Why I Oughta...

There's a pattern in our house with *some* houseplants:  We buy one from Trader Joe's.  Bring it home.  It looks great for a bit. Blooms right away. Then, heads into decline.  Which, usually leads to being put outside (during the Summer) or tossed into the compost pile when it dies.  One of the plants that has come home a couple of times from TJs is the African Violet.  It blooms, but is, frankly...disposable.  Or at least, that's what I thought. I came across this video on Garden Answer's YouTube page where she talks us through propagation of succulents, some fishbone cactus and African Violets .  Wait, what?  Taking apart and planting cuttings of African Violets to make MORE of them?  This is the part of the video (10:09) where she starts the African Violets .  Huh.  Had no idea.   Watching that sent me down a little Web digging hole where I found this post on the Spruce that has a headline that scratches me right where I itch:  African Violets Shouldn't Be Throw

 Each of the past few years, we've grown Christmas flowers.  They're always Amaryllis bulbs that I've bought at the Wannemaker's Christmas Open House in early November.  That timeline has usually given me enough time get close to blooms on Christmas Day.  Last year, we grew four different varieties.  This year?  We missed the open house.  (Thanks, COVID.)  And I never got around to buying bulbs.   So, to my delight, Nat came home from (I think) Trader Joe's with this waxed amaryllis.  The tag doesn't list the variety, so it will be a surprise when it opens.   It seems that with this waxed version, you have to do literally NOTHING.  No water.  No soil.  Just turn it a quarter turn every few days to get it to grow straight.   So, while this isn't the best we've done with Amaryllis bulbs, at least having this on our counter keeps the tradition up of growing these things for the holidays.  COVID can shove it.

Inside of a bag of baby carrots from our dear friends at Trader Joes was this weird carrot paw.  The kids got a kick out of it and you can see that we kept it on the counter for a few days admiring it while it dried out.  This seems to certainly count as a novelty in the baby carrot game, right? We aren't in the "imperfect produce" world , but I would think this might not have made it past their folks?

Have you had these pretzels yet?  They're a fast-emerging ' favorite thing ' of mine this Holiday season that I'm certain will make this year's list .  And, unfortunately, they quickly disappeared once they arrived in our pantry.  The peppermint and almond one?  Awesome.  The sprinkles one?  Fine, but always the last tray to empty.  I've mentioned to Natalie like four times that the 'next time you go to TJ's, can you buy more of these ???', but it appears that they might be sold out already because our rations haven't been restocked.  Or perhaps it was the fact that I/we devoured these in four days that she's purposely not rebuying?

Thanks to our good friend Dannee down the block, we were not only alerted to this awesome White House cookie kit - she also gifted one to us after one of her trips to Trader Joe's!  And guess what?  The girls loved putting them together.  Of course they did, right? What's more fun than a gingerbread house?  Nothing, I tell you.  Nothing. This is a pretty fun, seasonal item, that is a great way to do something fun with our kids, but also, kinda, sorta talk to them about the White House and the president and the upcoming election.  Did they listen to any of it?  Probably not.  But, still...frosting!  cookies!  Candy! And, from a business stand point, the person at the gingerbread factory who came up with this idea is pretty clever.  I can hear it now.... "Hey, Bob!  Fire up the ovens!  I have an idea." "But...it isn't Christmastime yet.  We have months to go until the public wants our stuff." "You're right...it isn't Christmas, bu

I've been on an oatmeal kick in 2015.  Eating it at home.  Even eating it out at restaurants.  The stuff is billed as being great for your health and cholesterol.  So...I'm giving it a shot and I've kind of figured out a way to make it taste good (brown sugar, bananas, vanilla almond milk). So, Nat came home with this box of Quinoa and Oatmeal combined.  It takes a bit longer than normal steel cut oatmeal (20 min for this vs. <10 min for the normal stuff), but it was pretty good.  I don't know if it filled me up any more than normal, but I'm willing to give it even more tries.

Bought this stuff for New Year's Eve sundaes and it didn't disappoint.  Unfortunately for my new year's diet, we were left with a HUGE jar of the stuff after Dec 31st.  Hide your spoons.  Hide your wife.  And..hide your husband, too.

