Joe's Diner Mac 'n Cheese

I'm a big fan of cheese in general. I actually make a wicked good mac and cheese myself. involving grating up around 20 bucks worth of pricey cheese, simmering bay leaves and garlic cloves in whole milk (I normally use 2% so it's another purchase for me) and baking it. dirty dishes number in the hundreds, and while it feezes well....it's a procedure for sure.
TJs mac and cheese lacks the bay/pepper/gar;ic flavor has, but has every bit of the pricey cheese combo and delish ooze that a cheese dish should have.
Pop this baby in the microwave for 5-6min and dinner is DONE man. Good for 2 side dish servings (LOL....right) or meal for one. Could use a bit of pepper or garlic, but damn tasty as-is anyhow.

at 2.99 it's a bit pricer than most TJs items, but WELL worth it in my opinion. Absolutely will be buying again. This was my second one in 5 days!  A

Emergen-C

Just a quick note since i'm battling strep as I am starting this blog -
I swear by Emergen-C whenver I feel any sickness coming on. I feel (because you can't prove this I suppose) it's warded off, or shortened colds I may have gotten, and certainly with the amount of travel I was doing up until recently it was one of the few things I could do to try and maintain my health.

My personal favorite used to be the raspberry, until I came upon the breast cancer awareness pink lemonade flavor. I think I bought 4 boxes because I assumed it was a temporary thing. Its super duper yummy. the kids call it "sick juice" lol.

I have quite a stockpile, including a variety pack of flavors I was trying out in my cabinet of medical torture devices...er, meds.....
but since I was at CVS picking up drugs, I swung by as several years ago it was fairly hard to find. I usually had to hit whole foods, central market, etc. Now you can find it most anywhere.
CVS had it on "sale" for 13.99 I believe.

I happened to look down while in the householdy section of TJs and lo....they sold emergen-C (no pink however!) for 8.99. Incase you didn't know....prices at TJs include tax with the exception of booze, soda, and non-edibles. so 8.99 out the door.

I snagged some acai berry, and while it has this weird floating scum thing and is a disturbing shade of grey purple....if you didn't look at the stuff it was actually quite tasty. the visual may not allow me to repurchase, but it was really good..... i'm on the fence.

anywho. Kudos TJs. nearly half the price? sheesh!

I am also partial to Yogi Immune support tea when sick. I did spy that TJs carrys yogi teas but as there was some sort of jungle law shopping going on, I didn't stop to look if they carried it. If anyone is interested however, it's what I drink when sick. I am normally partial to a good stiff black tea (twinings irish breakfast) when healthy, but the immune support tea is very tasty, smooth, light and is perfect when sick. I hate adding sweetner to tea, but it's not DREADFUL when I add some honey to soothe a sore throat. Thats important. :)
And echinacea normally tastes like something you'd lick off the bottom of a table somewhere, so to have this tea not only be bearable, but actually tasty is a huge bonus.

Mandarin Orange Chicken and Jasmine Rice

 

 



I made the kids dinner last night, first try of the oh so famous orange chicken and rice. The chicken was GOOD, and I do mean GOOD as promised. And it made quite a lot of food. According to package it makes 5C of chicken. The thing I really liked I hadn't seen discussed before was the fact there was two separate sauce packets inside, so you can EASILY split the chicken into two servings...unlike a lot of foods you find.
I baked mine and it turned out well, I cut up a few of the larger chucks as I was catering to small children...plus it should be bite sized anyway!
I only used about 1 and 1/4th packets of sauce which was plenty I found.

