Trader Joe's Orange Chicken

Tonight we tried the Trader Joe's Orange Chicken.  It's in the frozen section for $4.99.  This item was at the top of the list for top rated Trader Joe's items.  

I have to say, we really enjoyed this dish.  It was easy to prepare and had great flavor to it.  You put it in the oven, heat up a sauce and mix the 2 together.  We served it with their jasmine brown rice and their frozen green beans (a constant favorite in this home).  For an easy meal at home, this is a great one to try!

The chicken was real, which is always nice to bite in to.  The sauce was flavorful.  The chicken had a nice crunch to it and is lightly breaded.

It tasted like Chinese take out (well, better than a lot of Orange Chicken Chinese take out I've tried).  Yet, it's only $4.99 for the bag, which could feed 3 adults.  For the meal, with rice and beans, you are looking at approximately $5.50.

Easy Recipe with Trader Joe's Ingredients

These smoothies have been a regular at our house lately.  So easy to make and they taste really good.  I think they are a great option in fall/winter when, for the most part, the fruits used to make these are not fresh (at least not locally for us).

Ingredients include (I put them in the blender in this order)...

 

Juice and Milk.  We love this juice so that's what we use.  Any fruit juice would work, but I think some kind of orange juice works best.  And you could use yogurt instead of milk.  We have yogurt in the fridge each week, but use it with granola in the morning.  Milk is cheaper and has the same affect so that is what I use instead.  Essentially, you could omit the dairy all together (it just wouldn't be creamy, but is still very good).

 

1 banana

frozen fruit - I use Mango chunks or a mix of berries (see below)

Frozen strawberries and blueberries

Vary the amount of everything depending on how thick you'd like your smoothie to be.  You can try all different types...these are just our classic flavors (mango/banana or berry/banana - although you can't taste the banana too much in either).

Trader Joe's Chicken BBQ Pizza

We tried this pizza for the first time this week and it is really good!  It was $4.99 and fed 2 adults  so you could make it cheaper yourself.  Having said that, though, it was a great meal and so easy to make.  It's nice to have something like this in the freezer to pull out whenever.  And, it still doesn't have preservatives or additives, which is always a plus!  

Some of their other pizzas looked tasty as well, but we haven't tried them yet.  Let me know if you have any suggestions!