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….”
This is an excellent coffee and has become one of my new favorite Trader Joe’s small lot coffees.
I saw it in the NEW PRODUCTS area, and tried it. I found this to be an excellent coffee. It’s from Mexico of course and is one of their small lot, shade grown, 100% Arabica originating from the mountains of Huatusco, Mexico which is somewhere between Vera Cruz and Puebla.
I thought it made an outstanding cup of brewed coffee. Now the package says this is a “medium roast” – however I would disagree and say it’s darker than a medium roast
I’ve found Trader Joe’s descriptions (light, medium, dark) can vary quite a bit from coffee to coffee and are fairly inconsistent. To my eyes, this is a bit darker than “medium”. I would say its on the edge of being a (light) dark roast. Maybe about a “French Roast”? The beans are darkish and even slightly shiny.
(correction/ update; the new batch I just bought (2025) is exactly “medium roast”).
If you want a “medium” roast TJ’s Azmari Bunni is actually a medium roast or even a shade lighter. So let’s say this lovely Mexican coffee is roasted a little bit into the edge of a dark roast which actually seems perfect for these beans. The brewing method I used was making it in my Moka pot but this coffee will work for any kind of brewing method you prefer (drip, pour-over or even an espresso machine). This is a whole bean coffee of course so ideally of course you will grind up your beans at home just before brewing. In a pinch use the grinder at Trader Joe’s. When freshly ground you get an incredible aroma from these beans. It made a rich dark flavorful cup of Joe that I just loved. I find this coffee is delicious and excellent. I would buy it again gladly. In fact I may stock up a bit as these small lot coffees from Trader Joe’s can go bye-bye easily. TJ’s sells this for $9.99 for a 12 oz bag (whole bean. For this quality I’d say that’s not outrageous and a pretty fair price. PS I also experimented mixing this 50/50 with TJ’s BUUNI coffee, which is a medium roast, and together that was also quite excellent as a blend of a medium and darker roast, Middle American, South America and African coffees!
UPDATE (Dec 1 2022) : Sure enough a few weeks after writing this post, I can’t find any more bags of this coffee in either of my two nearby TJ’s (NYC) ! I really hope more comes in… Please leave a COMMENT if you see it in your local TJ’s (with location)
This was a really good product but sadly and very unfortunately Trader Joe’s stopped carrying them (discontinued). Argh!!! They were good. Many people aren’t happy about these being Axed judging from all the Comments left here below.
FYI – one of our readers kindly let us know these cleaning cloths on Amazon seem similar to the Trader Joe’s one. These cleaning cloths are made in Germany and come in a 12 pack, so cost about $1 each! They got good reviews too, Click the link for them on Amazon –https://amzn.to/4qEmlTt
For Archival Purposes…… here’s my original post about the Trader Joe’s Cloths…..
“SAVE PAPER, REDUCE WASTE”
These cleaning cloths are strong and quite absorbent. We’ve tested these out in our kitchen and are finding them to be pretty useful. They seem to me a bit like those orange “Chamois” cloths one finds at the dollar store? The good ones that is. These Trader Joe’s viscose cloths are convenient to buy and are not out of line priced at $2.99 for two cloths in the package (though I wish they were a little bigger). We’re mainly using them for kitchen counters and the like. They do absorb a lot even when wet. You just wring them out till damp and they absorb a ton of liquid again. These are useful and “eco”, saving some paper towel usage. I would buy these again.
UPDATE – Everyone complains about these being DISCONTINUED! (Argh!!!) I haven’t tried these but Amazon has some Amazon Basics” general cleaning cloths “even cheaper than the German ones….. that might be OK : https://amzn.to/3DIHmJy
Trader Joe’s Fish Nuggets are tasty and these taste like a real battered piece of fish. They are perfect for making fish tacos for one thing. The first ingredient is Alaskan Pollack. Don’t confuse this item (“Fish Nuggets”) with TJ’s “Fish Sticks”which are terrible, way inferior to these at a dollar less. I used these nuggets to make Fish Tacos for dinner the other night. BTW I didn’t bake these as it says on the package. I sauteed them in a cast iron pan till they were crispy on both sides.
