Trader Joe's Unsweetened Instant Oatmeal

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

I'm trying to be more conscious of what I eat for breakfast, not because I have a weight problem. It's because my breakfasts that I had all my life were mostly not so healthy.  I actually skipped breakfast quite a lot due to time shortage in the morning.  When I did have time to have breakfast, I often chose breakfast items that were mostly carbs, fats, sugars with not much fiber. Fruits and vegetables of course were very rarely included in my breakfast  So when I saw the Unsweetened Instant Oatmeal during my grocery shopping, I decided to stock it up so I could flavor my own oatmeals with real fruits.  I'm very happy that I bought it because this is the best unsweetened instant oatmeal (130 cal per packet) I've ever tasted.  While I haven't tried it with fruits yet, I'd added 2 tablespoons of low fat milk (16 Cal)  and 2 tablespoon of condensed sweetened milk (130 cal) after it was cooked with water in the microwave per the package instruction, and the oatmeal came out to be so creaming, delicious and filling. Yet, I only consumed 306 calories in total. I really love the extra flavor and crunch added by the ground flax seeds, chia seeds and  quinoa. This is another oatmeal winner of Trader Joe's.

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All Natural Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

My friend invited me to a potluck death party yesterday. (Or, do you call it the post-funeral party?)  It was a party to gather all her mother's friends, relatives and everybody who had known her well to celebrate her mother's death.  Wait, this doesn't sound right... I should say, "to commemorate her mother's life on earth".  

I always hate potluck party because: 1) I hate being obligated to bring a dish when I'm not much a social cook or a social baker, 2) the food  that was brought by the attendees was never good 99% of the time regardless of whether the food was grocery-store bought or so-called homemade, and I always left the party feeling hungry.  A potluck party always presents two levels of stress to me, i.e. the stress of  brainstorming on what food to bring, and the stress of acting as if I enjoy the food brought by others to the party when it really sucks.  But yesterday, it was the rare 1% of the chance that I actually enjoyed something at a potluck.  They were the all natural Pink Lemonade Cupcakes that I bought from Trader Joe's. ($ 3.99 for a box of 4 cupcakes).

I am never much a fan of American cupcakes (because they always taste too sweet and loaded with heavy hydrogenated vegetable shortening that I hate, and I grew up with less sweet, lighter, fresher, perishable cakes at Asian bakeries).  These all natural American style Pink Lemonade cupcakes that I bought actually surprised me because they tasted very good.  The cakes were really moist, buttery, and rich in lemon flavor.  The cream cheese icing was light and not overly sweet. Most importantly, the icing didn't have the yucky food coloring taste that I experienced with all the other American store-bought cupcakes; and also the ones proudly home-made by my friends (who drown their cupcakes to death with colors that made them look too scarily colorful to eat).  The icing tasted light but very delicious and the color is a natural coloring from Hisbiscus flower.

I bought 2 dozens of these cakes yesterday and lied to my friend that I made them at home... I have no idea what compelled me to cook up such a lie.  I guess it's because on Instagram, I often see  my friends proudly showing off their signature dishes that I have unconsciously developed a vanity to want to prove that I'm not the barren one who has no signature dish of my own!  So I went to great length to make my store-bought cupcakes look more home-made by topping them with low fat chocolately cat cookies (with no artificial colors or flavors, and no preservatives), which were also bought at Trader Joe's. (16oz tub for $2.99).  

I personally won't top these cupcakes with chocolate cookies again because I don't think chocolate goes well with lemonade...But my thoughtless food pairing yesterday actually made my home-made lie more believable to my friend.  Luckily, the attendees at the party ate the chocolate cat cookies and cupcakes separately, so such an odd combo of flavors didn't ruin the cupcakes. My two dozens cupcakes disappeared at the party very quickly while other attendees' brownies and sheet cakes were sitting on the buffet table, mostly ignored.  May be the attendees at the party were acting as if they liked my cupcakes since I lied that I made them myself.  If you want to find out whether they were faking their reaction on my cupcakes or not, grab a box of this at Trader Joe's and see if you enjoy them.  I do, very much.

