Trader Joe's

Ariel asked me to pick out a few budget-friendly wines from Trader Joe’s for her Friday Board Game Night Gathering, where she planned on serving easy, make-ahead Italian food. I was excited for an excuse to visit Denver’s newly opened Trader Joe’s for the first time. Rumors of lines that wrapped around the building and parking up to three blocks away had kept me from venturing into the new store. Turns out, the rumors were true.

Trader Joe’s carries a wide variety of extra virgin olive oils at competitive prices, but after doing a taste test of six of their oils, journalist and olive oil expert Tom Mueller found only three bottles worth buying — with one standout choice for both flavor and value. Mueller, author of the book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, shared his taste test results on his blog Truth in Olive Oil. His number one Trader Joe’s olive oil pick?

Q: I’m new to Trader Joe’s and have been into my local store just once. It doesn’t seem like the place I’d do my regular shopping, but I know TJ has a pretty big fan following, so I thought Kitchn readers would be a good crowd to ask for Trader Joe’s shopping tips. What are the days to find the best prices/sales, favorite products, or items to avoid?

When choosing wines to go with a meal like Anjali’s Indian-themed sweet potato buffet you might initially feel a little perplexed. How can you pick a wine to pair perfectly with so many different and mainly spicy flavors? Awhile back I wrote a post about pairing wine with spicy foods and boiled it down to three rules. The ultimate decision depends on whether you want the wine to complement or even accentuate the heat and spicy flavors or whether you prefer a more cooling contrast.

Like many of you, I have fallen hard for coconut oil as of late. I love it in my scones, I love it over popcorn, I love it tossed with fresh steamed vegetables. And now here’s something new to fall in love with: coconut oil nonstick spray from Trader Joe’s. Oh, TJ’s, it’s like you read my mind.I have kept a can of nonstick cooking spray in my cupboard ever since I started baking regularly.

Last Friday Trader Joe’s announced it was recalling its Salted Valencia Peanut Butter because of reports it was contaminated with a rare strain of salmonella. Now Sunland, Inc, the company that makes Trader Joe’s peanut butter, says it is recalling all the nut butters in its product line, including those made for Target’s Archer Farms and Earth Balance.

Every week we bring you our favorite posts from our friends at Serious Eats. This week we learn how to make homemade Chicken Tikka Masala, what brands of coffee are best at Trader Joe’s, and a new way to make Rice Krispie treats.• Chocoholic: Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats – Unsweetened chocolate and a sprinkle of sea salt prevent these Krispie treats from being too cloyingly sweet, and totally satisfy any serious chocolate cravings.

It has been a while since I did a review of Trader Joe’s wine offerings. Excited to see what ‘spring picks’ I could get for circa $10 / bottle I headed off to the New York City store. Overall I was pretty happy with my findings! Here are seven great spring wines, each for a very budget-friendly price. (There’s even a print-out guide to take to the store with you!) I probably could have managed my timing better. Friday afternoon around 5 p.m.

The other day I was shopping at my local Trader Joe’s when I just happened (ha!) to wander by the sample kiosk where they were handing out tiny tastes of their stuffing and cauliflower gratin, with a dab of some bright red stuff. I was a little distracted, so I didn’t pay attention to the chalkboard that listed what I was tasting, and wandered away, snacking off of my sample plate. Distractedly, I scooped some of the red sauce into my mouth and shazam!

Frozen Pie Crusts from Trader Joe’s• $3.99 for two pie crusts• Trader Joe’s I’m a big fan of Trader Joe’s frozen pie crusts. I’ve reviewed them before, but let me recap the reasons here: There’s no sugar in the dough, so it’s great for savory dishes like quiche as well as sweet ones like pie. They come in flat rounds of dough, instead of molded to an aluminum pie dish — less waste, and easier to fit to my own dish.

