TJ’s HATCH GREEN AND RED CHILE FLAKES are terrific and apparently a hit and a popular Trader Joe’s item. When I saw this “Trader Jose’sHatch Valley Salsa” with “fire roasted Hatch Chile peppers” I guess I was expecting it to have a special taste but in fact found it to be just OK, nothing special at all. Trader Joe’s has had a GREEN SALSA (Salsa Verde) for some time which is fine in this salsa verde style and but which is cheaper at $1.99. This one is $2.99, a premium price. Both have green chiles and tomatillos. On its own this Hatch Valley Salsa was again just OK when we ate it with TJ’s Corn Dipper chips, it didn’t bring a great deal of flavor plus as it is thin and not great for dipping (on the plus side of that, no thickener agents) I haven’t tried this and the regular Green Salsa together to compare them side by side but still, I probably won’t buy this again as I just don’t think the higher price is worth it against the Salsa Verde. It might however be good for cooking a dish like Green Chile Enchiladas. TJ’s has so many very good salsa’s and related products (like Cowboy Caviar which I love as well as the Chlpotle Black Bean Dip) So I am giving this HATCH SALSA a “Meh” as its $2.99. Medium spice heat level. Ingredients: Hatch Chile Pepper, Tomatillos, Lime Juice Concentrate, Garlic Salt.
This is the wild same Argentinian Red Shrimp TJ’s has but packaged up with seasoned butter for a ready-to-cook meal. Convenient, yes, but naturally you pay extra for said convenience. We made this and the finished dish with the sauce was very tasty, but honestly nothing I could not have done with maybe 5 minutes of little effort. This pack is $8 for a 9 oz portion which cooked, makes for two meager portions for 2 as a dinner. To make this into a full meal (for two) I served the shrimp with a few sides plus a salad and a little French bread. Follow the instructions on the package which are to thaw overnight in the fridge. After defrosting I used a thin knife to get it out of the package (actually a bit tricky) and tossed the whole mess into a hot nonstick pan with a little (extra) butter. These Red Shrimp cook fast – they will be done in about 1 1/2 minutes – so be careful not to overcook them if you want the shrimp to stay plump and juicy.
Frankly if you want to get more bang for your buck it’s easy to just buy a pound of shrimp and make a similar sauce. Buy the bag of frozen WILD RED ARGENTINIAN SHRIMP ($10.99) and just add some butter and seasonings. This package is convenient but not great value and its so easy to make shrimp and add a few things. Personally I probably won’t buy this again, I’ll just do it myself. Your call.
Need a recipe for a sauce? Here you go:
GINGER/GARLIC BUTTER SAUCE: Grate or finely chop 1/2″ of fresh ginger and 2-3 cloves of garlic (optional: a little grated fresh lemon peel too); Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in a hot non-stick pan; Toss the garlic and ginger into. Sauté 30 seconds, then toss in your (defrosted) shrimp and cook tossing them for about 60-90 seconds just until the shrimp turn opaque (max, 2 minutes lest they will shrink up). As soon as they are opaque and pink. add the juice of 1/2 a lemon. Optional: if you like spice, add a small spoon of BOMBA or your favorite something spicy to taste. Add a pinch salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped parsley or scallions. Serve with rice and/or crusty bread to mop up the tasty sauce.
Trader Joe’s introduced a fantastic seasoning, these Dried Green and Red Hatch Chile Flakes. This stuff is terrific. Now from what I understand in New Mexico, “Hatch Chiles”, named after the Hatch Valley where they are grown, are to be found everywhere in both fresh and dried form (with strings of dried ones called “ristras” hanging outside houses). Hatch Chiles are consumed in quantity by all New Mexicans, the only thing being if you are a “green or red” person. Hatch Chiles seem to be something Trader Joe’s has some interest in. They have a Hatch Valley Salsa and have always had those little cans of fire roasted chiles (terrific for the pantry BTW). Last summer I recall seeing bags of fresh Hatch Chiles which really surprised me as in NYC seeing fresh Hatch Chiles is so rare I think one might only find that at a Super Gourmet grocer. Those TJ fresh Hatch Chiles I saw might have been a one-off deal as I haven’t seen them since. I am guessing TJ’s decided it’s more practical to sell Hatch Chiles like this in a dried crushed form.
These HATCH CHILE FLAKES are yet one more great addition to TJ’s excellent line of spices. The bottle of dried flaked chiles contains both red AND green chiles to accommodate all comers. These dried chilies are not very spicy and add a wonderful flavor. HOW TO USE: Add these chile flakes to any ground meat, burgers (beef, ground turkey, or ground chicken) or even Impossible burgers, or to tacos, stews, tomato based dishes, pasta, pizza, cheese dishes… Add to marinades and sauces… use the flakes to marinate chicken or meats (or tofu for that matter) in a marinade. Sprinkle this on eggs or on avocados or Avo-Toast.
