If it’s watermelon time, it must be summer

It’s not the heat and it’s not the pool opening. It’s not the strappy dresses and sandals or the birds chirping too early and the fire-pitless porch parties lasting past midnight.

What tells me it’s summertime is the large, cardboard box full of big green orbs that greets me when I enter Trader Joe’s.

I received that happy welcome last weekend. There was even a woman handing out watermelon samples at a makeshift tasting station. She advised that the sweetest watermelons were ones with yellow on them. Taking her word for it, I grabbed (if you can “grab” a bowling ball without finger holes) a fine looking specimen and weighted down my cart immediately.

At the official tasting station, they were sampling Watermelon Cucumber Juice. Good stuff! I’d bought a container the week before, but hadn’t opened it yet. As Persian Cucumbers are one of my shopping-list staples, I looked in my cart and thought, “Cukes, watermelon…why not make my own juice?!”

Hydratedly inspired, I searched for a recipe and found a three-ingredient drink I thought I could master. The third ingredient was lime juice – and I found that it makes ALL the difference!

(Although there are several sites with similar recipes, mine came from AllRecipes.com. Thanks, AllRecipes!)

How To Make Watermelon Cucumber Cooler:

I used:

• 4 Persian cucumbers
• 1/2 the fruit from a watermelon
• 2 limes

Trim the ends off your cukes and cut into bite-sized chunks.

Cut the watermelon into chunks.

Combine the cuke and watermelon chunks and liquify in a blender or food processor.

Stir in the juice from the limes. It’s OK if a little lime fruit drops in, too!

It makes a pitcher-full of juice. Enjoy!

This is what it looked like:

Notes: The cukes were unpeeled. The watermelon had very few seeds, so I just let the few involved get mixed in the batch.

I had planned to make a fizzy drink by adding carbonated water to half a cup of juice, but I got caught up in the deliciousness, and the batch was finished before I remembered I wanted to do that! Next time.

DIY Bloody Mary – when you need it now (recipe)

Sometimes the hankering for a Bloody Mary possesses you when you’re not prepared. Sometimes you just have to make do.

The inspiration hit at the beginning of the 2014 World Cup Finals. A friend tweeted a photo of a refreshing glass of Bloody Mary that looked very tasty. I remembered that I had an unopened bottle of TJ’s Bloody Mary Mixer gathering dust in the pantry. I dug it out and discovered that the expiration date was months past. Since it contained clam juice, I thought it was best not to take a chance with it.

TJ’s recipe for a tasty Bloody Mary

I took a look at the ingredients on the bottle – a key reason I buy and love TJ’s Mary mix. Not a lot of ingredients with chemical names. It’s mainly tomato puree (tomato paste + water or tomato sauce). I decided to try and make my own!

Sadly, I didn’t have a few ingredients I really like in a Bloody Mary. I also tweaked the idea in a few ways, including substituting Gin (my preferred Bloody Mary Mix mixer) for beer, a twist on the refreshing Michelada.

Main ingredients

Beer Mary

Here’s what I came up with – and it worked VERY well. Tasty, relatively low cal and a minimum of preservatives:

Mix in a bowl:

1 can tomato sauce (includes onion and garlic powder)

1 can water

Per glass ingredients (Suggested amounts, but per taste):
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon white vinegar

Juice from 1/2 lime

1 teaspoon green Tabasco sauce

A jigger of vodka or gin, or beer as directed below

Directions:

1. Fill glass with ice

2. Add per glass ingredients

3. Fill glass 2/3 full with tomato sauce/water

4a. Add vodka or gin, or

4b. Fill remainder with pilsner of choice, like a can of Oranjeboom from TJ’s

5. Garnish with olives and/or celery and lime wedge

6. Enjoy!

Cuckoo for Coconut

Three of the many coconut options at Trader Joe’s:

What’s your favorite coconut concoction?

How to Make a Killer Sangria: A Trader Joe’s Shopper Shares Her Secret

Michelle Walton knows good sangria. She spent $100 mixing a batch from a South American recipe. But with a bottle of Maria Ole Sangria from TJ’s, Michelle now impresses her friends for a fraction of the cost. Take 30 seconds to listen to how she does it. She makes it seem so easy! Thanks for sharing, Michelle!

Happy International Coffee Day!

A little caffeinated wisdom from one of my favorite celebs, who’s no slouch when it comes to high octane energy.

Wisdom from Jackie Chan

 

Pancake happy hour

It’s been a while since I could drink white wine without it burning. Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinto Grigio – all lashed flames on the way down.

Recently, I discovered a white wine that tasted really good and didn’t burn. It was a little on the pricey side – for special occasions.

I received a dinner invitation and decided this was a good $$ wine event. Explaining my predicament and discovery to the cashier at the wine shop, she said that most likely the problem was with the acidity of one-grape wines, and the solution was getting a mixed-grape version.

Aha!

My next step was to go to TJ’s, explain the situation and see if they might offer a non-offending white wine. The kind and informative Joe had a good suggestion:

Pancake time

Joe said that the flavor rivaled the $$ wine I liked. As we talked, he said, “Well, it’s not exactly the same. But it’s pretty close.” And, as with all TJ’s items, Joe reminded me that if I didn’t like it, I could just bring it back.