I’m seldom without a package or two of Trader Joe’s Middle Eastern Flatbread in my freezer. These chewy, tasty little breads resemble a thick tortilla, come in white or whole wheat and have dozens of uses. Read on for a few ideas and my favorite way to toast them up that makes them even tastier!I usually store my flatbreads in the freezer to keep them fresh; it’s easy to just pry off an individual bread as needed.

A few weeks ago I posted on some Trader Joe’s wines. As I had purchased more I thought I’d taste through the remaining reds. As the last post showed, it can be hit or miss trying to keep within a $10 / bottle budget. Were these any better? Read on to find out…To be honest, I am personally not a big fan of buying wine in a supermarket, even if it is the much heralded and beloved Trader Joe’s.

I realized that it is quite a while since I did a Trader Joe’s wine tasting. So on Monday I headed off to the Trader Joe’s Wine Store in New York City to see what I could find at less than $10 a bottle for easy summer sipping. Well, some gems and some disappointments — read on to see which I liked, and which I didn’t enjoy as much.As you all know Trader Joe’s is the name synonymous with ‘Two Buck Chuck’.

I had a few extra minutes to wander around the store on my last visit to Trader Joe’s, and I discovered a whole slew of products I’d never noticed before! These five became instant additions to my pantry.These products aren’t necessarily new to Trader Joe’s, but with so many products coming and going from that store, it’s hard to always keep track! These five are so good for quick meals and baking that I really hope they’re here to stay.1.

When concern about high mercury levels in tuna sent my household hunting for a replacement for our beloved tuna salad sandwiches, Trader Joe’s canned smoked trout stepped in. And honestly? I think it’s even more tasty &mdash and much more elegant — than plain old tuna. The fillets of fish are packed in oil, so they just need to be mixed with a dab of mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon and some chopped herbs to make a flavorful sandwich filling.

I discovered this jar in the back of my pantry, and on an evening when my dinner options were sparse. Cracking open the jar, these giant (they really are huge!) beans didn’t seem like much. But when heated up with couscous and a dusting of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, I was surprised at the meal that resulted!At first glance, the beans seemed rather oily, but the tomatoes and chunks of spices kept my hopes up.

I don’t use baking mixes very often, but I make an exception for gluten-free treats. If you don’t bake gluten-free on a regular basis, but want to make a GF treat for a friend, it’s hard to justify picking up a lot of specialty ingredients. So mixes like these brownies from Trader Joe’s are really helpful in these cases. I gave these brownies a try, curious to see if they could become my go-to gluten-free dessert.

Dessert is always the last thought in my entertaining plan. I can handle appetizers and cocktails, but I always seem to decide on making dessert a few hours too late in the game. But no one is ever disapointed when I break out these Dutch cookies.Stroopwafels (syrup waffles) originate from the Netherlands where they are tradtionally served with a hot drink. These stroopwafels are just wide enough to rest on a mug and are served perched on top, heating up and slowly melting the syrup.

I have a dirty little secret in my freezer. It’s a pie crust. But you know what? I am not ashamed at all. These pie crusts from Trader Joe’s are just too good! I am not normally a fan of frozen pie crusts. This is not snobbery. I just haven’t liked the taste or texture of storebought pie crusts. Sure, they bake up pretty, and they are flaky, but they usually taste anemic and bland to me.

We’ve often wondered if the Trader Joe’s French macarons are any good. Well, our friends at Serious Eats put them to the test, and now we know. Plus, lusty lucky red cabbage and apples, and instructions on making clotted cream at home. • French Macarons from Trader Joe’s Are Pretty Damn Good – Two thumbs up for macarons-in-a-box! • Serious Heat: Green Fried Chicken for St. Patrick’s Day – Fried chicken with wasabi!