We really enjoyed these when we made them into fish tacos. The popular TJ’s Fish Tacos recipe is easy to make. You take a package of these, Corn Tortillas (which I think will taste better than flour ones) and top with crunchy slaw made with the Cole Slaw Mix, some Greek Yogurt, and lime juice. Optional but nice would be some ripe avocado and your favorite hot sauce. I would recommend TJ’s Green Dragon and/or Peri-Peri hot sauce as being a good match with fish tacos.
TJ’s BATTERED FISH NUGGETS are now $5.99 for a 1 lb package. The other thing these might be good for is an English style Fish & Chips with some french fries?
“These tantalizing tacos combine the tart, tangy, and savory flavors of fresh Lime juice and crispy Battered Fish Nuggets with a mix of soft, crunchy, and creamy textures, courtesy of our Corn Tortillas, Organic Broccoli Slaw, and Plain Greek Whole Milk Yogurt. Endlessly customizable with your favorite hot sauce, salsa, or crema, one batch of these can feed a family of four and even more, depending on your hunger level.”
FISH TACOS
TJ’s Battered Fish Nuggets
TJ’s Plain Greek Whole Milk Yogurt
1 Lime
TJ’s Organic Broccoli Slaw or Cole Slaw Mix
TJ’s Corn Tortillas
Add yogurt and lime juice to the slaw mix; let sit a 1/2 hour to marinate. Cook up the fish till golden brown and put two pieces into a warm corn tortilla and top with slaw and a few drops of salsa or hot sauce.
Ground turkey is something I tend to buy fairly often at Trader Joe’s. For one, I find it versatile, not to mention more affordable than ground beef, as well as a healthier option. Perhaps many of you think the same. So I decided to check out this option Trader Joe’s frozen Turkey Burgers.
Is there any advantage of buying this versus buying a package of fresh ground turkey? Normally I would just buy a package of the fresh ground turkey. If I want them shaped as burgers, I will just form them myself, which would take maybe a minute to make 4 with little effort.
However I can see a few reasons some people might like frozen turkey burgers instead of buying fresh ground turkey. For one thing I imagine some folks (especially singles?) might find this more convenient. Say you just wanted one burger for dinner. You have that ready to go and are not left with extra turkey which you would have to use in a few days, or freeze for later use. Maybe some people don’t like touching ground meat and forming burgers, or just find this an easier option? Certainly one benefit of these frozen turkey burgers is the frozen burgers are a bit cheaper than fresh ground turkey. These go for $3.49 3.99 for a pound (4 x 1/4 lb). One pound of TJ’s fresh ground turkey will cost you $3.99 4.49 presently. So the frozen ones are a wee bit cheaper.
Cooking: Trader Joe’s instructions on the package state “Cook From Frozen” (as usual for them on frozen stuff). I am an experienced home cook. Cooks as a general rule, tend to not like to cook food from frozen. I think cooking from a defrosted state is best for meats generally.
Sure you can cook these burgers from frozen, but you don’t HAVE to. You can defrost these in an hour or two on the counter, which is what I do sometimes.
Another advantage to not cooking from frozen for me is, I can add ingredients into my burgers. I find this very useful as ground turkey is a quite bland. It needs to be jazzed up.
If its not frozen, you can add ingredients in, mix it up and form your own burgers. If I add say a few spoons of chopped fresh parsley and spices, mix it all in, form a burger (which is usually a little smaller and thicker than the way they come frozen). This way they not only have way more taste to them, they also conform to the hamburger buns which can be smaller than the diameter of the frozen pucks. Here are turkey burgers with chopped parsley added plus a bit of chopped pickled sweet jalapenos. And yes you want to add oil and/or butter when you cook these turkey burgers which don’t have that much fat.
I took out two burgers. I put them on a plate, covered them with a a bowl over them (mostly to keep the cats from going after them!) to just let them defrost. That took about an hour or two.
Sure a pinch you can cook from frozen if you want to. The cook time will be longer than if they are defrosted of course.
TIP: Turkey is bland. So I really season it to jazz it up. Add a good dusting of some spices. I love to use the terrifically useful TJ’s 99 CENTS TACO SEASONING spice mix which really jazzes up turkey. If you used that Mix, then don’t add salt as there is salt in the taco spice mix, plus they have some salt already added in the burgers. Also I made them as cheese burgers by putting grated Unexpected Cheddar or some other cheese on top which works great as that cheese is amazing melted (cover the pan for a minute to help melt the cheese). I put them on toasted Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns and dressed them up with some spicy ketchup (mix some Peri-Peri or Bomba into some of the Organic Ketchup) .
