Trader Jose's

Here's a quick photo tour of how to put together a Mexican meal using only ingredients purchased from Trader Joe's (or Trader Jose's, if you will):

You can purchase pre-made guacamole there and it's usually pretty fresh or you can buy one of their guacamole kits and make it yourself. The kit comes with avocado, onion, tomato, chile pepper, a lime and a garlic clove.

They have numerous varieties of salsa. Some are canned and some are fresh but don't turn your nose up at the canned ones. They are all good and the kind I got for this meal was their peach salsa.

They also have a lot to choose from in the corn chips department. Mix things up a little and get some Blue Corn Tortilla Chips. Yes, the blue coloring is natural.

Trader Joe's has several varieties of frozen, microwavable tamales. My favorite is the Cheese and Green Chile Tamales. These actually turn out okay in the microwave but I find I only have to heat them for about half the time it says to on the package.

Here's another entree item: the Rolled Chicken Tacos. I don't know why these aren't called taquitos but they are still good.

I put my own spin on the polenta (corn meal) by cutting it into a few discs and frying them in a little butter.

As with many of their items they have numerous choices for refried beans. I went with the kind that had a little bit of jalapeño in it:

And the requisite Spanish rice. Not a lot of veriety here. Pretty much the straight up, traditional stuff that you boil and add seasoning to:

And the final product:

The papaya nectar juice makes is a perfectly complementary beverage to this Mexican meal (squeeze a little lime in it):

I couldn't find much in the way of Mexican desserts at Trader Joe's. My bext approximation was to get some frozen, chocolate-dipped bananas:

Apart from the dessert scene, Trader Jose's has many Mexican items you can use to put together your own meal. There might even be another entry here later focusing on entirely different items.