“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.
I had read about this new Trader Joe’s frozen Korean frozen dish. Reports on the internet were that it was good. I had to wait for it to hit our shelves in NYC so I could check it out, as I love Korean JapChae. Finally I saw it in our TJ’s here and got one to try. I have to say I was kind of impressed. It is indeed quite good. Even my (Korean) wife gave it her seal of approval with her comment “it tastes like JapChae” – and it does say it’s “MADE IN KOREA”. If you fix it up a bit it can be even better.
The noodles in JapChae are a clear vermicelli type noodle made from Korean sweet potato. These are someties called glass noodles as that is what they resemble. Korean Chap jae or (Jap Chae) is a tasty noodle stir fry dish. TJ’s ChapJae is VEGETARIAN / VEGAN. As well as being quite tasty it’s a pretty good deal at $2.99 (for 10 oz package). For the two of us, the container made 2 medium sized portions for a side dish. If you add things, it can become a dinner or main dish. We ate this with our dinner of potsticker dumplings. These two were a great combo together! We enjoyed the dumplings with this side dish of noodles with a bit of Kimchi too.
Carrots and red and green bell peppers round out the dish. Drizzle some more toasted sesame oil on just before serving if you have it. This dish is not spicy. Add something if you want it spicy. One can “beef up” the dish just by adding additional things: protein, more veggies. For example we put fried eggs on top which was a terrific addition. Top each portion with a fried egg, or you could make soft scrambled eggs and mix them into the noodles when they are ready to serve. You could also add in some BAKED TOFU or serve it on the side with this.
So you can easily take this package of JAPCHAE and use it as the base for making a bigger fuller meal out of it. Add in to the noodles (or top when serving): cooked ground beef or ground turkey or pork, grilled chicken, shrimp, salmon or what have you. You can add more vegetables, too! I like it with lots more carrots so I usually julienne some and cook them and add those it. Or add some mushrooms, spinach, green beans…. Add some things to this and you will have a bigger and pretty easy Korean dish as a dinner for two, for way less than a restaurant or takeout. We liked TJ’s Jap Chae a lot. I will definitely buy this again.
One side note though: it does have a pretty high SODIUM CONTENT. If you eat this whole container yourself, note that you are getting a lot of Sodium (1120 mg) or almost half of the daily recommended level. Eating 1/2 the container as a serving brings the Sodium down to (560 mg) 24% of the recommended level, clearly much better for you. And if you add veggies or other things that can spread out the sodium level as well. One should check Sodium levels listed on all prepared / packaged food as many foods can skew high especially some Asian dishes.
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
The combination of TJ’s Uncured Bratwurst with their natural Sauerkraut is pretty much a no-brainer.
Maybe the only question is whether you warm up the sauerkraut with your bratwurst – or just serve it on the side, cool, so its crunchier. You can make an easy and terrific lunch or dinner if you team up these made for each other items with a few more TJ items…. put the Bratwurst on some bread (BRIOCHE?) or TJ’s Brioche Hot Dog Buns. The mustard of your choice (Dijon with mustard seeds or Spicy Brown?).
Here I went with sautéed potatoes cooked up with the Bratwurst and sauerkraut on the side. These all made for a super dinner combo.
RECIPE: Sauteed Pan fried Potatoes – Cut up a few Yukon Golds into cubes and par-boil them 5 minutes or so in salted water. Add the drained potatoes to a nonstick pan with oil and butter and toss in a sliced onion. Cook for 15-20 minutes on medium heat stirring occasionally until the potatoes are done and golden brown. Make room in the pan, and add your bratwurst around the 10 minute mark and cook on both sides until browned. You can put shallow slashes to score them before cooking which will open up as they cook. Garnish with chopped parsley or arugula for color. Serve with sauerkraut and mustard. Serving Options: beer and bread (brioche hot dog buns or chewy sourdough)
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.
Yup, that’s it, this has one ingredient. Just Corn. But what they’ve done to it here, is this has been “FIRE ROASTED”. In other works cooked enough to get a few almost burnt bits. In my picture below as you can see, its gotten a tiny bit blackened from the fire roasting. This of course is the famouse “Maillard” reaction food gets from cooking which concentrates and amplifies flavor. In this case it makes this corn taste even better for example than TJ’s regular frozen corn — which is still also great by the way (and costs a bit less).
You can make this fire roasted corn just on its own. It was delicious when I simply sautéed it in butter to make a simple side dish. If you want to get fancy, hit that with a squeeze of lime juice too!
Naturally this corn is fantastic used as an ingredient as well. For example, add some to corn bread. Add it to salsas, to soups, stews and of course any Mexican dish, like some Mexican style rice. Its great for that.
This Fire Roasted Corn is great to have on hand in the freezer. It’s $1.99$2.49 NOW $2.79 !(1 lb).
These are simply incredible, a must try for chocoholics. They are spectacularly delicious chocolate bars made with Belgian dark chocolate with a liquid-y center of yummy salted caramel. They come in a pack of 3 individually wrapped bars of 25gm each for $1.99. Imported from Belgium. SUPER WOW
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.
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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