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Heart Healthy Whole Grain Blueberry Oatmeal With Flaxseed & Plant Sterols

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

Even though I love having breakfasts in restaurants during the weekends, making breakfast during the weekdays have always been part of my getting-ready-for-work morning ritual.  Okay, by "making", I really mean "microwaving".  For more than two weeks, I have been having this Trader Joe's whole grain instant blueberry oatmeal every weekday morning ($3.99 for a box of 8 packs), and every weekends afternoon as snacks.  This is the best tasting instant oatmeal I have tried and it tastes like homemade, when microwaved with water according to the direction.  I like to add a couple tablespoons of low-fat milk after microwaving and a drizzle of condensed sweetened milk to add more creaminess and taste to it.  I like this oatmeal so much because it's really flavorful with oats and whole grain.  The blueberries add just a hint of sweetness.  This oatmeal is very mild and subtle on sweetness.  While I hate all the overly sweetened instant oatmeals out there, I do love to add a drizzle of condensed sweetened milk to this unsweetened Trader Joe's instant oatmeal for texture and for the perfect level of sweetness for myself.  For some reason, this instant oat meal is best microwaved with water, not milk.  So milk should be added after microwaving and not during.

I have been suffering from acne breakout in recent months and I suspect that it could be due to my lack of fiber in my diet, (of course my work stress too).   This is what prompted me to start a daily dose of this oatmeal.  Whether having this everyday will help me clear my skin or not, I have yet to see, but I have found that since I have been eating this everyday for about 2 weeks now,  my digestive system has been improved and I'm no longer suffering from constipation.

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Marie Callender's Herb Roasted Chicken

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

Even though I'm living in a town that has lots of great restaurants nearby and there are lots of delivery options,  there are times I just want to stay in my PJs and I just don't want to interact with anyone, and that includes calling restaurants to order delivery. I guess I can still order online but it seems to me popping a frozen dinner in a microwave is less a hassle.  Today is such a day.  This is why even though I am not a big fan of frozen dinners, I still store a few boxes in the freezer, particularly when they are on sale.  

This Herb Roasted Chicken meal from Marie Callender's is the best frozen dinner I had tried so far.  I bought it on sale for way under $3.00.  Just like the box says, the bone-in chicken is tender.  This roasted chicken tastes actually better than the Grocery store rotisserie chicken I've had in a number of American diners.  For a meal that has only 430 calories, it's quite filling (for me).   Right now they are doing a "Child Hunger Ends Here" campaign, under which the company will donate 1 meal for each code I enter on the campaign's website. The code is printed on the back of each frozen dinner I bought.  This just makes eating frozen dinner at home  so much more meaningful than ordering restaurant delivery.

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Trader Joe's Streusel Topped Blueberry Muffins

Review Submitted By: Jane Ong

Even though I can make delicious banana nut muffins from scratch,  I always go to Trader Joe's to get its Streusel Topped Wild Blueberry Muffins whenever I crave for blueberry muffins ($3.99 for a box of 4).  They taste really natural and not overly sweet with the corn syrup that is widely used in a lot of cheap baked goods in discounted warehouses and the typical supermarket chain.  They expire fast but they can be stored in the fridge and are really good for several days. They are light and fluffy after being warmed up in the microwave for 20 seconds.  I also feel good and clean after eating them, which from my experience indicates that there is no hydrogenated vegetable shortening.  I can't tolerate margarine and vegetable shortening because I feel nauseous every time when I consume a baked product that has it.  Regardless what the bakery tells me, I can absolutely feel the presence of such hydrogenated oil because my body for some reason just rejects it every time and makes me feel sick.  I like these muffins at Trader Joe's because they don't make me feel sick at all.  Each muffin has 320 calories and it's good for my portion control for breakfast.  I stick to only consume less than 500 calories for breakfast.  I don't think I can make these muffins any cheaper based on my hourly pay at my job.  Between spending an extra hour at work and spending an hour making my own blueberry muffins, I'd rather get them from Trader Joe's.  I still will make my own if only I can find a really good recipe and I have the free time:)

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Williams-Sonoma Classic Hot Chocolate

