I make GINGER TEA (just boil ginger in water) and really like that. This tastes pretty much exactly like that. So while cheaper to make it yourself of course, my wife really liked this Ginger Drink Mix both for the convenience and taste, so she’s buying this regularly now. It’s $2.99 (7 packets). Dissolve with 12 oz water hot or cold. Product Of Thailand.
Want to make it yourself for way less ? Here’s my ginger tea “recipe”. Take about 1″ or so of fresh ginger. Slice it up and put in a pot with about 2 cups of water. Boil for 10 minutes or so. Add sugar if desired. Enjoy!
Traeder Joe’s has these cans of SMOKED PAPRIKA, which is Spanish Pimenton. Smoky, mildly sweet and flavorful. This lovely paprika is really nice in so many things and matches well with chicken, fish, shrimp and especially well with pork. I frequently make Pork Tenderloin Filets, cut into thickish slices (tournedos) coated very liberally with a lot of smoked paprika, crushed garlic and salt and pepper, for a super easy dish which takes about 5 minutes. Just sauté the “tournedos” in a good amount of Olive Oil till golden brown but still pretty rare on the inside. Remove and add a little stock, wine or even water to deglaze the pan to make a pan sauce with a few knobs of butter. Easy, fast and delicious. TJ’s SMOKED PAPRIKA is $2.49 a tin.
“Made with organic apricots! Sweet-tart, golden orange deliciousness that’s great on toast” – Trader Joe’s
An absolutely delicious apricot preserve made in Canada from organic apricots. If you are a fan of apricots and apricot jam as I am, you too will probably love this stuff as much as I do as it has the most intense apricot taste. I put some of this preserve on a slice of TJ’s rye bread toasted with butter. So yummy. Ditto, on an English Muffin. How about with peanut butter? Great combo. I put a pinch on a cracker with goat cheese. Yum. It’s wonderful with many cheeses. I am really in love with TJ’s apricot preserves, so good on practically anything it’s almost dangerous. I confess my jar became half empty pretty quickly! TJ’s Organic Apricot Preserve is a wee bit more expensive than some other jams TJ’s sells. This one goes for $4.29 for a 17.5 oz jar, however it is Organic and super premium. My only (minor) complaint is it doesn’t have enough little chunks of apricots; there are some but its mostly smooth (its very thick) but this is the tiniest complaint as I like chunky preserves. Taste-wise this stuff is wonderful. So if you like apricots, you will love this. I would buy this again, with pleasure. I am on my second jar already.
TJ’s has these little Grump trees for sale again right now for Xmas. They are cute and a pretty good deal for just $9.99. These can make a funny gift…. But wait, why”Grump” Tree? I’m guessing it’s for copyright reasons. TJ’s doesn’t want to say Grinch less they get sued by the Dr. Seuss estate. However they can get away with saying Grump and we all get the reference to The Grinch by it’s design (a clever idea just wrapping the tree to a point). If you don’t feel like laying out a ton of money for a Christmas tree ($50-150?) maybe you could get away with a little Grump tree and dress it up really nice with a lot of decorations… And it will last. If you take care of it, it will grow and grow and maybe you can use it for a few years. “Will eventually grow into a large tree. Keep well watered.”
I was glad to see these pantry ready packs of (vacuum packed) fresh (cooked, ready to use) noodles in Trader Joe’s NEW ITEMS area recently. I think sometime in the past Trader Joe’s sold some kind of fresh Asian noodle but none I can recall for a few years. Trader Joe’s “Thai Wheat Noodles” are a pretty typical Asian style noodle. Think maybe “Udon”? These can be used for any kind of Asian noodle dish. These noodles are as much Chinese or Japanese as they are Thai, they’re just a typical Asian wheat noodle though the box does say Product of Thailand hence the name I guess. They’re $2.99 a pack (21 oz). They come in 3 individual bags of about 1 portion each, ready to use in a recipe. Each bag has about 7 ounces of noodles. To me that seems a little bit of a skimpy portion, and I wish these had just a bit more, even one more ounce to make 8 ounces which would be a more decent portion. I found one bag will make a portion for one for a finished noodle dish factoring in other added stuff. So I definitely suggest you “beef it up” and add stuff: veggies, proteins, etc. For one dish I made with these (see pic I had a few pieces of cooked chicken tenderloins in my fridge so I topped it with the chicken plus a lot of scallions and slivered cucumbers. I basically used the recipe they have on the box for “Sesame Scallion Noodles”and added to it. TIP: Right out of the package you will find the noodles are really stuck together into an almost impenetrable brick. To get them unstuck and loose I really had to work at them using chopsticks and tongs when I added the liquid sauce ingredients; it was not easy to get them loosened up. So I experimented the next time I made them with pouring on hot/boiling water first. Use very hot or just boiled water, rinsing them in a bowl or a colander. I used my fingers/chopsticks/tongs to get them as unstuck as possible, bit by bit. Then rinsed them in cold water and drained them. That worked better to prep them before adding them to the dish so suggest this for your prep. Place drained noodles a bowl and give them just a drizzle of oil over them and mix while you get your other ingredients ready to stir fry. Note that these are already cooked so don’t cook too much or they might get mushy.