The 1.9 oz jar is $3.99. A little expensive for a bottle of spice, but you can use a teaspoon and get a lot of flavor – not to mention you don’t have to go all the way to Santa Fe to get your fix of Hatch Chiles and the flavors of New Mexico. If this sounds interesting I would grab a bottle as who knows if this product will be around forever or it’s a one off like those Trader Joe bags of fresh Hatch chiles I saw once. I am stocking up with a few of these.
TRADER JOE’S says: “It’s hard to overstate the importance of red and green chiles to New Mexican cuisine — there’s an argument to be made that red and green chiles are, in fact, the foundation of New Mexican cuisine. After all, New Mexico’s state question (apparently, there are such things as state questions), “red or green?”, is a direct reference to their ubiquity in restaurant settings. In honor of these chiles’ special place in Southwestern cooking, we’re proudly introducing Trader Joe’s Green & Red Hatch Chile Flakes to our shelves, so that their spicy, singularly New Mexican flavor can be enjoyed at home in dishes of all kinds — no matter which state your home happens to be in.
Of course, these aren’t just any chiles: these are dried Hatch Chiles, from New Mexico’s renowned Hatch Valley. Widely praised for their unique, savory taste (some detect notes of onion or garlic in their flavor profile), these Green & Red Hatch Chiles are especially great for adding heat and depth to taco meat, enchilada sauces, chilis, or stews. And since each jar contains both Red and Green Flakes, you get the benefits of each: both the round, slightly sweeter flavor of the more ripened Red, and the sharper, more vegetal flavor of the younger Green. Try folding them into your next burger for a nice, peppery kick.”
This is hardly a “recipe”, just putting out an idea how sometimes putting two or three TJ products together is an easy way to come up with something good. For New Year’s Eve I had the idea for a “Russian inspired” taste: Smoked Salmon with Potato Pancakes (the pancakes instead of blinis). The combo turned out just as delicious as I hoped and we really enjoyed these as a super easy special holiday meal – however you can make them any old day!
I took a package of Trader Joe’s Latkes / Potato Pancakes and Smoked Salmon and OK instead of sour cream I actually used Greek yogurt to save a few calories. Of course a Russian would use lots of Sour Cream, calories be damned, plus fresh dill. To put the dish together all I had to do to was cook the frozen Potato Pancakes till crispy in an frying pan, then topped them with a good amount of smoked salmon and topped that with a spoon of Greek yogurt. Better with sour cream sure, up to you. Sprinkle some fresh dill on if possible plus a few drops of fresh lemon juice. Voila, it took about 5 minutes until they were ready to serve as a dinner with salad and roasted beets on the side. Easy as pie to “make” and really yummy, so try this if it sounds good to you. You could make this as an appetizer for a few guests in minutes and make a big splash with almost no work except assembling the ingredients. Now I was hardly the only one shopping thinking about Smoked Salmon early afternoon of New Years Eve. Trade Joe’s whole section with smoked salmon was completely sold out except for a few packs of this Nova Salmon! The Nova was a wee bit saltier than some other versions they sell, but as fine with the creamy sour cream / yogurt as it it all balanced out. The next time I make these I will probably opt for the Everything Salmon.
Trader Joe’s (frozen) Potato Pancakes Latkes are $2.69 for 10 little pancakes. I think the Nova was about $9 for 8 oz package.
“There are grits and then there are stone ground grits.”
Up here in the Yankee North of NYC, most of us are probably not as familiar with grits as folks in the South are. I tried these Trader Joe’s Stone Ground Grits and guess what? This damn Yankee loves me some Grits! Maybe its not such a surprise as I have always enjoyed and made Italian Polenta, and let’s face it grits are almost the American version of polenta, right? OK not exactly as grits use a different kind of corn.
Anyway these TJ’s stone ground grits are much better than commercially mass produced grits you see at the supermarket kind which are not stone ground. Stone Ground Grits are milled from the whole kernel of corn including the healthy tasty germ. They have a coarse, varied texture, as you can see in the picture and have more corn flavor than the supermarket kind. Think of these as “gourmet grits”. Grits take about 25-30 minutes to cook, stirring them every 5 minutes or so. You can just follow the recipe on the package and you will get good grits. I like to cook them using more milk (half milk/half water) which makes them even creamier. Shredded cheddar cheese at the end makes them even better if you like them savory (Unexpected Cheddar perhaps!? Oh yeah). I like to use grits as the Base for a dish, such as the base for sautéed GREENS or especially the base for SHRIMP AND GRITS, which is terrific and typically Southern. You can even do it a super simple version of Shrimp and Grits: just grill up some red shrimp with lots of seasoning and serve them on top of cheesy grits with the pan juices. Yum!
