Day 245 - Fage Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt is the bomb. 

Man, I have been reviewing a lot of GREEK items lately, haven’t I?  I never realized how much Greek food we consume – yogurt, olives, that recent bizarre cheese spiral (reviewed on day 212 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/07/day-213-5-cheese-greek-spiral.html ), tzatzaki (reviewed on day 129 http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/05/day-129-tzatziki.html ), and one of my favorite cheeses FETA (reviewed on day 232 http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/08/day-232-authentic-greek-feta-in-brine.html ).

  

Fage Greek Yogurt (2%) (but 100% tasty)

But man, if you like yogurt, you really need to try Fage Greek Yogurt.  It tastes more sitting on an outdoor patio having breakfast in Koufonisia than any other Greek yogurt I have had.

Yummy - Fage toped with loads of pomegranate seeds

I like it with pomegranate seeds (reviewed on day http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-12-pomegranate-seeds.html but if you are cooler than me you can buy a whole pomegranate and get your own seeds out).  It is also good with peaches or nectargines cut up in it.  And look – here it is with just plain HONEY on it (from a new bottle we just opened that will be reviewed soon!). 

Fage drizzled with honey....

You can also use Greek yogurt in smoothies or recipes.  We buy the one with the most fat we can find (2%) but if you are not into fat you can buy the lower fat one. 

So by this point in the review you must understand that this particular Greek yogurt is really good (you can compare it to my review of Trader Joe’s brand Greek yogurt that came out the very first week of this blog on day 6 - http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-6-greek-yogurt.html ).  But here is the kicker:

On a shopping price comparison trip FAGE YOGURT WAS A WHOLE BUCK CHEAPER AT TRADER JOE’S THAN A NEARBY SAFEWAY GROCERY STORE.  A dollar!!!  For the exact same product.

Rip Off ALERT - if you want to spend an extra dollar on the same product,
make sure to get it at Safeway instead of Trader Joe's

Either Safeway is royally ripping shoppers off, or Trader Joe’s is being ultra kind.  Either way – you know where I am going to grab my yogurt!

P.S. – the container tells you how to pronounce this brand.  It is pronounced Fa-Yeh! (exclamation point theirs – they obviously are as excited about their yogurt as I am).

Price – $3.59

Rating – 4.75

Bonus photo for anyone who scrolled down this far!  Me snorkeling in Greece in 2007!

Day 212 - 5 Cheese Greek Spiral

We bought this one night when we were shopping while hungry, which we always tell ourselves we should never do.  If you go to the grocery store, any grocery store, on an empty tummy you will always walk away with heavier bags than if you shopped after dinner.  But when you eat dinner after 10:00 PM every night and Trader Joe’s closes at 9:00, well, you see our problem…

Anyway, we grabbed this one night when we were strolling down the frozen food aisle.  When we got home I unpacked groceries and put it in the freezer (we got a new fridge this year and it has a bottom freezer, which is amazing!) and promptly forgot about it.

Here is our new fridge - IN OUR ENTRY WAY!  They carried it through the dining room and living room to get it to our kitchen.  Anyway, here there are no doors on it, so see how big the bottom freezer is?  Holds lots of TJ stuff!

So it nice a nice discovery in the freezer the other night!  “Hey, we got this cool Greek thing, let’s have it!” I said.  It was really easy to cook – just popped it in the oven.  It is a cool looking spirally thing – a bit snail-ish (and, for the immature among us, the end of it looks a bit, well, poop-ish…). 

Here is what it looks like on the front of the packaging

And here is what it looks like in real life after you cook it.  See how the end is, well, a bit, umm...

But it doesn’t taste poop-ish!  It is good.  The flakey filo bits are oh so flakey and the cheese is super cheesey.  In other words, all parts do their jobs very well.  Here is what the package tells us are the cheeses you will find inside this dish: “gouda, kasseri, kefalotyri, semi-hard cheese, (huh?  Isn’t “semi-hard” an adjective describing a cheese – like, don’t we need an actual NAME of a cheese?), and blue cheese”.  The mix of cheeses is quite good.  It tastes like you are on a Greek island, but without the cost of airfare and without having to try and read menus in Greek… 

This is not a MENU, but this is what it looked like when I tried to read Greek when we went to Greece is 2007....

This would be fun to serve at a dinner party as an appetizer.  It is a little messy to cut into – flakes fly – but it’s cool.  It is something a bit unusual and fun.

Bonus photo of GREECE - has nothing to do with the 5 Cheese Greek Spiral but here is David jumping into the blue water of Greece!!  Isn't is gorgeous?

Price – $3.99

Rating - 4