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 one of the granola’s I get a Trader Joe’s. I’m still upset my old go-to granola (Coconut Cranberry Granola) was discontinued (argh!!) a few years ago. The Pecan Praline granola is pretty good and now my Go-To general granola for breakfast. If you look at the closeup of the granola you can see it’s not loaded with large pieces of pecans, they are more mixed in as “praline” perhaps. When I want lots of nuts, I just top my cereal with a little Grainless Granola. This Pecan Praline granola’s a wee bit on the sweet side but not overly so. When I add my plain yogurt or unsweetened almond milk on it, it all balances out just fine. A 1 lb bag goes for about $3.50. I assume this is GLUTEN FREE, as it’s just oats. Whole Grain.
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.
Breaded deep fried ravioli? I was intrigued and thought I would give them a try. Well I have to say they are quite good, in facgt better than I expected them to be. First I should say I/we almost always try to “eat healthy”. I almost never eat deep fried foods. So frankly deep fried breaded ravioli is not something I would normally eat or buy on a regular basis but hey this is the job, reviews have to be done 😉
Having now tried them, I can tell you these fried ravioli are actually pretty yummy. The two of us totally enjoyed eating these, as a rare treat. I could see these as something you could serve once in a blue moon in small portions, say 4 or 5 ravioli, as a side or as an appetizer? They might be even be a tasty and easy treat to serve up as an hors d’oeuvre for company. One recommended method to make these is to Pan Fry them which is what I did. I used less than a tablespoon of olive oil, where as the directions say, oil a 1/4 inch deep. I don’t think you need more than a tablespoon or two of oil in a non-stick or cast iron pan. TJ’s says they are good done in an air fryer too. Once the ravioli looked crispy and golden brown, I drained them on a paper towel. The breaded ravioli were delicious, a little crispy on the outside and when you bite into them, full of soft melted cheese inside (5 kinds of cheese). Naturally these will be perfect with a bit of your favorite tomato sauce (fresh basil if you have), and they were delicious when I served them with some sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan. So give these a try if they sound good to you. A package (1 lb) is $3.99. They can be found in the frozen section…. Trader Joe’s says…
“Each Breaded Fried Ravioli starts as a stately square of semolina pasta, filled with a mouth-watering mix of five kinds of cheese: creamy ricotta, mild Monterey Jack, rich mozzarella, savory Asiago, and piquant Parmesan. These Ravioli are then battered and deep fried to perfection, then flash frozen for you to finish the job at home. Once prepared (we find an air fryer to be particularly suited for the job), they’re everything a cheesy appetizer should be: warm, gooey, and phenomenally cheesy, with a crispy, savory exterior—a little like a breaded mozzarella stick, taken to the next level.”
“PESTO ROSSO – “Red, tomato-based pesto sauce, rich umami flavor, including Parmesan and cashew nuts”.
Trader Joe’s PESTO ROSSO, is interesting. Rosso is Italian for “red”. Here one usually thinks of pesto as the green Pesto Genovese made from basil leaves, (pine) nuts, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil. Pesto Rosso is a red version made from tomatoes, (cashew) nuts, and Parmesan, which is a Sicilian or Southern Italian kind of pesto (paste). I got a jar to check out and made a pasta dish with this. The dish turned out quite tasty. TJ’s Pesto Rosso is pretty good, however just like the other jarred TJ green pesto it will better if you fix it up a little. Some fresh garlic, maybe some chopped up TJ’s Sun-Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil, and naturally a generous amount of freshly grated cheese (Parmesan, Pecorino, Rosemary Asiago or Canestrato Pepato. Extra Virgin olive oil at the end is a must, as they made this with bland cheap sunflower oil to keep costs down.
USAGE: Cook your pasta two minutes less than al dente, drain it (saving 1/2 cup pasta water – a super secret ingredient*). Add the pasta to a pan with the Pesto Rosso and finish cooking the pasta adding a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water as needed. Cook about another two minutes until the pasta becomes al dente and nicely coated with sauce. I added some fresh garlic. I also added a tablespoon of Tomato Paste (optional) to intensify the tomato and umami flavors even more. When ready, plate it up and drizzle with good EVOO and a nice sprinkle of freshly grated cheese on top. Fresh or dried basil on top would be nice if you have it.
Now one can use the Pesto Rosso in other ways besides pasta. You can spread it on fresh or lightly toasted bread or a baguette for a kind of bruschetta, again with maybe a few additions (a little olive oil, fresh black pepper and some Black Garlic…. or a little on some crackers topped with a slice of Rosemary Asiago cheese. Pizza or French Bread Pizza? Definitely. So get creative.
TJ’s Pesto Rosso is worth checking out, and I love they they have another convenient fast pantry item for those times when “there’s nothing to eat in the house”. The 6.7 oz jar is $2.49. You can get some more ideas about Pesto Rosso from the link below plus even a recipe to make some yourself! BTW The jar indicates it makes about 7 portions so use that as a guide. Don’t use a whole jar to make 2 (or even 4 portions). I’d say 2 heaping tablespoons per portion/person. A few tablespoons of some *reserved pasta water when you finish your pasta in the pan will get this to coat and absorb into the pasta.
Our Pesto Genovese has long been a customer favorite. While this style of pesto comes from Genoa our Trader Joe’s Pesto Rosso brings the tradition of red, Sicilian pesto to our grocery shelves.
Our Italian supplier uses tomatoes as the foundation, with sunflower oil, Parmesan cheese, garlic, and some basil—though not as much basil as one would find in green pesto. Pine nuts, typical of Genoese pesto, are exchanged for cashews in our Pesto Rosso. Carrot purée pumps up the red-orange color, while also adding some subtle sweetness.
Pesto Rosso has a saucy, spreadable texture that is great for topping a toasted baguette, or a homemade pizza, or even a French bread easy pizza. Use some spoonfuls to enhance the flavor of your minestrone, or vegetable soup. Of course tossing some in with your favorite hot pasta is a must.
“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.
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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