Cook grits low and slow in a thick bottomed pan and stir them often so the bottom doesn’t burn. They may be even better with another 10-15 mins of cooking (ie 40-45 minutes total). If they get too thick, just add a little more water. TJ’s Stone Ground Grits are $2.29. Grits are GLUTEN FREE of course.
TIP: Double up the recipe when you make some grits; then you have leftovers which you can use to make pan fried grits, kind of the way you might make pan fried polenta, which I just love.
I had read about this new Trader Joe’s frozen Korean frozen dish. Reports on the internet were that it was good. I had to wait for it to hit our shelves in NYC so I could check it out, as I love Korean JapChae. Finally I saw it in our TJ’s here and got one to try. I have to say I was kind of impressed. It is indeed quite good. Even my (Korean) wife gave it her seal of approval with her comment “it tastes like JapChae” – and it does say it’s “MADE IN KOREA”. If you fix it up a bit it can be even better.
The noodles in JapChae are a clear vermicelli type noodle made from Korean sweet potato. These are someties called glass noodles as that is what they resemble. Korean Chap jae or (Jap Chae) is a tasty noodle stir fry dish. TJ’s ChapJae is VEGETARIAN / VEGAN. As well as being quite tasty it’s a pretty good deal at $2.99 (for 10 oz package). For the two of us, the container made 2 medium sized portions for a side dish. If you add things, it can become a dinner or main dish. We ate this with our dinner of potsticker dumplings. These two were a great combo together! We enjoyed the dumplings with this side dish of noodles with a bit of Kimchi too.
Carrots and red and green bell peppers round out the dish. Drizzle some more toasted sesame oil on just before serving if you have it. This dish is not spicy. Add something if you want it spicy. One can “beef up” the dish just by adding additional things: protein, more veggies. For example we put fried eggs on top which was a terrific addition. Top each portion with a fried egg, or you could make soft scrambled eggs and mix them into the noodles when they are ready to serve. You could also add in some BAKED TOFU or serve it on the side with this.
So you can easily take this package of JAPCHAE and use it as the base for making a bigger fuller meal out of it. Add in to the noodles (or top when serving): cooked ground beef or ground turkey or pork, grilled chicken, shrimp, salmon or what have you. You can add more vegetables, too! I like it with lots more carrots so I usually julienne some and cook them and add those it. Or add some mushrooms, spinach, green beans…. Add some things to this and you will have a bigger and pretty easy Korean dish as a dinner for two, for way less than a restaurant or takeout. We liked TJ’s Jap Chae a lot. I will definitely buy this again.
One side note though: it does have a pretty high SODIUM CONTENT. If you eat this whole container yourself, note that you are getting a lot of Sodium (1120 mg) or almost half of the daily recommended level. Eating 1/2 the container as a serving brings the Sodium down to (560 mg) 24% of the recommended level, clearly much better for you. And if you add veggies or other things that can spread out the sodium level as well. One should check Sodium levels listed on all prepared / packaged food as many foods can skew high especially some Asian dishes.
Trader Joe’s CANESTRATO PEPATO Sardinian Sheep’s Milk Cheese with Black Peppercorns
I discovered this terrific cheese not too long ago in Trader Joe’s cheese section, and it’s become one of our favorite cheeses they sell. It’s fantastic and we adore it. “Pepato” refers to the cheese being infused with whole black peppercorns, as you can see in the pic. It’s produced in Sardinia, Italy by “an award winning cheese maker” ; The combination of peppercorns and a great sheep’s milk cheese is super. Up till seeing this I don’t think I ever encountered a cheese having whole peppercorns embedded in the cheese when they make it. It’s quite an interesting sheep’s milk semi-hard cheese that is both terrific grated onto pasta or just eaten on it’s own, cut into very thin slices. served with good bread or crackers. If you put this on a cheese board you will get comments. A piece is around $4-5 (its $12/lb)
Great Stuff! You can put this on your Cacio e Pepe dishes! Or even make it from scratch with this.
UPDATE: I haven’t found this for some time unfortunately !!! Sigh…..
