Author: marga (Page 1 of 117)

Safeway Tri Tip Steak is not what’s depicted

October 9, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

Tri-tip, that so-very California cut, was on sale at Safeway last week. It was $7/lb for the untrimmed roast and $10/lb for the steaks (down from $19/lb regular price). Last time I got the roast, it has almost as much fat as meat, so I decided to give the steaks a try this time. In the photo on their website, the steaks looked trimmed. I had bought this cut before in the past, and had worked quite well.

Alas, instead of getting three trimmed tri-tip steaks, I got a bunch of untrimmed smaller steaks. Here is the picture of just one:

I did trim them before grilling them, but the flavor was also sort of off – not as having gone bad, but just not having the great flavor that tri-tip usually has. I’m not an expert on beef, but I wonder if Safeway is getting worse quality meat to be able to put it on sale. The problem is that not knowing whether this is the case, makes me feel reluctant to buy it at regular price as well.

Now, don’t get me wrong, in these times when beef is so astronomically expensive, I very much appreciate Safeway’s sale prices, which I suspect may be loss leaders – but I also want to get what I think I’m ordering.

Signature Select French Onion Soup is a No for me

October 9, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

Lacks onions

I’m not a huge soup lover, but Safeway deli soups can be a quick and fairly tasty meal, particularly in winter. These soups were on sale a couple of weeks ago ($5, from $9 regular price), so I tried the French Onion soup, which I hadn’t tried before. I was disappointed.

The soup, which doesn’t come with cheese or croutons (understandably), has too high a ratio of broth to onions. The onion slices are cut into short pieces, which I didn’t realize would so interfere with the texture of the sauce. The flavor was just OK, it was a bit too bitter, and it didn’t feel like the onions had been caramelized at all. In all, though I love French Onion soup, I wouldn’t buy this one again.

Safeway’s “Farmstyle” Bread is Moldy

October 8, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

Orowheat Buttermilk Bread is Good

I was looking for the sliced bread with the thinnest slices to make alitos when I came across this Bakery Famous Bake Farmstyle Bread at Safeway. It is unsliced, which meant I had, at least, the possibility of slicing it thinner than regular sandwich bread. I also liked the idea of actually getting fresh sandwich bread. When I was a kid, my aunt Gladys would buy a loaf of fresh sandwich bread, along with one of rye bread for my granny, and this brought me back to those days.

I did read the reviews and several mentioned this item came hard or expired, but I figured I’d take my chances. I shouldn’t have. I order my groceries online and the loaf of bread they selected expired the same day I placed my order. Within a couple of days it was moldy all over.

I should have listened to the reviews

Still needing bread for the sandwiches, I sent my husband to Grocery Outlet (the closest store to my house, and usually less busy than Safeway) and he brought me some Oroweat Buttermilk bread. While it wasn’t the ideal bread for these sandwiches, the bread itself was tasty enough and, most importantly, it was free of mold.

Safeway Tamales are All Right

September 22, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

Good Meat to Masa Ratio

Safeway had their deli tamales on sale this week for $1.66 (regularly $2.50), so I decided to give them a try. I ordered the shredded pork tamal(e) and I was actually quite happy with it. There are two things I want in a tamal: a good tasting, not too spicy filling, and a good filling to masa ratio. The latter means that there should be more filling than masa, rather than vice versa. This tamal fulfilled both of my requirements. Indeed, the ratio was close to perfect.

I had a similar positive experience with Trader Joe’s frozen tamales last week. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the fresh tamales we occasionally buy at the farmer’s market, which have much more masa than filling.

There we no instructions on how to reheat this (refrigerated) tamal, so I microwaved it for 1 minute in the corn wrapping. That worked well enough.

I feel that even in this economy, paying $3 for a supermarket tamal is ridiculous (though you can buy 4 for $10) – that’s the farmer market’s/homemade price – but I’ll definitely buy them again when on sale.

Safeway Boneless Chicken Thighs disappoint

September 19, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

Last week, Safeway had Signature Select boneless, skinless chicken thighs on sale for $3/lb – down from the $6.50 regular price. Given how expensive groceries are now, I figured I’d give them a try. I was less than happy.

The thighs are HUGE. I’m afraid to imagine how big those chickens have to be to have such big thighs. And they are also extremely fatty. There are now laws in California that force chicken farmers to give chickens a minimum amount of space and access to the outdoors, but I can’t imagine these chickens have ever gotten any exercise. For that reason alone, I’m unlikely to buy Safeway chicken again.

On the plus side, I was able to cut the thighs into nicely sized cubes for Madura-style satay, and the chicken was quite tender.