We do quite a bit of our shopping at Trader Joe’s. It’s nearby, relatively inexpensive, and well-stocked with many of the fun foods we enjoy (hello prosciutto!). We buy most of our grains and produce items at a local co-op or the farmers market, and a lot of our other food comes from TJ’s. We’ve always been annoyed, though, at the baking section.Trader Joe’s, at least in our part of the world, has never carried “proper” sugar, or sugar you can bake with.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been caught on a weeknight with no fresh veggies in the fridge. Or if the veggies you thought were fresh turn out to be…not so fresh. Meet your new best friend: jarred roasted red peppers from Trader Joe’s.Each 12-ounce jar usually contains one very large or two smaller red peppers and costs about $1.99, which is really no more than how much fresh peppers often cost at our market!

Trader Joe’s certainly caused quite a hubbub when they decided to stop carrying King Arthur Flour and switch over to a store brand. We saw the new Trader Joe’s all-purpose flour on the shelves for the first time this past weekend and picked up a bag. Time to put it to the test!Reading the packaging information, we have to say that this flour looks promising. The flour is unbleached, which we prefer. Nothing too scary on the ingredient list.

May the cheapest pasta win! That’s what happened, anyway, when New York convened a panel to sample different store-bought, dried pasta. At 99 cents a pound, TJ’s was the least expensive pasta of the bunch, and it beat out some very fancy brands. Which grocery store staple came in last?

Last year Elizabeth played the skeptical shopper and intrepidly tested Born Free’s hard boiled peeled eggs. (Verdict: too rubbery.) Most of you were slightly grossed out by the whole eggs-in-a-bag thing, and we honestly never thought we’d run across them. But look where they just surfaced! We were slightly shocked to see these in the Trader Joe’s dairy case, nestled innocently between the milk and — ahem — real eggs.

On our last trip to Trader Joe’s, we were reaching for a bottle of maple syrup when we noticed a new maple-agave syrup blend. We were a bit skeptical, but at nearly half the cost of the pure stuff, we thought we’d give it a try.Maple syrup season is now underway, but prices have risen as high as $60 a gallon in some areas thanks to overall short supply due to a poor syrup season in Canada last year.

When we talked about our love of wild rice a few months ago, several of you mentioned buying it at Trader Joe’s. We looked for it the next time we were in the store, and sure enough, there it was!Finally, here is a relatively inexpensive and readily available source for one of our favorite grains. One 16-ounce bag goes for $4.99 – a good deal for this grain, we think!The rice grains are dark, slightly glossy, and uniform in length – all good signs of quality wild rice.

We’re not sure if this is a new product or if it’s been there all along, but we were excited to discover arborio rice on a recent shopping foray to Trader Joe’s!Arborio rice is a key ingredient – arguably the key ingredient! – in Italian risotto, and we often have trouble finding it outside of gourmet food stores. When we do find it, it’s often of dubious quality and fairly expensive.

We spotted these small jars of Spanish saffron at Trader Joe’s the other week, and we’re curious how this saffron holds up in the kitchen. Has anyone tried it?Normally something of a luxury item, these jars were only $5.99 for one gram (about a third of an ounce). This price seems a little too good to be true, frankly, and made us wonder about the quality.For those who may not know, saffron is the stigmas from a particular kind of crocus flower.

Trader Joe’s – the name synonymous with ‘Two Buck Chuck’, the $1.99 wine from the Charles Shaw Winery in California – also carries a broad array of wines priced anywhere from $2.99 to $60, and wines from respected regions in California, France and Italy.Having had several conversations with non-wine-geek friends about the virtues of the wine selection at TJ’s, I decided to pay the store a visit and check out the wines.It was a Sunday afternoon.

This colorful Trader Joe’s vinegar first caught our eye a few months ago, but we kept passing it by in favor of practical pantry staples. Every so often, we’d pick it up and almost put it in our basket, only to place it back on the shelf with a sigh.Then we were hungry for a citrusy, vinegary salad to go with the breezy warm weather this past weekend, and we decided enough was enough!This vinegar hits the balance of sweet and tart exactly right.