Southwestern Chopped Salad

I was a new Trader Joe's product for us.  We do not normally buy “salad kits”, because, not to brag here, but salads are one of my specialties.  I can whip up a lovely salad (if I do say so myself)!  So, if we buy premade salad at TJ’s, it is usually an already made salad in a plastic container that I eat for lunch (like my favorite, Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite, reviewed here: Mega Crunch Salad with a Bite review ), and not a kit in a bag like this one is.  But hey, I am all about trying new stuff, so I threw this in our cart.

A complete salad kit - ok, we will try it

Here are the ingredients listed on the FRONT of the bag, not in the teeny tiny mouse print on the back:  green cabbage, romaine, cotija cheese, roasted pepitas, tortilla strips, green onion, cilantro, and a spicy southwest avocado dressing.  There are more ingredients on the back, but these are the “big guns” listed on the front to get your attention.  The bag tells us, “Trader Joe’s Southwestern Chopped Salad is an homage to the bright, spicy, flavorful dishes of its namesake region.  Green cabbage, carrots, and radish have been chopped into small pieces and mixed with pepitas, tortilla stripped, green onions and cilantro.  Toss with the included cotija cheese and spicy avocado dressing for a fresh, complete salad.”

$3.29 for a bag

David put this salad together while I worked on other parts of dinner.  He reported there was the loose cabbage part in the bag, then a package that contained 3 smaller packets:  the dressing, the cheese cubes, and tortilla strips.  Here is what we thought of it:

And here is David’s take: “I think it is excellent!  I was a little concerned when I first dumped out the majority of the package - it looked like a lot of cabbage. But flavor-wise, with the added pepitas and the cheese and the dressing, it really is a very nicely balanced mix.  Also, little tiny bits of tortilla – all in very nice balance.  I gotta say – it is very nice.  It doesn’t have any of the nice tomato things that you might think of as more lush in a salad, but, that’s not what it’s trying to do.  So, I’m gonna give this a 4.5.”

Please wait until we sit down to dinner, David...

And here is what I thought:  I am surprised that one of the adjectives used on the bag is “spicy”.  To me this salad is not spicy at all.  I am also surprised that the bag said it contained green onion, because I cannot even taste them.  For my first few bites, I was like, “I don’t know what cotija cheese is, but it sure is tasteless…”.  Then I got a better chunk of it and it had some taste…  Normally in salad we go for feta (Trader Joe's has an excellent feta that is a staple at our house, reviewed here:  Greek Feta in Brine  ) or blue cheese, both of which are extremely flavorful.  This cotija is a much more mild cheese than I am used to in my salads.  We also do not normally put tortilla strips in our salads.  I know that is a hip thing to do, so color us unhip.  The texture of that is, to me, a bit strange, but the taste of the tortillas is good.

For me, the whole salad is a little bit bland.  Everything is chopped super tiny.  It is not quite a COLESLAW, but in my book it is also not a SALAD.  It is all chopped a little bit too tiny for me.  I like to eat my salad with a FORK, and this is a SPOON SALAD.  My favorite part is the pepitas – they are really nice. 

David, the in-store TJ's salad model

Overall – I do not taste spicy, I do not taste avocado, I do not taste green onion, and I really do not taste the cilantro.  I like it – I am not saying it is BAD – but it would not be my “go to salad”.  I give this a 3.75.

Price:  $3.29

Rating (average of 2 raters):  4

Day 348 - Gnocchi al Gorgonzola

Guys, we visited ANOTHER TRADER JOE’S!  This one was remarkably close to home – when I check Google maps it is only 7.7 miles away, but we had never been there.  How embarrassing… 

We went to the ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA Trader Joe’s.  We had gone to The Little Theatre of Alexandria to see their production of “A Christmas Carol” (note:  we had seen another production of the same show the night before at Ford’s Theatre, and a production of “The Nutcracker” the night before THAT!  Christmas, Christmas time is here!!).  After the show we really wanted a Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite (very recently reviewed here - http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/12/day-342-mega-crunchy-salad-with-bite.html ) so we stopped into TJ’s.  Sadly, they were out of that salad L.  But it was a fun chance to check out our 23^rd Trader Joe’s for the year. 

