We just made a major Trader Joe’s pilgrimage. Lately I’ve been eating lunch at home more often and wanting lunch to be cheap and fast. I have an addiction to eating lunch out, which combined with a delusion that lunch out is $5 gets expensive fast. So the Joe’s frozen section is delightful. I got some crispy orange chicken, various burritos, and so on.
But that’s not what I’m so excited about. I also got a bag of Thai spiced peanuts. Normally “Thai spiced” anything from a Western store is going to be disappointing, but these are awesome. They have crumbled dried kaffir lime leaves and dried red chiles, and they are really spicy, salty, and sour.
The other new product, TJ’s carne asada, is probably not new, but I’m trying to get over my aversion to prepared foods so I just noticed it. It’s a bag of marinated sliced beef. When I see a bag of marinated sliced beef, my gut reaction is, “Pshaw, if I want some marinated sliced beef, I will slice some beef and marinate it,” which never happens. So I bought the beef. I figured it would be at least okay, but I just seared some in a pan and it was way better than okay. I’m going to make some for dinner tonight with broccoli and crispy potatoes, and I think Iris is going to love it.
I loved the Thai Spiced Cashews when TJ’s first introduced them, but then they made them much spicier for some reason and now they are inedible.
The peanuts let you choose your level of spice by deciding whether to eat the dried red chiles. I do.
Try the frozen naan and the packaged dal from the little Indian section TJ’s has. Not quite as good as homemade, but not bad!
As for packaged beef, the orean short ribs are pretty decent and very very quick to prepare.
Kelly from Maud-L
Thanks, Kelly. I have the frozen naan here but I haven’t tried it yet. I did have my eye on the Korean short ribs and will definitely get them next time.
That bulgogi seasoned meat is great on the grill. We get it all the time.