Dutch Spicy Kaas

We haven't reviewed a Trader Joe's cheese here in a long time, but our most recent taste test was for the Dutch spicy kaas. We love Dutch cheese, so we were excited to try this one, especially since it said it was made with peppers, which sounded unique.

First thought was that the cheese was so pretty! It was speckled throughout with orange and green, which we thought was from the peppers. The flavor tasted a little bit spicy (only in parts and not really that much), but no real definitive flavor of bell peppers that we could find. Oddly, the ingredient list didn't list any peppers - just milk, salt (it was very salty), starter, rennet, "flavour," and coloring from beta carotene and spirulina. Are the peppers just part of the flavor catch-all? They weren't even the direct source of the coloring. Maybe it's just because we're cheese novices, but it was all very confusing.

This cheese was a combination of cow's milk and goat's milk cheese, but for a cheese containing goat milk, it was a lot harder than we thought it would be. The texture was kind of similar to a hard cheddar cheese. In the end, we thought it was fine, but nothing we'd go out of our way to try again. Especially since it was $15.99/lb (and only in big blocks, so ours was $9). Maybe our expectations were too high because the description was so intriguing. Glad we tried it, especially because it looked so interesting, but it was just okay.

M's rating: 7/10

A's rating: 6.5/10

Buy again? Probably not.

Saint Illtyd and More

We tried a bunch of new cheeses from Trader Joe's last month that we haven't gotten around to posting about, so here's a quick run-through of our ratings.

Za'atar Chèvre

M's quick review: I was expecting a strongly seasoned goat cheese since za'atar was in the name, but the flavoring here was really light. According to TJ's, the goat cheese had salt, sumac, marjoram, oregano, and thyme, but all I really tasted was a little oregano and maybe thyme. I liked it because I like chèvre, but it didn't seem that different from the regular herb chèvre at the store.

M's rating: 7/10

Buy again? Maybe, if it were the same price as the other herb chèvre. Don't think it's necessarily more special than that one.

A's quick review: I was excited about this cheese because I like chèvre, and I also like the flavor of za'atar. It has a mildly herbal and mildly tart flavor, but none of that came through with this. I got a hint of herbs, but it really tasted just like chèvre.

A's rating: 7/10

Buy again? Eh, it's a good enough chèvre, but it's not special enough to warrant paying more than a regular chèvre.

Saint Illtyd

M's quick review: Cheddar cheese with garlic, white wine, and parsley sounds like a perfect cheese to me, and this cheese, handmade in Wales, was excellent. The cheese was really creamy, much softer than I thought it would be, and the flavor was fantastic. You could definitely taste the garlic, the wine, and the parsley. We ate this plain, but I could see this being really good in a grilled cheese.

M's rating: 9.5/10

Buy again? I'm really trying to eat less cheese, but yes, absolutely (although there may not be any left on our next visit since it was a spotlight cheese).

A's quick review: This was one of the better cheeses we've gotten from Trader Joe's. It's relatively soft and comes packed with garlicky herbal notes. I didn't get a ton of the wine flavor, but it had enough of the other flavors listed to more than make up for it. I really enjoyed this cheese.

A's rating: 9/10

Buy again? Yes, as many times as M will allow us to.

Jarlsberg Lite

M's quick review: We got this cheese for the garlic challenge, where it was really good on the garlic bread, but we only used about half of it there. To finish it off, we ate the rest of it for the charcuterie challenge (post coming at some point soon hopefully). I didn't like it as much on its own. I think for me this cheese is best used in cooking and not eaten plain.

M's rating: (plain) 5/10

Buy again? For garlic bread, sure.

A's quick review: It wasn't anything special on its own. It's basically swiss cheese, and swiss cheese is actually one of my less liked cheeses. It's good for sandwiches and for the garlic bread we bought it for, but I'm not a huge plain swiss cheese fan.

A's rating: 5/10

Buy again? For cooking/baking? Sure. To eat plain? Meh. 

Nettle and Chive Cheese

The current spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's is the nettle and chive cheese, a handmade cheddar style cheese. The main flavorings here came from a nettle and chive dried herb blend composed of nettle leaves, chive, parsley, onion, and garlic.

