Trader Joe's: Spanakopita

Fillo dough triangles filled with spinach, ricotta and Feta cheese. A tray of 12 frozen spanakopita's ready to be cooked in the oven for 20 minutes. It was pretty good, the the fillo dough was thin and flakey, the filling very spinachy. The filling didn't have enough cheese in it, it tasted like just spinach. I like the TJ's spinach pie better, even though it takes much longer to cook. These would make good appetizers though.

Trader Joes: Kosher Sandwich Pickles

These are pickles sliced lengthwise into thin slices, perfect for putting on you sandwiches, but I like just eating them straight. The are very crisp and bright. The pickle flavor really stands out. I think they are better than most of the sandwich slice pickles. They taste very salty, but looking at the ingredients, I can see they don't have any more salt than most pickles (yup thats alot I know). (5 calories; 0g fat; 1g carbs; 12% sodium; per two slices)

Annie's single serving Microwavable Mac & Cheese

Annie's foods are all natural, which is supposed to make them better for you. This one even has organic pasta. This box comes with 5 single-serving packets, all you do is put the pasta in a bowl with half a cup of water and nuke it for 3 minutes, then mix in the powdered cheese and let it sit for a minute. It is quick and easy and tastes pretty good too. The only downside I see is the amount of sodium, 24% of your daily allowance for a side dish, ouch. (230 calories; 4.5g fat; 9g protein; 40g carbs)

Kraft Velveeta Cheese

You can question whether or not this is really cheese, after all, the package never says that it is cheese (though it does say it Melts better and has 1/3 less fat than Cheddar Cheese). The first thing you will notice is that it is much softer than regular cheese, even softer than blocks of cream cheese. And it is lighter colored. And it doesn't really taste like cheese. I think it is wrong to compare it with cheese, since you can do stuff with it that you can't do with cheese, like it melts really well. If you compare it to a jar of nacho cheese or the powdered cheese you get in Mac & Cheese, it comes out much more favorably.

I recently bought a big block and made nacho cheese dip. I cut the cheese into chunks and dropped it in a small crock pot with salsa (you can also microwave it) It came out pretty well, and if I made cheese dip again I would probably use Velveta. As an aside, you can overheat the stuff and it gets lumpy.

Chi-chi's Salsa

I eat a lot of salsa, I really like it, and put it on lots of stuff. chi-chi's isn't my favorite, it is around middle of the list. I find it a bit tomato-pastey, however, you can get it in 64 ounce bottles which makes the price pretty cheap. I sometimes mix it with Ketchup to make it even thicker so it sticks to french fries and hamburgers better. They carry it at Costco and I occasionally see it in the supermarket. If you really eat alot of salsa, this is a good deal, otherwise, I would go for a better one.

Trader Joe's Spinach Pie

Spinach and Feta and cottage cheeses wrapped in Fillo dough. Very tasty, a good way to get your vegetables without having a soggy mass of spinach on your plate. The only real downside is it takes about an hour to cook in the oven, you aren't supposed to microwave it or cook it in the toaster oven. Four servings (4g fat, 13g protein, 240 calories)