Look - another Trader Joe's visited!  #23 for the year.  (And look - I got new boots!)

The Alexandria store was nice.  We visited on a Sunday evening and it was very quiet and calm.  The main aisle of the store near the registers is really wide and uncluttered, which was cool.  We met a great employee in the wine section named David (he would have to be nice with a name like David, right??).  He helped us pick out a bubbly wine for New Year’s (we are heading to Florida where the nearest TJ’s is 90 minutes away so we were THINKING AHEAD!).   He walked us through the difference between actual champagne (which is pricey, even at TJ’s) and bubbly wine.  I will let you decide which of those we chose (look, you know we live on a budget, so spoiler alert, we are drinking BUBBLY WINE for New Year’s J ). 

He also talked about wines that get “corked” (sounds sorta nasty, doesn’t it???) and suspected the bad bottle we had of Grand Reserve Meritage that we hated (the worst wine we reviewed - it got only a 1/2 star:  wine that tasted like petrol reviewed here ) had indeed been “corked”.  He was just finishing up doing a tasting that included a Grand Reserve Pinot Noir and, though I was nervous to get back on the Grand Reserve band wagon, we tried it and liked it.  Color us the proud owners of a bottle of that, too.

It says "Amazing as a side!" right on the sign, yet we ignored that.

Now, onto a review.  This is for Gnocchi al Gorgonzola, which we did not purchase at the Alexandria location.  You can either heat this on the stove top or the microwave, but both methods take 7 minutes.  Weird, nuking stuff is normally faster.  The bag has 3 servings.  Some of the ingredients listed include:  Emmental, gorgonzola, hard grating cheese (wonder what variety that is??), and nutmeg. 

David – “These gnocchi are nice, they have a very good taste.  The sauce is nice but this dish needs to have MORE SAUCE.  More sauce, and more “cheese-ness” – more gorgonzola in the cheese tastiness.  For that reason I give it a 3.5.”

Find these in the frozen department.  The GNOCCHI, not David.  Usually you can find David with me.
I just noticed that David is getting photo bombed in this shot.

I agree with part of what David said.  I like the TEXTURE and the TASTE of the gnocchi.  I think, quantity wise, there was enough sauce, I just don’t think it has enough taste.  It needs to be more cheesy. 

This is how it looks when you dump it in your pan - the cheese blobs are sorta gross looking

I think this would be a better side dish than a main dish.  The sign mentioned that and we foolishly ignored the advice.  J  It definitely needs green veggies or something else with it to give it a taste counterpoint.  Without that it is too bland.  We had it with asparagus and shredded Brussels sprouts (reviewed here -  http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/05/day-123-shaved-brussels-sprouts.html   - I cooked them differently this time and did not do the recipe on the package as I did in that review.  This time I just made them with olive oil and lemon juice and they were much nicer).

See, it looks tastier after it is cooked.

I agree with David’s score of 3.5.  This tastes like a winter dish.  It is heavy.  This would be good to eat if you were out skiing all day and came in for a hot meal.  Or, say, if you were a LUMBERJACK and had been out chopping wood (in your flannel shirt) all day. 

Price – $2.99

Rating – 3.5

Day 343 - Fresh Squeeze Orange Juice

We bought this little 1 pint bottle of unpasteurized fresh Orange Juice during our shopping adventure at the Chelsea Trader Joe’s with Ttrockwood.  Since we were going to be running around New York City all day, I figured having this little bottle of juice in our bag could both quench our thirst and give us a “pick me up” if we got tired from all of the walking.  Plus, orange juice is high in vitamin C, so bonus!