M's quick review:

On paper, this cheese was everything I love. Cheddar, chives, parsley, onions, garlic - that's absolutely my thing, and we've had cheeses from TJ's before with those flavorings that were great. This one was a little different though because of the nettle leaves. I'd never had nettle before, but had always been curious about it because of its medicinal effects especially for allergies. I have no idea what nettle leaves taste like, so I have no idea if this cheese tastes like that at all. The flavor was pretty mild, and oddly I didn't get a ton of flavor from any of the herbs in the blend at all. There were hints of some of them, and again I don't know what nettle tastes like, but the flavor was a little subdued. Nothing like one review I read which said it tasted exactly like sour cream and onion dip. I didn't get that at all.

Rating: 7/10

Buy again? Maybe. I liked it, but I like other ones more.

A's quick review:

I thought I would like this more than I did. It was fine as a cheese, but I didn't get a ton of chive flavor from it. No clue what nettles taste like, but during allergy season we wanted to test out how well nettles actually worked for that. I didn't notice a ton of difference, but at least I got some pretty tasty cheese. This was an okay, mild white cheese.

Rating: 7/10

Buy again? I guess so? It would depend on what other cheeses were available.

Fior Delle Alpi

The March cheese at Trader Joe's is Fior Delle Alpi, or "Flower of the Alps." A raw milk cheese from the Swiss Alps, Trader Joe's in their post called the flavor "intense" due to the herbs consumed by the cows, as well as rich and bold with "a fairly sweet finish with a smooth, slightly firm texture."

M's review: I didn't like this as much as some of the other recent cheeses, maybe because it was stronger in flavor than those. I, of course, don't have the words to describe in what way it was a stronger flavor, but it was noticeable. The texture was fine, pretty firm, but the taste was not my favorite.

Score: 5/10

A's review: I liked this cheese a lot. As previously noted I don't mind the stinkier cheeses that we've had in the past. This cheese had a bit more funk than the others we've had of late from Trader Joe's, and that was just fine with me. It was also relatively firm, and it was a good overall cheese.

Score: 7.5/10

Mull of Kintyre

Recently we saw what looked to us like a new cheddar cheese at Trader Joe's - Mull of Kintyre Scottish cheddar cheese. From some research, it seems like this used to be part of the Celtic cheddar trio, but now is sold on its own. (Not sure if the trio still exists; we've never bought it and don't remember seeing it.) According to the Fearless Flyer, this cheese is deep, round, and nutty in flavor and firm in body.

M's review: I'm not sure I got deep, round, and nutty from this cheese, but we've already established that I don't really even know what that would mean. I liked this cheese. It had a good firm texture similar to most cheddar cheeses, and a nice flavor that went well with our crackers. Mild but good.

M's rating: 8.5/10

A's review: This was a really tasty cheese. It was firm and had a good, mild flavor to it. As with most cheddar cheese varieties, this was a really good snacking cheese. We paired it with some crackers like always, and they went together perfectly. The only thing I can think of that would have made it better would have been some sliced salami.

A's rating: 8/10

Toscano Cheese with Black Pepper

We may have mentioned before that we're terrible at describing cheese. If you've ever perused the adjectives used on a menu at a cheese-focused shop or restaurant, that's just not something we're able to do (and may never be able to do). So we're going to change our cheese "reviews" here a little bit to just give some quick thoughts on each cheese, and then rate them from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) for how much we liked them and decide whether we would get them again.

Granted, these ratings don't mean much to anyone else unless you have similar cheese tastes, so here's the quick snapshot of where we fall on the cheese spectrum. M is not really into most cheeses that are super soft or super stinky or blue, preferring some of the milder ones, cheeses with herbs and other flavors mixed in, and chèvre. A likes these soft cheeses, though he's never had a real, stinky blue cheese. One day he hopes to try stilton or the US equivalent.

First up in our new cheese "reviews" is the Toscano cheese with black pepper, which Trader Joe's describes as having elements of parmesan and cheddar (two of our likes, which probably explains why we liked it). The cheese wheels are hand-rubbed with cracked black pepper, which you can still see on the cheese that you buy. We aren't sure if this one is new, but we never noticed it until a recent visit.

