More Cooking With Trader Joe's

Deana Gunn packed so much great information into less than an hour, as she talked to a group of foodies at the Encinitas Library a few weeks ago. Last week I told you about some of her favorite products and recipes. I have more to share, including how she got the idea for the book in the first place.

Deana is an MIT graduate with a Phd. from Northwestern. Not bad credentials, but you'd expect to see her working in aerospace or some other science. Well, she's young, and with a growing family she found she no longer had the time to prepare the fresh, healthy meals she had prepared in the past. She found that by using Trader Joe's products and augmenting them with fresh fruit, veggies and meat, she could produce meals that were better than made from scratch. One of her favorite items at TJ's is the the fresh pizza dough. She takes the dough and stretches out like a baguette, then fills it with pesto, olives and goat cheese, or any other combination you can think of, then pinches the dough together to keep the filling in, and cooks it. The result is a beautiful baguette, filled with delicious goodies. She brought a loaf for us to sample.

Another observation she made is that the products at TJ's are fresh. Nothing sits for weeks or even days. Turnover is fast, which leads to freshness. Nuts and eggs are two products she commented on. They sell so many of them that they're about as fresh as you can get without going to the farm. Did you know that fresh eggs, when hardboiled, are much harder to peel than eggs that have been sitting around for awhile? So if you're making egg salad, don't buy the eggs at TJ's as they will be hard to peel. Buy your eggs at one of those other supermarkets.

Now I will share a few more products that Deana told us about. TJ's mini croissants are fantastic. You buy a package of 8 for $3.99. Take them out as needed, let them sit overnight with a cloth covering them, then pop them in the oven in the morning for warm, flaky homemade croissants. They also come in chocolate. I have bought these, and they're not around long. I love them. She also said she saw the same product at Williams Sonoma for three times the price! Packaged quinoa is another favorite of hers. There are so many ways to fix quinoa, as a cold or hot salad, or use it as a thickening agent in chili or soup. TJ's also carries a homemade tasting pie crust that really tastes made from scratch. For salad dressing, one of Deana's favorites is the cilantro dressing in the refrigerated section. I haven't tried it yet. Finally, an item called Just Almonds looked interesting. It is a bag of ground up almonds, almost like a flour, that can be used in many ways. Pie crust and cookies come to mind, but I'm sure there are many other ways to use this product.

The last thing Deana did was demonstrate the making of a wonderful salad in about five minutes. She used the TJ's steamed lentils (usually lentils take hours to prepare), fresh cherry tomatoes (halved)and Italian parsley, chopped. She added a dressing made of one part lemon juice and two parts olive oil. The result was a quick and easy (and beautiful) salad for lunch or dinner.

It was a great evening and one that got me thinking of other ways to use the TJ products for greater efficieny and better taste. Her cookbook, "Cooking with all things Trader Joe's) has many delicious recipes, including black bean soup, chicken tortilla soup, chocolate bread pudding and apricot baked brie. Her book is available on Amazon.