The kids take after me and don't do spicy foods well....as in pepperoni is often too spicy for our taste. I LOVE spice, but my entire mouth goes numb and it's really difficult to enjoy your dinner after that I find. This chicken had NO kick to it and the kids were MAD for it. My 8yr old ate the lions share...probably half the bag himself. the 5yr old and I had much smaller portions.
I think next time I will mix it up and after serving the kids add a little spice (sesame oil?) for myself as I think it needed a touch more heat. Like I said, I LOVE it...just can't tolerate much!

at 4.99 this was a bargain and I'm glad I bought a few! A

The rice was surprising for me. I won't touch instant or boil in a bag with a 12 ft stick.
My mother came to visit and made instant and I almost gagged....So spoiled I've become. I have a rice cooker that makes good rice, but it's honestly a pain to clean and takes awhile.
The rice comes with 3 bags containing about 2c each. I nuked up 2 bags and ended up sticking half a bag in the fridge.
in 3 minutes the rice was PERFECT. magically so. better than any rice I've EVER had from pei wei, Chinese takeout, PF Chang's, umm....really anywhere.
Better than some of the rice I've made in my cooker (subpar rice people) and super super easy. I like the packets which means I can make smaller portions. If I hadn't been sick I probably would have eaten more rice myself making 2 about right.

3.49 for 6c of magically delish rice?  A+++

PIZZA 4 FORMAGGI

This is a fairly small pizza, and since I am not always with my two little rugrats who incidentally can out eat me, sometimes it's nice to have something smaller I can consume myself.
I gave it a whirl...
Crust was fairly crisp using my lazy method of chucking it on the rack naked. cheese was unimpressive, and sauce was kinda odd. I dunno.
I ate it, but it wasn't very good in a very general way.
For the price (which if memory serves, was 4.99?) there are far tastier options out there, including my personal favorite.... Papa Murphy's. Kids love it, I love it. The pizzas are fairly large there however, so it would definitely be nice to find a smaller alternative for kid-free pizza eating.

I'm somewhat sensitive/allergic to tomatoes however, so I have to be cautious as some sauces cause problems (roof of my mouth will blister and peel) and this one didn't. so that's a plus I suppose.

C-

I'm not a stranger to Trader Joe's - growing up in Chicago burbs where my large and extensive family still resides, however it was out of my scope as a teenager. Plus, what teenager grocery shops on a regular basis? I moved to DFW when I was a pup of 20.
I've been back on a fairly regular basis but taking back TJ treats is pretty difficult.

1 - prior to kids I would mostly fly. Seldom room and pretty suspect. I still recall the time I was lugging 6 boxes of UNFROSTED brown sugar cinnamon poptarts back to Chicago for my mother who couldn't find them anymore. The TSA employee running the bag scanner looked at me as quite the oddball. LOL.

2 - Since kids I've mainly driven, however my trips are either for summer (too hot for most things) or Xmas. Space is also a premium when hauling stuff to and from locations (bring stuff up for gifts whatever, always bring more back!) and TJs is mostly closer to Chicago than my mother lives where I usually stay. Meaning I'd need to hike out a good hour plus each way. Annoying.

Still, when my older son was born I was made aware of TJs "midnight moo" and figured it was a slightly healthier version of a sweet I was willing to give my toddler. An occasional hot chocolate - with the scantest taste of chocolate, made with organic blah blah... you get the picture.

Aldis, another back home staple I DID shop at quite a bit as a kid, finally opened locally not too long ago. My sister seems OBSESSED with them now, for whenever she visits she takes my kids and comes back with food we won't (and don't) eat and I feel guilty and try and give it away to folks who might.

I braved opening day around 6pm Friday, all the while battling a not-so-great feeling which would later prove to be strep. Perhaps this was why I was able to handle the chaos in a near zen state, as normally even normal shopping makes me break out in hives and foam at the mouth. I prefer to shop with no other humans afoot. LOL.
  I gleefully filled my cart with goodies and was AGHAST at the price. 130 bucks people. Easily would have run me 250+ at Kroger's or tom thumb. I did my research on recommended foods, and decided to throw down on many. I actually went back again on Monday following my Drs appt (confirmed strep) to pick up some additional items, items I missed, and items I couldn't battle the crowds for such as coffee. No way I was getting a can and opening it and grinding it in the chaos!