Our turkey burgers were yummy with toasted buns, lettuce and tomato and we quite enjoyed them and kind of could not tell they were turkey burger and not ground beef. The trick again is really seasoning these as if you don’t it will be very bland tasting. And melted cheese never hurts! By the way, the buns I used here are the PRETZEL BUNS, perfect for burgers and many other things.
“Exactly what the name implies. Very sweet orange slices which are full of wonderful citrus flavor. You can eat the whole slice, rind and all.”
Personally I think these are a terrific little snack with an old world taste and aesthetic.
I just love these. They are whole slices of orange including the rind and the peel which are sweetened and dried enough to be slightly chewy. They have a wonderfully intense orange flavor which includes just the slightest bitterness from the peel. These are so good I could eat the whole package at once but I usually stop myself at around 3 slices. OK maybe 4.
FALL SEASONAL ITEM – Trader Joe’s Organic Raw Pumpkin Vinegar, “RAW ORGANIC VINEGAR WITH THE MOTHER, UNPASTEURIZED AND UNFILTERED”
If you are one of those into Trader Joe’s All Things Pumpkin every Fall you may find this interesting enough to check out.
It’s made exactly like they make the Apple Cider Vinegar TJ’s carries, just instead of apples they are using pumpkins. I compared the taste of TJ’s Apple Cider Vinegar and this Pumpkin Vinegar side by side to compare them to each other. Now the Apple Cider Vinegar is something I’m really used to, taste-wise and just find that really really good, a perfect vinegar. ACV tastes just right to me especially as far as acidity and sharpness. This pumpkin vinegar has the slightest taste of pumpkin. It seems to be more mellow than ACV even though technically the acidity in both is the same. Both say “diluted to 5% acidity”. But this pumpkin vinegar seems less sharp to me. So if you want a less sharp vinegar, this may be for you. Me, while I find this “interesting”, it’s just a curiosity item. I’d probably say I prefer my good old reliable ACV. I could see this vinegar as being good for making a milder vinaigrette. Or used to make a shrub (drink with vinegar)?
This is $1.99 for a 8 1/2 oz bottle. I can get a way bigger bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar for just a little more ($2.49). I probably wouldn’t buy this again. Side-note – TJ’s once carried a raspberry vinegar which I actually did like a lot, as it did actually taste of raspberries. I liked that for salad dressings – but sadly it vanished like so many good TJ’s items! (Sigh)
TJ’s says: “Our supplier takes fresh, cold-pressed, organic Pumpkins and ferments them into a cider. Then they add the vinegar “mother” (a culture of good bacteria) and ferment them together to become the seasonal vinegar before you—the very same process that is used to turn apples into our Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar. This Organic Raw Vinegar is unpasteurized and unfiltered—giving it a gorgeously cloudy, orange hue—with a subtle pumpkin flavor. Use it to create a unique vinaigrette for your salads or add a tablespoon to give a punch of acidity to chilis, stews, and sauces. Best yet, combine with sparkling water for a homemade pumpkin shrub!”
This was a “Meh” for me. Just wasn’t too crazy for this vinaigrette which was one of those “sounded better than it tasted” items for me. Two tasters in our house didn’t go for this dressing and didn’t like it. I found the maple taste off putting and didn’t work at all. As opposed to honey which I like in a salad dressing. Frankly I can easily make a very good Vinaigrette myself in about 3 minutes using with oil, vinegar and Dijon mustard (optional, crushed garlic). Put these in a glass jar and shake shake shake. Frankly we prefer my Homemade Vinaigrette way over any dressing I can buy generally. However what I do think is worth buying at Trader Joe’s is their Asian Sesame Dressing which is excellent. TOASTED SESAME SALAD DRESSING. We just love that one so much. That is worth the same price as this one, $3.49. This one for us at least was a miss and a “meh”.
