Book Review: Cooking with all things Trader Joe's

Photo Courtesy of: barnesandnoble.com

Attention all Trader Joe's fanatics! today's blog post is for you. As you know from my previous blog posts I'm obsessed with Trader Joe's.  It's the perfect store for people like me who enjoy making gourmet meals, but don't want to pay a ton of money on ingredients. I'm always looking for new and innovative ways to use Trader Joe's products so I was super excited when I discovered the cookbook "Cooking with all things Trader Joe's" by Deane Gunn and Wona Miniati. I'm absolutely loving this cookbook and I especially enjoy that all the recipes are extremely easy to make and a majority of the recipes make 2-4 servings, which is perfect for my lifestyle.  I have decided I want to attack this cookbook a la Julie & Julia and make all the recipes from the book and blog about my experience making the recipes. I'm going to be making a few recipes from the cookbook each week and twice a month I'll share an update on the recipes I have made from the cookbook.

1) Fish Tacos

I know, I know you are probably sick of hearing me talk about tacos. I can't help it, they are my fav. This past Tuesday my roommate and I had a "taco tuesday" night and had fish tacos. All I bought was the Trader Joe's Oven Ready Breaded Cod fillets, cilantro salad dressing and tortillas.  There isn't much of a recipe all these fish tacos require is baking the cod fillets based on the directions on the packaging and heating up some tortillas. I put some of the cilantro salad dressing in each tortilla and put some additional toppings into bowls, I had sour cream, shredded mexican cheese and refried black beans in my fridge, so that's what I used as topping choices. The end result was delicious and easy fish tacos.

2) Black Bean and Ricotta-Stuffed Portabellas

These were very yummy and I liked that this was a vegetarian option because I'm trying to eat one vegetarian entree for dinner once a week. This recipe called for: portabella mushroom caps, ricotta cheese, black beans, Trader Joe's fresh bruschetta sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese.  This recipe was extremely easy and simply required cutting the steams from the mushrooms adding the cheese and black bean filling to the mushrooms, topping with some bruschetta sauce and then cooking at 400 degrees for 12-14 minutes. I served along with some taquitos, which worked very well together. I absolutely loved the fresh bruschetta sauce and was eating it with tortilla chips for days. The bruschetta sauce is very versatile and not only good on a baguette for a traditional brushcetta appetizer, but many other ways as well. I really like the ricotta and bruschetta combination so I got creative and  made some nachos with the burschetta sauce and ricotta cheese.  You could also make some  breakfast options as well.  The bruschetta sauce along with eggs,  ricotta cheese, black beans and avocado would  make a yummy omelette or you could serve with a tortilla for a delicious breakfast burrito. 

3) Go Go Mango Chicken

This recipe was extremely easy. The recipe called for skinless, boneless chicken breasts, a can of pineapple salsa and some frozen mango chucks. Then I put the  chicken in the oven set at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. The end result was good, but this definitely was not my favorite recipe from the cookbook. 

4) Eggplant Tostada

This recipe was great! A very unique way to use tortillas and I absolutely loved the eggplant and garlic spread combined with feta cheese. This recipe calls for covering a tortilla with eggplant and garlic spread then topping with chopped tomatoes and feta cheese. Then the tostada goes into the oven set at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes. I served this along with Trader Joe's Palak Panner.  The combination of the eggplant and garlic spread, chopped  tomatoes and feta would also go very well with shrimp or chicken. 

5) Chipotle Chili

I made this for the SuperBowl last weekend and it was delicious. I had leftovers for the next two days for lunch and it was even better the next day. I  topped my chili with sour cream and shredded Mexican cheese and served along with cornbread muffins and some chicken wings, which was the perfect SuperBowl feast. 

If you want these amazing recipes you can buy Cooking with all things Trader Joe's on Amazon  or Barnes & Noble. You can also check out recipes on Cooking with Trader Joe's blog. 

Good Eats Review: Skinnytaste.com

Top- Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps, Botton Left- Spinach and feta stuffed chicken, Bottom Right- Thai coconut curry shrimp

One of my favorite food blogs is Skinnytaste. Gina's blog has had tremendous success because all of her recipes use easy to find ingredients and are quick and easy to make. I really like that all the recipes are healthy and lightened up versions of classic dishes, such as chicken enchiladas, turkey chili and Shrimp pad thai. After looking at all of Gina's recipes for so long I was really excited to finally give a few recipes a try. 

1) Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps- I'm a big fan of lettuce wraps. I had only had asian lettuce wraps before trying this recipe so I was excited to try something new.  The different spices: garlic powder, cumin, chili powder and paprika made the ground turkey very flavorful. The recipe was very easy to make, I made this during a weeknight and start to finish this recipe took me around 30 minutes. I found the hardest part of this was separating the iceberg lettuce leaves. The lettuce leaves kept wanting to break on me, 

2) Spinach and feta stuffed chicken- This recipe is a cross between the Skinnytaste recipe and a Semi-Homemade Trader Joe's recipe. I followed the skinnytaste recipe instructions for the spinach and feta filling, but then instead of actually breading the chicken myself I used trader joe's breaded chicken breasts. I microwaved the chicken breasts for a few minutes  put some of the spinach and feta stuffing in the middle and rolled the chicken breasts. The Trader Joe's breaded chicken didn't roll as nicely as fresh skinless boneless chicken breasts would have, but in the end they still worked. After stuffing the chicken breasts I baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. I served with mashed potatoes. I had leftover filling, which I decided to combine with some of the leftover ground turkey from the lettuce wraps and some brown rice, which made a delicious lunch. 

3) Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp- This recipe is 3 for 1. This is also a semi-homemade trader joe's recipe, thai recipe and a Skinnytaste recipe. Instead of buying a bag of frozen shrimp I decided to get the trader joe's shrimp stir fry. I also got the trader joe's red curry sauce so I altered the skinny taste recipe a little bit and since the sauce included coconut milk I didn't add extra coconut milk. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except I didn't have cilantro so that didn't get added at the end. I served along with some brown rice. I'm looking forward to using the extra red curry sauce with some veggies next week. 

Gina not only has a successful blog, but also a New York Times best selling cookbook, which I'm looking forward to purchasing this weekend. You can find the cookbook on amazon or Barnes & Noble.