I purchased two bags of these the last time I was at Dollar Tree. Since I live along the more rural edge of a suburban area, I don't get to the store all that frequently, so I was happy to be able to pick up some frozen fruit, since the fresh fruit doesn't last long. The bag was pretty heavy, and had a lot of blueberries in it for what I paid, which was $1 per bag, since I was shopping at Dollar Tree, where everything is $1. I was planning to have some nice blueberries for dessert one night, and had defrosted the bag earlier that day. After I filled a small bowl with the berries, which were very small, I decided to eat a few, before adding the whipped cream, and I'm glad I did. I'm not a fussy person. I don't mind a few bitter berries in the batch, but besides being undersized, the berries were very tart, and had somewhat of a chemical taste. I assume the chemical taste was from preservatives. I ultimately threw the bag out. It was a disappointing experience, and I won't purchase them again.
Oh no, that sounds terrible, Diane! I didn't know your Dollar stores carried some perishables? You wouldn't get that sort of thing in the UK ones in and well, Botswana doesn't have Pula (Botswana currency) stores LOL. I don't really like blueberries at the best of times. I basically eat them for their nutritional value. I never find very sweet ones, but i've never come across very tangy ones either. I wonder if a little drizzle of honey would have helped. Or do you think they were off?
@Lushlala They carry a small selection of frozen foods, and I've always been very happy with my purchases there. That's where I usually buy my sweet potato fries, and they have tasty egg rolls. I like to get the egg rolls, and tend to stock up on them, especially during Lent, because they have lobster and shrimp varieties. They're the perfect size for lunch, and are easy to prepare. That's why I was so disappointed with the blueberries. I'd rather have half of the volume, but better quality. I wouldn't bother drizzling them with honey or whipped cream, because I'd just end up throwing them out, and wasting those, as well. I will try the second package to verify if it was something about that particular bag, but I have a feeling it was just the way they were processed. I have two bags of sliced peaches in the freezer that I bought there as well, and I haven't tried those yet, but I'm hopeful that they will taste better, and I won't have to toss those as well.
@Diane Lane....I do hope it was just that one bad batch and that when you try again, there's an improvement! You guys are so lucky over in the US. Some of our Pound shops and 'bargain' shops in the UK do carry some food items, but it's usually cereals and canned stuff. I guess you made the right choice to just throw them out, rather than waste your cream and honey
Haha @Lushlala, both cream and honey are expensive, and I wasn't about to waste either of them. I'm glad you suggested honey, though, because that's not something I would have thought of using, and in the future, if I do get a good, but tart batch of berries, I'm going to try doing that. I only discovered the frozen section of Dollar Tree last year, and gave it a shot, buying some small fish fillets for Lent. Since then, I've purchased other items, and have been happy with all of them until this time. I do hope the frozen peaches are better, because I want to make a nice cobbler with them, or might even just eat them with some homemade ricotta .
Wow, that is too bad! Personally, I would put up with them for a dollar a bag. I just bought some frozen blueberries because the fresh were so expensive. They were 2.75 a bag which was cheap compared to the fresh. I notice the fresh are on sale this week though, so I will buy some albeit, a bit reluctantly, because I hate spending a lot of money on things.
@Ke I know frozen fruit is prohibitively expensive at most stores. I'll have to look around or watch for sales, because there's no way I'd ever buy these again. The chemical taste was very off putting, and I would never recommend them. Thankfully, the prices of fresh fruit should be coming down, since it's almost Spring, and I tend to use fresh, not frozen, when it's in season.
@Diane Lane, well I hear you on that. I was shocked yesterday when I went to the local Food Lion and looked at the blueberries, they were on sale for 3.00. There were probably 30 or 40 berries in the package. It was absurd, probably less than half a pint. The frozen ones were high as well. I am going to look today in the cheap store to see how much they are,( if they have frozen) I know they don't have fresh. There must have been some kind of a blueberry blight or something! Costco has good prices on blueberries. That might be the place to purchase them.
