Favorite items from Trader Joes

Up until about a year ago I had never even heard of Trader Joes.  A woman who posts vlogs on YouTube mentioned it in one of her videos and I was intrigued.  She mentioned something about all fruit frozen bars and I just had to look them up - one because they sounded delicious and two because I had never heard of this store before. 

I searched on their website and figured that I would expand the search to like 500 miles or something like that to catch all of Texas and... the dreaded three words - 'no stores found'.  What?!  In 500 miles?  Only up north, I found out after some digging.  I had to settle for some crappy regular Popsicles. 

Fast forward a year or so and my husband comes home one day to tell me they are building a Trader Joes in Ft Worth.  Hallelujah!!  Finally I get to experience the mystique that is Trader Joes.  Unfortunately it had to be with about 21,000 other people on opening weekend.  Apparently they all got the memo for how wonderful it was as well.  We didn't end up going on opening weekend but we did go a few weekends later. 

Right away Isabella notices the giant banana set up.  Even to this day if we go into Trader Joes she has to eat a banana while we are shopping.  I am convinced that they do that banana arrangement just to keep the kids quiet so their parents can shop longer.  It's a banana conspiracy, I tell you!  I don't complain though because I am glad that she is eating a banana and not chocolate covered espresso beans like I saw some other kid eating the other day while his mom was shopping. 

I digress... just after the banana debacle is their fresh produce.  It looks awesome and fresh and well stocked.  We bought some organic apples that day for some applesauce that I wanted to make for Isabella.  Depending on the store arrangement you get different items next - for some it's the meat/cheese/eggs/milk/cool items and for others it's the shelves of dry goods, etc. 

We didn't know what to buy from this store because it was so new to us, but we knew that several items were popular.  We bought a few that day and have come to love a few more over time.  I will list out our favorites here and you can check them out the next time you go...

Our #1 favorite item is their packaged mini chocolate chip cookies.  They are tiny and crispy and delicious.  They are good for kids because they are small and relatively bite sized for tiny mouths.  We get at least one container of these every time we go and everyone who has eaten them at our house loves them.   They are less than $4 for this entire container. 


Organic lollipops.  This is a relatively new favorite.  I saw these one time while I was there browsing.  Isabella loves 'suckers' and I hate giving them to her normally because they are packed with less than ideal ingredients for kids.  These are small and organic made from cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup which makes me feel better about giving her one in the event of a meltdown.  I keep a stash in the car and in our stroller in case of a total breakdown situation.   They are about $3-4. 


The next item I was not originally on board for.  Corry found them and decided that he wanted to try them and I couldn't say no since we didn't know anything about this place or the food they carried.  Mahi-Mahi burgers.  I will be the first to admit that I am the furthest thing from an adventurous eater, however these were really good.  They grilled very nicely.  However, we can rarely find them.  According to the TJs in Ft Worth they still carry them but supposedly they are popular and sell out quickly.  We haven't seen them in at least the last ten times that we have been there. 


Brown rice pasta is our next favorite item.  This pasta is awesome.  I like whole wheat pasta so I didn't think that I would have a problem with this pasta, but I wasn't sure that Corry would like it.  There are different cooking times than 'normal' pasta but overall it is good.  They have penne, spaghetti and elbows I think.  For awhile we only had this pasta in our cabinet.  We have been a bit lax recently and have just been buying pasta from Aldi but this is still one of my favorite pastas.  With a meal, I can't tell any difference in this pasta vs. the 'normal' pasta.  I can tell when you reheat it the next day because it does have a tendency to break down but the taste remains the same. 


Our final favorite is their specialty pancake/waffle mix.  They make a pumpkin spice pancake mix and it is absolutely amazing.  We bought about 4-5 boxes this year after our original time buying it because it was that good.  It had real pumpkin taste and didn't have any imitation flavor to it.  It made awesome pancakes and made the entire house smell amazing. 
We have had many other items from Trader Joes including their frozen fruit, their pizza dough, wine, beer, pita bread, veggie chips, cocoa powder, coconut oil, chicken sausage, pasta sauce, etc.  Anything and everything that we have ever purchased from there is excellent.  I haven't had one item that I was disappointed in.  The prices are excellent too - much cheaper than what I would have expected. 

Oh - one last bonus point ... their restrooms are always clean.  That is huge considering that most 'grocery' store restrooms are awful. 

What are your favorite items from Trader Joes?  I would love to get more inspiration the next time I shop!

Target

Why does America love Target so much?  I don't know of any other country that has a store that they love more than Americans love Target.  Why do we, as a culture, keep subjecting ourselves to a store where we consistently buy $50 - $100 more stuff than we need literally every time we walk through the door?

 I am a self-admitted Target addict.  I love Target.  We buy Isabella's disposable diapers from Target so we have to make the trip once every two weeks or so and it never fails that we come out of there with an $80 - $100 bill and nothing really important in our cart except diapers.   

Maybe it is the overly bright fluorescent lights. Maybe it is the stimulating site of the 'clearance' and 'sale' signs and items on every aisle. Who doesn't love those little red clearance tags?  They are designed to make you think that you might need a 4 pack of the same deodorant for $.80 less than it was originally priced.   Maybe it is the fact that you can get anything that you want or need in the same store at the same time. With the invention of the 'Super Target' my life got a lot more expensive.

 We have found a lot of interesting food items that are at Target that they don't have other places.  We consistently buy flavored pancake mix here, different flavors of yogurt, and drinks that they don't seem to regularly carry at other stores.  I don't think that it matters what it is - just that something about Target makes a grand scale amount of consumers go there regularly and spend money like it grows on trees. 

