Trader Joe's Manitaropita

Dear People of Greece: Thank you so much for continuing to create delicious dishes that consist of phyllo dough filled with amazingly good stuff.

I was kind of surprised when I realized that I hadn't reviewed these yet. I have loved the Trader Joe's manitaropita for years, and they are one of my TJ's staples, but somehow they flew under the review radar until now. And we all know how much I like appetizers or finger foods as dinner, so I figured it was high time I wrote about this.



The easiest way to explain what manitaropita is might be to tell you to think of spanakopita...except rather than the puff pastry being filled with spinach and feta cheese, it's filled with mushrooms in a white wine sauce.

Trader Joe's manitaropita needs to be baked in the oven. The package specifically says not to microwave them -- and having done that out of laziness once, I can tell you that the package's admonition is a wise one.



No worries, though, because baking them is as simple as it sounds. Just pre-heat the oven and then toss them in. They only take about 10 minutes to bake. The phyllo dough (and really, does it take much more then phyllo dough to make something good?) rises to golden, flaky happiness. The many paper-thin layers add a nice crunch and interesting texture.



Trader Joe is generous with the mushroom filling -- which is a good thing, as the filling is excellent. The mushrooms are remarkably non-rubbery and have a rich, almost beefy taste.

The mushrooms are done in a white wine sauce. The sauce itself actually has a delicate, lightly herbed taste. If I had to pick out a single spice that stands out, I would have to say it's oregano. Just think of it! Mushrooms, white wine, oregano...all stewed together and encased in flaky phyllo...if the very notion doesn't bring a smile to your face, don't complain to me: complain to a doctor!

This is truly one of my favorite Trader Joe's products. It's satisfying as a meal on its own, and I would also be very pleased to serve them to company as an appetizer.



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

PRICE:
$3.99

CALORIES:
80 calories per piece.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Made on equipment shared with eggs and tree nuts, at a facility that processes peanuts, fish and shellfish.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
traderjoes.com

Trader Joe's Chocolate Lava Cake

Chocolate lava cake -- or molten chocolate cake, as it is also known -- actually has something of an interesting background. I think most of us think of it as something that, somewhere back in the mid-nineties, chain restaurants decided that they really liked, and pushed it upon us en masse. However, long before TGIMcFunster's started giving it dumb names and forcing overworked and underpaid servers to up-sell it to us, both Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Jacques Torres were already fighting over who had invented it. And for all I know, they are still going at it like chocolate saber wielding Jedi.

Regardless of who started it, I have the Trader Joe's version in front of me. According to the wordsmiths who write TJ's copy, the dessert is "a delicate chocolate cake with a creamy chocolate center." Thanks, guys, I couldn't have guessed that...

There are two small (a little under four ounces each) cakes in the package. You can microwave them, but -- as things like these are always better when baked -- I chose not to. As per the instructions, I baked them in the oven for roughly 17 minutes, and by then my house smelled as if I'd been toiling away at the stove for hours making a chocolate cake from scratch. I love getting that smell and not dealing with the mountain of dishes that otherwise result.



The cake itself is sort of no frills. In fact, it looks pretty much like a chocolate hockey puck. The outer surface looks remarkably like that of an ordinary brownie.



The outer cake also tastes pretty much like a standard brownie. The strongest flavor is the semi-liquid center. It's sort of pudding textured, and tastes like dark chocolate and strong coffee.



Overall, this is very rich and and intensely chocolaty. If you were going to serve it to guests, you might want to pretty it up with some whipped cream or sauce. But for a frozen, fast baked dessert it was really good. As stated though, it is extremely rich. You could easily share a single cake, as small as it is, and be completely satisfied.

I'll definitely buy these again.



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

PRICE:
$3.49

CALORIES:
360 per cake.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Made on shared equipment with tree nuts.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
traderjoes.com

Stouffer's Five Cheese Lasagna

I have been jonesing for lasagna in the worst way for about a week now. Sadly, the lasagna I really want is located in Georgia (and my mother does not like to make lasagna all that much). In my house lasagna was made, without exception, on Christmas and Easter. But during the rest of the year, getting it was more of a treat. And yes, I do LOOOOOVES it cold, straight from the fridge.

Believe it or not, though, I have never attempted to make my own lasagna from scratch. Honestly, it is a little too much work to go into for something that only I will eat. I am also notoriously picky about my Italian foods. I tend not to like restaurant versions. As for the one restaurant lasagna that I did like...well, while the restaurant is still there, the old lasagna is not (most of the food changed when the owners did).

