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Fresh Mozzarella and Tomato Salad

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Trader Joe's Ciliegine-Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Trader Joe's Ciliegine-Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Here is another yummy salad that you might not have enjoyed before: fresh mozzarella & tomato salad.

We love to make this tasty salad combination when those big, ripe, juicy tomatoes start to show up at Trader Joe’s. The fresh creamy mozzarella cheese is a wonderful contrast to the tomatoes and the salad dressing

We first had this salad as a large appetizer –the kind that you share in a group. There were large slices of the cheese (baseball size) and between each slice was a thick slice of ripe juicy tomato. They were arranged in a circle on a plate, sprinkled with fresh basil leaves, salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

The dish was just fantastic! Not only did it look wonderful and inviting, but the flavors were unforgettable as well.

So you can imagine our delight and surprise to see fresh mozzarella at Trader Joe’s during a recent visit. We instantly remembered that wonderful appetizer and decided to change our menu for the evening.

We decided to try and re-create the appetizer as a salad and added the quartered cheese to a chopped up salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and spinach.

We made a fresh salad dressing with some apple cider vinegar and also added some sliced, pitted kalamata olives on top. WOW was it good!

Our Chopped Salad with Fresh Mozzarella

Our Chopped Salad with Fresh Mozzarella

Eeks! sorry the picture is a bit blurry… we hope you can get the idea 🙂

Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese

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Trader Joe's Feta Cheese

Trader Joe's Feta Cheese

Now that the weather is consistently warm here in Tucson, we are enjoying more salads. So when we had a hankering for a chopped Greek Salad we also had an opportunity to check out the selection of Feta cheeses at Trader Joes. We have tried a couple of other kinds of Feta in other stores, but this Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese is just top of the list.

This 8 oz brick of cheese can be cut up into cubes and marinated in olive oil and oregano and served as an appetizer or as Tapas.

But we prefer to break it apart with our hands, and crumble it into chunks both large and small and use on top of salads. Especially those chopped Greek Salads… YUM!!

What we do is to chop or dice up cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions (small chop!)  and then mix these all up with light, lemony vinaigrette. This can be served up in bowls as-is or on top of a bed of lettuce.

Then just before you serve, sprinkle the top with the Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese crumbles, so they stay on top and make a beautiful contrasting picture against all the red tomatoes and green cucumbers.

If you have not tried this salad before we urge you to get chopping! They are truly refreshing and light and yet full of flavor for a hot summer night.

Do you like Feta Cheese? Have you tried Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese? What did you think? Please take a minute to leave a comment after this post. Even if you just want to say hello we  love to hear from all our readers!

Trader Joe’s Mediterranean Hummus

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Trader Joe's Hummus

Trader Joe's Hummus

As you read in a previous post,  (click here)we like to snack on hummus and veggies.

Well, we have discovered a great new hummus at Trader Joe’s.

Well, to be completely truthful, we were shopping at Trader Joe’s and I was reaching for the hummus that we usually purchase, and well…. I grabbed the wrong one.

Ahh but sometime life takes these turns for the best, right? So we did not notice this slip until we were having some guests over and I brought out the hummus. It was only then did I realize that I bought a completely different package.

So, as luck would have it, as our guests were here, this hummus was just fantastic! What was the difference? Well, this Mediterranean hummus has perhaps a bit more garlic, and also has a wonderful garnish on the top of pine nuts, olive oil and herbs.

In our excitement, I forgot to take a photo before I stirred the hummus all together. Oops!

We served this yummy hummus with the usually veggies and some soft flatbreads as well.

The flat breads were also new-to us and they were like soft pita bread without a pocket- OR think of these breads as a light and thick tortilla. YUM!  We think these would make an excellent bread for a rolled sandwich (wrap) or fold over and serve with cream cheese and spinach inside?

Trader Joe's Flatbread

Trader Joe's Flatbread

All in the entire spread was wonderfully tasty and full of great Mediterranean flavors.

If you liked this post, please take a minute and leave a comment. Even if it is just to say hello, we love to hear from all our readers. Also let us know what you thought of this hummus or the flat breads.

SuperBlues Blueberries Now At Trader Joe’s

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SuperBlues Blueberries

SuperBlues Blueberries

Summer arrived for me at Trader Joe’s today in the form of SuperBlues blueberries

I can remember picking blueberries as a child at my Grandmother’s house in Massachusetts. She had rather a lot of bushes and I remember them as being very tall as a child (I would love to go see them now!).

Anyway in the mornings, we would get up, get dressed and practically race into the kitchen to get handed a coffee cup. This was our morning “blueberry pail” and we would take our cup out for a morning adventure of collecting blueberries right from the bushes.

We would hunt around in those bushes for the biggest blueberries that we could find and leave those smaller ones to pick in the next day or so. When we returned to the house, we would rinse them off and use them on top of our cornflakes. Then my brother and I would have a contest to see who had picked the biggest blueberries.

Well, I was a kid again last week when we were shopping at Trader Joe’s. There at the sample counter (of course) were the biggest blueberries I have seen in a long time. The package said SuperBlues and that was an excellent description.

These blueberries were HUGE (I am not sure if you can tell in the photo, but some were as big around as a nickel!) and full of flavor. Trader Joe’s sampled the SuperBlues with some vanilla yogurt- simple and delicious.

SuperBlue Blueberries in oatmeal

SuperBlue Blueberries for Breakfast

We served them up at home on our oatmeal for breakfast. Boy they really took me back to picking and eating blueberries at my Grandmother’s house (although I was missing the cornflakes!).

So if you see these SuperBlues at your Trader Joe’s store, pick up a packages and enjoy a taste of summer.