No Way… what mystery animal did this meat come from?

What the hell am I eating? This meal has some of the most questionable looking meat in it I have ever ingested! Unfortunately for me today I am having Sweet Teriyaki chicken by Tai Pei. I will start out by saying that I had no intention of writing a food review today so I didn’t prepare myself mentally for the shock of the meal I was about to eat. First of all the cooking time is 5-6 minutes, and then another grueling 3-5 minute standing time… The meal smelled wonderful while I waited for it to finish but was sadly disappointed when I opened the microwave and unwrapped my lunch. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at the “new and improved recipe” looked like. I noticed a piece of “grilled chicken” that was more like grilled gristle with sear marks on it attached to what tasted like a piece of petrified wood from the Jurassic period. I played off my first piece of absolutely disgusting chicken as a mistake, but I tried it anyway… just to see if it tasted as bad as it looked. Yes, it did. Not only was it gross it was not the only piece in this pile of trash I promised myself that I would finish for the sake of this review. I tried the dehydrated tasting carrots followed by the over cooked broccoli. My favorite part of the whole meal was the pineapple… yes I said it, p i n e a p p l e. There was one piece of pineapple in the whole container and it was delicious… too bad there wasn’t as many pieces as the picture on the container. I guess when I list an ingredient and there is only one piece it should say “may contain pineapple.” I guess it is just like when I order a pizza from Dominoes I expect more than one pepperoni when I order it with pepperoni. This meal was so disappointing to me because I adore Tai Pei’s Chicken Egg Rolls and I was hoping for some of the same quality and great taste that they have always had with this meal.

In a word this meal was very disgusting.
Cook Time: just don’t… save yourself some time.

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.

RisottOMG

Marie Callender's Creamy Chicken & Portobello Risotto

Ok, don't get excited I am not doing these reviews again regularly... I just couldn't resist doing another review when I saw that Marie Calendar is doing "American Recipes" in her Fresh Flavor Steamer line of microwave meals.

This meal promises White Meat Chicken with Rice and Portobello Mushrooms in a Creamy Chardonnay Sauce. Well, the meal is cooking now so let's see if this Chardonnay Sauce really holds up to the test of microwave radiation being bombarded at it in a 1200 watt microwave oven.

Well, when I took the meal out of the microwave I could smell all of it's "mushroomy" goodness right away. If my nose serves me right this is going to be very tasty. One thing I have noticed so far is that the meal looks more like a soup than a risotto. I am not a risotto connoisseur by any means... I just have never seen it look this way when Alton Brown cooks it up.

At first bite the chicken tasted a little tough... that is a little out of character for a Marie Callender meal so I will say it is a fluke. The flavor overall is very good. It is a delicate flavor that would be over powered by a soda if you ate it with it. I don't want to take anything away from its overall flavor, it is a good kind of subtle that makes the mushroom really stand out. The seasoning and flavor of the risotto is present, and not one to be outdone in this meal, the chicken tastes better with my successive bites.

I really like this meal and I am pleasantly surprised by the flavor consistency as I eat it. I will definitely be picking this up again. If you are a fan of mushrooms I would definitely pick this up for your next lunch hour.

Thanks for reading, and in a word this meal was very delightful.

Cooking time: 5 minutes, one minute stand time.

Spinachy Goodness

I have been a little burnt out on writing my reviews but this micro-waved delight had to be reviewed. I have had a couple of really good suggestions for items to be reviewed so I am going to get those done this week…motivation permitting.

Today I am reviewing all of the spinachy goodness that is the Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Chicken, Spinach, and Mushroom Panini. The sandwich has chicken, spinach (yum), mushrooms (hoooooray), Red peppers (woot!), and cheese sauce (wtf) on Italian Bread.

I have had this meal, and many meals like it, in the past. Stouffer’s is a name I have found that I can count on to make a good micro-waved meal, and pending any instruction following errors I am sure that you will find the same to be true. For the purposes of every review I follow the instructions to a “T”.

The meal at hand today was no exception from the rule that “all Stouffer’s products are decent”. I really enjoyed the aromas that emanated from the microwave while cooking, I could distinctly smell the spinach, mushrooms and peppers cooking.

The disappointing thing about the meal over all is that the sandwich seams greasy when it comes out of the microwave. I always suggest a minute or two stand time anyways but this doesn’t help in the case of this meal. Have plenty of napkins handy unfortunately, but don’t let that take away from your enjoyment of the meal. With every bite there is a blast of veggie flavor that leaves my mouth wanting more… I was salivating more than a group of women at a weightwatchers meeting when the girl scout cookies arrived. (Damnedable thin mints!)