So, what's a girl to do? Stouffer's was on sale...and it's pretty damn hard to turn down not only the chance for a review, but lasagna for only $1.88! And to be fair to Stouffer's, I really do like their veggie lasagna.

But how does this version stand up?



I got the all cheese/no meat lasagna. It features the layers of noodles and sauce you would expect, with a generous cheese center.

The sauce is the same sauce used by Stouffer's for their French Bread Pizzas (which I love), and, I assume, many of their other red-sauced items. It's on the sweet side, but there are actual chunks of tomatoes and visible herbs. It's not a sauce that I would want to eat by itself, but it's doable.

The noodles are thick, and like most pasta that has been frozen, a little gummy. Not gummy enough to ruin it, but it could be better. (At the same time, it could be worse.)

The cheese center is reasonably tasty. It's a little mushy but it is cheesy. I couldn't tell you what cheeses the five cheese blend actually consists of, but yeah...it's definitely cheese.



As a whole?

I have had much worse that I paid a lot more for. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It just sort of was. But I do understand why a lot of people like it -- for a mass-marketed frozen item, it's certainly tasty enough, and of course it's easy and convenient.

I still prefer the veggie version, though.



PURCHASED FROM:
Albertsons Supermarket

PRICE:
$1.88

CALORIES:
370 per serving (1 small package).

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains milk and wheat.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
stouffers.com

Trader Joe's Chile Relleno

One of the better things about living in Southern California is the fact that, at any given time, good -- and sometimes great -- Mexican food is plentiful, cheap, and often located within minutes of wherever you may happen to be. And yes, if the jones is strong enough, I will happily brave the sometimes close to an hour wait for a fix of one of my favorites: King Taco.

Because of that, it is seldom that I look for frozen or ready-made Mexican items. But we all know I am a sucker for trying things in the name of "well, I could try it for a review." Yeah, that phrase comes up a minimum of once a day.

Tonight's trip to Trader Joe's was no exception. I already had dinner planned. But sitting seductively in the frozen food bin were boxed, frozen chile rellenos...

Hmmm...well, if it's for a review....



If you have never had a chile relleno, it is a poblano pepper that has been grilled and then stuffed with a variety of fillings, be it cheese, meat, etc. Then the pepper is dipped in an simple batter and fried until golden brown. It's occasionally served bare, but almost always it's topped with either red or green salsa (I like both, but am partial to green). I've noticed that in restaurants here in SoCal, and in the southwestern U.S. generally, the stuffing is almost always simply cheese or a cheese blend. But when I was living in Georgia, the restaurant version was nearly always stuffed with meat; whereas the cheese version I prefer was referred to on the menu as a "chile poblano." I don't know why that is -- but if you are in the Deep South and you want one with cheese rather than meat, be sure to read that menu (unlike me, who ordered blindly and got surprised).

The Trader Joe's version is covered in a red salsa and sprinkled with a little bit of cheese. It was also free of the batter that I would otherwise be expecting. Considering that the battered versions are fried and this one is to be baked (or microwaved), that was probably a smart move.



The poblano pepper itself tasted fresh and had a nice "grilled" flavor to it. Not spicy hot in the least -- but poblanos are not hot as a rule. It was perhaps a little crunchier than what I am used to, but not so much that it bothered me.

The cheese is plentiful. It's stringy. It's also dense in parts. There's not really much flavor to it; more kinda salty than anything else. It reminded me of the cheese in Trader Joe's Paneer Tikka Masala, only not so solid.

The salsa topping was excellent. It has a very fresh, zesty tomato taste. There's a little cilantro and onion.

Is this chile relleno as good as one that I could get just by walking down the street? Obviously not...but for a frozen version, this is quite tasty.



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

PRICE:
$2.49

CALORIES:
350 calories per serving.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Labeled as vegetarian.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
traderjoes.com

Trader Joe's Tarte d'Champignon

The full name of this product is "Trader Joe's Tarte d'Champignon -- A French Style Flat Bread with Mushrooms, Emmental & Parmesan Cheese." In plain English, the name of this product is mushroom pizza.

But, like everyone else, I have my days where I just want to be a little "bougie," and damned if Tarte d'Champignon doesn't sound classier than pizza. Ya know what? While I am fantasizing, I would also like to pretend that said Tarte was not only made especially for me, but fed to me by hand by Anthony Bourdain -- you know, back in the days when he was a bad ass. Not the domesticated, weenified Anthony Bourdain who subjected the world to this:



That's one version of Tony I do not wish to play doctor with!

