FRENCH APPLE TART – “Baked apples in a short bread crust with a hint of apricot and vanilla”
This tart is a seasonal item at Trader Joe’s that comes out around the holidays. We got this first for Thanksgiving to try out. We were impressed. It was so good we got it again later at Xmas!.
This tart tastes way better than I expected a store bought pie to taste. This tastes as good as something you would get at a bakery – which would easily cost twice or more as much. You can just look at it and see its a rung up from your average commercial apple pie, just by seeing intact slices of apples arranged perfectly all along the top edge and baked just until browned. Checking the list of ingredient I see it actually lists varieties of apples: “Northern Spy, Granny Smith“. The crust was pretty good even though we didn’t even warm it up, which would probably make this taste even better.
“To create this masterpiece of a Tart, our supplier takes a buttery apricot and apple filling (made with sweet Northern Spy apples and tart Granny Smiths), nestles it in a shortbread crust, tops it with a fan of even more sliced apples, and finishes it with a light, apricot glaze. A thing of rustic beauty.
Now, you might raise an eyebrow when you notice that our French Apple Tart is made here in the U.S.A., but before you raise that other eyebrow, consider this: the Master Pastry Chef who developed this recipe once made this exact tart—which is constructed and baked according to French tradition—for the President of France himself. Spoiler alert: he loved it.”
While fine on it’s own, if you want to really make a super dessert, you could warm it up a bit and serve with a little French Vanilla ice cream on top. That was heavenly.
BRINED, BONE IN, HALF TURKEY BREAST (fully cooked SOUS VIDE)
“This fully cooked turkey option takes less than an hour to reheat in the oven. Marinated in a brine of salt, sugar, black pepper and garlic herb butter. “
A week out from Thanksgiving, I noticed this option at Trader Joe’s, a half breast of turkey that already fullycooked, and basically just needs re-heating. This as something that might appeal quite a few people. Those who don’t want to cook a whole bird from scratch, yet want to have turkey on the table which is almost home made. In this case they’ve done almost all the prep and cooking for us so all this needs is finishing up. This turkey breast needs about 45 minutes in the oven.
It’s a half breast of turkey which was marinated (brined) and was cooked “sous vide” – a cooking technique top chef’s love as it keeps meat juicy and tender (I am guessing they’ve hit the skin with a torch?). The quality here is top notch.
“Our Midwest supplier splits a full turkey breast, leaving the bone in, and marinating it in a brine of salt, sugar, black pepper, and garlic-herb butter. The Half Breast is then seared, and slowly cooked sous-vide. It’s not an exaggeration to say this approach produces a moist, juicy, and tender Half Turkey Breast with rich, slow-roasted flavor-and in just 40 minutes, versus the multiple hours it takes to cook a whole turkey. Find our Fully Cooked Brined Bone-In Half Turkey Breasts (about 2.5 pounds each on average) in our refrigerated deli section.”
UPDATE: We finally tried this this year, and is actually quite good! Maybe even fantastic. In fact everyone commented, multiple times, at how good this turkey was. You could not ask for a better cook on a breast of turkey (which are so often overcooked and dried out). The turkey here came out really moist and juicy with a perfect texture, and it had great flavor.
I got the smallest package I could find (which was 2.8 lbs) and it easily fed four people, along with our side dishes. How easy is it? Well basically all you are doing is re-heating this. The directions are 25 minutes at 375 covered with foil, then remove the foil and give it another 15 minutes (so 45 mins total) while basting with the pan juices. Let it rest for five minutes before slicing.
My only gripe with this was I love crispy skin and the skin didn’t get crispy even after the extra 15 minutes of baking uncovered. However nobody really cared as the turkey itself was so good. Next time I would just put it under the broiler at the end. You might try that (5 mins?)
Though not exactly cheap this was so good, so convenient, saving us so much time and effort, and getting so many multiple compliments, that we deemed it worth it.
If you are looking for a really easy way to get some delicious breast of turkey on the table, frankly you may want to consider this.
(our TJ turkey)
Most of the packages I looked at seemed to total around $32 to $40, running around 3 to 4 pounds each. Sure $10 a pound for turkey breast isn’t exactly cheap but then you are paying for the convenience as it will save a good deal of work and time.
We found the quality top notch. Plus say you like breast/white meat anyway, like we do. So there is almost no waste. All you need to do is maybe add a package or two of gravy, cranberries, and some frozen sides like mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, etc.
One can come up with an almost home made Thanksgiving pretty easy sourcing it all at Trader Joe’s, though things will add up
This turkey breast seems a bit of a popular item for TJ, in fact the next time I went there I found it was Sold Out for the day.
How To Heat This: The “preferred method” is in the oven. Instructions on the package. Will take about 45 minutes total. Personally I would not pick microwave as the way to cook it.
They had this New Item right near the checkout line and so I was waiting I checked it out and then I noticed the sample station (Back, finally. Yeh!) happened to be offering samples of this so I grabbed some to taste. Yum. So good. This nut mix really looked “gourmet” with big pieces of top quality nuts: almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans and it had a little flavor of rosemary which elevated the whole combination.
I assume this is a seasonal Fall/Xmas special nut mix and is specially geared for Thanksgiving and holiday get togethers. This would impress any guest who would probably ask you where you got it.