This meal is really enjoyable if you like any of the listed ingredients, but nothing is greater than the sum of its parts. Stouffer’s has really done a great job with this sandwich and I am sure I will be getting it again in the future.

In a word, this meal was very delightful.

On a side note I think I made up the word spinachy…

Garlic and Caesar... who wants more?

Today for lunch I had Grilled Chicken Caeser by Lean Cuisine. It is described as "white meat chicken, broccoli& garlic flavored radiatore pasta in a parmesan caesar sauce" and it did not disappoint. The chicken picked up a lot of the garlic and caesar flavor making every bite delicious. There was plenty of radiatore, once of my personal favorite pasta shapes to cook with, that was perfectly cooked. The pasta didn't have a "dry" taste that I have run into in the last couple weeks. The broccoli seemed a little overcooked, but then again when is it any better in any other meal. I think someone should invest in broccoli microwave technology... or make some sort of broccoli hybrid that can withstand microwave radiation. My fear is if the powers that be did something like that there would be all of these failed experiments, one of them resulting in giant-man eating broccoli that levels cities. On that thought, I guess I will stick to soggy broccoli for now.

The cooking instructions where standard with one exception, the timing of the instructions were perfect. Since I follow the instructions every time to a T I sometimes find that when the instructions tell me to stir the food it is still mostly frozen, but not in this case. When I lifted the plastic to stir the pasta the room filled with the garlic caesar aroma and made my mouth water. Imagine my dismay when one of the radiatore pastas tried to escape onto the counter top... I ate him for his insolence. (I had to set an example for the others) Each bite that I had was better than the last, I just about licked the countainer that it was cooked in it was that good. I think I would have if I wasn't wearing such a nice shirt too. :) This was so good I just thought to myself "garlic... caesar... who wants more?" What a great flavor profile to combine and it made an amazing frozen meal.

I know this review is so silly and wonky but I was so excited after eating this it put me in a great mood. They really outdid themselves with this one, and it is "diet". I suggest any fan of garlic or caesar to try this food, it was so delicious.

In a word this meal was very delightful!

Cook time: 3 minutes, stir then 1 minute

Stand Time: 1-2 Minutes

Nutritional information found here.

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.

XXL

Intimidating, fierce, and aggresive... no I am not describing a datewith Kobe Byrant. I am describing Hungry Man's Southern Fried Chicken Dinner. This meal was a mans man meal, it practically says so right there in the title... "Hungry, no pussys allowed, Man Dinner" This meal is just straight meat and potatoes, the only two requirements every man wants out of a meal when they are hungry. I actually had bought the Hungry Man meal to try out Sunday,and I had not ate all day. When I set aside time to eat it the time was 3pm, and I looked at these huge portions I thought "I am not even THIS hungry"

To describe the meal a bit, it is over a pound and a half of food... that is three times larger than a frozen meal that I typically would review. I didnt like the preperations instructions at all either, having multiple phases for cooking a meal always makes me grumpy because it takes away my quality facebook time, lol. I realize they were probably pretty neccisary considering the portion size of the potatoes and that there is about a pound of

proccessed chicken to eat. The actual meal was satisfactory, had I been as ravenous as one would have to be to eat this much food I am sure it would be delicious. My first impression of the potatoes was that they were earthy, like they had been made hastely by someone that didn't bother to clean the potato skins before they made "skin-on" mashed potatoes. No such luck for me though, these were certainly instant mashed potatoes with a brown gravy. I suppose it didnt matter that there was a brown gravy with a poultry dish, considering I wasn't actually eating chicken, but three over-sized chicken nuggets. They breading was a spicey southern style c

oating that was very paletable, but the actual chicken was certainly more processed than I would like it to have been. I just imagine it being made out of chicken beaks, feet, or whatever they had laying around... isn't that what chicken nuggets are? Chicken nuggets are the hot dog of the poultry world, and these patties were its foot-longs. I gave it my best shot at eating the meal, I think I started to loose self respect at about one of the nuggets to begin with anyway... I could only manage to eat two of the three mega sized nuggets and about a third of the potatoes before I completely started to hate myself. I actually offered my coworkers the remainder of my meal because I felt so guilty for waisting so much food. Even as I write this I am ashamed that I am not man enough to eat an XXL portion of a Hungry Man dinner. I guess I am just not cut out for it.

The meal itself wasnt that bad, I can look past the processed chicken

to some extent... if I can eat a hotdog I can eat this. There was simply too much food. The actual cook time is 10 minutes long with a 2 to 3 minute wait time because of the sheer amount of it. I didn't even eat my whole meal and I had realized I went over my lunch break by a half an hour just to eat what I did. As a word of caution I wouldn't attempt to eat this unless you are a trained professional... or if arent a pussy like I am apparently.

In a word this meal was unessicarily large and mediocre.