Anyway, back to the review...



This Tarte d'Champignon is a thin puff pastry crust that is topped with a mixture of crème fraîche (if you're unfamiliar, think of the best sour cream ever -- only thicker and less sour -- and you would have crème fraîche) and Emmental cheese (sometimes also referred to as Swiss cheese in the U.S.) "sauce" (it's more of a spread). The topping has five different types of mushrooms, which include porcini, Paris, oyster, shiitake, and boletus, and then the whole thing gets a light sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and parsley.



I officially don't care what they call it, because it was so good it almost takes the sting away from seeing what my once-beloved Tony Bourdain has been reduced to.

They don't recommend that you microwave this item, and I think you'd be crazy if you did. Just follow the simple baking directions and you'll be fine. The puff pastry crust is super-thin and the outer edges crisped perfectly. The bottom, sadly, stayed a little too soft -- but I have a feeling that was more the fault of my baking sheet and/or my oven than of the product itself. (Incidentally, it stuck to the sheet in several places, and was extremely difficult to remove without reducing it to a mess of gooey shreds. So even though the box doesn't mention it, you really might want to grease your baking sheet beforehand.)



The cheese "sauce": again, it's more of what I would consider a spread than a true sauce. The consistency is somewhat similar to whipped cream cheese. It's really savory. I love the tangy zip that the cheese brings. The easiest way to describe it is to tell you to think of a good, strong Swiss cheese.

The mushrooms: They are a little more sparse than I would have liked, but they are meaty and moist without being soggy or rubbery. I won't lie -- outside of the porcini and the shiitake, I couldn't tell you which 'shroom was which, but they all tasted pretty darn good.

This was just outstanding. Snark aside, it is waaaa-a-a-a-ay more special than a mere mushroom pizza. I really can't say enough nice things about it. Everything about it is delicious.

Definitely one of Trader Joe's best frozen options. Actually, one of the best frozen foods you'll find anywhere.



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

PRICE:
$3.99

CALORIES:
300 calories per half tarte

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Made on equipment shared with eggs, fish, and shellfish.

Trader Joe's Apple Blossoms

I haven't tried a Trader Joe's dessert in a while, and I love anything similar to apple pie. Apple blossoms -- sometimes called apple purses -- seem to have become all the rage last year at places like Starbucks and certain chain restaurants (TGI McFunsters, anyone?) and I have been known to order them.

Trader Joe's Apple Blossom is a pie dough pastry pouch stuffed with apple filling and topped with cinnamon crumble. They can be microwaved or baked. I opted to bake.

Each little blossom is slightly smaller in diameter than your average coffee mug. The dough has a glossy sheen, and the cinnamon glaze melted into a gooey lake while baking. The dough is good -- soft, and just a little crusty. You won't mistake it for homemade, but it is damned good for frozen.



The apple filling is generous -- it's not bursting out of the crust, but there is not exactly extra room for more. The apples are perfectly cooked, but still have a little tooth to them. It is a sweet filling, and the cinnamon, while not enough to really heat things up, adds just the right amount of spice.



This is one of the best frozen baked desserts out there. As stated, I don't think you could pass them off as home made, but they're so good I doubt anyone would care.



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's Arancini Bites

I love it when Trader Joe's adds new products to their lineup. I was browsing the appetizer section in frozen foods (yes, I like to eat many of TJ's appetizers as a dinner), and these little cheese-filled rice balls jumped out at me.

Lest you think Trader Joe's is making up words just for fun: according to the all knowing Wikipedia entry, arancini are breadcrumb-coated, fried (or rarely, baked) rice balls. See, learned something new, didn't ya? I know that rice balls aren't exactly an exotic addition to one's diet, but they are not a huge part of mine. Believe it or not, the first, last, and only other time I remember eating rice balls was at Matt's Grill in New York City -- and then they were incredibly addicting. But, as I live roughly 3,000 miles from there, it's not like I can just run out for a plate.



Trader Joe's version looked promising coming out of the oven. (They should not be microwaved.) Each rice ball is roughly the size of a Swedish meatball. The light breading browned nicely -- and having cut into one for Food Porn's sake, the cheese oozed seductively enough. But does it taste good?