My absolute favorite part of Target is the $1 clearance section in the front of the store.  There are three things that we absolutely love to buy from that section:

1. Kid dishes.  They have these super cute colorful character plates, bowls, cups and sometimes silverware for children.  For some reason you can't put this stuff in the dishwasher but it is really convenient for the kid's meals and easy to portion out their food.  Plus it seems fun for the kids to eat off of these colorful animal plates.  They normally have different ones for each season and/or holiday. 
2. Children's books.  We have purchased some super cute cardboard Sesame Street books that are great for the kids.  They are short, very educational and very colorful.  The kids can relate to them because they are regular characters that they know from Sesame Street like Elmo, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, etc.  They are durable and easy for small babies and kids to manipulate. 
3. Educational materials.  They regularly stock items like flash cards, handwriting books, educational games, etc that you can use with any age group.  They have flash cards for letters, numbers, words for beginning readers, and more challenging cards for older kids. 

There are too many other things to name that we love to buy from Target.  Just shopping there is a like a drug to me and many others that I know.  Their maternity section is impressive.  Their baby area is usually well stocked and neatly organized.  Their stores are easy to navigate in and usually there are an appropriate number of cashiers to people waiting in line. 

All in all maybe those pluses are what we pay for with the extra items that they sucker us into buying.  Like maybe the extra money is a surcharge to get into the Target club and the extra clearance items are just bonuses for shopping there.  Whatever it may be we might complain about the extra money that we spend but we are too consumed with it now to ever stop.

-Sara


  

Meal Planning Week 1

First off - I understand that this is not the first week in the year.  This is the first week of my actual meal planning.  We try to meal plan every week - some weeks we are totally successful and feel like we have this stuff together and then other weeks we don't make anything on the list. 

Second - I am not one of those planners who decides that on Monday we are having this and on Tuesday we are having that.  I know that I have to plan for seven meals and I let us pick as the day arrives.  Three of the seven days my husband makes dinner for the family before I get home from work so I like to have several things on the list that are able to be made while two kids under three are either having tantrums or trying to lock one another in the laundry room or are trying to open the oven door.  My husband is an awesome cook and I am lucky that I don't have to dumb down recipes for him... if anything I feel like he should be doing that for me sometimes. 

My meal plan and grocery shopping this week is adventerous for a few reasons:  1) I am behind on my 52 Pinterest projects in 52 weeks, and 2) I am bored with some of our recent favorite meals.  I planned seven meals for this week:

1. Chicken spaghetti - this is adapted from the Pioneer Woman's version and it is a hit everytime.  I will do a recipe post on this because of how awesome it is. 
2. Cheeseburger pasta - this will be one of my Pinterest posts for this week.  My sister pinned this but I don't know if she has made it yet... either way, it looked awesome. 
3. Bacon cheeseburgers and tator tots - my husband requested bacon cheeseburgers last week and it didn't happen so this is to make up for that.
4. Chicken logs, rice dish and veggie - this sounds weird but it's really awesome and horrible for you.  It's a stuffen chicken cordon bleu frozen entree from one of our grocery stores. 
5. Baked tacos - second item from Pinterest this week.  It looks awesome.  We don't usually eat this much red meat during the week but it's what sounded good
6. Pulled pork on burger buns, tator tots and veggie - this is a recipe also adapted from a previous recipe from Pinterest.  We always have pulled pork in our freezer.  We used an approx 8lb pork shoulder the other day and made about 6 different meals out of it; one that night and five freezer meals for later. 
7. Country style pork ribs, pasta dish and veggie - pasta dish will be this cheesey, garlicy, buttery wonder that I found from Pinterest as well. 

After a review of our pantry, fridge, and freezer, it was determined that we needed a lot of items this week.  I like to keep a stash of some items that we were going to use this week, so even though we had some I still bought as if we didn't.  We were also going to buy some extra items from a local grocery store (Brookshires) that was doing a "Buy one get one for $.01" on a lot of different items.  We try to buy most of our groceries from Aldi for cost purposes, but items that we can't get there we normally get from either Walmart, Trader Joes, or Brookshires. 

Aldi:
Spaghetti pasta x 2
Cream of Chicken soup x 2
Colby Jack cheese - block
Chicken broth x 2 paper containers
Approx 3 lbs ground beef
Poblano peppers- 15 (my husband roasts these and we freeze them for all year)
Tomato Sauce x 2
Sour Cream
Chicken logs x 3
Veggies - corn, peas, green beans x 9 (3 each)
Hamburger buns
Sliced cheese - Colby Jack and Pepper Jack
Tator tots x 2
Paprika
Onion Powder
Sandwich bags
Milk
Eggs
String cheese
Veggie Chips
Taco shells
Arizona lemon teas in the can x 3

Total: $58.74

Brookshires:
Toilet Paper - B1G1
Yellow Mustard - B1G1
Smoked sausage - B1G1
Breakfast sausage - B1G1
3 lbs Bacon - B1G1
Windex refill
Yogurt x 6
Parsley
Lemonade Vitamin Water x 2
Pimentos
Black Olives
Frozen Chicken breasts - 3 lbs -B1G1

Total: $64.14

Trader Joes:
Cookie butter - we have never had this before and my husband said it was amazing
Oatmeal Chocolate chip cookies
6 mixed beers
Apple Cinnamon puff snacks
Tarter Sauce
Caramel corn

Total: $22.57 - we didn't need any of this but it was a matter of being in the area and being bored. 

All in all a decent week and I set myself up well for at least a few extra week's worth of protein with the smoked sausage, chicken, and breakfast sausage.  I also have a stockpile of dried rice and pasta so this week I will be looking for extra recipes to make side dishes.  I have a small stock pile of canned and frozen veggies so this could be no shopping for next week! 

- Sara