This photo sort of makes it look larger than the 1 pint it actually is

I opened it and drank the first sips while riding the subway.  That was strange to me, because you CANNOT eat or drink on the metro we normally ride (Washington DC).  When I see people chowing down on NYC trains it surprises me, then I remember that there is no rule about it in NYC (or at least if there is one, they do not enforce it).

I TOTALLY drank this on the subway.  Rule breaker!!!!  :)

I busted the juice out again when we were standing around waiting to see if we won tickets to see the show “Hamilton” on Broadway.  (Note:  we did NOT win tickets in the lottery, but if you are ever in NYC and want to see a show, try the lotteries!  They are fun!  If you win, you get super discounted tickets.  Last time we were there David’s name got drawn in the “Wicked” lottery J.)

The "Hamilton" lottery has begun!  Will we be lucky???  (Spoiler alert:  we were not lucky.)

Here is the sign for the show - we saw the SIGN, just not the SHOW...

Then we drank the rest of the juice while eating our Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite in Times Square (reviewed yesterday here ).  We sure made that little bottle of juice last!

This was not a cheap juice, but was totally worth the cost.  We like to buy oranges and squeeze them ourselves, but it is not like you have a juicer when you are standing on a NYC sidewalk or in the metro…  This bottled version was just as good as if we had squeezed the oranges ourselves.  It was fabulous.  It had a little bit of pulp but not toooo much – just enough to make it interesting.  It was extremely “orange-y” and very tasty.

Signage at the Chelsea TJ's - their artist has cool handwriting.

David – “I quite agree with Susan’s assessment.  What I normally worry about with store bought orange juices is that they will squeeze the orange so hard that you get that rind bitterness in it.  With this juice there is none of that going on.  It is just pure liquid delight.  It has a tasty sweet orange taste.  I give it a 4.75.”

Upon discussion, we were both tempted to give this juice a rating of 5, but because it was pretty expensive we dinged the score just a little bit.  It is worth the splurge though! 

This photo is from a previous trip to NYC.  It has nothing to do with orange juice, I just really like it.  David can basically jump a mile high.  As you can see here, sometimes the TIMING on our couples jumps are a bit off...

Here's another totally unrelated photo - shot in NYC on an earlier visit.  I love it.  

Price – $2.29

Rating – 4.75

Day 342 - Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite

Here’s the thing:  “internet life” is sort of like “pretend life”, isn’t it?  I mean, online, the people “aren’t real”, which is why some folks can sometimes say such mean, hateful things that they would not say in a face to face conversation; or post insane photos of themselves that they would never take out and pass around at a family gathering.  The internet can seem like a make-believe world. 

Granted, my view of life online is decidedly different than that:  I try to live a genuine “online life” just as I do in “real life”.  I don’t make things up, I don’t only post flattering photos (oh heavens, I think this blog is proof that there are some unflattering photos of David and I out in cyberspace…), and I don’t post things online that I would not want to say to someone in a real life conversation.

Even so, “internet life” and “real life” ARE different. 

But sometimes “internet life” and “real life” somehow magically intersect, and when that happens, you find yourself in a Trader Joe’s on a Sunday morning in Chelsea (NYC) saying, “Are you Ttrockwood???”.

YES!!!  I GO TO MEET TTROCKWOOD, A READER OF THIS BLOG!!!!!  (If the ALL CAPS didn’t indicate it clearly enough, I will spell it out for you:  I was very excited!)

LOOK!!!  I met Ttrockwood in REAL LIFE!  In the Trader Joe's Chelsea store.

Ttrockwood is a reader and frequent commenter here.  I always like when Ttrockwood comments.  And I already had a super cool and fun experience with Ttrockwood earlier this fall when we did a HONEY EXCHANGE – they didn’t have Tuscan honey at their Trader Joe’s, so I offered to send some (review here), and in return, Ttrockwood sent ME Mike’s Hot Honey that is only available in THEIR TJ’s (review here).  I mean, that honey exchange already sort of blew my mind – that a person I had never met in real life was interacting with me not only ONLINE but via the US POSTAL SERVICE was bizarre!!!