Cook Time: 3 minutes with chicken removed then 7 minutes more with chicken.

Stand Time: 2-3 Minutes

Nutrional Information: Dont do it! Unless you are splitting this amongst your family of four.

I feel like I should be Morgan Spurlock and eat one of these every day over a 30 day period just to see how much these mess me up.

Go Sawx!

"This kind of inspiration is always good for my blog" i said as I ate bite after bite of Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie ice cream.

"what? let me try that..." my wife says as i interupt her with "it says it is Boston cream pie icecream with yellow cake pieces, fudge flakes, and swirls of pastry cream". I didnt realize that by the time I was done reading the lid she is enjoying her first bite of it.

"wow, what is this" she says as she is gesturing to the pastry cream with her spoon.

"I guess that is the pastry cream...can I have that back" I plea with her.

"Do you wanna trade?" she offers.

Needless to say, I loose out on the trade, and more out on that later, but I really really enjoyed this flavor. I don't think I have ever seen this flavor on the shelves before or a "new" anywhere on the container.

The flavor almost starts out pretty errie because the icecream itself tastes like boston cream pie. The other elements of the ice cream like the chocolate flakes, pastry cream, and yellow cake just reinforce that flavor and bring the whole experience together.

I highly suggest all bostonians and cake lovers to give it a shot. The flavor was so good it had this yankees fan saying "go sawx"

In a word, this icecream was very delightful!

Good News!

Hello everyone! It has been a little while since I have done a blog post so I figured I would let you know what I have been up to lately. The last couple weeks have been really fun and exciting traveling all over the United States on my very successful book tour. I have been busy signing autographs, photos, and my New York Times Best Selling book that just made it into Oprah's Book of the Month Club.

Having all of that said, this week I really wanted to do something really daring for a review week so I decided to go with a theme. The theme for this week is Microwave Seafood Meals! Specifically fish because I think everyone is a little aprehensive to try microwaved fish, and rightfully so. I have two reviews already underway and I am just waiting to upload them in the morning, complete with pictures and all. The reviews so far are surprisingly good. I guess they would have to be for as low as my expectations are for them, but I will let each individual meal speak for itself.

I would like to thank everyone again for taking time to read my blog and purchasing my book!

(Hey, a man can dream can't he)

So, if anyone would like to contribute a review or suggest different products I will be working on adding those sections this week as well. Thanks again for reading :)

The Emperor’s New Food

I really wanted to do something different. I wanted to do something that was out of the box for me because that is what I ask my blog readers to do everyday. I ask them to try a food that they may not have normally tried, based solely on my opinion and description of the food that I eat. So today I went out of the realm of what was normal for me and tried a meal by Kashi… yes Kashi. Friends said that I would be surprised how good the food was and boy were they right. I was very surprised how good it was to say the least. So surprised in fact that I think I actually over estimated how good that it was going to be. The food was not nearly as good as one would expect from a company that prides themselves like Kashi does. Their pompous, better than everyone else commercials, we care about the environment, blah blah blah crap doesn't cut it when it comes down to actual taste. I really feel like this was a case of "the emperors new clothes". Let me explain… Kashi is overpriced and it gives the consumer a higher perceived value, and their marketing would lead you to believe that as well. People want it to taste good because it is all natural and good for you. Well, I am not falling for it! This was crap! If I were at a restaurant I would tell them to take it back and give me something that had flavor in it. The pasta sauce was pretty flavorless, the actual food was watery. This was so bad in fact that I had to go and make another meal. I know it is more entertaining when I rip apart a meal for tasting like sawdust , or being soggy, but once in a while I would like something to taste good. :o)

This meal was completely gross. It was downright unedible! I was trying to eat the wheat noodles and tasteless sauce when I bit into some "mystery vegetable". I had no idea what it was… it looked like a branch from a Birch tree, lol. The funny thing was that the mystery vegetable at least had flavor, it wasn't good flavor, but it was flavor nonetheless. The meal itself needed one of the steamer baskets from the Healthy choice meals, but I am sure that would be to rough on the planet… boo hoo. That'd be too much plastic, *cry*. It was too much on my stomach, that food was grool. I will probably never give them another chance in the micro-wave ring again. :o)

I will upload the pictures tomorrow, I am going home with an upset stomach. (jk, that'd be the ultimate eff you to kashi).