You can of course also use these noodles in any stir fried dish of your own choosing. Some other ideas for toppings would be some grilled pork (Cha Siu?), grilled shrimp, or go simple with just a fried egg on top with some Gojujang or other sauce. I would say these wheat noodles are basically the same as a Japanese “Udon” noodle – so you could use them in Japanese cooking, say to make a “YAKIUDON“. I did a kind of YAKI UDON with these and it worked fine. The box’s recipe for “SESAME SCALLION NOODLES” worked fairly well too when I made it. TIP: The recipe on the box is for just one package so double or triple the recipe if you are making more than one or you will not have enough sauce. The recipe on the box is a good basic recipe that you can modify. I added a heaping tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter to it, to make it “Thai”. I also used a little Bomba to spice it up. These noodles are handy and not bad at about a buck a portion, even if they don’t match up to the fresh noodles (not vacumn packed) you can find at any Asian grocery. One more thing I just thought of, you could say add these to Trader Joe’s GINGER MISO soup and come up with a noodle version of that! I hope TJ’s keeps these around so check them out so they see they are selling! I would buy these again.
TJ’s sells these bottles of liquid hand soaps in three different scents. This one is “Pink Pomelo Grapefruit” and it has a really nice citrus-y grapefruit smell. They also have a Lemon version, and that one says “Kitchen Hand Soap”. Not clear on why only the Lemon one would be for the kitchen / hands. Looking at the ingredients they seem more or less the same to me. My wife however specifically told me to get the her the Lemon “kitchen” version, for her in the kitchen. In fact, when I bought this Pomelo grapefruit one home for what I thought would be a nice little variety in our kitchen she looked at me like I was crazy and then told gave me a very clear “No Way” to this Grapefruit one for the kitchen. Why? It doesn’t say “Kitchen” on the label and the Lemon one does. I see the grapefruit one says it has Jojoba and Argan oils which I would think would be good for hands, no? The Lemon one doesn’t include these Argan or Jojoba oils, but then what do I know? Anyway all the 3 kinds of TJ’s hand soaps are good, make lots of lather and smell great. These go for $3.99 each for a large pump bottle (17 oz.). I would buy it again.
(Update: These seem to have sold out very quickly!)
Trader Joe’s FLOR DE SAL, like French Fleur de Sel, is a naturally harvested sea salt. This is from Portugal. It has large grains, and is good for a “finishing salt”, something you can sprinkle a few grains on top just before serving, or leave the crock on the table as I am doing. When I saw these attractive crocks, which are only five bucks, I immediately thought, “Perfect Christmas Gift”!
– TRADER JOES SAYS: “Similar to its French equivalent, Fleur de Sel, Trader Joe’s Portuguese Flor de Sal is collected by hand, from a thin layer of salt crystals that form on the surface of the sea—it’s a gentle process, unlike traditional sea salt harvesting methods that use machines. The Salt crystals are small, delicate, and flaky— the name means salt flower in Portuguese. This Salt contains more moisture than traditional sea salt. It’s preserved in a ceramic crock and topped with a cork lid, which helps protect the crystals and keep them from drying out—it’s a terrific vessel that makes this salt tremendously giftable, and also offers countless re-use options once you’ve enjoyed the contents.”
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 stuff is my new favorite Trader Joe’s coffee! I saw it in the NEW PRODUCTS area. I tried it and found this to be a really excellent coffeeIt’s Mexican small lot, shade grown, 100% Arabica originating from the mountains of Huatusco, Mexico which seems to be between Vera Cruz and Puebla.
I found this to be a wonderful high quality coffee, and 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) really vary wildly from coffee to coffee and are 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. 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)
Trader Joe’s Unsweetened ORGANIC SOY BEVERAGE (aka Soy Milk). This is one of about 3 non-dairy milks (Soy, Oat, Almond) I buy at Trader Joe’s on a regular basis, switching them up as the mood strikes me. I like this soy milk, its pretty good for the commercial soy milk one can buy in a grocery store (My favorite soy milk is the kind I can get fresh in Chinatown, especially from 46 Mott Street for one … and if you ever go there also try the soft tofu pudding with syrup). I would say this Trader Joe’s Soy Beverage is comparable to major brands. One thing I like about this one compared to some others is this one has only two ingredients in it – water and organic soybeans whereas some other soy milks have a number of extra ingredients like guar gum to give it a silky texture (ie, “SILK” brand). In our fridge, we usually have a container of this or TJ’s oat milk or almond milk, all of which are staples. Trader Joe’s Certified Organic Soy Beverage sells for $1.99 for 1 quart (32 oz) and comes in a shelf stable Tetra pack which is convenient as you can keep a few in the pantry.
VEGAN, GLUTEN FREE, LACTOSE FREE, DAIRY FREE, 9 GRAM PROTEIN PER SERVING
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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