So when we planned a quick trip to NYC recently, I contacted Ttrockwood to ask if we could meet up.  I was a little nervous.  It was not because I was AFRAID to meet, but because I was afraid Ttrockwood might think I was a weirdo or a stalker or something!  I mean, I just emailed out of the blue and was like, “Hey, do you want to meet us at a Trader Joe’s??”.  Sorta strange…

So when a positive reply came back and a date/time were set, I was so excited!!! 

Ttrockwood teaching David some of the finer points of inner city TJ's shopping

I have to let you in on a secret – for all the months that Ttrockwood has been commenting here and I have been smiling and reading the comments out loud to David, I have been unable to identify Ttrockwood with a pronoun.  That is because I have never known if Ttrockwood was a male or female.  And that mystery was lovely!!!  I so enjoyed the verbal challenge of not applying a pronoun!  (Oh sure, I could have tried the gender neutral “Ze”* but that is quite cumbersome for some reason…)   So I would say things like, “David!!  Ttrockwood is down to meet us at the Trader Joe’s in Chelsea!  They will be there at 10:30 am!”.  J  I LIKED not knowing a gender, but I was also curious to see him/her face to face and figure out which pronoun was more appropriate!   (Side note:  in my work as a sign language interpreter I often face the challenge of unknown gender, as ASL is not as definite as English in pronouns.  So maybe it is because of this experience in my professional life that I found this challenge to be so fun in my personal life.)

Of course, Ttrockwood has seen a bazillion photos of us here, so knew who to look for when we met up.  But all I knew was that the person would be blonde and have a camo backpack.

But it turns out that info was more than enough to quickly see Ttrockwood at the TJ’s entrance and blurt out, “Hey, are you TTROCKWOOD???” and give her a big hug!! 

Introductions (and pronouns) done, we set about shopping at one of her local Trader Joe’s.  It was so fun to have a personal concierge showing us around!  She knew all of the ins and outs of the Chelsea store and was happy to teach us.  And let’s just say, there is sort of a lot to learn about shopping that urban TJ’s! 

Two long ass lines - very organized and cool

First off, the line basically goes through the whole store.  It is really well managed and moves quickly.  There is an employee at the end of the line with a cute “End of Line” banner, and an employee at the middle of the line with a “Middle of Line” banner.  The middle is important because, pay close attention here, the middle is where the line SPLITS INTO TWO lines.  “HUH???” you think.  I KNOW, crazy, eh??  And that is where having a tour guide like Ttrockwood with you makes all the difference!  She explained that if you want to grab BAKED GOODS or REFRIGREATED MEATS while waiting in line, you take the OUTSIDE/RIGHTHAND of the 2 lines, but if you want to continue shopping for FROZEN GOODS or TREATS while in line, you migrate to the INSIDE/LEFTHAND line.  Man, shopping in Chelsea is COMPLEX!!  (But cool.)

Here's the MIDDLE OF THE LINE guy, see his banner??

The store was much, much bigger than anticipated.  The footprint would be big even for a suburban location where they paid much less rent.  Ttrockwood explained that we were there at a “slow time” and amateurs like us would get eaten alive if we showed up during peak hours.  J 

Of course, many things are the same as they are in other Trader Joe’s – friendly staff, double bagged groceries, tasting station.  Actually the tasting station was funny, because it was completely obstructed by the outside line.  Oh sure, I guess you could pick the outside line to wait in if you wanted to grab a sample, but what if you were still SHOPPING and wanted a sample?  I wormed my way between the people in line to nab a tiny plop of oatmeal.  I doubt my technique was “correct” but hey, I was a tourist!!

Ttrockwood taught us her patented “drop it and grab it technique” that she uses at her crowded Trader Joe’s!  It goes like this:

1.        Take your place in the long ass line.

2.       Drop your shopping basket (the little handheld one) in your spot to save your place. 

3.       Quickly grab the desired item from the nearest aisle.

4.       Return to your basket and drop in the item before the line moves!

See, it is lessons like that that you cannot learn from a YouTube video!

