This week a friend asked for a list of quick Trader Joe’s balanced meals with fresh or pre-packed components. (Hi, Jana!) She specified chicken, fish, and pork. I thought you might find these useful as well! (Yes, the picture has nothing to do with healthy dinners. But pick up one of these Trader Joe’s Corn Cookie mixes before they are gone!)
Chicken Ideas:
TJ’s Schwarma Chicken Thighs; frozen jasmine rice packet, arugula salad with part kit.
Marinate chicken thighs or tenders in half a bottle of their Honey Aleppo Sauce, roast the marinated chicken thighs ON zucchini slices in the same container. Serve with a frozen jasmine rice packet. Other things to marinate chicken: their gyoza sauce. Their Carolina gold bbq sauce.
I’m an “adult”: Chicken Drumellas, steamed broccoli, baked Alexia French fries. Dip in sriracha barbecue sauce.
Fish:
Argentinian frozen shrimp, cooked in their organic vodka sauce on the stovetop. Crumble on feta. Serve over rice or just as is. You can also use eggs as a cheat“shakshuka” this way.
Bake their BBQ Salmon on Cedar-y thing. Served over “sushi rice”: frozen rice packet, doctored with a little rice vinegar and sugar. With chopped cucumber, and if you feel fancy, some pickled ginger.
Take any of their frozen fish, slather in their garlic spread, and bake. Or you can do half-half with mustard. I just got the new Bronzino filets and plan on doing this.
Pork:
Marinate Pork Tenderloin (I’ve been loving that honey Aleppo.) Then bake in the oven. While that’s happening, take one of the boxes of cubed pancetta, crisp up in the pan, add a bag of the shredded Brussels sprouts. Cook until soft. You probably want a spoonful of some sort of vinegar to balance it out, or a bunch of lemon. Note: I marinate everything in a ziplock!
Trader Joe’s Quick Chili: sauté ground meat of your choice, a bunch of cumin and salt, a container of chopped onions, a jar of salsa (I like either their hatch chili or pepita) a can of fire roasted tomatoes. Simmer for thirty minutes while you finish up something else. Top with unexpected cheddar or pepper jack.
Hit me up if you have similar requests, and I’ll help you out.
November. Yes, it’s here! And so begins my usual foolhardy pursuit during the month of November – known as NaBloPoMo, a terrible acronym that announces my intent to blog every day of the month. Some of these posts will be brief, others longer. We start, as I usually do, with food.
Specifically, my cart tonight at Trader Joe’s.
A few notes on this cart, which contains some of my favorites:
sardines in olive oil – I eat these at least once a week. Sometimes as sardine salad. Sometimes mashed with some avocado. Occasionally with some balsamic. They are also my dog’s favorite snack.
shredded brussels sprouts – these are my all purpose fall greens – I usually cook them with the pancetta cubes – and some chicken thighs.
flowers – I buy myself some every week. During the summer I got to pick some gorgeous bouquets as part of my farm share, but alas, winter is nearly here, and I must make due with store bought.
Belgian chocolate pudding – what can I say about this? It’s thick, rich, and you are satisfied with a small amount. I don’t do dessert every day, but this is nice to have in the fridge in a pinch, if I need to satisfy my chocolate fix.
organic chicken thighs – this is one of my most consistent purchases from Trader Joe’s – one of the only meat purchases I make outside of my meat CSA. I don’t do breasts – thighs for life!
ezekiel bread – made from sprouted grains. We actually rarely have any bread products in our house, but I’ve been craving avocado toast.
I also have some almond milk for blended drinks, fennel, dill, and pork tenderloin to test a few recipes this week.
If you happen to see a large white rectangular package the size of a record at Trader Joe’s this week, buy it immediately, take it home, and have a party. A KRINGLE party! For some reason, probably because Kringle are shockingly delicious, Trader Joe’s has it seasonally stocked, and I’m here to tell you that you must purchase it. Your life will be better for it. The heck with the party, just eat it all yourself.
{I found this picture on the internet searching for O&H Danish Pastry Kringle, and marveled at those excellent Movember mustaches. And then realized that this picture was probably from the early 80’s, and that was just how facial hair was done, back in the day.}
Kringle, for those uninitiated to the delicacy, is a buttery, flaky, layered pastry, filled with marzipan, and topped with icing. In Denmark, the Kringle was a pretzel shaped pastry (the Danish symbol for a the baker’s guild), but when immigrant bakers moved to Racine, Wisconsin, they reshaped it into an oval. The Kringle is now the official state pastry of Wisconsin. There are two Kringle factories of note: Racine Danish Kringles, and O & H Danish Bakery. There is also a company that makes a Kringle Cream Liquor, which I have not tried, but might taste delicious stirred into morning coffee.
You can enter the contest on O & H Danish Bakery’s website to win a kringle, but if you happen to see one at Trader Joe’s, buy it right away, and thank me later.
West Coasters, apparently they sell Kringle in Solvang. The last time I was in Solvang was on one of our very first date vacations. Our first evening we had the pleasure of eating Stouffers meals that we purchased at the supermarket, and heated in the hotel – because everything in the town closed by seven pm.
Yesterday was free burrito day at Boloco. I didn’t partake, but I thought that I’d share this photo for folks who I went to college with. This is the line at the brand spankin’ new Boloco in the ‘ville. Yes, that’s right. There is now a burrito shop in the town of Wellesley, mere paces from the gates of the college. These kids have it so easy.
The other reason I thought I’d mention this, is in the wake of the scum-tweeter at KitchenAid mocking Obama’s dead grandmother, I remembered this (slightly less embarrassing) social media scuffle involving Boloco’s CEO, and a disgruntled employee making stupid comments on Twitter. The CEO read her tweet, fired her on Twitter, regretted his decision immediately, and then turns the situation around. I actually thought it was an interesting case for brand managers. (Read more on BostInno.)