Review submitted by: Barbara Weiner

This was my impulse purchase when I was visiting the Williams-Sonoma store to kill time while waiting for my friend. The store was full of Christmas traffic, it smelled really good and the display was totally festive.  When I saw this beautiful red tin, I wasn't thinking so much about Chocolate, but I was really thinking of the white open cabinet rack in my kitchen.  I thought the red tin would make my white rack look good for this holiday season and it does.  In terms of the chocolate, it's just shaved chocolate. It's pretty good quality chocolate, but not much better than regular chocolate, or semi-sweet chocolate. I probably can make the same hot chocolate by melting semi-sweet chocolate into my milk.  It's very pricey at $19.95 a can. It goes fast because it takes 5 table spoons for every one cup of hot milk. I did get a 20% in-store discount though.  But you can also get 20% off and free shipping for this chocolate if you shop at the Williams-Sonoma website and enter the code  "FRIENDS" at check out.  What I love about this product isn't so much about the taste. Sure the taste is good and I surely enjoy it (but I had better hot chocolate). What I really like about this product is that it's  made in the USA and its Christmas container is a great functional holiday decor for my white kitchen rack.

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Holiday Truffles Star Ornament

Review submitted by: Barbara Weiner

I spotted this really cute box of chocolate truffles when I was shopping for Christmas gifts at Barnes & Nobles.  I would like to give some of my friends edible gifts this year and so I decided to try out these chocolate truffles myself.  They tasted pretty good. But it is the Christmas star box that really appeals to me.  I  hang the box on a gold tone door knob on my bedroom's white door and  it looks really festive and pretty.  I'm actually going to buy more of these for myself as Christmas ornaments on my kitchen cabinet.  After I finish the chocolates, I will use the pretty candy wraps to wrap balls of paper towel and put them back in the box for decorating.  These beautifully packaged chocolate truffles however aren't cheap at $10.00 per box.  For those of you who are really crafty, may be you can make the box yourself and stuff it with your homemade candies. But for me, paying $10.00 for a box of these beautifully wrapped chocolate truffles  is very worth my time.

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Stonyfield Oh My Yog With Wild Quebec Blueberry Tastes So Very Good!!!

Review submitted by: Jane Ong

Oh my God! This is the best tasting yogurt I had so far in my life. I had never tried any brand of yogurt other than the non-fat and low fat ones from Yoplait and Dannon.  For so many years, I had added lots of nuts and granola to my yogurts because I didn't like to eat them alone.  Now that I had tried this very delicious whole milk organic yogurt on its own without adding nuts and granola, I can't believe what I've been missing all these years.  This organic yogurt alone tastes so much better than Dannon even after I added lots of peanuts.  I can't believe just how good whole milk organic yogurt tastes.  Now I don't know how I can ever go back to eating the low-fat Dannon yogurt anymore.  Does whole milk really make such a big difference in taste or it's the organic blueberry that works the wonder?  Dannon is not organic, and has less fat and less protein but more carbs than this whole milk organic yogurt.  But whatever fat and calories Dannon has less, I had been adding back way more by adding lots of nuts to make the yogurt taste better.  With this delicious and satisfying whole milk organic yogurt, I don't have the cravings to add nuts or granola to it.  It just tastes so good and filling on its own.  I think I am going to go with the organic whole milk yogurt from now on.  I will go with the taste. Eating good tasting yogurt  just makes me a lot  happier too.

Review On Nature Made Adult Gummies - C Vitamin

Content contributed by: Jane Ong

I never had the discipline to take vitamins.  I never had the taste for the gigantic vitamin pills either.  I don't think I know how to swallow them without choking.  Although I firmly believe in the benefits of vitamins, I'm not sure if the vitamin pills in the market really contain the vitamins their bottle labels say they have.  After all,  the label always have this warning that negates every benefit the label claims, "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

So I never bothered to take vitamins. I rarely got sick anyway because I'm disciplined in always washing my hands and not touching  door knobs and elevator buttons with my bare hands.  I always carry a pack of kleenex to open doors and operate the elevators.  

But last week, I had my first cold for years.  It'd been so long that I didn't even remember how it was like to have a cold.  The sore throat in the middle of the night woke me and reminded me how bad a cold felt.  I think I got it because my colleagues at work were sick and they were coughing at my face literally.  This is why I really appreciate the Japanese culture. Japanese who have  a cold or flu often wear masks because they don't  want to cough up into the air and infect others.  But in other countries and America, sick people go to work, proudly cough up into the air as if it's their God given right.  So, that's how I got my cold.  I think my immune system had been pretty good all those years but finally there was this strand of cold that got me down.  

