When it looks ready take it out of the oven and let it rest about one minute, maybe on a cutting board or rack. After the rest, now add the prosciutto. In my package, there were 3 nice slices. I peeled them apart and cut it in half to make 6 pieces, which I tried to roll up a bit into rosettes. Put your prosciutto around the pizza in about 6 bundles. It will melt a little bit into the warm pizza. Using a long knife, you can cut the flatbread up in half or quarters to Serve.
Enjoy!
Optional: You could also grate on a little Parmigiano and add a drizzle of EVOO. I did and it made it even better. A sprinkle of hot pepper if you are a fan? Why not. If you have any arugula, I would add a few sprigs all over.
YUM.
Trader Joe’s BURRATA, PROSCIUTTO and ARUGULA FLATBREAD was $5.49 (12 oz) Is it worth that? Absolutely.
I would buy this again.
Portions/Calories: The Nutrition label describes this as being 290 calories / portion HOWEVER they count this pizza as containing 3 portions. HA! That might be a snack, not a portion, for an adult that is. I figure half a pizza (ie, 2 portions) might have about 450 calories/portion?
TJ’s: “Our supplier starts with hearty clusters of rolled oats – the kind of foundation that very important breakfasts are built upon – then sprinkles in bits of dried and sweetened blueberries and dried strawberries, so that every bite has an elegantly balanced blend of crunchy textures and sweet, fruity flavors. In other words: important, fun, and unarguably delicious.”
This is one of the newer granola’s Trader Joe’s introduced. Trader Joe’s VERY BERRY GRANOLA, as it name indicates, has a berry flavors, from dried strawberries and dried blueberries. It is just a wee bit on the sweet side. So rather than snacking out of hand, I think you want to eat this with something… milk, almond, soy milk, yogurt. I think its especially good with plain unsweetened yogurt, or especially Greek yogurt.
I liked it and found it good. Generally I don’t eat a whole bowl full of granola. I’m usually using it as topping, for a nice crunch on top of whatever else is in my breakfast bowl, which might have a mix of things: chia seeds, overnight oats, kefir, yogurt, bananas, blueberries or whatever fruit I have. This granola with it’s crunchy clusters is perfect for a bit of crunchy topping for me.
While I would not say there are a ton of dried strawberries and blueberries in it, as typical with Trader Joe, you get just enough so you don’t feel they gypped you. You taste the strawberry flavor in almost every bite as the dried berries have mostly broken up into small pieces so you will get a bit in almost every bite of it. As far as the dried blueberries, I wish they had more. I add frozen wild blues.
So this is a tasty granola and I would say this is worth trying.
I am still waiting to try the chocolate and coffee granola (huh?) people are talking about and see if that’s actually any good.
“Moist, flavorful lemon cake topped with lemon cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with lemon zest.”
This cake has come back to Trader Joe’s shelves. This lemony sheet cake is yet another addition to their very popular line of of “mini sheet cakes”. This lemon one is in addition to the chocolate and Chantilly creme versions, plus a gluten free cake as well.
I heard this lemon version of the cake is popular and sells out fairly quickly. While I prefer the chocolate one as the best of them all, I did like this lemon version. My host who shared it with me, liked it but a bit less than me. She said it not wasn’t anywhere as good as the dark chocolate ganache sheet cake. Which I understand as I love the chocolate version of this sheet cake. Still I did find the lemon one tasty, the cake is pretty moist and the sour cream and cream cheese frosting pretty good, if a bit rich and on the sweet side. I think they could cut down the sugar. So try this with perhaps tea or coffee.
It has a mildly lemony flavor from some lemon zest. If you grated some fresh zest over this cake it might be a knock out and worth the extra effort.
I had to choose between the lemon and chocolate one I would pick the chocolate cake however this is a nice change if you are looking for something other than chocolate. The CHANTILLY CREME white cake is also good, and I hear there’s a gluten free mini sheet cake now as well.
TJ’s says: “One of our perennial favorite (cheeses) is Trader Joe’s Toscano Cheese with Black Pepper, an exceptional cheese that you don’t have to save for a special occasion. As it ages, each wheel of cheese is hand-rubbed with cracked black pepper, so every wedge features a burst of mildly spicy pepper flavor—the closer you get to the outside of the wheel, the more pronounced the flavor becomes, yet it’s never overpowering. Serve it on crackers, grated over pasta or shaved onto a freshly prepared steak.”
This TOSCANO cheese is one of my favorite cheeses that Trader Joe’s carries. I find this to be quite special. The Toscano cheeses kind of tastes like Asiago. There are a few varieties of them. Here the black pepper, on the rind and in the cheese, adds quite a bit to the overall flavor profile. However the black pepper doesn’t overpower the wonderful cheese, it just adds a little something extra. They also have other versions of Toscano. Another good one being the one with a “Syrah” wine coating.