He was right that it wasn’t quite the same as the $$ wine. But, I did enjoy a glass that went down smoothly and painlessly! Cheapwinefinder.com describes Pancake’s Big Day White as a “Tuesday night wine.”

Give it a try. It’s only five bucks! And it’s summer.

Trader Joe’s: It’s safe to drink Bloody Mary mix, again!

I’ve been a Bloody Mary mix fan for a long time. But one in-flight look at the ingredients made me put the mix down and step away from that drink option. Until now.

What I found in the most common Mary mix was high fructose corn syrup. Yes, I can make my own mix which is the best way to get your favorite flavor and leave out the offending ingredients. And I thought, for those reasons, that would be my only option, until discovering Trader Joe’s version.

Trader Joe’s keeps it real

My recipe:

A glass of ice, add three olives, the juice of half a lime and fill with Bloody Mary mix. If you’re so inclined, make it an adult drink with some gin or vodka.

A merry Mary

And enjoy!

Finding relatives in strange places

Charles was my mother’s older brother. Not Charlie, never Chuck – Charles.

Charles married Sara Bertha – Sara B. to all who knew her.

They were born in Mississippi, but ended up living and raising their family in Memphis, Tenn.

Charles was a joker from way back, my mom would say. He and mom had that red-cheeked smile that percolated quickly into a roaring laugh. Another family trait: Their eyes sparkled with mischief when they were happy, even if they had no intention of getting into trouble. Tears rolled down their faces when they laughed too hard, which was often.

Mom told many stories about teenaged Charles’ pet monkey Pete. The two would go for a car ride, and when Charles hit the gas too hard, Pete would bang on the seat until he slowed down.

Sara B. loved to cook. She wasn’t strict, but she maintained an air of disapproval to keep up with her husband’s teasing. I remember she wore flowing, long lounging dresses. Sara B. had that classic, indelible Southern hospitality gene. “I just made a pitcher of lemonade. Y’all come sit and I’ll pour you a cold glass.”

Just as Charles was ready with a joke or rib, Sara B. was ready to shake her head and roll her eyes. Smiling, eventually.

One of my last memories of Sara B. was after she passed away. Mom and I were going through the family home in Memphis with my cousin Rosebud, Sara B.’s daughter. She opened the medicine cabinet, and there was a barely used bottle of Estée Lauder perfume. “Beautiful.” Rosebud said, “That was Mom’s favorite.” Now, I think of “Beautiful” when I think of Sara B. And I think of Sara B. when I come across that perfume.

I was stopped in my tracks recently going through TJ’s, when I saw this:

If my Aunt Sara B. had a wine named after her, it might look like this.

After seeing that, I turned and saw the pylon of Charles Shaw wine crates stacked across from the boxes of Sara Bee. Here’s a sample:

Three-buck Charles

And I realized – there’s my aunt and uncle memorialized in wine across the aisle from one another at Trader Joe’s. A light white wine and a hearty red.

Beautiful.

A taste of springtime: Homemade lemonade

It’s the end of April in the Midwest, among other places. In Missouri we had sleet yesterday, and today, we woke up to 30-degree temps and wind chills in the 20s.

But when I stepped into Trader Joe’s last weekend, I could have sworn it was spring! In fact, it could have been verging on summer the way the store was decked out.

Case in point:

A glass of sunshine. Just add a spritz of clear skies, rainbows and unicorns.

It’s a scene that instantly transports me to age 11, visiting my cousins in Memphis, Tenn., running around barefoot in their family’s sprawling, soft, overgrown yard.

The adults sprawled in aluminum folding chairs with loosely woven green-and-white striped plastic strips. They’d sit in those chairs for hours drinking lemonade. And we’d leave our glasses of summer’s nectar by them as we ran around aimfully.

The moms and dads and grandparents would stand up to get a refreshing refill, and they’d have criss-cross red marks on the backs of their legs where their shorts had ridden up from the plastic chairing.

Lemonade is what sunny days taste like.

Thanks for the memories, Trader Joe’s.

And thank you for stopping by. Please visit anytime and leave a kind thought.

Lemonade recipes:

From AllRecipes.com

From Food Network/Paula Deen

From Chow

On the trail for chai: Oregon delivers

… Oregon and Trader Joe’s, that is. All you coffee and tea diehards, this chai mix will give you a delicious alternative.

Oregon Chai runs hot and cold, and they’re both delicious

The box contains a chai concentrate. You mix it with milk or a milk substitute and heat or ice.

Today was really chilly and grey, ending in a “wintry mix” of rain and sleet. I heated up a mug of Oregon Chai and felt all snuggly and warm. One convenience is that you can modify the chai to your taste. If you like your chai sweet, use less milk. If you want it a little less sweet, use less chai and more milk (like I do).

Enjoy!

Thank you, Trader Joe’s.

And thank you for visiting Things I Love at Trader Joe’s!

Follow Things I Love at Trader Joe’s on Twitter: @TraderJoesKC

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Related links:

Oregon Chai Facebook Page

Oregon Chai Twitter

Chai tea recipe