At first I thought that perhaps I had undercooked them, so I put them back in the oven for an extra five minutes.

No, it was not my cooking, nor was it my oven.



Since the balls were so nicely browned, I was expecting something of a crispy shell. But what I got felt undercooked to the point of being almost raw grains of rice.


Beyond the crunchy rice, the strongest flavor in the ball seems to be onion. The ingredients do indeed include green onion. But the onion effect reminded me of undercooked frozen onion rings (you know, the ones you buy at the grocery store in plastic bags). The fontina cheese was mild and just a little salty. When the balls were still warm, the cheese did that great stringing effect when being bitten into.

Love Trader Joe's as I do, I did not love these rice balls. The texture was weird, the onion tasted like raw processed onion-type product. The overall effect was really quite nasty. I did like the cheese -- not enough that I would want to teabag another set, mind you, but I did like the cheese.

But in the end the cheese alone is nowhere near sufficient to redeem these. An interesting experiment, but one that failed completely in practice. I will certainly not buy them again.



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

Bertolli Chicken alla Vodka & Farfalle

I don't do a lot of those frozen "skillet" meals that have became so popular over the last few years. That's partially because while I do eat meat, I don't eat a lot of it; and for the Italian inspired meals, I am extremely picky and tend not to like them. But the thought of one more plate of Christmas leftovers was just a little too much to bear...and my mother had thoughtfully sent this meal to me, sooo...

Bertolli Chicken alla Vodka & Farfalle consists of breast meat chicken and asparagus mixed with a creamy tomato vodka sauce. To cook the dish, all you really have to do is put it into a covered skillet and heat for about 9 minutes while stirring occasionally. Pretty easy. (Alternately, if you're having one of those horrible days when even stirring a skillet is too damned much to deal with, this meal is microwaveable. But I chose to actually cook it on the stove top.)



On the plate the sauce is a rather alarming shade of orange. Sort of like nacho cheese sauce that comes in a can. But it does cover the pasta and chicken evenly without drowning them. The taste is...well, zesty. I would almost call it "too sweet" in the way that canned/pre-made tomato products can be (but homemade never seems to). It's cheesy -- but there are no outward signs of cheese, except to say that it looks like a neon orange Alfredo sauce.

The bow tie pasta (farfalle) came out perfectly. Not gummy or mushy, just al dente. The asparagus is crisp and cut into neat bite-sized pieces. There are also little slivers of tomato, which add a little fresh quality.

The chicken is also sliced into slim bite-sized pieces, and there's not very much of it. As for what there is...it's just sort of there. It's reasonably moist and lean, but nothing special. (Not bad either, to be fair.) I do give Bertolli points for not putting those fake grill marks on the chicken. I really hate fake grill marks.



This is a perfectly serviceable meal. Nothing about it stands out as being especially good, but there's nothing particularly bad about it either. If you're not picky about your Italian food, you might love this dish. If you are picky, well...hey, it's bright orange! Everyone loves bright orange food, right?



PURCHASED FROM:
Vons Supermarket (courtesy of my mother)

Trader Joe's Latkes

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and I thought it fitting that we have a review of a traditional holiday food. (At the absolute last minute, I thought it would have been fun to do "Eight Crazy Reviews" of Jewish foodstuffs. But, since it was indeed the last minute, I couldn't source enough items that I thought would be interesting. So next year, guys, I promise I will start earlier and we will do a Hanukkah week. Until then, we have Trader Joe's latkes to hold us over.)

For my non-Jewish friends who may not be familiar, latkes are a type of fried potato pancake that often also includes grated onion. They are often topped with apple sauce or sour cream. And while I am sure there are some who won't appreciate this comment, I will stand by it: in a nutshell, they are basically like the best hash browns ever.

I have never made them from scratch myself, though I have "helped" to make them (and for the record, that version was pretty much like the worst hash browns ever). But it doesn't seem like Hanukkah without them.

So how does Trader Joe's stack up?

According to the box, these latkes can be either fried or oven baked. Since I had no desire to deal with the mess of frying, I oven baked mine.



Each latke is about the size of a silver dollar pancake. They browned up nicely in the oven. The texture is sort of like mashed potatoes that have been fried and had bits of hash browns added to them. I know that might sound weird, but it's actually pretty good.



You can taste the onions, but you can't see them. This is a good thing for me, as I like the taste of onions but not actual onions themselves. (Yes, I am a freak). The potato, again, is kind of in a weird middle ground between mashed and hash browns, but it works. The crusting adds some crunch, which I happen to love. It's a little salty, but I think good latkes need salt.