Out of desperation for cold relief, I went to the drugstore to look for Vitamin C. I tried to look for a brand that claims to use all natural ingredients only, and a brand that is well established.  My feeling was, if I were to take some magical supplements based on faith only, I should take one that is least likely to do harm to my body.  That's when I discovered the above vitamin C gummies ($7.99 for a bottle of 80 gummies).  I love candies anyway, so why not?  I took two gummies  for each of the 3 days I was suffering from  my cold symptoms and I have been taking them everyday even after my cold symptoms were gone on day 4.  It's because I enjoy candies and I want to finish up the whole bottle.  These vitamin C gummies have good orange candy flavor with no after-taste at all.  They taste pretty good to me for candies' sake.  And if these candies actually have all the Vitamin C the label claims they have, minus all the artificial ingredients, then these are worth my jump of faith.  

These vitamin C gummies are made in Columbia, not in the USA, so do I trust  the manufacturing process in Columbia? And do I ever wonder why they can't be made in the USA but only in Columbia?  Yes I do wonder and yes, my speculative answers in my mind for these questions cast certain doubts about the quality of these vitamin gummies.  But I don't care, because  to me, great tasting candies are always worth the risks of the lack of  FDA evaluation and health benefits. Whether my recovery from my cold in 3 days was due to my own strong immune system or the help of the extra vitamin C I took from these delicious gummies, this vitamin is worth taking during the cold season. Life is a gamble and taking this vitamin C during my cold is a gamble I'm willing to take, even if it's only for the taste of it.   But will I buy another bottle when I finish this one?  No, not until  I have another cold again. It's because I don't want to limit my consumption of snacks to just the candies manufactured in Columbia.

Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup

Content contributed by: Jane Ong

Ginseng Chicken Soup is one of Korea's most popular and famous dishes. We feel that it can very well be Korea's national dish.   It's a must-try soup for tourists who visit South Korea. (We aren't sure about North Korea though.)  We think it's also a must-try soup for tourists who visit Los Angeles.  Ginseng is one of the power foods that has numerous health benefiting properties, and chicken is also a power food.  So this is the "Double-Power soup" we have whenever we have a cold.  But even when we don't have a cold, we still crave for it because it's just so good.  Lucky for my family, we recently found this soup being sold frozen at Hannam Chain Supermarket (3030 W. Sepulveda Blvd, Torrance, CA 90505). The frozen soup weighs 2-pounds and costs $12.99.  What's inside the bag is exactly what you see on the photo on the packaging.  It literally has a whole cornish hen inside with the usual stuffing.  We like that the whole bag can be just heated up in a pot of water according to the instruction. It's easy and mess free.  After heating the bag according to the package instruction, season with salt and it's ready to serve.  This soup tastes as good as the ones we get from the Korean restaurants.  It tastes so authentic! We totally love it, particularly because it's made in the USA.

Shrimp Asparagus and Penne For Two

Content contributed by: Jane Ong

I used to order Pasta dishes very often in restaurants.  Now, eating out everyday is banned by my husband because he wants to save for the down payment to purchase our own home.  He told me to learn how to make pasta at home.  But I'm too afraid to learn to cook anything that involves raw meat or raw seafood. When I was at the meat and seafood sections at the grocery store, I felt somewhat phobic and somewhat overwhelmed.  These feelings reminded me why I couldn't go to medical school like my dad always wanted me to....  Anyway, I went to get a bag of  Bertrolli  Frozen Shrimp, Asparagus & Penne Dinner instead.  While it doesn't taste as good as the one that I had in Italian restaurants, it's  pretty close and it's the best tasting frozen dinner that I ever had so far that is  close to a "real" meal. It's unlike the pitiful TV dinners that taste fake to me. One bag provides a satisfying meal for my husband and I at 450 calories each.  It's only $6.49 a bag,  and it may be cheaper than cooking from scratch? I won't know since I don't cook much. I will definitely buy this again.

The actual dinner itself of course doesn't look like the photo on the bag. But it tastes good enough for me to like it  when  dining at an Italian restaurant is not an option.