Ground turkey is something I buy fairly frequently at Trader Joe’s as I find it a versatile ingredient. It’s a convenient protein to have on hand in the fridge, or freezer. Obviously also it has less fat and calories than ground beef, plus is much less expensive, all of which is why ground turkey is a big go-to ingredient for many people. Taste-wise however ground turkey is on the bland side and needs some jazzing up to be tasty. I have found it benefits from two things. One, deep browning. Getting it really browned improves its flavor (due to the Maillard effect). Number two: using lots of seasoning. One excellent match for ground turkey is TJ’s taco seasoning, the 79 cents “miracle” packet. Other good Trader Joe’s seasoning blends that match well with it are: TJ’s Cuban Style Citrus Garlic Blend seasoning, TJ’s Ajika Georgian Seasoning, ground cumin, black pepper and of course lots of garlic, ground or especially fresh chopped garlic. So my “secret” for ground turkey is I season it really, really generously, coating it completely, as the TJ ground turkey is pretty “wet” which make it’s hard to brown. I’ve found a good amount of dry seasoning coating on the outside gives it a drier surface that makes it brown more easily. So if you put a good deal of seasoning on the outside to provide a dry surface for pan grilling (add as little salt or no salt since the seasonings may have salt, check the package) it helps. I also try to minimally compress the ground meat even if making into a burger. I don’t compress the meat much either, as minimally as possible. I sprinkle the dry seasonings generously all over and gently lay it into a VERY hot cast iron pan with good tablespoon or two of olive oil or an oil and butter mix. I don’t touch or move it at all until the bottom side has turned quite brown which can take a good 6-8 minutes. If making turkey for tacos, I just lay it from the package (seasoned) into the pan and try to not break it up until it is done and very browned. This yields large chunks which I like. If you want to mix it with other ingredients like chopped veggies, then you can even add an egg and some binder (panko, breadcrumbs, etc) and then form that into patties.
Ground turkey recipes are all over the internet and found easily. Here’s mine for a fast turkey bean chili.
EASY TURKEY BEAN CHILI: Season turkey as described above, Cook in a hot pan in a nice slug of oilve oil (better still a mix of oil & butter). Cook until turkey is very browned on one side; then flip and add a chopped medium onion and ground cumin to taste. Sauté together until the onion is a lightly browned and fragrant. Add a few cloves of chopped garlic. Break up the turkey keeping a few large chunks for texture. Add a large tablespoon of Tomato paste, mix in and cook on low-medium heat for a minute. Add a can of drained red kidney (or black beans) then a can of Fire Roasted Tomatoes with Green Chiles. Rinse out the can with some water to get everything and add all that liquid. Simmer everything on low for about 20-30 minutes to let the flavors blend. Taste and adjust seasoning/salt if needed. Serve with rice with grated cheddar cheese on top. (Variation -Turkey Bean Chili Soup; this can easily become a soup instead of a stew, just add more liquid (chicken or beef broth or another can of tomatoes) and simmer together till done. )
The TJ ground turkey goes for about $4 a lb. The regular turkey is better overall. The more expensive all white meat ground turkey breast kind can turn out too dry unless you are super careful cooking it, and mix it with other ingredients to keep it moist. If you don’t use ground turkey within 2 days of purchase, put the package in the freezer, and do an overnight defrost in the fridge the day before you want to use it. Yes I know it has a 2 week “use by” date on the package but all ground meats are best used as fresh as possible, within a day or two. TJ’s dates are way too generous for me.
UPDATE: (April 2022, I noticed ground turkey has prices crept up about 50 cents due to rampant inflation)
“Organic Date Syrup is made from 100% Deglet Noor dates with nothing added. It makes a deliciously sweet topping or ingredient and can be used in place of maple, agave or any other syrup”
This is an interesting product, a very, very thick, sweet dark syrup made solely from dates. It tastes exactly like dates of course. I find it delicious and unique. It is a little expensive at $3.50 for a 6 oz bottle, however you use it in very, very small amounts, way less than say you would use honey so a bottle will last for awhile. One use I find this date syrup goes especially well with is drizzled on top of plain yogurt on my morning cereal and I don’t use much of it, just a tiny drizzle or two is plenty as its so intensely concentrated giving everything a lovely flavor.