But enough about that. After yesterday’s breakthrough at the gym, I was excited to go back to complete more handstand-pushups and help our team rack up points. I was also excited about this workout:
WOD (Workout of the day): “Survivor”
4 Rounds for time:
400m Run
500m Row
I was supposed to do a running workout anyway to prep for next week’s race, so because this was cardio-intensive, I went ahead and went to the gym two days in a row to participate in this round of fun. There were a lot of folks in class, so I actually did my rows first, and finished with runs. I tried to pace myself so that my rounds were pretty consistent. My splits were 2:22 (row), 3:26 (run), 2:46 (row), 3:17 (run), 2:51 (row), 3:22 (run), 2:32 (row), 3:17 (run). I finished in 23:57. A little slower than I would have liked – my splits included the transitions, and I always seem to have trouble getting in and out of the erg.
And after that monstrosity? I banged out 150 HSPU’s. Boo-YAH. (Sorry.)
* * *
In the afternoon, my mom came to meet me for lunch! We were supposed to pick up new phones today, but we were thwarted by the fact that it seems that no Sprint 16GB iPhone 5’s exist in the world. But we had planned the date in advance, so she ended up meeting me anyway.
We headed over to Legal C-Bar for lunch, because I was yet again craving seafood, and Legal is known to have a gluten-free menu and they are super accommodating. After checking out the menu, I opted for a version of what I usually get – the crab salad sandwich. They serve it without the bun, and with a side of your choice (broccoli!). While the crab was quite fresh, and the broccoli steamed well, my one gripe was how little food this was. If I can’t have the bun, wouldn’t you at least give a bigger portion of broccoli?
Realizing quickly that I would be starving if I only ate this for lunch, I opted to order a half dozen oysters. Three blue points, and three from Duxbury. Jewels of the sea!
After lunch, we headed over to the huge Whole Foods to pick up a pint of raspberries, which I then devoured. I also introduced my mom to LÄRABARs. We left with two Zyliss julienne peelers, and a Bialetti ceramic panfor my mom, who has heard me raving about mine.
After properly fueling ourselves, we determined that the best thing to do next would be to stop into Williams Sonoma for coffee samples. I started with a Nespresso ristretto from the Nespresso Pixie Espresso Machine. I usually go for this every time I walk into a kitchen store.
And then we went over to check out the new Starbucks Verismo. I had my doubts. My mom had a latte, which she conceded was quite good, and I had a cup of plain coffee. Also surprisingly decent.
After caffeinating, we made a stop at City Sports where I rewarded myself with a new foam roller, and a jump rope to practice my (non-existent) double-unders. I have a funny feeling that these are going to be part of the gym challenge in the coming weeks. Eek.
In the evening, I came home to make dinner: a rack of lamb, and roasted sweet potatoes. My mom and I both picked up these racks of lamb from the refrigerated section at Trader Joe’s. Unlike the frozen racks they have, these are from New Zealand, and don’t come with seasoning. You also don’t have to plan in advance like you do with the frozen ones… I seasoned it with Nom Nom Paleo’s Magic Mushroom Powder from her iPad app, and some rosemary.
The sweet potatoes were tossed in coconut oil, salt and pepper, and went in the oven at 425 for about 35 minutes. (I put them in before I put the lamb in, and then left them in for a few extra minutes as the lamb sat out resting.)
I started my dinner with some Trader Joe’s gazpacho to get in some extra vegetables.
And here’s the rest of my plate – a few lamb chops, sweet potato coins, and a chopped red bell pepper.
After dinner we vegged out watching DVR’d episodes of NB80’s. Think VH1’s I love the 80’s, but all about basketball. Highly recommended.
I was eating my way through half-filled jars in the fridge, and finally came to the end of an excellent tomato chutney that I had acquired from Trader Joe’s. I really liked the stuff, and I decided that it was well worth getting a replacement jar. When I went back to the store to do so, I was shocked – SHOCKED! – to find out that they had discontinued it. “We loved it here, but our tastes in the Bay Area don’t always translate to the rest of the country,” the manager said, shaking his head.
I’ve seen people wither into depression after TJ’s sends their favorite product to the graveyard. I was on the verge of a chutney-less meltdown. I assure you that this was a great tomato chutney. A little sweet, a little spicy, a little tangy. I used it to stir fry greens, to serve with curries, and as a chicken marinade. It was good with toast, topped with melted cheese. It was also a great complement to roasted cauliflower. What was I going to do without it?
And then I remembered that I spent the past year working on my friend Karen’s mostly-condiment cookbook, and I could probably make my own version at home. I knew the ingredients (I wrote them down off the back of the jar), and all I had to do with fiddle with the proportions. It couldn’t hurt to try?
After an hour of tinkering, I present to you:
(Not Quite) Trader Joe’s Tomato Chutney
makes about 1.5 cups
time: 40 minutes
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes (no salt added), with juice
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 teaspoon cumin
1 large pinch Maldon salt (or kosher salt)
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
In a small saucepan, add all the ingredients and stir well. [I used an immersion blender in the saucepan before cooking to break it down into a chunky paste, but you could wait until after cooking to process in a food processor or blender.]
Bring to a boil (it will bubble and splatter, so be careful!) then turn the heat down to low, and cover. Simmer for thirty minutes, making sure to stir every five to ten minutes, so that the chutney does not stick to the bottom.
Spoon into a glass jar. This is a fresh chutney and should be stored in the refrigerator for up to two months. You could probably can it, but I find that it’s so quick to put together, that it’s probably easier to just make a fresh batch when you want it.
Hi! I’m Sam! Nice to meet you!
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
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