I make about 4 trips to Trader Joe's every year.  About once a quarter, I'll head there with Nat and the girls on one of their bi-weekly trips.  Sometime last year, I found this sauce on one of the end caps.  I grabbed a bottle and fell in love.  Now, my experience with Trader Joe's is that they don't keep products on their shelves very long if they don't sell well, so I was concerned that when we went back a week or two later, it would be gone. But, much to my surprise, we've been able to buy the stuff at regular intervals over the last six months.  I've been using it on a Detroit-style BBQ Chicken Pizza that I've been making and - for my money - the sauce is the boss.  I have 2 bottles sitting on the shelf in the pantry and I've just added it to the list for our next trip to TJs. I better stock up in case the fine folks at Trader Joe's change their mind and stop carrying the stuff.

Nat and the girls came back from TJ's with these beauties in their bag yesterday and while I'm a fan of the traditional TJ's cookie of fall (Their Maple Cookies), I have a soft spot for their holiday-themed Joe Joe's. These ones are particularly cute with the jack-o-lantern face and orange cream in the middle.   With Halloween being 3 weeks away, I'm seriously doubting that they'll last that long.

I took the liberty of introducing the Babe to one of my very favorite Autumn treats:  Trader Joe's Maple Cookies.  Sure...they have them for sale (now) all year around, but let's be honest:  they taste best when the air is crisp and the leaves are turning color.  The calendar may still say August, but my mind is already on fall:  football, pumpkins, and the early on-set of Christmas Creep.  Oh...and yes.  She *is* in the cart at TJ's while she's eating this.  I think between the two of us, we pounded through an entire 'row' of these babies while we were waiting for Nat to fill the cart with the various groceries. 

Nat does A LOT of shopping at Trader Joe's.  A LOT.  And of the course of years, I've come to appreciate their quirkiness and how they tailor their brand.  For Italian food, their labels say Trader Giotto's and for Mexican-inspired items, they use Trader Jose.  Pretty cute. But this afternoon, I was a bit puzzled.  For some reason, Trader Joe's decided that the Salsa Verde made the 'Jose' cut, but not the bean dip?  Why not?  The bean dip even has the same spiciness 'chart' on the side of the jar as the salsa.  Seems to me that someone in marketing missed an opportunity here.

A few weeks ago, my mother-in-law came home from Trader Joe's with this package of Kumatos.  They're brown tomatoes that claim to "taste good" all year around.  I think she said that the good folks at TJ billed it as a "winter tomato".  I didn't eat any of them and haven't seen them since - either at our house or my in-laws.  Maybe they weren't a hit.  Anyone had these?  Any good?  The YumSugar ladies sure seem like them !

After MUCH experimentation, the High Priests of Pizzanerds over at Slice are able to claim that these plum tomatoes from Trader Joe's are the BEST tomatoes for pizza .  (Go check out their spreadsheet.  There's nothing I like more than a food-based experiment tracking spreadsheet!  Seriously!) Many of you know that for the past five years or so, I've been using 6 in 1's - and liking the results.   In fact, I was a 6 in 1 evangelist - telling everyone that I knew about these canned beauties.  So, considering a new tomato product for my pizza making is serious business.  Upon some inspection, the key difference is that with these from Trader Joe's (that Slice recommends), you have whole tomatoes whereas the 6 in 1's are mostly sauce/pureed.  For my deep dish pizzas, the chunkage is nice, but when I'm making my skins thin, I want my pizza sauce to be smooth.   Nothing a stick blender can't fix, right?  I don't think I'll totally convert over

Right before Christmas, I spotted chestnuts and roasting instructions at Trader Joe's.  When I was in there this week, chestnuts were again prominently displayed.  These weren't raw, but rather steamed and peeled.  Are these for snacking?  Are chestnuts going to be "hot" in 2011?  Are they tasty? The TJ's buyer must be awfully close to whomever controls the chestnut racket, right?

During the run-up to Christmas, we HORDE both Peppermint and Chocolate-Covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's from Trader Joe's.  They made my 2009 Favorite (Holiday) Things List , and should be on there every year.  Starting at Thanksgiving, every 10 days or so, when Nat (and sometimes I) head to TJ's, we grab at least one box of the cookies and usually two.  To be clear...we eat a lot of these, but so do our guests and most specifically our nieces and nephews.  But...still...we *do* probably eat too many cookies from the end of November to January 1 each year.  I'll admit that! Well...this year, there was a run on peppermint Joe-Joe's.  Our TJ's ran short and was out on two different occasions we went.  My sister went one day and they, too' were out.  Bummer.  But...on a random trip to the Park Ridge TJ's, we ran into this mysterious beast:  The Astounding Multi-Flavor Joe-Joe's package.  Inside, there were four flavors: Peppermint (which they have normal