My wife picked up one of these tarts the other day at Trader Joe’s, and I’ve got to say I was pretty impressed just looking at it. This looks like something that camew from an upscale bakery and I would imagine might cost about $15 or more. At TJ’s it’s $7.99. Wow. But does it taste as good as it looks? OMG, yes. It’s delicious! It tastes as good as it looks like it was made in an upscale bakery. There are a ton of sliced apples that stil look like apples, not some mushy canned apple pie filling loaded with cornstarch that came from a can that even some store bought apple pies have in them. The apples in this tart still have a bit of texture, and it’s not overly sweet, nor overly thickened. The taste is just the way it looks like it is, apples. You can see the quality of the baking. We found this tart to be absolutely delicious especially when we served it, paired up with a spoon of French Vanilla ice cream, a match made in heaven. The crust is perfect too.
If you served this to guests, I’m sure you will get a ton of compliments and questions about where you bought it. Or even “did you make this?”
This is seriously good!
TRADER JOE’S FRENCH APPLE TART – $7.90 for a 1 lb, 4 oz tart
Trader Joe’s “Southern Greens Blend” Greens For Cooking” Cut, cleaned and Ready To Cook.
I think this is a fairly new product at TJ’s or at least I don’t recall seeing it until recently. It’s good. No, make that terrific. This Yankee boy is really digging on these Southern Greens. TJ’s Southern Greens contains a blend of greens typical in Southern cooking, specifically Mustard, Turnip, Collards and Spinach, prepped and ready to cook with. Similar to TJ’s bags of prepped kale but these are different/better with a little funky spicy, slightly bitter taste I love. There are a few recipes on the back which will give you some ideas. These greens take anywhere from about 10-30 minutes to cook depending on how cooked you like your greens. Now of course you don’t need a use a “recipe”. You could just sauté the greens in some olive oil with some chopped garlic, covered on low-med heat with a touch of liquid (stock or water), season to taste with salt and pepper and cook them for 10-30 minutes to your desired degree of greens “done-ness”. They start bright green and get darker and softer as they cook down. Taste them along the way and see how you like them best. TIP: If you find them a little too bitter for your palate you can toss in a tiny amount of sugar to taste. I don’t! I love the little bitterness from the mustard greens. Frankly I am finding myself throwing some of these greens now into whatever I’m cooking. I recently mixed some raw greens into a pot of Jasmine rice as I was cooking it and that worked really well (cook time was about 16 minutes total). I’m throwing some greens into many things I’m cooking to “green up” the dish.
GREENS IS GOOD! They are HEALTHY, and good for y’all ! Eat more dark green leafy vegetables easily using these Southern Greens. They are $2.99 a 1 lb bag. One thing, use it up pretty fast; cut leafy greens start to go bad fairly quickly; so use it in about 3 days. TIP: I poke a bunch of holes (tip of sharp knife) in bags of greens to let in a little air so they don’t rot quite as fast. These greens need to be used pretty fast before they go bad (3-4 days?)
This is a Limited and Seasonal item – at Trader Joe’s during Holiday Season only
Trader Joe’s is selling packages of traditional Marzipan Stollen (Thanksgiving/Holidays season) for the holidays. Made in Germany.
Stollen are a traditional holiday German cake filled with dried fruits and marzipan. These are Made In Germany by “KuchenMeister”, the same brand TJ’s has carried in years past. They are pretty good, loaded with raisins and candied orange and lemon peel and are completly covered with powdered sugar., which looks like snow. So they look nice and Christmas-y. There is a decent amount of soft tastyyellow marzipan in the center of the cake (I cut the end so you don’t see it, as it starts a few slices in). The cake was pretty tasty served with coffee and tea. For $3.99, this is a good buy. I’ve bought them from specialty stores, and they were about $15-20. Of course those were loaded with butter, and this cheaper one is doesn’t even list butter – one place where they cut costs. I once bought one for $20 from a special German style bakery and when I tasted it could not help wondering if it was worth 4 times the price of this cheap one, which does have a fair amount of marzipan and lots of dried fruits and frankly for just four bucks it’s not bad especially if you warm it up before serving. If you find these, I’d say try one as they are perfect for the holidays and a nice thing to give friends and neighbors. That is if you can find them, they are only there for a month or two around Thanksgiving/Xmas.
“KuchenMeister MarzipanStollen – A German sweet fruit filled bread that makes a great gift for friends and neighbors“
UPDATE 2023: Came Back. Has a new package design. I saw one left at my TJ’s (72/Bway). Saving for Xmas day. Now $4.99 PS – We were so disappointed when we tried it this time. Very dry. Tasteless. Probably changed the recipe. Made it even cheaper and worse. Too bad. I won’t buy this again. Don’t waste $5 on this. Get something good like TJ’s yummy CHOCOLATE BABKA!
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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