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 171 - Scallion Pancakes (Pa jeon)

These are some tasty little pancakes!  They are not “pancakes” in the I-Hop sense of the word – they are savory.  Wikipedia tells me that Pa jeon is a Korean green onion (scallion) pancake.  Strangely, the packaging from the Trader Joe’s product does not give me that information. Normally the packaging is good about giving a bit of background of what you are about to eat.  Maybe it is assumed that pa jeon are familiar to most households, but they were not to mine.

Here is the bag - find in the frozen food section

We cooked them using the sauté method on the package – just put a bit of vegetable oil in a skillet, heat to medium heat, and cook pancakes about 3 – 4 minutes, turning half way and pressing with the spatula to make them gold and crispy.  The package has 4 pancakes total and we ate them in two sittings – one a piece each time.  We liked the sauté method so well the first time that we didn’t bother trying the “conventional oven method” listed the second time, we kept with sautéing.

Because of the chunky pancake-ness of the appearance, they reminded us of latke (a potato pancake popular in Jewish households).  And because we thought of them as latke, each time we made them we inadvertently brought latke topping (sour cream) to the table with us, which was never used.  J  The pancakes are perfectly good with no added toppings or dipping. 

Dinner is served!  Pa Jeon and veggies

Verdict – filling, fast, and tasty dinner.  Added a vegetable and starch and you are good to go.  They are chock full of yummy stuff – leek, carrots, mushroom, scallion…   Plus you get the crispy bits, yum!! 

Price – $3.99 (I THINK, I am sorry, this price needs to be verified…)

Rating – 4