TRADER JOES HAS THIS TO SAY
“Dates have been a part of people’s diets for an extraordinarily long time — archaeological evidence suggests that date palms been cultivated by humans for at least 7,000 years! But even beyond their countless culinary uses when eaten as a whole fruit, dates have also been used to make other foods sweeter since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. So while we’d like to introduce Trader Joe’s Organic Date Syrup as a new item, it’s actually an extremely old one — just new to us, is all. Made entirely from organic Tunisian Deglet Noor dates, this Syrup has a naturally warm and caramelly taste and can be used to add sweetness to anything you’d use agave or maple syrup on. Everything from pancakes and French toast, cakes and pastries, cocktails and coffee drinks, vinaigrettes and marinades, all take on a rich sweetness with even just a light drizzling of our Organic Date Syrup — we find that its dark, butterscotch-y flavor feels tailor-made for topping ice cream.”
Trader Joe’s GUAJILLO SALSA – “A spicy and flavorful salsa with smokey undertones”
This description on the label is right on the money.
I really liked this new GUAJILLO SALSA offering Trader Joe’s came up with, it’s truly an excellent jarred salsa. In fact this may be among TJ’s best salsas of the many they offer. Trying it for the first time I found it was full of complex flavors, spicy, a bit smokey, a bit acidic… just really interesting and delicious. It will spike up all your taste buds. TJ’s usually puts some kind of heat level indicator graph on the salsa’s, however this jar doesn’t have one. So just a heads up this is not “mild”, it’s got a nice little kick to it, I would say medium spicy, however not blow your head off spicy. So imagine a chile graph of “medium”.
Ingredients in this salsa include: tomatoes in juice, tomato paste, guajillo chile pepper purée, vinegar, salt, crushed red pepper, dried garlic, and both guajillo chile powder and chipotle chile powder. All those nice chiles give this a big authentic flavor. Stir before using or shake well, as this has no thickeners added so it’s a bit loose and chunky in a typical Mexican salsa style (unlike some American made salsa brands that are artificially thickened with starch so they stick on a chip and do not drip easily). Even not being thickend, just dip a chip in a little bit of this and I promise you will get it’s flavor.
Use this anywhere you would use your favorite salsa or hot sauce, and be creative. I drizzled some over some simply grilled chicken. This guajillo salsa added a bunch of terrific flavors that went great with the chicken to jazz it up nicely. Drizzle it over Mexican rice, refried beans, tacos, eggs, you name it. Ground turkey tacos? Boring no more. I also just chopped up some fresh ripe tomatoes and mixed in a few tablespoons of this salsa to them to come up with a “salsa fresca” variation which was very tasty. I really like this salsa and if you are a fan of salsa you will likely too. Its way more interesting than the rather plain Jane TJ Hatch Valley Salsa (however I bet if you mixed the two they might be good blended for some red and green salsa flavors). In sum, TJ’s GUAJILLO SALSA is delicious and well worth trying. A 12 oz jar was $2.69. Would I buy it again? Yes. This is something I now like to have in the fridge at all times.
SHAKE OR STIR BEFORE USING. REFRIGERATE AFTER OPENING.
This shape, “Gigli” is sometimes also called “Campanelle” (tower) a twisty corkscrew shape with a frilly edge. This is one of TJ’s premium pastas that go for a bit more than the regular Organic pastas they carry. This one goes for $2.99 for a 1.1 lb bag, a premium price but its a premium pasta. This is a high quality Organic Pasta made in Italy by a premium manufacturer. You can note by the closeup of the pasta, it has that rough exterior indicating it’s bronze die cut and the lighter color indicating it’s slow dried, like the best Italian pastas you might find at a specialty Italian grocery – and which probably sell for double or more than this.
The cook time is only 5-7 minutes and I would stop it at a minute under Al Dente for finishing with a sauce (which means maybe around 4 minutes). I cooked this pasta with a sauce of sautéed fresh cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and feta cheese and everyone seemed to love it. My only minor complaint is when it was cooked some of the frilly edges detached into little stringy things, which look a bit weird but again this a very minor complaint. Taste wise this is another excellent quality pasta from Trader Joe’s. This corkscrew shape will be good with any sauce especially any sauce that will get into every nook and cranny of this shape. Though I haven’t tried it yet for CACIO E PEPE, I have a feeling they would be good with each other
RECIPE – EASY CHERRY TOMATO AND FETA CHEESE PASTA
Put up a large pan of salted water to boil for the pasta. In a large sauté pan, cook about 12-16 oz of cherry tomatoes (sliced in half) in a good amount of olive oil on med-high heat until the tomatoes start to soften up, about 5-7 minutes. Throw in about 4-5 cloves of minced garlic and cook for another few minutes and at the same time, I push the tomatoes to the side and put a good amount of FETA cheese cut into cube on the other side of the pan and cook on medium heat until they start to brown a little bit. Turn off the heat. Cook the pasta; check it for about a minute underal dente and toss the drained pasta into the pan with the sauce adding about a ladle of the pasta water. Cook for one minute until al dente and mix it all together. Top with a bit of more grated cheese (Parm, Pecorino, or Asiago), some fresh ground pepper and plate it up. Enjoy!