M's quick review: Mild cheese. Nice texture on the firmer side. Pepper flavor definitely present but not too strong or overpowering.

M's rating: 8/10

Buy again: Yes

A's quick review: Mild peppery flavor even from the rind pieces that are caked in it. Very pleasant addition to the firm cheese. The cheese itself doesn't have a ton of flavor so the mild peppery flavor is more noticeable. This was a very enjoyable cheese.

A's rating: 8/10

Buy again: Yes

Italian Bigonda Cheese

We picked up and tried the Italian bigonda cheese with herbs for the first time last fall. It sounded like our type of cheese because of the herbs, and it was only supposed to be around for a limited time, so we were glad we got to try it. It seems to have reappeared on the shelves recently, so maybe it has made it into the permanent rotation?

We're not cheese experts, so when the package noted that it was a caciotta style cheese, we didn't really have any idea what that meant. According to Trader Joe's, the style is a semi-soft Italian farmstead cheese and theirs comes from the Dolomite mountain region. The cheese was a creamy white cheese, but the texture definitely seemed more semi-soft, and we liked that a lot. The flavor of the herbs, which included laurel, thyme, parsley, chives, fennel, and caraway seeds, was pretty prominent in the cheese, which we were happy about since that was everything we hoped it would be.

Buy again? Yes! This has been one of our more well-liked cheeses from Trader Joe's. The combination of flavors from the cheese and the herbs made this a delicious snack.

3 Cheese Wafers

Product name: 3 Cheese Wafers

Price: $0.99 for a 3.5 oz bag

M's quick review: I thought these wafers were okay. They were really thin and light, kind of paper thin, and I expected them to have a little more substance, more like the texture of a wafer cookie but tasting like cheese. There were three cheeses - cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella - so the flavor was good, but I didn't love the texture.

Buy again? Not for me. They were okay, but I like other snacks better.

A's quick review: I definitely liked these more than M. I liked the mildly styrofoam-ish texture to these crackers, and I liked the subtle hint of cheese that I got from each one. Sure, they weren't the best crackers/snacks that Trader Joe's has to offer, but I certainly enjoyed them.

Buy again? Probably not. I wouldn't say no to them, but there are so many good options at Trader Joe's for snacks.

St Nectaire

I was going through some photos from earlier this year, and I came across some of a meat and cheese board we had put together in the spring. Sausage, cheese, and some pickled cucumbers and onions (not pictured), sounded like a good spring dinner to me.

For the cheese portion of the board, we went with the St. Nectaire cheese, a "semi-soft, washed rind cheese from the Auvergne region of France," which was probably the spotlight cheese of the month. Apparently it was also a favorite of King Louis XIV. We thought this sounded different from the cheeses we usually get (more cheddar and goat cheese than anything else), and we like exploring new cheeses to see if we can find new ones we like.

The texture of this one was much softer than I was expecting, kind of creamy like brie. According to Trader Joe's, the cheese is supposed to be "aromatic of straw and mushrooms" and it was supposed to have notes of milk, nuts, and "the mineral-rich meadowlands." We've said before that we're not great at describing cheese, so we didn't really get any of that. To me, it was just really funky and kind of pungent, and I wasn't really a fan. I liked it much better with the sausage we ate it with than on its own, but even then, it was a bit heavy and strong for me. I don't think A loved it either, but he liked it more than I did.

A funny thing about this cheese was I hadn't realized it was stinking up our entire refrigerator until it was gone. A few days earlier, we had returned from grocery and Costco shopping and filled up the fridge, and it really smelled to me like something was rotting in there. It made no sense since almost all of our food was new, but I went around sniffing possible culprits and found nothing (including the cheese). The smell persisted until we ate the cheese, and then it was immediately gone. It was like a combination of rotting food and feet. It was strange how the odor got all over our fridge but I couldn't really smell it when directly sniffing the cheese package. I was kind of glad when it was gone.