This was a “Meh” for me. Just wasn’t too crazy for this vinaigrette which was one of those “sounded better than it tasted” items for me. Two tasters in our house didn’t go for this dressing and didn’t like it. I found the maple taste off putting and didn’t work at all. As opposed to honey which I like in a salad dressing. Frankly I can easily make a very good Vinaigrette myself in about 3 minutes using with oil, vinegar and Dijon mustard (optional, crushed garlic). Put these in a glass jar and shake shake shake. Frankly we prefer my Homemade Vinaigrette way over any dressing I can buy generally. However what I do think is worth buying at Trader Joe’s is their Asian Sesame Dressing which is excellent. TOASTED SESAME SALAD DRESSING. We just love that one so much. That is worth the same price as this one, $3.49. This one for us at least was a miss and a “meh”. I won’t buy this again.
If you are not familiar with BOBA TEA (aka bubble tea) it’s a popular (very TRENDY) drink that has very large pearls of Tapioca that sink to the bottom. The tapioca pearls have a very chewy texture that most people really enjoy. The pearls are so large that to suck them up it comes with a special ultra wide straw. These drinks are sold by specialty tea shops like “GONG CHA”that serve up a premium (and a bit pricey) Boba Tea Drink.
Trader Joe’s BOBA TEA kit is a (poor) approximation of what you might get from a specialty Boba Tea shop. I have had Boba Tea from quite a few different Tea shops and in short, Trader Joe’s Boba Tea Kit won’t put any of them out of business. The drink you get in a real Boba Tea shop is way better than this, however if you’ve never had it before this may give you an idea of what “boba tea” is. As my wife commented “this is a Trader Joe’s version”. She meant it as a knock as in “cheap knockoff of the real thing”. A specialty shop boba tea drink usually costs about $5-6 bucks each. This kit sells for $5.50 for 4 drinks. So yes a cheap knock off. Granted, its a high profit item (sugar, tea, tapioca)
Anyway if you can’t have it at one of these shops and just want to try boba tea in that case then his might be a good starting point. For one thing the tapioca pearls in Trader Joe’s are much smaller than the ones that the shops make which are huge and so chewy. This kit has 4 pouches of a concentrate with the pearls. You mix this package up with milk or tea (or combo of the two) plus a handful of ice to dilute its sweetness, and you need to add enough of these things in, otherwise it will be way too sweet. I put the defrosted pouch into a glass jar with a lid so I could really shake it up with the added ice and liquid. The kit even has 4 big straws. Not bad, but again really no comparison to a Boba Tea shop drink. I probably wouldn’t buy it again.
It may seem a little silly for me to review frozen spinach but here goes anyway because it’s actually something I buy all the time from Trader Joe’s (along with frozen peas!) TJ’s frozen spinach is easy, healthy, tasty and super convenient to have in the freezer. Plus it’s one of TJ’s best bargains for just $1.99 for a pound in the organic version and $1.49 for the regular version.
At the risk of heresy there are a few vegetables which I propose are actually better frozen than fresh. Really. One is frozen peas. The other is frozen spinach. While I love fresh raw spinach, the reality is it’s a pain. Spinach is very dirty and sandy. You must it like crazy 3 or 4 times to get rid of all the grit in every nook and cranny. Then you start with what looks like an enormous amount, raw. You can fill the biggest pot you own with it to the brim, and that shrinks up into almost what looks like just enough for one person. It really shrinks up in cooking. All of these are reasons I find frozen spinach easier than fresh spinach.
RECIPE HACK – a two ingredient Trader Joe’s recipe hack I came up with for spinach with TJ’s Garlic Spread – which are so good together and takes minutes! SPINACH IN GARLIC – Put the spinach in a pot with a teaspoon of olive oil or butter (or 50/50 mix). Cook on medium till it’s just cooked but still bright green (don’t overcook it) then add a heaping tablespoon or two of TJ’s Garlic Spread and mix it together. Give it a grind of fresh black pepper, taste it and if it needs it, add a pinch of salt (as the Garlic Spread has some salt). Optionally give it a squeeze of fresh lemon. This garlicy creamy spinach combo is absolutely delish. You can even mix in noodles to this for an instant dish.
Spinach omelet – make the above and toss the spinach in the middle. Yum!
Spinach rice: Cook Basmati rice. Cook some spinach. Mix the two together when done with some Greek yogurt. Season to taste.
TJ’s organic spinach is $1.99. The regular spinach is even less only ($1.49). Either is a bargain and is a great thing to always have in your freezer. So eat your Spinach! It’s healthy – it’s what made Popeye so strong.
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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