TRADER JOE'S FAVORITES AND NEW FINDS // FIRST TIME BACK IN A YEAR!

hey you guys welcome back to my channel and if you are new here welcome to see mindy ma today i am doing something that i have not done in over a year and that is shop at trader joe's [Music] all right you guys it has been i think since february of 2020 since i have been inside of our trader joe's it is march of 2021 right now this isn't a place that i frequented a lot before the pandemic because it's just kind of off the beaten path for me it's in a really cool spot of tulsa called brookside and there's lots of really neat like restaurants and shops and bars and coffee shops and stuff down here but i just don't find myself in this area very often so before the pandemic it was kind of like a fun every other month type trip where i would come and see what's new and get some of my favorite things and maybe check out the seasonal items that they had but since the pandemic i just haven't shopped here like i said it's kind of in an area of tulsa that i'm not in very often plus it's a smaller store and i knew that they were only letting a limited number of people in at a time so i just haven't been back by here in well over a year but today on this rainy dreary gloomy spring day in oklahoma i was out trying to film a different video at a different store and it turned out to be just a complete bust there just wasn't anything really interesting to show you guys at that store but since i was in this area i thought you know i'll drop by trader joe's i haven't been there in a while i can pick up some of my favorite things and share them with you and i can maybe see if there's anything new that i want to share with you as well i know trader joe's is kind of particular about people filming in their store so i'm just going to go in and see what i can find and i'll get it home and i'll show you guys what i got again i'm going to pick up some of my favorite things that we have not had in a long time and we'll see what's new i just got home from trader joe's i'm gonna share my haul with you guys it was so fun to go back in there i was reminded of so many things that i really like from trader joe's and how much i enjoy shopping there and also found some new things at least new to us they may not be new to you guys if you shop at trader joe's all the time you might see some of these things and be like uh mindy that's been there forever but remember i haven't been in over a year so but i was thinking about something as i was shopping that i wanted to share with you guys real fast and get your opinion about a lot of my channel revolves around budgeting and budget cooking and i was thinking about how i am usually approaching my meal planning and my grocery shopping with budget in mind but i'm actually not always thinking about budgeting my money sometimes i'm thinking about budgeting my time so that's why on my channel you might see a five dollar dinner video or like a three dollar dinner video like the one i recently posted with all the ingredients followed by a trader joe's haul where i have spent some extra money on you know some ready-made meals or some partially cooked things that will come together into meals really quickly sometimes my time is at a premium and i am willing to pay a little bit more money for some convenience items that will make for easy meals for me or for my family for instance i bought some pasta that is already cooked and i think it's one of those things where you can pop it in the microwave or it just reheats on the stove really quickly and i bought some little chicken sausages and i was thinking in my head okay this would be a really easy meal i'll just throw these things together it would be ready in like 10 minutes and we would have an easy dinner and i was feeling kind of bad about the fact that i think all together it was 12 for those ingredients that i was buying for that meal and i just did a video where i spent ten dollars and made three meals for my family but then i thought to myself you know what sometimes we're at the ballpark sometimes we're at swim lessons or we're getting home from gymnastics practice and i need to throw a meal together quick either after we get home or before we leave and i feel like twelve dollars is still much much much much less than i would spend on any restaurant even fast food if i was trying to feed my family of five i mean i was trying to think in my head of a place where i could go through the drive-through and feed my family a somewhat nutritious meal for like 15 bucks and i was kind of coming up short i mean typically we would spend at least 20 to 25 on like tacos or a pizza place and if we're going to a quick service place like panera bread or chipotle or mcallister's i mean we're probably going to spend 30 40 maybe 50 so all that's to say it might seem odd if you watch my channel i kind of go back and forth on that spectrum of what is worth more to me my time or my money whenever i have time and i can cook from scratch and i can be more selective with my shopping and i can visit multiple stores and spend more time planning our meals or cook from our pantry those are times whenever i'm saving money and then later on in the