NEW – Stuffed Melt AND Soup!

Stouffer’s Corner Bistro
Steak& Swiss Stuffed Melt with Broccoli Cheddar Soup

So my wife loves it when I write these reviews… she may not necessarily read them but she likes it when I am creative… turns her on. What turns me on is reading the new Steak& Swiss stuffed melt with broccoli cheddar soup is Herb-topped focaccia bread filled with beef steak, onions and mushrooms in a Swiss cheese sauce paired with creamy broccoli and cheddar cheese soup! Damn, that does sound delicious doesn’t it?

I like the layout of how you have to prepare this meal. You can easily take off the top of the box and it makes a tray for you food… very clever so far. Once you put in just your soup you have to take it out, stir it and then put your sandwich in one of those hot pocket sleeves. Once it is done you have to wait a minute or so and then you can enjoy. One thing I would take away from the cool tray idea is that the instructions should not only be on the underside of the tray but also on the inside of the top of the container that I just tore off… sure the microwave instructions are for one minute and thirty seconds, but I had already forgot what my next step was by the time the microwave went off. At the point where I was about to do the next step it would be a lot easier to be able to read the instructions if they were printed on the part that we were supposed to discard.
When I take my food out the soup really LOOKS like homemade soup (and my sandwich looks like a slightly exploded hot pocket). The soup looks better than most stuff that I would order at a restaurant and tastes like my wife Cassidy would really enjoy. I really like cheese soup, even though I claim I don’t like most cheeses, this tastes pretty incredible. I am surprised that the soup isn’t overheated either, it is a very pleasant surprise, and it doesn’t taste greasy or fake like I anticipated. I don’t know why I had that notion but I shouldn’t be surprised because the good people at Stouffer’s seem to do that a lot to me.

The steak & swiss stuffed melt exceeds my expectations too. The “focaccia” is good bread, but it certainly doesn’t taste like any focaccia I have ever tasted or made. I think they could have called it ciabatta and almost got away with it, that is how far it is from focaccia. I imagine the marketing staff coming up with pitches to name the bread… “ooh, lets pick focaccia, most Americans don’t know what it is and ciabatta is played out…” Oh, and "stuffed melt" seems to be the new way to say "hot pocket thingy" to consumers. Nitpicking aside it is very good. Much more than just another hot pocket look alike it is tasty and palatable. The soup certainly overshadows this part of the meal, I keep neglecting it to continue eating the soup. I kind of had the urge to dip my sandwich into the soup but I didn’t want to press my luck.
This meal is perfect for a cold or rainy day, I just felt so warm inside eating it. I don’t think I have liked a meal this much in a long time and now I just want to snuggle under some blankets with my honey and read a book.

In a word this meal was INCREDIBLY delightful.

Chef Inspired!

So what can I say about Hot Pockets that Jim Gaffigan hasn't already said? They are pretty much the lowest rung on the "microwaved-food food-chain". I figured that there are certain staples out there that everyone has had, and that I could take for granted that they have tried. I think Hot Pockets have had thier day in the spotlight between constant comericials in the 90's to Jim Gaffigan's entire 2 hour rant about them on HBO. Regardless, I knew that if I did a Hot Pocket review the product would have to really stand out for me, and then one day it hit me. I was walking down the frozen food isle in Wal-Mart and at the frozen food encap, and I saw a new Lean Pocket variety of Hot Pockets, it said "Simply Delicious" on its packaging. Delicious happening to be one of my many favorite words I knew I had to pick these up.

The preperation of these were simple like they always are. When you cook them just put the hotpocket in the microwave sleave and presto! You will than have boiling hot lava in the center of your hot pocket. The particular flavor was the Spinach Artichoke flavor that promised that it was "chef inspired". Is being chef inspired anything like being a couch potato and claiming to be the quarterback for the New York Jets because that gives you an idea how closely related they are. If a chef made hot pockets it would be called strombolli, if a quarter back ran 50 yards it'd be a touchdown and not cardiac arrest. I guess what I am trying to say is that this meal is no more "chef inspired" than I am by looking at a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree that reads "hang in there".

The meal was pretty tasteless overall. Every once in a while I would get a string of mystery cheese that would bridge between my mouth and the hot pocket (which is always fun, it makes me feel like I am in a commercial.) The "grilled chicken" was closer to chicken than the Hungry Man meal that I ate yesterday so that is always a plus. Overall it was still pretty disappointing, even for a hot pocket.

There was so many things that pissed me off about this meal. The fact that the instructions called the hot pocket a sandwich being the main one. The silly sleave that you cook your hot pocket also doubles as a holder now.. wahoo. What I always wanted. The final thing being that the description of the product is "Grilled white meat chicken, artichoke and low fat cheese with spinach in a crust" After reading that I decided that the Hot Pocket marketing team outsourced that description to India. Here is what I would have written, had I actually cared... "Grilled white meat chicken, with fresh artichokes and spinach in a creamy low fat cheese sauce served in a flaky pastry crust" Bam! If you need help let me know... jackasses

In a word this meal was simply tasteless.

Cook Time: 2 minutes 15 Seconds

Nutritional Information found here.