To go with the cheese, we tried out the natural turkey summer sausage, turkey combined with a bunch of spices and seasonings (including mustard, celery powder, and garlic powder). We thought the sausage was pretty good, a bit salty, but fine. It's been a few months so we don't remember a ton about the flavor of the sausage specifically, other than that it was fine. The cheese made much more of an impression on us.

As for our usual buy again query, summer sausage is a maybe and the cheese is a no.

Buenalba

When we first saw the October spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's, we were excited and couldn't wait to try it. Of course, we were in San Diego without a refrigerator, so we couldn't try it then, but we put it on our mental shopping list to pick one up once we got home.

The buenalba cheese with paprika is a blend of raw sheep's milk and raw goat's milk. The paprika is mixed into the cheese itself, and the cheese is a really bright orange color. We ate it plain with crackers, like we do most of the spotlight cheeses, instead of mixing it into a recipe. We thought this cheese was just okay. It was really mild in flavor, and we were expecting more from it given all the focus on paprika on the label and in the description. There was nothing wrong with it, and we did enjoy eating it, but it didn't make much of an impression on us.

Buy again? Probably not.

Jalapeno and Honey Chevre

This was the August spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's, which we liked when we tried it earlier in the fall. We thought it was gone after August, but then we saw it in the cheese section tonight when we went to the store, so we were pretty happy. No idea if it's back for good, but hopefully it'll be a permanent addition to the chevre selection.

Product name: Jalapeno and honey chevre

Price: $2.99

Quick review: We're fans of most chevre from TJ's (at least the savory ones we've tried), and this one was no different. You could definitely taste the jalapeno in this cheese, and it was fairly spicy, more than we expected. That said, the jalapeno was balanced out by the sweetness of the honey and the creaminess of the cheese. We thought this flavor of chevre really worked well.

Buy again? Yes. (Just in case it's not back for good, we bought two more today.)

Apple Pie Cheddar Cheese

When we saw that the spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's this month was apple pie cheddar cheese, I was prepared to hate it. It sounded like it would be really sweet, and not only am I not a huge fan of mixing fruit in with more savory foods, but I haven't loved that many sweet cheeses in the past. But despite all of my bias against it, I wanted to try it, and it helped that A was pretty intrigued by it. It sounded interesting, and I figured that at least if I did hate it, I would know for sure in the future and never get it again.

As I sliced up the cheese, it smelled incredibly sweet, just like apple pie, and I was already disliking it. But once I tried the first piece of cheese, my opinion completely changed. It reminded me of eating slices of sweet apples with cheese cubes or slices from cheese plates (which I had obviously completely forgotten that I do). It was refreshing, not overly sweet, and lightly spiced. The cheddar cheese here was infused with apple cider, soaked dried apples, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg, and the key, I think, was that the infusion was done with restraint. All the elements of apple pie - the comforting spices, the sweetness and tartness of apple - combined well with the cheddar cheese here, mostly because they weren't overpowering at all, but just an accent.

We ate this with the enchanting crackers from Trader Joe's, which, since they are also a little on the sweeter side, were a great fit. The suggestion on the sign at the store had been to melt it on a cheeseburger, and I'm still not sure whether I agree with that, but the cheese itself gets a rave from us.

Buy Again? Maybe. It'll only be around for a little longer (if they haven't already sold out) since it's the spotlight cheese, so we might already be out of luck.

Taco Toppings

A few more Trader Joe's random quick reviews, this time for the toppings from our Week 27 taco challenge:

Product: Fancy shredded Mexican blend cheese
Price: $3.49 for 12 oz
Quick review: This is probably my favorite shredded cheese (of any blend, any brand, any store). It combines sharp cheddar, Monterey jack, asadero, and queso blanco, and just adds so much flavor to whatever we add it to. The quality is also pretty good. Often, like with cheddar, it's cheaper buying your own cheese and grating it, but here, it's cheaper and easier getting this blend so I can get all those different cheeses in one with zero effort.
Buy Again? Absolutely. We've been getting it for years. There's also a light version but it's more expensive, and I don't know that there's a dramatic difference in the nutritional panel.