Safeway’s Top Sirloin Roast is really Sirloin Cap (Picanha)

August 5, 2026 / marga / 2 Comments

Great and cheap cut made famous by Brazilians

Top Sirloin roast was on sale this week at Safeway this week, for just $7/lb, and I ordered one with a couple of dishes in mind (Beef Stroganoff and Cambodian beef sticks). What I got was sirloin cap. This is, indeed, part of the top sirloin, a triangular cut with a thick layer of fat on top – which Safeway nicely trimmed (though I had to trim it away for my uses).

This cut is prized in Brazil as picanha and has become popular in the US in recent years, as other once cheap cuts that could be used for steaks have become too expensive for regular use. I have no doubt that the same will happen to sirloin cap.

I will try making an actual roast next time it goes on sale, but for the time being I can say that the cut worked well for grilling as thin strips – it was tender but with a nice grain/pull -, but it failed as cubes for the stroganoff. I’m not surprised as sirloin in general tends to acquire a dusty texture when cooked wet. It might work if I’d cut it into thin slices here as well.

A word on Thai chilies at Safeway

July 1, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

One name, two types

Chile peppers originated in South America, but they spread throughout the world pretty much as soon as the Europeans and Portuguese got a hold of them. There are 22 species of wild peppers and 5 domesticated ones, but within those five there are thousands of varieties, with differing amounts of of sweetness, fruitiness and spiciness. Most of us, however, have access to only a handful of fresh peppers – those of the varieties most commonly grown where we live – and only a handful more of dry peppers. This means, that when we cook dishes from other countries and regions that call for peppers, figuring out what local pepper to substitute is a challenge.

One common pepper that shows up in Luso cuisines, those from countries once colonized by Portugal, are peri peri peppers. Also known as piri piri or African Bird’s Eye, these are cultivars of Capsicum frutescens. They are young, small and very hot but still red peppers, that will apparently develop into Malagueta peppers as they grow. They particularly prized in Africa and used in many dishes directly or as peri peri sauce. While you can get the sauce in many places in America, including Trader Joe’s, which imports it from South Africa, getting the pepper itself is much harder.

One suggested alternative for recipes that call for peri peri peppers are Bird’s eye chiles, aka Prik Kee Noo, an Asian chili which is also small and very hot. It’s used prominently in South East Asian cuisine. Indeed, peri peri peppers are supposed to be a subcategory of bird’s eye chiles. In America, bird’s eye peppers are often called Thai peppers. And, indeed, if you order green Thai peppers at Safeway (or at least my Safeway), that is what you usually get. Now, red Thai peppers are simply the ripe stage of Thai peppers, so they are usually larger and less spicy than the green kind. But at Safeway, the red Thai peppers they sell are actually Thai spur chilies. Now bird’s eye chiles and Thai spur chilies are both species of Capsicum annuum – as are bell peppers -, but the latter is much larger and less spicy than the former, which makes it not really a suitable alternative for peri peri peppers. It looks easy enough to get dried red bird’s eye peppers, and it might be possible to get fresh ones from Facebook Marketplace or Asian supermarkets. Or, I guess, to just use green ones.

Amazon Grocery Pie Crusts are surprisingly good.

June 28, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

But Amazon has a such a dirty pricing policy

I don’t bake much, and I never make pie crust. I know it’s easy, but I avoid anything that forces me to use a rolling pin (this includes cut cookies). Therefore, in the rare occasions when I make a pie, I buy pre-made pie shells.

Unfortunately, most store bought pie shells aren’t very good. They can be too tough, not flaky enough or have an unpleasant bitter baking soda taste. In addition, they are expensive! Enter Amazon Grocery pie shells.

At about $2 for 2 shells, these shells were surprisingly affordable – though beware that Amazon practices “dynamic” pricing, with products sometimes changing prices multiple times a day and coming in-and-out of inventory. Still, that’s half the price of the supermarket-brand pie shells. They were also surprisingly good. The shells are pretty thin, and while not flaky, their thinness stops them from being hard. They also have a pretty good flavor, slightly salty but that works well with sweet fillings as it provides a balance to them. That said, I used the shells in a sugar cream pie, and I’m not sure how well they will handle a pie with a significantly heavier filling, such as apple pie.

These shells come refrigerated and rolled up, with parchment paper separating them. Some of the dough stack to the paper, though it was easy enough to fix fix them.

I’ll definitely buy them again next time I bake a pie.

Update: Let’s talk about dynamic pricing. Just two days after I wrote this post, Amazon has doubled the price of the shells from $2 to $4!