Traditional Italian pasta is made with only two ingredients, durum wheat semolina flour and water—a small amount of softer wheat flour is allowed by law, but Trader Joe’s Organic Italian Artisan Gigli Pasta is crafted with 100% organic durum wheat semolina sourced from farms in Puglia. Our supplier has been producing artisan-made pasta for more than 35 years. Most dried pasta are made in huge batches and dried quickly, from three to 12 hours. This Artisan Pasta is made in small batches, and dried at much lower temperatures for up to 24 hours, resulting in a more rustic texture that cooks to a delightfully al dente texture. Gigli, also known as Campanelle (translates to “bellflowers” or “little bells”), has a ruffled edge and hollow center, so it holds any sauce extremely well. Marinara? Carbonara? Just a bit of olive oil and shaved Parmesan? Any of these will do, deliciously.
This is a great new pasta Trader Joe’s recently introduced with a great shape. It’s a “Fusilli” (corkscrew) curly shaped pasta with a little hole (bucati) in the center. This shape is very good and will hold lwhatever lovely sauce or ingredients you use with it. You can tell it’s a premium quality pasta just by looking closely: the exterior is not smooth but rough indicating it was *bronze die cut, and produced by a high end artisanal Italian manufacturer (closeup below: note the rough texture). This pasta has a fast cooking time, the package says 7-8 minutes. I just cooked it and at around 6 minutes it was al dente, meaning if I’m going to finish this with the sauce in a pan the way Italians do, I would fish the pasta out at around the 5 minute mark – a minute under al dente.
closeup
I just cooked some to taste, quite simply with butter, grated cheese and pepper. It was excellent. This is indeed terrific pasta. This corkscrew hollow shape should be great with many sauces, either tomato based and I think especially with a pesto sauce (green or red)
Trader Joe’s ORGANIC FUSILLI CORTI BUCATI PASTA. Imported From Italy. Organic Durum Semolina Wheat. $1.99. Try this if you see it, it’s really good. Me, I will buy a bunch for our pantry.
Wait a second… You want me to eat those yucky looking fishies?
Don’t click away in disgust.
There are a so many reasons for you to add sardines to your diet, if you aren’t eating them already. If you think sardines look yucky, read about all the health benefits they have. They are one of the healthiest foods you could eat and come with a TON of health benefits. And they are pretty cheap! At least at Trader Joe’s.
Sardines are not just good for you, they are one of the healthiest fish you can eat. Into Protein? A can of sardines is loaded with protein (21 grams) and they are a terrific source of calcium (the regular ones with bones, not the boneless/skinless). Women especially need to get lots of calcium.
Sardines also provide heart-healthy Omega-3’s that may help with reducing inflammation, improving cognition and more. Sardines have the lowest levels of mercury of any fish.
Are they farmed? No way. All sardines are WILD caught and they are plentiful in the oceans. So sardines are a highly sustainable fish, unlike many fishes that we like to eat. And they are cheap, they are probably the least costly fish you can buy. So lots of benefits.
But not only are sardines healthy to eat, they are DELICIOUS. Europeans love them, and eat lots of sardines. While this may not be the case here in the U.S, you should change that by adding them to your diet if you don’t already.
Trader Joe’s sells at least three varieties of canned sardines. My favorite ones are the SMOKED SARDINES IN OLIVE OIL (purple can). One can gives you a whopping 21 grams of protein. Plus Calcium and Omega’3. I probably eat a can for lunch at least once a week.
