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Monday, February 22, 2016

Trader Joe's Tomato Tiropita Triangles

Rather than give you a spiel about what tiropita is and fake like I know what I'm talking about (as I've done many times in the past), I'll just link to Wikipedia for you here. But I will go ahead and simply mention that just as spanakopita means "spinach pie," tiropita or tyropita means "cheese pie." How creative.

When you first bite into these pastries, you'll notice the buttery, flaky crust, but the filling really zings the tongue with a super Greek-ish cheese flavor. At first, I thought it was all feta, but the first cheese mentioned in the ingredients is "mizithra." It's made with cow, sheep, and goat's milk so that none of the farm animals feel left out. What? No pig's milk?

The taste of the tangy cheeses overpowers most of the tomato flavor, IMHO. But if you pay attention, there's definitely a touch of sun-dried tomato up in the mix. They go together pretty well. I was thinking they should have called these "Mizithra Tiropita Triangles," because the cheese flavor is so dominant, but then again, mizithra is a type of cheese and tiropita means "cheese pie," so it would not only be redundant, but you'd lose that nice alliteration in the title of the product. And technically, since these are three-dimensional objects, shouldn't they be called "prisms" or "polyhedrons"? I guess not, since the sides of the prisms aren't perfect planes. So basically, just forget about this whole paragraph.

Sonia? She liked these even more than I did, and she also made the initial assumption that the primary cheese flavor was feta. She claims she could taste olives. And there are definitely some olives and olive oil in there, but my taste buds weren't keen enough to pick them out without looking at the ingredients...or, you know, the front of the packaging where it explicitly states there are Kalamata olives in the product. She also enjoyed the flaky crust but thought it was a bit too oily. In all honesty, that might have been my fault since I used a little oil in the pan when I baked them. I was a bad boy and did not follow the instructions exactly.

But they still came out good enough for Sonia to give them a four. I'll say...three and a half.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Trader Joe's Pacific Flounder with Crab Meat Stuffing

Here in Pittsburgh, we take Lenten Fridays seriously. How seriously? Just click here - fish fry season! Any Catholic church worth it's weight holds their own, though no one yet can ably explain to me why eating a giant slab of fried fish is exactly a "sacrifice." Eh well. Bonus points to any fish fry with homemade pierogi. And if you don't know what a fish fry even is - here's a spot-on comedic primer.

But...you can't always make it to one. That's our no-fry Friday last Friday. We did make it to Trader Joe's though, saw his Pacific Flounder with Crab Meat Stuffing, and in case you find yourself in similar predicament and motivation today....

Pass on by. Not that great. Not awful. But not good. All in all, this stuffed seafood contrivance is a good idea...but just lacks any taste. Like, none. No herbs. No spice. Nothing from the cheese or breadcrumbs or saucy mayo stuff or anything else listed (the label says bell peppers, we didn't spot any!).  Just soft, flaky fish of the decent variety, filled with mushy nondescript crab with the occasional crumby grit or saucy splooge.

Both Sandy and I ended up after a couple bites reaching for the brown sugar BBQ sauce we had out for our fries just to add a little something to make our dinners actually taste like something. In all, these aren't the worst things you could spend $4ish on at TJ's, but there's lots better. Maybe these could be a Lenten sacrifice.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Pacific Flounder with Crab Meat Stuffing: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons  

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