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By Jonniker
Reader Dawn wrote us with the following question:
Hello to some of my favorite food writers! I've thoroughly enjoyed your site for some time now. The blueberry-oatmeal pancakes from Jen's repertoire are beyond awesome (what I had for breakfast in fact!). We always make a double batch, and freeze them for yummy weekday breakfasts.
(Pizza salad featuring TJ's frying cheese. YUM.)
Oh, Dawn. We put this to the group at large, and it is without hesitation that I tell you that the best answer seems to be to just buy everything. Buy out the store! Take out a personal loan for thousands of dollars and BUY IT ALL.
Dark chocolate, sea salt and turbinado sugar-covered almonds ("I think they may include crack")
Gold label balsamic vinegar
Frozen chocolate croissants
Sarah had some enthusiastic product-recommendations, too:
Chocolate-covered cashews (mix of dark and milk chocolate)
Three-layer torte thing in the fancy cheese section ("It's got sun-dried tomato spread, pesto spread, and some kind of white cheese spread and it. is. awesome.")
Pizza dough! The garlic pizza dough!
Katie, a girl after my own heart, had a bunch MORE to say:
Chicken stock concentrate: It comes in a small box, and each box has 12 little pouches of goo. Each pouch is equivalent to one cup of stock (though I sometimes stretch them further with more water). So good, so much better than canned, so much more space-efficient than boxed. Great for those recipes that call for just a tiny bit of chicken stock, too.
Pretzel slims (regular and dark chocolate covered)
Chocolate cat cookies (also acceptable: ginger)
Dark chocolate mini peanut butter cups
Fruit leathers (so cheap!)
Personally, I am having a hard time deciding what to tell people to buy, because I love so many things. If I had to choose three FINE FOUR, however?
Belgian Butter Thins: ultra-light, thin, buttery cookies covered in dark, milk and white chocolate
Candied (or spicy) pecans: Crunchy, delicious and perfect for topping salads
Masala simmer sauce: Throw it in a slow cooker with some boneless chicken thighs, a little bit of chicken broth and some yogurt or light cream and you have delicious, delicious chicken tikka masala for half the cost of takeout.
Canned corn. I know, canned corn, you're thinking? CANNED CORN? But theirs is the sweetest, crispest corn I've ever found outside of a fresh cob. It has ruined me for all corns, frozen or otherwise.
Katie also brings up an excellent point that was met with a hearty, "Hear! Hear!" from the FL staff:
"TJs is also my go-to place for certain high quality ingredients that can be stupid expensive elsewhere: capers, kalamata olives, parrano cheese, vanilla extract, pine nuts (any kind of nut, really), high-quality honey, applewood smoked bacon, and decent olive oil."
To illustrate her point, you can get a jar -- a BIG jar -- of capers for $2.99 there. The same price will get you a thimbleful elsewhere.
And finally ...
Booze
Not all Trader Joe's have liquor licenses (in our state, there are ten or more TJ's, but only two have liquor licenses), but if you're lucky enough to live near one, you'd be a fool not to pick up some cheap wine & beer. At rock-bottom prices, you can afford to take some risks, but here are some staff picks:
Zarafa Sauvignon Blanc ($3.99!)
Espiral vinho verde (crisp, clean and light, it's effervescence in a bottle!)
Charles Shaw, AKA Three-buck Chuck (any varietal, but I'm telling you, their white zinfandel is something to behold. I find most white zins to be disgusting, cheap-tasting and super-sweet. I am not a drinker of white zin, I promise. Theirs, however, is fresh, crisp, fruity and bright without being syrupy or off-putting. Try it. For $3, why not? Even if you dump it down the drain, that one taste is cheaper than a bottle anywhere else.
Epicuro Salice Salentino (a gorgeously smooth, drinkable red that is just the right balance of dry without a trace of bitterness)
Does this ... help? So sorry, Dawn. I TOLD you. JUST BUY THE WHOLE STORE.
{Photo credit: Trader Joe's dot com}
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Anything to add to the best-of Trader Joe's list? Jonna -- co-founder and co-editor of Food Lush -- is always bringing the awesome with her posts, so check out her archives here. (My favorite post of Jonna's was actually her very first post on effortless Dulce de Leche!)
The rack of lamb is really great. I bought them on recommendation from simplyrecipes.com.
Really good.
Posted by: Betsy Thiede | March 19, 2012 at 03:18 PM