try everything at Trader Joe's

As much as I love Trader Joe’s, I’m trying to cook more (see goal: learn to cook. really cook) and eat less processed food. Eating less processed food does not equate well to trying everything at Trader Joe’s! Since I’ve been cooking more, I’ve also been walking by some of the things on the shelves there and thinking, “I can make that… and for cheaper, and it might be better.”

I might still try to try all the cheese and alcohol there, though. Teehee!

I tried TJ’s new satay in the takeout-style box thing. The texture was a little gummy but I’d probably feel fine about taking it in for lunch at work, especially for $2. I’ll try the other flavors (Pad Thai and Kung Pao) soon.

There were a bunch of new stuffed pasta flavors in cardbox and plastic packages last week. I have some eating to do.

The salmon burgers in the refrigerated section are kind of not very good. Too fishy and they need more seasoning. They are a crapload of protein and good fats for not a lot of money though, and sometimes that overrides things not tasting awesome when you are semi-poor and have the metabolism of a hummingbird and workout fairly often.

In non-food items, Ralph-dog seems to enjoy the lamb-and-rice dog food more than that Iams stuff he was eating, but he’s a 95 lb dog who has tried to eat drunk sorority girl vomit. I’m not sure how discerning his palate is. He still loves the TJ’s biscuits, which I like too because they don’t give him weird breath. The bacon and cheese ones actually smell so good that I tried taking a bite of one, which I don’t recommend, as they’re still dog biscuits. I wouldn’t mind someone inventing bacon and cheese cookies for people though.

I like the “Refresh” lotion but I don’t think it’s moisturizing enough to get me through an Arizona winter. The other Trader Joe’s branded lotion smells weird.

The Trader Joe’s asparagus risotto and I are not pals. More specifically, my digestive system and Trader Joe’s asparagus risotto are not pals. Ugh.

Haven’t had anything mind blowing lately but the soy crisps are a pretty decent source of protein, and the prig khing green beans are now a dietary staple. I tried all the new flavors of granola bars and they are sadly too sweet for my liking… though I still love the peanut butter ones, which taste like peanut butter rice krispie treats.

I started in on the soup section last week. The corn chowder in the big weird bulbous can is all right, better than I remember it being the first time I tried it.

I’m almost through with the salads. Last night I had that tri-tip steak salad, and while it was tasty, it’s probably not worth $4.50. Also, something monumental happened – I ATE BLEU CHEESE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWENTY YEARS. I’m happy to say it’s not entirely gross anymore, and I will add bleu cheese things to the list of things I will try. Still no berry-flavored anything though. Also, the (new?) BBQ chicken salad is quite good.

Snax: I like the peanut trail mix with the peanuts and peanut brittle and stuff. DO NOT EAT THE CHILIS IN THE CHILI LIME PEANUTS (this might be obvious to most people but I was drunk). The papadums are fantastic (both flavors).

Despite my noodle fiasco mentioned in the previous entry, I made the shrimp primavera and the noodles in that worked like they were supposed to. Hrm.

Trader Joe’s lowfat and nonfat yogurt is surprisingly good. I don’t know why I didn’t try it before. I bought some of the cream top and soy yogurt to try today. I hope the soy yogurt doesn’t taste like chalk held together by snot, as most soy yogurt has tasted to me before.

The chicken lo mein was kind of interesting. The instructions said to stick the noodles under cold running water for two minutes, and then I guess you’d magically have thawed noodles. Five minutes of cold running water and three minutes of warm running water later, I still had a frozen block of noodles (which my dog kept trying to eat, and I almost gave it to him just for laughs) and was concerned about water waste since Arizona is in the middle of a drought, after all. I ended up kind of manually shredding them into the strainer. Hrm. Those pictographs with clocks on the noodles you get from the asian market work better than this bizarro thawing scheme, methinks.

I did a rough inventory today and I’ve already eaten all the stuffed pastas they have (with the Greek Triangles being the best by far). Otherwise, I bought a lot of new stuff and will probably report about the standouts at some point in the future. I’ll probably conquer the salad and hummus sections next, having tried most of those already. I just ate a pretty lackluster goat cheese, roasted beets, and walnut salad which I think is new. I also found some $3.50 wine called Bull’s Blood (from Hungary??!) that I am terrified of but had to buy because of the name and price.

The Prig Khing green beans are pretty tasty. I bought those because I don’t think they have the frozen pad thai in a bag anymore, which was one of my dietary staples. Eep!

As they vary their inventory all the time, but at least I can try picking up a few new things every time I go there. Alternately I can just massively (and miraculously) increase my digestive intake and wallet so that I can just buy everything in the store one day and eat it. That would be kind of awesome.

This goal of course excludes eating things I don’t like, like blue cheese and things with berries in them. It also excludes basic staples like produce and plain meat/fish-type things. Beverages are also not included because man, that is a LOT of wine.