Unfortunately, when I picked these up, I didn't think far enough ahead to get either sour cream or apple sauce, but I am sure either would have been a nice touch. Yes, I could name several places in New York where the latkes are better -- but I am not in New York (sadly), and for a frozen option these are pretty tasty.

So I can have these for seven more nights in a row, right?




PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's Popovers

I am not a huge popover fan, but every now and then the urge mysteriously strikes. And while my mother is probably going to kill me for saying this, the best popovers I've ever eaten have been at the Women's City Club of Pasadena. Seriously, they have absolutely perfected the popover. They are gloriously puffy, yet crusty, slightly buttery, and not eggy. But sadly, they do not keep a 24/7 supply on hand, and I can't always make the half hour drive (and that's assuming light traffic) to Pasadena when that random popover craving hits. Hello, Trader Joe!

Trader Joe's offers a package of four frozen popovers that can either be baked or microwaved. And because I am so thorough, I tried them cooked both ways.



Microwaved: C'mon, it's instant gratification, who doesn't love it? This is like the online porn version of a popover. All the work and the build-up is taken out, and 15 to 20 seconds later things have grown to their full potential. The popovers are small, but they did rise nicely in the old nuke box. The crust looked surprisingly dark. In terms of texture, it is soft and slightly chewy. Because of the dark appearance you find yourself waiting for a crunch that never happens, which is a disappointment.



The center does completely hollow out the way a good popover should. The dough itself is airy, yet still dense, and is only a touch eggy. (I seriously hate when egg is the only thing you taste.) It is also a little salty. There does seem to be a slight frozen dough taste to it, but it's not bad at all. I'd find it hard to believe that a better microwavable version exists, even with no crunchy crust.



The baked version: If the microwaved version is the online porn take, then this is the old school print magazine version. You have to go to the store, bring the magazine home, turn the pages, and pretend to read the articles. In other words, there is more work...but roughly 5 to 7 minutes later you are on the verge.

The baked versions looks exactly like its microwaved siblings. In terms of color and size, there is no difference. Texture-wise, while the microwaved ones were spongy and soft, the baked version is crunchy and crusty. Also, and more importantly, the slight frozen dough taste in the microwaved version disappears completely. Everything that was already good in the microwaved version is even better when baked. Microwave if you must, but it is really worth it to do the oven bake.

One of Trader Joe's best offerings!



PURCHASED FROM:

Trader Joe's

Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodles Soup

So it's late fall. Thanksgiving is almost here, it's a nippy 62 degrees in Los Angeles (hey, that's nippy by local standards!) and it was dark by about 5:00 P.M. Sounds like a soup night to me! Well, tonight's soup is one from Campbell's Select Harvest line. I chose the Chicken with Egg Noodles.

The nice thing about the Select Harvest line is that it features 100% natural ingredients, no MSG (should you be trying to avoid it), and the meat -- chicken, in this case -- is roasted breast.

First thing that I liked is that the carrots, the celery, the noodles and the chicken chunks were huge. We're not talking about some teeny-tiny little shreds here; we are talking serious chunks. It really made the soup look homemade.



There are some other noticeable differences between this Chicken with Egg Noodles and the classic Campbell's Chicken Noodle (or even the Chunk Healthy Request Chicken Noodle).

The first is the broth. It's a little thicker. The chicken also seems leaner and more like what would be found in a homemade soup. It's a little dry...but I personally like my chicken dry, so that's perfectly fine with me.



The broth overall has a taste that I can best call "roasty." Yeah, there's some sage in there (or something that tastes like sage -- the ingredients list includes "spice," but it doesn't specify which ones). There's also a little onion. But the strongest flavor just seems to be essence of roast. In theory, roasted chicken -- but it's not a complex enough flavor that I could really say for sure. It overpowers everything to the point that "roasted" is really the only thing you can taste.

The noodles were good, perfectly tender, and there's a very generous portion of them. I am sure that egg noodles are what my bubbe would have used...if I had a bubbe, that is. (My grandmother made clam sauce, not soup!)

But while I really liked the big chunks and the quality of the ingredients, I can honestly say I prefer the taste of classic Chicken Noodle or the Chunky Healthy Request Chicken with Noodles. If you like that "roasty" flavor, you may love this one. Sadly, I really didn't care for it.



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Company