Our lunch!

We decided to grab a Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite to eat later in the day, and Ttrockwood got the same salad.  That way we could review them “together” (though eating them apart).  Ttrockwood sent me her review:

Salad close up

 Ttrockwood - “I had my Mega Crunchy salad today and my deep thoughts are......

I loved the texture and fork sized bites of crunchy veggies.  The beans and quinoa were great additions, so it's a legit salad meal vs salad that leaves you starving an hour later. The cilantro dressing packet had waaaay too much for one salad.  I liked it, but didn't pay enough attention to the label so the spicy kick surprised me (be warned if you're sensitive to spicy stuff). 

I'll totally buy it again. Solid 4.5 here. “

David and I did the totalllllly tourist thing of sitting in Times Square and eating our salad.  It was a strangely warm December afternoon so a great day to dine al fresco!  We thought we sat on the “sunny side” of the steps, but shortly after we dug into the salad the skyscrapers soon blocked the sunshine L.

Panorama of our lunchtime view.  I am not sure you can see it in this photo, but on the left side there is
an ad for KINKY BOOTS very near an ad that says, "A Savior is Born".  Ahhh NYC.

I must point out:  this is the first review I have ever done where, in the middle of the review, a complete stranger walked by us with his hand DOWN HIS PANTS feeling himself.  I kid you not.  In the middle of Times Square.  He made no attempt to hide it.  He didn’t seem to be doing it to “impress” anyone.  He was simply walking up all of the steps to get to the top and take a group selfie with his friends, but along the way he decided he needed to unzip his pants and play with himself.  Only in New York…

Now, here is what we thought of Trader Joe’s Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite (with quinoa, carrots, adzuki beans, jicama, sunflower seeds, and cranberries with a cilantro dressing) (ironically the list of ingredients on the front do not mention LETTUCE, but I can confirm there is, indeed, actual lettuce in there, too):

Tasty salad in a fun environment!

Me – I really, really liked this!  It is delicious.  Many pre-packaged salads suffer from the dreaded “not enough dressing” problem, making them dry.   THIS salad does not have that issue, in fact my lunch date put the whooooole packet of dressing on and for my taste there is a bit TOO much dressing.  I really like the dressing though!  It has something hot and spicy in it, giving it a real ZIP. 

The veggie bits in the salad are chopped very small and are, as the name promised, crunchy.  I like them a lot.  I did not notice the taste of sunflower seeds until my last bite of salad. 

When reading the list of ingredients one might fear that this salad would be “too crunchy-granola-tree-hugger-y” and that people who were not ardent vegetarians might think it was yucky, but that would be wrong.  It is good.

This is a healthy lunch and it is yummy.  It is easy to grab and go.  Don’t forget to pick up a fork at Trader Joe’s before you leave if you want to eat this on the go (we forgot and had to sneak into a Starbucks and get one).  I give this a 4.75.

We sorta look like giants here!  This was our lunch spot.

David – “THANK YOU FOR PICKING THIS SALAD OUT TTROCKWOOD!  This is a great salad, mostly because of the plethora of sauce (dressing) that you can put on it that kind of blends/melds everything together.  All of the elements are delicious and it has such great “taste-ness” because of that cilantro dressing.  I give this a 4.75.”

Post Trader Joe's selfie :)

Now on to the rating.  Of course, I give the whole experience of actually meeting one of my blog readers and shopping with her a big ol’ shiny FIVE!!!!  It was most excellent.

For the salad, I will average our scores together.  Thanks for coming to Chelsea to shop with us, Ttrockwood.  It rocked.  And guess what guys?  Later this month I get to meet another reader, Marilyn, in Winter Park, Florida!  Wheeeeeee!!!

*Here is a link to an MIT page containing “Ze”, the gender neutral pronoun I referred to earlier:  Ze link here

Chelsea TJ's signage

Price – $3.99

Rating – 4.75