Trader Joe's Love

Can you believe I have never been to Trader Joe’s until this past weekend? Literally everyone I know has raved about how absolutely amazingly fantastically wonderfully awesome it is. I’ve even seen food blogs solely dedicated to TJ products and ingredients, which I thought was a little bizarre but after my  trip, I might just become one of them. For a college student on a tight budget and even tighter schedule, Trader Joe’s is literally a dream come true. I’ve never been so happy to spend money on groceries. 

10 reasons why TJ is awesome

1. They have precooked ravioli for $3. Have you ever seen ravioli for $3 at a restaurant? You can’t even buy fried rice for less that much!  And all you have to do is boil water!

2. They have jumbo eggs that are actually jumbo. Maybe you don’t think this is that exciting but no really, it is.

3. They’re frozen broccoli is still green. That is really exciting when you didn’t realize that such a thing existed.

4. They sell pizza dough for 99 cents. It even comes in whole wheat and Italian herb.  

5. They have frozen mango from Mexico.

6. They have tortilla chips in the shape of long boards (which, according to my Californian roommate, is very cool)

7. They sell frozen dumplings that cost less than those in Chinatown.

8. They sell fat free brownie mix that only requires yogurt to make them. This one might be a myth there weren’t any left.

9. They ding a bell when a cashier is open

10. They sell purple potatoes.

Bottom line: cool stuff.

Anyways, my roommate has been majorly craving pizza for the last 2 weeks so we decided to make pizza from our plethora of TJ products. But since we’re kind of lazy and also because I had a MASSIVE bag of pita bread to use up, we opted to use pita bread for the pizza dough instead of actual pizza dough.

Generic tomato sauce was used along with a 3 cheese blend (mozzarella, cheddar and something else I can’t remember). Toppings included broccoli, turkey sausage, pepperoni, yellow peppers, and onions. Threw on a bunch of spices for extra kick: basil, oregano, cracked pepper and garlic powder.

Baked in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes and then broiled it for another 1-2 min

Yum yum yum!