Product: Light sour cream
Price: $1.79 for a pint
Quick review: I didn't eat much sour cream growing up, mostly because my family wasn't into it for health and lactose intolerance reasons, but I do like some sour cream every so often with tacos or chili or the like. I don't think we've ever gotten the regular sour cream at TJ's, only the light (which is supposed to have less fat and calories), so I can't really compare the two as far as taste but I think this one is pretty good. We also prefer the dairy products at TJ's in general compared to other stores because they are hormone-free, so that's another plus for this sour cream.
Buy Again? Yes, and we have every so often for years.

Product: Mild pico de gallo salsa
Price: $2.99 for 12 oz
Quick review: We really like pico de gallo, but it can sometimes be tough to make when tomatoes aren't in season. I've made it before and prefer it fresh, but it's so much more convenient to get it in a tub, already pre-cut and mixed. As expected, this version contained tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, and cilantro, along with some seasonings, but it was much more watery than I thought it would be. Perhaps it needed to be more watery in order to make it last, but I didn't like it as much because of that. Back in Chicago, I used to go to Cub Foods (which I guess is now no longer there), and often bought their tubs of pico de gallo. I still remember them because they were that good, just like you were getting it at a restaurant, and far less watery. I kind of wish this one had been like that.

Buy Again? Maybe, especially if it's winter or there aren't good-looking, affordable tomatoes. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but it's good in a pinch. I just wish it weren't so watery.

Inside the Mac

As we've been doing our reviews of recent Trader Joe's products, it occurred to me that a lot of the products we use for challenge meals often go unreviewed. Many of them are pretty basic staples, so a good way to tackle them seemed to be a group post about all the ones we used during that particular challenge. First up, stuff from the Week 12 mac and cheese challenge.

Product: Japanese style panko breadcrumbs
Price: $1.79
Quick review: We've used this panko quite a bit, and it seems to last for a while. I don't know if other panko breadcrumbs have more flavor as these have basically no flavor, but they work for breading.
Buy Again? Sure. It's convenient to pick up when at TJ's, and I don't really have much basis to know how this ranks against other ones.

Product: Wisconsin sharp cheddar cheese
Price: $4.99/lb
Quick review: This was our first time getting this particular cheddar cheese. Pretty good price. Definitely much cheaper to buy a block of cheddar and grate it ourselves than to buy the pre-shredded stuff, even if that's more convenient. (Glad A was around to grate the cheese while I did other prep work.) Wasn't as sharp in flavor as we thought it would be though.
Buy Again? Maybe, if we're looking for cheese to grate for a dish, but on its own, probably not. It was okay, just more mild than we were expecting.

Product: Uncured apple smoked bacon
Price: $4.49
Quick review: If you've been following challenge posts over the past couple of years, you've probably seen this bacon a lot. It's my favorite bacon to use, very good quality, pretty decent price. When they don't have it and I need to pick up bacon, I'm very sad. Whole Foods is more expensive, and the TJ's bacon ends and pieces, while fine, aren't as good as this one. Great smoky taste and flavor. The whole apartment smells glorious for the rest of the night.
Buy Again? Yes, definitely, absolutely, without a doubt.

Product: Vegetable radiatore
Price: $1.99
Quick review: I've wanted to buy this for a long time since radiatore is one of my favorite pasta shapes, but I held off because we had so much pasta at home already. However, for the mac and cheese, since TJ's doesn't carry elbow macaroni and I wanted something with ridges that would hold the cheese sauce well, this was perfect. On top of that, there was some spinach, beets, and red bell pepper in there since it was vegetable radiatore. I love vegetable pasta.
Buy Again? Yes. I just have to finish more of the pasta at home first.

Product: French thyme (dried spices)
Price: $1.99
Quick review: I love thyme, both fresh and dried, and the TJ's spice shaker seems like pretty good quality dried thyme. We use this a lot.
Buy Again? Yes.

Clearly I forgot to take pictures of the beer and butter for this post, but at least a few more products are now reviewed so we won't forget we've tried them!

English Ale Cheddar with Mustard

It may already be April, but here's our review of the March spotlight cheese!

Product: English Ale Cheddar Cheese with Mustard

Price: $8.99/lb. They came in blocks about 0.5 lb each, but I think that weight included that black wax inedible "shell."

