Day 294 - Chicken Piccata

This was a very nice dinner!  It is a new product for Trader Joe’s.  I bought it in the refrigerated, not FROZEN, section (near the salads).  But when I came home and unpacked the groceries, oops, I accidentally popped it in the freezer…  So when it came time to cook it, we had to cook it longer than the instructions said. 

New!  The sign SAYS capers, but don't get your hopes up on that part.  I am just trying to keep you from getting crushed.

The chicken was succulent and reasonably tender.  The coating, as David said, was “Light and a bit delicate.  And the SAUCE!  The sauce is LOVELY and there is plenty of sauce!  So I am a big fan of this chicken picatta.”

David is the biggest fan of sauce of anyone I have ever met.  He adores sauce.  If he weren’t already married to me I am sure he would find a way to marry sauce.  And this dish has TONS of sauce – even more than you can put over the two pieces of chicken included!

Would you LOOK at all of that SAUCE???  It was great!  However, one cannot overlook the fact that there are ONLY 4 CAPERS on this plate...  That was half of the capers in the package.  Who votes for more capers?  THIS GIRL!  (Note - we also had tots, served on a differnt plate, cuz this plate was so SAUCY!  :)  )

The packaging says this has 3 servings, but when you open it up you see it is only 2 actual pieces of chicken.  If I was cooking for a family of 3 I think I would expect there to be 3 PIECES of chicken in this container.  The 2 pieces were BIG – for us it would serve 3.  But many Americans eat larger servings than we do, and it just seems a little awkward to have to cut a piece of chicken to make the servings.  Do you know what I mean?

Here is the package.  This one is worth a try - it is good.

I think the meat was good, the breading was good, and the lemony creamy sauce was really nice.  My only beef with this dish (a BEEF with a chicken dish!!) is the lack of CAPERS.  I mean, it SAYS there are capers…  But there were literally, like, only EIGHT teeny tiny capers…  And TJ’s capers are crazy cheap – we go through lots of them!  See the glowing 5 star caper review here  So would it kill them to quadruple the amount of capers they put in this dish?  Note to corporate:  ADD.  MORE.  CAPERS.

We served this with tots, which will be reviewed soon. 

Price – $5.99

Rating – 4.25 (would have been a 4.5 if they would have not been so damn stingy with the capers)

Day 90 - Chicken Breasts

We usually buy our chicken at stores other than Trader Joe’s – Giant, Shopper’s Food Warehouse, or Safeway.  You can normally find SMALLER portions there, which we like (in that we are only two people).  But, for the sake of the blog, we bought it at Trader Joe’s this time.

What can I say?  Chicken breasts are chicken breasts, no?  The taste was fine.  Quality seemed normal.  I do find it funny that the sign says “minimally processed” – that may be poultry industry speak, but for a lay person like me I am not quite sure what that means…  Does it mean “some feathers MIGHT still be on there, cuz we only minimally processed this stuff…”?  I hope not!  J  (Note – we did NOT encounter any feathers with this chicken.)

Minimally processed...  Mystery!

I do not know if this is a GREAT PRICE, but I am feeling lazy tonight and just looked at Pea Pod (online grocery delivery service) and they are charging $3.00/lb for chicken breasts, so I would say Trader Joe’s is in the right ballpark.

My only complaint is that you cannot get smaller packages.  So many other products at TJ’s are perfectly portioned for our two-person household and I wish this was, too.  Oh sure, we could FREEZE what we don’t use the first time, but we normally like to eat our meat FRESH the day (or day after) we get it.

Price - $2.99/lb

Rating – 3.5