TJ’s says: “Every good get-together needs a good snack mix, which is precisely why we like to keep a canister of our Nuts About Rosemary Mix on hand…roasted almonds, cashews, hazelnuts (aka Filberts) and pecans, all mixed together with a rosemary and sea salt spice blend spiked with just a touch of sugar.”
This is a seasonal (Fall/Christmas) item and to me it smells “Holiday, Christmas-y” but not too much over the top (you know, like a Hallmark movie?) Its a foaming soap, so as soon as you pump some out, your hands will already have tons of lather going. I liked it and I like the smell which is subtle and not too strong. My wife said she didn’t like the smell until I told her its a Xmas thing and then she changed her mind and told me it’s very nice! 8 oz. Pump bottle. $2.99
I just saw lovely fresh organic cranberries in stock at Trader Joe’s now (November 2023)
This year the organic ones are $2.99 a bag (1 lb). The regular ones, $2.29. Both are very good prices this year! Frankly for the fairly small price difference between the regular and organic I would get the organic ones.
How easy is it to make your own cranberry sauce? It will take you maybe 1 or 2 minutes of “work”, if you call “add water and sugar” work.
I will not bore you again with my rant about never serving anyone Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce from a can again — but really its super easy to make your own fresh cranberry sauce!
“Our Organic Cranberries are harvested in the fall and shipped to your neighborhood Trader Joe’s. There are so many uses, you’ll want to grab more than one bag to simmer into a super sauce, bake into breads and muffins, deck out your Thanksgiving tablescape, garnish glasses of chilled sparkling wine…”
EASY BASIC CRANBERRY SAUCE RECIPE : Put all the berries into a heavy pot. Add one cup water, then add one cup of sugar. (I like organic cane sugar but use any kind you have) Bring this to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and just let it cook like that for 15-20 minutes until the cranberries start to “pop”. Once the start to pop its done.
(TIP : you can use orange juice for the liquid, or mix or 1/2 juice 1/2 water)
When the sauce cools it will thicken a lot as cranberry skin contains a great deal of pectin. I like adding some fresh lemon juice too (optional) after it’s done. You can make this days in advance. Take it out and let it come to room temperature before serving. I promise you, your guests will rave at how good your sauce is.
TIP: Fresh cranberries freeze well. You can buy an extra bag and freeze it. No one says cranberry sauce doesn’t go well with foods besides turkey. Its great with grilled chicken and other things too.
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 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!
Every year this post becomes the most popular post around Thanksgiving, ENJOY~
FRESH VS. CANNED CRANBERRY SAUCE
To me the greatest sin one can make for Thanksgiving is not making the cranberry sauce from scratch and just opening up a can.
There is simply no comparison to MAKING YOUR OWN CRANBERRY SAUCE fresh, and no reason not to. It’s literally the EASIEST thing in the world to make. If you do it this year, I promise you everyone will say how wonderful the cranberry sauce is. Seriously it could not be easier to make. Recipe follows….
If you’ve never made your own cranberry sauce and are used to opening a can of that jiggly jelly stuff (ugh!) you owe it to your family to make it this year. The “work” involved may take you about 1 minute, plus maybe 15 minutes just letting it do its own thing cooking. TIP: Make it at least an hour ahead of eating so it can be served at room temp (hint, even better do it one or two days before to get it out of the way). It will set up beautifully in the fridge. Take it out of the fridge an hour or so before eating.
EASY “RECIPE” : Open bag. Dump berries in a pot. Add one cup water* and one cup of sugar. Bring to a boil. Basically that’s it. When it boils, just lower the heat down to a simmer and let it alone until the cranberries “pop” in about 15 to 20 minutes. When the berries have popped, they’re done so just turn off the fire. DONE! Let it cool for 30 minutes or so. As it cools it will thicken up (cranberry skin contains a great deal of pectin, a natural thickener).
If this easy recipe seems “too easy” for you and you want to get a tiny bit fancier and more creative, here are things you try… * Instead of water, you can use orange juice. A bit fancier? Grate in a little orange zest. Even more creative? This year I added a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and a pinch of fennel seeds and some lime juice. Ginger can be nice in a cranberry sauce.
Once you try this you will be shocked at how easy it is to make and how infinitely better this fresh sauce is over the canned stuff. At the time of this writing a 12 oz. bag cost $1.99, a decent price. (UPDATE: 2018, a bag was $3.49 at TJ’s) Update 2: 2022, a bag was back down to now $2.29. UPDATE 2023: Organic ones are $3 a bag so buy those!
You can even buy an extra bag of berries and throw it as is in the freezer where it can keep for a few months if you want it outside of just Thanksgiving. It goes great with grilled chicken breasts.
Once you make your own, you will realize how easy it was to make and and like me, will never buy the sauce in a can again, or even TJ’s pre-made stuff.
Now go, and sin no more…
#DIY #CranberrySauce
RECIPE VARIATION: Indian Cranberry Chutney. In a saute pan, melt a tablespoon butter, and add some chopped garlic, a quarter chopped onion and saute stirring for 3 minutes. Add a teaspoon of TJ’s curry powder (or more to taste) and cook one minute. Add the zest of one orange and its juice with 1/4 cup of water and 1/4-1/2 cup of brown sugar or Palm Sugar (or more or less to taste). Add the package of cranberries and simmer 25-30 minutes stirring frequently. If you want heat add a few dashes of Cayenne or your favorite Hot Sauce (PeriPeri, Green Dragon.…) to taste.
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