Quick review: Our basic feelings about the taste of this cheese were cheddar - yes, ale (from the Old Speckled Hen English ale) - yes, mustard - not very much. There were hints of mustard in it, but the ale flavor was much stronger. (Apparently there was also white wine vinegar, cinnamon, and dried pimento in addition to the whole grain mustard according to TJ's, but we didn't really notice those.) We were both expecting (and hoping for) so much more mustard flavor from the cheese. Interestingly the mustard flavor came out a bit more when the cheese was heated. We ate blocks of it plain, and then also melted it on top of some panko chicken tenders. Our favorite version of the cheese though was the little shavings that fell off the chicken and just baked on the foil, as those had the most flavor. I seriously thought about taking the rest of the plate of cheese blocks and dumping them all on a foil-lined baking sheet to bake at 400 for a bit, but then was lazy.

Buy Again? If this were in the permanent rotation, I think we'd definitely consider it. It wasn't our favorite cheddar cheese from TJ's (for example, we liked last year's March cheese better), but it was good. It was especially good baked.

Oak Wood Smoked Cheddar

The January spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's is this oak wood cold smoked English cheddar cheese. We really like smoked cheeses, so we were pretty sure we'd like this one and knew we had to try it.

According to Trader Joe's, the cheese comes from Dorset in southwest England, where it is infused with natural oak wood smoke from oak chips. It was definitely one of the better smoked cheeses we've had. The smoke wasn't overpowering or super strong, but just the right amount. No suggestions from us on what to eat this with though, since we just ate it with crackers. (I wish I could describe the qualities of this cheese more, but I still haven't gotten better at describing cheese. I'm trying though...)

Buy Again? Hopefully. Since it's the spotlight cheese, they only have a limited run of it, but we're really hoping there will still be some when we go to the store next time. It would be even better if Trader Joe's added this to their giant regular selection of cheddar cheese, so this could be an unqualified yes!

March Spotlight Win

We didn't pick up the February spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's (since I'm not that big of a fan of some Neufchâtel and you couldn't get smaller sized packages), but we were super excited to see the March spotlight cheese, the Isle of Man Vintage Cheddar with Scallions and Roasted Onions. Scallions, onions, and cheddar? It wasn't even a question if we were going to try it. Those are some of our favorite things.

According to Trader Joe's, this cheddar cheese is produced by a small co-op of family farms in the Isle of Man and aged for up to 12 months. They describe the finished cheese as a "semi-hard cheddar that's distinctively rich, with a sharp aroma and a subtly sweet taste." I'm not good at describing cheese, but that sounds about right. The thing that we noticed most were the scallions and roasted onions, which made this cheese different from a regular cheddar cheese. They were so rich and sweet, embodying some of the best of spring's flavors, and we really enjoyed this.

Buy Again? Yes! Hopefully we'll be able to snag another package or two before March is over. We're also hoping that cheese like this will become a permanent part of the TJ's cheese selection!

Caramel Washed Gouda

The January spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's was the caramel washed gouda. We love Dutch cheese and gouda in particular, so we definitely wanted to try this one. 

According to the Trader Joe's site, this cheese was made from the milk of cows that roamed the Twente region of the Netherlands and then it was hand-washed in caramel and left to mature for 5 months. We have never been to that region and don't know if that makes this cheese distinctive, but we were intrigued by the caramel washing in particular and wondered if that would give this cheese a special flavor.

Although we liked this, there was nothing special about this gouda. Don't get us wrong, it was tasty, but we didn't really notice any caramel hints or anything. It just tasted like gouda. We like gouda, but at the end of the day we like smoked gouda more.

We paired the cheese with some more Trader Joe's goods, their "Some Enchanted Cracker" multigrain crackers. These look and taste a lot like crackers we've gotten previously from Costco, and our guess is that they're made by the same manufacturer and just branded for TJ's. We like these crackers because they're soft enough to be broken up by hand into small enough pieces to use for eating the cheese pieces, and they taste good as well. On top of that, they're multigrain, so they're good for you!

Buy Again? For the cheese, we probably wouldn't buy this again. We would just go for smoked gouda instead. For the crackers, definitely. We've already gone through more than one box!