month or the next month i have a little wiggle room in my grocery budget for some convenience items that will make some tasty and somewhat nutritious meals for my family but maybe cost a little bit more up front because i'm paying for the convenience of those ingredients being like partially prepared or cooked for me so i'm just wondering where you guys fall on that spectrum leave me a comment are you more about budgeting your time and wanting some really quick easy meals that come together with some convenience items because you're short on time or are you more about budgeting your money and you're willing to spend extra time planning preparing cooking so that you can cut your grocery bill as much as possible or are you like me and you kind of go back and forth on that spectrum it just depends on the week or the month or the season i'm curious let me know okay you guys here's my little haul some new things for us some convenience items and some of our favorite snacks i did not pick up any produce because i have plenty of that in the house and i didn't get any meat either because i have some of that as well i was specifically just looking for some of our favorite things to get new things and also things that would be easy to throw together for quick snacks or meals i love this three pepper mix from the frozen section i have never found one at another store that's as good a quality as this a lot of times they will put onions in it and it will be mostly onions and maybe green peppers but this one see has tons of red yellow and orange peppers so this is really great for throwing together like stir fries or egg scrambles or something like that everybody knows about the trader joe's reduced guilt mac and cheese i really want to have a few of these in the freezer for me or my husband whenever we don't have leftovers for lunch it's really easy just to throw in some turkey or some broccoli or some mixed veggies or something and kind of create a whole meal with one of those i have actually not tried fish sticks with my kiddos but i actually think they would like them i think they've had them elsewhere maybe at a grandparent's house or something and come home and said how come we never have these i thought these would be easy to throw in the airfryer and then maybe you know a box of macaroni and cheese and some steam in the back veggies and voila we have like a saturday lunch or a really easy evening meal these were intriguing to me they're little mini pizzas and there's four of them in there and i was thinking these would be easy for the kids to pop into the oven or for me to pop into the oven for them as like a snack before we go someplace my kids are getting really kind of heavy into their activities and they have longer practices so sometimes they need more like a meal and i was thinking you know this might be something that would be good for that when we need kind of a heavier snack for them i love the already cooked steam in the bag rice selections that they have there they have a rice medley they have a jasmine rice and they have this brown rice and there's three packages in here and seriously you just toss it into the microwave and steam it for three minutes and it's done and it can make for a really easy dinner if you've got like some chicken or some leftover ground beef you know you can make burrito bowls or something like that again you've got your veggies here you can toss in for some stir fry just really great easy convenient um product this is the pasta i was talking about and let me tell you i was impressed with their pasta selections they're fully cooked pasta selections that you just reheat i could probably do an entire video solely on meals that i could make with the different things they had in their freezer section but i picked this one up and i got to be honest i'm not sure how to pronounce it i'm going to say it's i think maybe but it's pasta pouches filled with ricotta chilejo and mozzarella cheese accompanying accompanied by a rich creamy tomato based sauce and what i was thinking is that this with a protein and then like a side salad or an easy veggie and voila we have dinner the veggie fried rice again something that would be easy to throw a protein with or even just you know add some eggs and make a really easy stir-fry one night and the same thing with the asparagus risotto i haven't tried this yet let me know if you have but i think this is another one where you can either cook it in the microwave or on the stove and it will make for an easy side and again you could just add you know a protein and some more vegetables to this and have a really easy meal i love the sour cream and onion corn puffs i've only seen them at trader joe's i can get the white cheddar ones other places but the sour cream and onion ones i can only get there and yes i did buy three bags of the bomba peanut snacks i love these and i do not see them anywhere else except occasionally aldi has a version of them but they're seasonal they only come around once or twice a year so i always pick these up it's 99 cents a bag i just love them they're kind of like sweet and salty i don't know i just love them and i can only get them there all year long that i know