SERVING SUGGESTION: Take out the sardines, put them into a dish, and mash them up with a fork. Add 1 large teaspoon of mayonnaise, a squeeze of fresh lemon (1/4 lemon?), and a nice grind of fresh black pepper. If you like hot sauce, add a bit. (optional, chopped parsley or scallions) Mix the mixture up well. You can spread the mashed sardines on your favorite crackers, or some freshly toasted bread with a little butter. This will go great on the Scandinavian kind of flatbread (open sandwich) or on some warm Lavash. Enjoy!
Trader Joe’s carries a few varieties of sardines. My favorite? I recommend the sardines in the purple can (“in olive oil smoke flavor”). They are probably my favorite of all TJ’s sardines.
But if you can’t bear the sardines with skin (which by the way contain the most calcium due to the soft edible bones, so soft you won’t notice them) If that is beyond your ability, then get the skinless boneless ones (grey can). They could be a good starting point if you are squeamish, however when you mash up sardines, frankly they almost look like tuna fish.
I recommend the lightly smoked sardines (in the purple can) as the tastiest sardines Trader Joe’s sells. You can even sauté potatoes in the left over oil in the can which will make a delicious potato dish.
By the way, the bones? They are so soft when cooked you probably won’t notice anything.
Country of origin: Portugal (purple can), Canada (blue), Morocco (grey)
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 carries a number of different kinds of chicken sausages, all of which are pretty good. The ones I especially like are the Smoked Andouille, Spicy Jalapeno and these, “Smoked Apple Chardonnay” Chicken Sausages. If you’ve never tried any of the many chicken sausages TJ’s has, these might be good to try first as they are mildly sweet with a general kind of middle of the road flavor that most people might like. I find them convenient to have on hand to get a quick dinner ready. You can use the chicken sausages in a variety of ways. You can grill, sauté or roast them. They are already fully cooked. Still for flavor I think you want to get a nice sear on them.
Pictured below is a dish I made using these sausages (two) of pan fried gnocchi and green beans. I just sautéed everything in olive oil with lots of garlic until lightly browned and then tossed in some French Green Beans at the end. Grate a little Parmesan on top. Easy, yummy dinner.
There are no artificial ingredients listed (no nitrates for example). Ingredients include: chicken, dehydrated apples, celery juice, onion, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, ginger, chardonnay, rosemary. The TJ Chicken Sausages come in a 12 oz package of 4 for $3.99. Trader Joe’s has a few varieties of other chicken sausage flavors too, so try them all and see which you like best. I liked this one, Roasted Garlic and Andouille….
This is a recipe for the Andouille Chicken Sausage with TJ’s Southern Greens (you might use these sausages but the Andouille ones would be a bit more Southern)
INFLATION UPDATE: Prices went up; now $4.29 (Apr 2022)
Trader Joe’s has some decent regular pastas (in the blue bags) which are a steal at 99 cents. However for a tiny bit more, you can have a better pasta being the ones labeled “ORGANIC PASTA” (with red lettering) which are a level up. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you should. These Organic Pastas cost $1.29. They are well worth the slightly higher price because you’re getting a higher quality Italian pasta. Almost “artisanal” as one can see by the rough texture, this pasta was manufactured using “bronze dies” which high quality pasta makers use. Bronze dies make better pasta as they give pasta rough edges which makes for better sauce adherence. Compare these pastas to the blue bags which are smoother. Cheaper pasta’s are extruded with Teflon dies which give them a smoother exterior. Bronze dies are expensive and wear out which is one reason why “good pasta” costs more.
Another indication of the better quality of the TJ “Organic Pasta” the pasta is it is lighter in color, indicating a slower drying time (again, makes for better pasta). TJ’s carry a number of kinds of these organic pastas: spaghetti, fettuccine, penne, radiatore…. All good. The package directions state around 10-11 minutes of cooking time. I do a minute or two less than al dente, then finish cooking the pasta in the sauce as Italians do (they never pour sauce on bare pasta). TIP: Always save some pasta water to add in tablespoons as needed.
So check out TJ’s Organic Pastas as they make terrific dishes. Not that the regular pastas in the blue bags are bad. These just a even better. By the way, TJ’s does sell special ones labeled “Artisanal Organic” pastas. Those may cost around $3 or or less.
Any of these pasta shapes would go great of course with TJ’s CACIO E PEPE sauce – or any other favorite you like. If you want a real authentic Italian sauce, I suggest trying your hand at Pasta Puttanesca. I made it last night and it was fantastic (you can get the Capers, Olives, Anchovies at TJ’s). Watch VINCENZO make it, it’s easy and delicious!
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