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!
Thin slices of pickles and onions in a sweet and spicy brine. Emphasis on spicy. You have to try these, they are just terrific.
Now when Trader Joe’s calls these “spicy” on the label, in this case they are not kidding! They are quite hot and seriously SPICY! Containing “capsicum oleoresin”. However they are Spicy Delicious. With a hamburger these were particularly terrific. For me these pickles are just one more amazing TJ Wow Product, something that’s unique and special. I’m even a bit addicted and once I start eating them I keep going back for more. While they are Seriously Spicy if you just eat them their own, when you add them as as ingredient and eat them say on top of a hamburger or tucked into a sandwich, you will get a moderated amount of the heat. These are about $2.70 a jar.
Is there anyone reading this who would not enjoy a few slices of smoked salmon on an Everything bagel with a shmear of cream cheese?
So Trader Joe’s had a decent idea when they decided to combine smoked salmon AND their wildly popular “Everything but the bagel seasoning” as yet another addition to the popular “Everything but the Bagel” seasoning blend family.
I found Trader Joe’s Everything But The Bagel SMOKED SALMON to be quite tasty. The “Everything” seasonings do not overpower the cold smoked Atlantic salmon. Rather, the seasonings add a nice top note to the mild farm raised salmon which has a nice buttery texture.
I tasted the salmon in two ways, the first being a classic Sunday breakfast of smoked salmon on a bagel with cream cheese, a little pickled red onion and a squeeze of lemon, all on top of a very fresh TJ’s Artisan everything bagel, with a nice slice of EB salmon…. So delicious and totally satisfying. The second way we enjoyed this EB salmon was using the salmon in some “Temaki Sushi (hand roll)”.
I made some sushi rice which we ate with smoked salmon, sliced avocado, and cucumber sticks nestled into nori – actually the Trader Joe’s seaweed treats – to come up with a little, tasty sushi hand roll. These were so good, and made an easy, super yummy dinner.
(simple sushi hand roll with TJ’s seaweed treats)
A package is $5.49 (now $5.99) for 4 oz., and yes the four slices inside went very quickly! But is an affordable splurge, this smoked salmon still a fairly decent value. FYI at Zabar‘s smoked fish counter, the sliced smoked salmon goes for $50 a pound now! (winter 2021). TJ’s is less than half that though yes it is not hand sliced from a whole side of salmon right in front of you by a seasoned counter guy. Those guys are artists.
TJ’S E.B. SMOKED SALMON is worth trying. I would buy it again as well as TJ’s very tasty Pastrami smoked salmon.
UPDATE 1: Went MIA for months but eventually it came back.
(UPDATE 2 SEPT 2025) Once again, MIA. In this case with 5 countries involved there may be a new wrinkle with TARIFFS of course.
UPDATE 3 (End Sept 2025) The front desk staff looked it up for me and told me it is not discontinued and is coming back in a few months; sure enough she said the delay on shipment was likely due to tariffs.
Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade FIVE COUNTRY ESPRESSO blend, whole bean, dark roast coffee
If you want espresso or dark roast coffee the options at Trader Joe’s are a little more limited compared to the light and medium roast coffees. Now don’t get me wrong, light and medium roast coffees are wonderful. They’re a terrific choice for most coffee lovers, especially those who make coffee using a drip, pour-over or French press method. However if you make espresso, either with an espresso machine or even use a Moka pot (as I have started doing recently for Moka Pot “espresso”) then you likely want whole beans in a nice dark roast. Or maybe even if you make drip or pour over, your taste preferences just like a darker roast.
These beans are from FIVE different countries….El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Sumatra, Indonesia (wow!).
Best is to grind the beans just before you make the coffee for maximum aroma and flavor…you know, the way any typical coffee geek will do (count me in). I promise you grinding these whole espresso beans fresh will release an intense, heavenly aroma in your kitchen. And you don’t need a $300 burr grinder. A $20 grinder can do fine.
TJ’s FIVE COUNTRY ESPRESSO whole bean is a very good coffee for espresso, moka pot and all dark roast coffee lovers. It’s especially terrific when you first open up the can, when you’ll get the maximum aroma and see super shiny beans just glistening with oil, which is what fresh roasted espresso beans looks like. Once the beans get exposed to air they’ll look less shiny, in about 3-5 days however they will still taste pretty good. TIP: you can parcel up the beans in a number of small ziplock bags, freeze them, and take out bags as needed.