of this was an impulse buy scalloped potato chips with five cheeses i'm doing some sandwiches on the grill on the griddle tonight for dinner so i thought those would go well with that some sweet italian style chicken sausage these are already cooked and again i was thinking i could just slice these up and toss them in with something like this or something like this and have a meal they have excellent pasta selections there they have plant-based pastas as well and they are the least expensive for that kind and that quality of pasta that i have seen i love the organic whole wheat fusilli they used to carry whole wheat rotini at my walmart and i haven't seen it in months so i picked up a bag while i was there and i also picked up some of this creamy spinach and artichoke dip and shout out to my friend lauren over at louise lane she uses this as like a sauce a pasta sauce to go over pasta or to go over rice so i was thinking again another easy meal heat this up maybe steam some broccoli in a bag throw it in with some of this maybe a rotisserie chicken or maybe some of this sausage and we've got another easy quick dinner i like the cottage cheese at trader joe's their store brand does not have carrie ginan and the store brand of a lot of other kinds does so i'm very happy to pick this up and we love this as a snack fat-free refried beans are really good there too i think my friend miranda over at running on plants really likes these because they are vegan they don't use lard in their refried beans greek yogurt plain greek yogurt they have a great grass-fed whole milk greek yogurt there as well i just got the conventional kind and then i picked up some of these yogurts these are not greek yogurts they're just plain and this is the raspberry and the lemon and yogurt is such a difficult thing for me because i like yogurt my kids like yogurt but a lot of it is full of sugar but the trick that i have learned and i learned that from my friend lindsay over at the mom logs in case you're wondering we all share ideas i've now mentioned three people and i will leave their channels linked in the description box but she mixes the flavored yogurts with the unflavored yogurt so even though this is this is regular yogurt and this is greek yogurt i'm thinking i can cut down the sugar by putting some of this in with you know half of one of these or something and then i can have a flavored yogurt but it's not quite as sugary and by the way this plus this and maybe a little sprinkling of cheese makes an excellent bean dip with you know corn crackers or tortilla chips or in a tortilla for a burrito oh my gosh so good and speaking of burritos i picked up some tortillas my kids love tortillas and to make tortilla roll-ups for lunches or snacks so this is a wheat and corn flour tortilla and they are like so soft and they're not gummy they're not like stuck together in the package i had not seen the vanilla jojo's i think this is like their oreo cookie i'm really digging these lately the golden oreos so i thought i would try the vanilla jojo's some bite-sized everything crackers crackers topped with garlic onion sesame poppy and caraway seeds they have a really great selection of cheeses there and i picked up this creamy toscano cheese with black pepper as a special treat believe it or not you guys i have never had the wine at trader joe's i've never tried it you guys know that i love my aldi wine my winking owl wine and their trader joe's brand at my trader joe's is 2.99 a bottle so i did get a white a pinot grigio and then a red wine and by the way i was thinking this plus this plus this makes an excellent like friday evening like late friday afternoon kind of wind down welcome the weekend i was just thinking that would be awesome to have all together that is my trader joe's haul lots of snacks and treats and just kind of quick meal ideas there you guys i almost forgot i was putting things away and i forgot that i had put these in the freezer when i got home so that they wouldn't melt and i forgot to get them back out whenever i was ready to film 12 mini mint ice cream mouthfuls um i've seen these before just in the plane but i haven't seen the mint ones maybe they have them all the time but i am a sucker for chocolate and mint i am not gonna lie i'm probably gonna hide these from the children and save them for me and the husband all right you guys that is what i have for you today thank you so much for watching leave me a comment and let me know if you are a trader joe's shopper what are your favorite go-to items or what is new there that you have been loving lately i'll be sure to check in again with another video very soon [Music] you

Channel: See Mindy Mom

Views: 9,354

Rating: 4.9574466 out of 5

Keywords: trader joe's, trader joes, haul, grocery haul, trader joes haul, trader joes favorites, trader joes faves, favorite things at trader joes, favorite items at trader joes, what to buy at trader joes, trader joes grocery haul, trader joes meals, trader joes dinners, trader joes recipes, trader joes meal ideas, budget, frugal, family, mom, mom life, mom vlog, sahm life, stay at home mom

Id: iq4r_IgMedk

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021