Rana Pulled Pork Ravioli is … interesting

June 27, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

I love ravioli. It’s been my favorite pasta since I was a kid. Indeed, it was the only pasta I liked as a kid. This love comes from the fact that my grandparents used to make homemade ravioli, and they celebrated my first birthday with a raviolada, I love seeing the photos of my with a face full of sauce.

Short of having my grandmother make ravioli, I only had ravioli growing up when my father would buy the fresh pasta at a nearby pasta factory. But it was expensive. My parents were thrifty, so it was a special occurrence.

In the US (and in Argentina nowadays), you could get frozen ravioli for a reasonable price, so they were one of the first dishes I started “making” after I got married. I still always keep a bag of frozen ravioli in the fridge just in case.

With time, supermarkets started selling higher quality refrigerated ravioli, and recently Rana has moved into selling these “gourmet”-style ravioli, with unusual/special fillings. They were on sale this week ($5 for the 8 oz package, down from $8 regular price), so I grabbed a couple of bags.

I hadn’t had the pulled pork ravioli before and I was sort of puzzled by them – I still am. The pulled pork filling is very tasty, it has a strong, but balanced, BBQ pork flavor and stands well to the pasta. The flavor of fillings in ravioli often gets lost, but that is not the case here. Still, it was not clear to me why I was eating pulled pork inside a ravioli. The flavor/texture combination wasn’t really obvious and I’m still not sure that it worked. Again, it was tasty but it was weird.

I usually eat commercial ravioli with store-bought pasta sauce, but I didn’t think the flavor combinations would work here, so I tried these ravioli with butter – that worked well enough. I think brown butter and sage would work as well, though I was too lazy to make it last night. I did try it with some grated pecorino cheese, but the cheese does nothing here but confuse flavors – it’s definitely best left out. You do need butter or sauce as otherwise the ravioli get too sticky/gummy.

The other issue I have with these ravioli is the package size. The 8 oz package is supposed to offer two servings of one cup each. But unless you are serving them as an appetizer or along other dishes, or simply are not very hungry, a cup of ravioli is too little. Two cups, however, is too much unless you are actually very hungry. Now, the package might be perfect if you are making dinner for yourself and a young child, but that’s no longer my case. I wish they would increase the size to 12 oz, or perhaps decrease it to 6 oz. That said, $5 for a gourmet tasting meal is definitely not a bad price.

The ravioli themselves are pretty large – the kind you need to cut in two in order to fit into your mind. Obviously you can do this with a fork, but I personally prefer smaller ravioli.

I might buy these again to feed to my husband, who just loves pulled pork. But really, I wish Rana would just sell their pulled pork to eat in a sandwich, that feels more natural.

Mezetta Three Cheese Sauce Review

April 20, 2026 / marga / 0 Comments

Sometimes non-natural is tastier

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m currently in a cooking strike. Meanwhile, my youngest daughter has been doing a lot of cooking for herself. This means that commercial pasta sauce has reappeared in our kitchen.

In the last few years, a number of premium pasta sauces have made their appearance at the supermarket, led by Rao’s, named after the famous pasta restaurant in NYC. What characterizes premium sauces are that they are made with actual whole tomatoes and olive oil. Regular pasta sauces, on the other hand, are made with tomato puree and soybean or canola oil (Ragú, Prego) or a combination of tomato puree and diced tomatoes (Barilla, Bertolli and Classico).

Mezetta is the premium bland that most often goes on sale at Safeway, so I’ve now tried several of its flavors. I reviewed the roasted garlic one before. The ingredients for the basic sauce include “Italian Plum Tomatoes from Italy’s San Marzano Region, California Plum Tomatoes, Imported Olive Oil, Fresh Onions, Sea Salt, Fresh Garlic, Fresh Basil, Black Pepper, Spices,” plus whatever flavoring the particular sauce has. This one had cheese. It tasted exactly like would expect: tomato sauce with cheese. It’s actually pretty good as a dipping sauce. it has a very fresh, bright flavor and the cheese adds even more umami. I like it less on top of pasta. Served on ravioli, it was too acidic to compliment rather than overwhelm the filling. Even on just plain spaghetti, the acidity of the flavor is a bit too much. It needs something more substantial and absorbent, such as bread, to truly shine.

This, btw, has been my general complaint with the premium sauces – they are just not as good on pasta as the more cooked down, old-style and cheaper red sauces. Premium pastas tend to win taste tests when they are tasted on their own – and I can totally understand that – but it’s different to eat a whole bowl of pasta than taste a spoonful of pasta sauce.

Author: marga (Page 1 of 117)

Safeway Tri Tip Steak is not what’s depicted