FIVE COUNTRY ESPRESSO WHOLE BEAN COFFEE; $8.99 (13 oz)
MOKA POT – Moka pots may not be “true espresso” but they make a great cup of java. If you are interested in getting one, there’s a link below to one of the more inexpensive Moka Pots (Primula) on Amazon. The original Bialetti Moka Pot is excellent of course but it is a bit pricey. (note: “cups” in this case refer to a tiny espresso cup with just 2-3 oz liquid) I like the “9 cup” Moka Pots for doing Cafe Con Leche for 2 people who love coffee. You can get a “Moka 9” for just over $20, not a bad deal at all. Every Italian kitchen has one or more Moka’s and 60 million Italians can’t be wrong.
Trader Joe’s 12 Mini Mint Ice Cream Mouthfuls – Mint Chip Ice Cream between chocolate cookie wafers
Tiny. Bites. Yummy. Delicious. Minty. Chocolatey. Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches.
Each one is maybe 2 or 3 bites, so they go down easy (too easy! I could eat 6) They’re not too sweet, the mint ice cream matches perfectly together with the chocolate cookie. Let them stay in the freezer till they are nice and firm and as hard as possible. $4 a box. A box will go fast! 1 mini sandwich is 60 calories.
Trader Griotto’s (frozen)Flame Broiled Italian Style Fully Cooked Meatballs
First, let us be realistic. Are these Trader Joe’s frozen meatballs anywhere as good as my own homemade ones (which in all modesty are pretty good?) Of course not. However, making meatballs is kind of a lot of work. So I wanted to try these Trader Joe’s all beef “Meatballs Italian Style” to see if they are any good. We did enjoy actually them with my own tomato sauce for a pretty easy dinner. So these might be worth giving them a try to see what you think. The dish I made with these turned out tasty. I made an easy quick sauce: olive oil, garlic, onion, tablespoon of tomato paste, can of diced tomatoes, grated pecorino cheese and basil – a recipe is below). Of course you can just use a bottle of sauce you lazy bones, that’s fine. I put the meatballs in the sauce and simmered them for 30 minutes to hopefully get them flavored with the sauce. They turned out pretty well, my main complaint being they had a slightly rubbery texture. Honestly I don’t know if they always do or it was my fault defrosting them (or not). I would usually thaw something like this in the fridge overnight as I always recommend, but this was a last minute dinner idea and I thought maybe I could just put the frozen meatballs into the sauce and slowly defrost them on low in the sauce (which the package does kind of say). Is that why they came out a bit rubbery? Next time I’ll defrost them slowly and see. Anyway I served the meatballs and sauce and some of TJ’s fantastic Country Loaf bread I had found. We did kind of a “meatball sub” with these which was actually pretty tasty. A few night’s later, I made Ziti with the leftover meatballs & sauce – also tasty. So my take is these are worth giving a try, either with your own sauce or your favorite TJ’s sauce. I do suggest doing a proper defrost (thaw in fridge night before). Also I will brown up the thawed meatballs even more in olive oil before adding to sauce. Browning meat gives lots of flavor. I recommend you simmer these in sauce for at least a 1/2 hour to absorb flavors. These ITALIAN MEATBALLS were about $4.50 for a 1 lb bag. FYI , TJ sells other versions, one made with Turkey and one Meatless, all of which you will find in the frozen section near these.
FAST EASY TOMATO SAUCE and MEATBALLS: Take 2 tablespoons of tomato paste and sauté that in a few tablespoons of olive oil for 30-60 seconds. Add a good amount of sliced garlic and a little diced onion and cook 5 minutes on low stirring occasionally till onions are translucent. Add a can (or two) of Diced Tomato, rinsing out the can with a little water (or wine) to get it all. Simmer on low 45 minutes, with the thawed and browned meatballs. Add Italian Seasoning to taste. Optionally add capers, and some Bomba. When serving, add grated Parmesan, Pecorino, Asiago or Grana and if you have some fresh basil, lovely. Serve with either pasta, gnocchi, or warm fresh Italian bread for a meatball hero.
Despite all these options they list I think the best one would be the thaw in fridge (1/2 day?)
Trader Joe’s ROSEMARY SFOGLIETTE, Thin and Crunchy, Italian Rosemary Crackers
Not too fancy, a bit even on the plain side which is sometimes just what you want in a cracker to set up whatever topping you are putting on the cracker. I really like these. Product of Italy. Delicate rosemary flavor. Top these with TJ’s Rosemary Ham and a slice of Rosemary Asiago cheese and I don’t know about you but that puts me in heaven. A bargain too at $1.69 a package.
“Our Italian supplier makes thin, hexagonal biscuits using wheat and rice flours, along with a combination of olive and sunflower oils. The crackers are seasoned with dried rosemary & sea salt and baked until they possess the ideal crunch. They’re thin and crisp, but not overly fragile. And they present the wonderful aroma and flavors of rosemary and olive oil. As you could imagine, Rosemary Sfogliette make great snack crackers—with or without cheese. They’re also a formidable companion for your favorite bowl of soup!”
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