I like it on its own, sliced very thinly with Wheat Crisp crackers. It’s great with fruit, like sliced apples or grapes. With pasta? Excellent. I like to grate this over pasta. Superb with any pasta sauce or just butter and cheese using this.
This is a really nice cheese, but all the “Toscano” ones at Trader Joe’s are. A hunk now usually runs about 5-6 bucks ($10.99 lb)
“Traditional all butter Belgian biscuits”MADE IN BELGIUM
Fresh tasting. No preservatives. Super simple ingredients, the important one being butter of course. These are so buttery tasting as well as having a nice crunchy texture from the ridged waffle design.
They’re terrific, either on their own or paired with all kinds of things, sweet or savory.
I could easily see making an ice cream sandwich with them, just putting some ice cream (french vanilla?) between two cookies. Or just putting one on the side of your favorite ice cream. Or just eating with a cup of tea or coffee. So yummy. You can not go wrong with these cookies, and they’re three bucks no less.
I loved these.I would buy them again
Belgian Butter Waffle Cookies$2.99 (8.8 oz.)
“Each all-butter wafer is baked to a crispy golden brown that creates a straightforward, delicious waffle cookie ready to enjoy at any time. The flavor is somewhere between a freshly baked waffle cone and shortbread cookie and is as simple as cookies come, but oh, so delicious. Super buttery, with the ideal amount of sweetness, these Belgian Butter Waffle Cookies are more versatile than you may expect. Whether you are looking for an authentic European snack to accompany a cup of tea or a mug of coffee, a companion for ice cream, or a counterpart to cheese, cured meats, and peppers, Trader Joe’s Belgian Butter Waffle Cookies have a place in your shopping cart, your pantry, and your tummy.”
“Butter Cookies! From France! Dipped in Dark Chocolate!”
“Just about everyone loves butter cookies. If they’re French butter cookies, there’s an expectation that those cookies are going to be truly great. And what if those French butter cookies are also dipped in dark chocolate? …Made for us in France”
I got these to review and my review is these are quite good. We really liked them.
Very tasty, buttery cookies that have been dipped in good chocolate so that they have a nice coating. The cookies are on the thin side.
Frankly these taste way better than you would expect something which costs $2.99! (Note: they are only you about 10 cookies in a box). So you don’t get a lot of them but the quality of these cookies is pretty darned good!
“These Cookies are, indeed, made for us in France. The usual cookie-dough suspects—flour, sugar, egg yolks, milk, leavening, and salt—are combined with cultured French butter (13% of the recipe) to create a dough that is shaped into thin rounds. The baked biscuits are coated in rich, Dark Chocolate (40% of the recipe), yielding an exquisite Cookie that is at the same time: smooth, crunchy, chocolate-y, and buttery!“
Yummy. A big thumbs up. Put these out for company. Or eat them all yourselves!
“8 Mini Ice Cream Cones filled with rich vanilla ice cream and a chocolate coating”
Who hasn’t heard of these yet? Well, just in case you haven’t, these little mini ice cream cones dipped in chocolate that Trader Joe’s came out with are Da Bomb. These are SO GOOD! Not to mention so popular. They seem to fly off the shelves. As you can see in the photo I took when I went to buy them there was an almost empty shelf but luckily there still were a few boxes left so I could get one to try out for review. I got the vanilla but I’m sure all are as good.
They are small mini cones, kind of a perfect size when you are in the mood for a little ice cream snack. One is maybe about 5 or 6 bites. You could easily eat two or three! Even if you did eat three, according to the box that would be 260 calories, not too crazy bad.
The chocolate covering is not super thin, nor too thick, it’s just thick enough (ok its not Dove Bar thick) so you do get some very good chocolate with the first few bites, and the chocolate is good. The combo is so tasty matched with the all three elements: ice cream, chocolate coating plus the tasty cone it is in.
One thing I especially liked about these is that you get some ice cream all the way down to the very bottom of the cone which really makes these good till the last bite. Another huge improvement? They now are seeming to pour a little chocolate in the very bottom of the cone. This acts as a “stopper” and helps the ice cream not melt out through the bottom.
These MINI CONES really became popular fast. They may be Trader Joe’s most popular dessert item now. They’ve come out with and added a number of flavors besides the original (Vanilla) one so now you will see a few flavors like Strawberry, Mint and Chocolate…
If you haven’t tried these yet – and you can find them – be sure to check them out. You can not go wrong with these yummy treats.
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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