An ode to Pizza

Pizza is pizza. You can make pizza a million different ways and it still tastes great. You really cant mess up a pizza in my opinion, there is no one right way for sure. Look at businesses like CiCi's. By no means are places like CiCi's, Domino's, or even Pizza Hut the best and yet they are still in business. I think the reason they are still around is because Pizza is more than a meal, it is a bonding ritual. Everytime I eat pizza, especially the bad kind, I am reminded of my childhood. I remember having terrible school made pizza that was shipped in from other schools. The dough was this thick spongey mass that had no crust around its edges. Just imagine that crust with a sweet style marinara sauce, and terrible plasticy cheese and you have Parley Coburn's pizza. God, I miss that pizza. It is true, probably the worst pizza I have ever had and yet I get nostalgic for it like an old girlfriend. I remember eating Pizza in first grade and up with my best friends Joey Maynard, Paul Osteen, Mike Malone, Andy Peirce, and the list goes on and on. Friday's meant pizza and ninja turtles to me then, now it means a whole lot of good memories before life was complicated.

So when I say that today's review was good cause it reminded me of that pizza don't think I am silly. It doesn't really even taste like it or look like it at all, believe me it is a thousand times better. I was pretty hungry, waiting for my micro-waved pizza and I got a little giddy. The smell was filling the room, even overpowering the previously cooked meal by my coworker. I thought to myself "ah, it is pizza day, like so many Friday's way back when." Then for no reason at all I just thought of all of the pizza's that I had before this. Going to my oldest friends house, Joe Maynard, having pizza with him and playing nintendo games (back before it mattered what kind of graphics games had.) Playing roleplaying games with my friends and ordering two sheet pizza's from Pudgies and breaking the game only long enough to get our fingers greasy with some delicious pizza grease. (my wife hates pizza grease, she must be some kind of communist, lol) Then now as an adult going to Pizza Hut with my wife and two children it all makes sense to me. Pizza is pizza and it doesn't matter what it tastes like, just as long as if you have fun eating it.

In a word, I had pizza… it doesn't matter, it was worth the memories.

Cook time: 2:45 minutes

Stand time: 0:30 minutes

Nutritional information found here.

Leave a comment, write a favorite pizza story, or just say hi… thanks for reading and God Bless.

I love my Pizza, thanks for all the great Pizza memories!

Bad Decision

Have you ever seen or done something that made you a little gun shy to do the same thing again? Like if you take a sexual harassment class you will be hesitant to say something off color for at least a couple days after the class. I hope you can relate to that analogy because I know that it is that way for me and I certainly say a lot of off color remarks, but I am working on that. Well, I will be a lot more hesitant to try Asian Inspired frozen food by almost any brand now. Yesterday I had the Thai-something-something by Never-try-this-crap-again, or was it Smart Ones… It was, now I am sure of it. It was weight Watcher's Smart Ones: Thai Style Chicken & Rice Noodles from their Bistro Selections.

This has been the only meal I think I have had where the picture on the box didn't look nearly as good as the food inside. I was really surprised by their lack of effort on their packaging for this product. When I micro-waved the meal it smelled all right so every early indication of my meal was that it was going to be pretty good. After the initial stand time of the meal I stirred everything together and looked pretty good like I mentioned. Fortunately for the reader I took pictures on my journey as I ate what would be considered a bad decision at the end of the day.
I really went against my better judgment when I bought this because I did think "how good can Asian diet food be?" After my first bite I wasnt so uphauled by the taste as the texture. The food left a filmy residue in my mouth. I have never had that from rice noodles or any microwave food.

At this point I didn't want to eat anymore, but my momma didn't raise no food waisting fool.

After a long meal, and much regret I managed to almost clean my plate.

I took a deep breath and inhaled the rest of my food so I could say that I had ate the entire meal.

I wasnt very happy with myself after eating all of that and my stomach let me know he wasn't happy. That brings me to wonder, if my stomach had a voice who's voice would it sound like. I would like to think it would sound like Mr. T when it was angry at me, but realistically it would sound more like Mort Goldman from Family Guy. For now I am just going to pretend my stomach's voice is Christopher Walken, the greatest actor of all time!

So in short, todays meal was without a doubt not a bit delightful.

Cook Time: 3 Minutes... (or something just dont eat this)

Stand Time: 2 minutes (I remember that at least)

Time til I had to rush to the bathroom: 2 Minutes

Nutritional information on the Weight Watchers website, and it was 5 points for those counting.

Voodoo Magic!

Lunch today was so a.maz.ing! I decided that for the rest of this week I would eat "diet" frozen foods that appeal to a growing boy like myself. I really like doing these reviews but the nutrional information sometimes is a little bit scary so I took the initiative and went the diet route. So for today's lunch I had a chicken, spinach, and mushroom Panini that had red peppers and a (non descript) cheese sauce on Italian bread. I always have to point out when a cheese is non descript because they can get away with any flavor they want. I would rather thing I was eating a poorly made swiss than a cheese food (like Valveta… yuck). Other than a poorly worded description of cheese there was nothing at all wrong with this meal. I absolutely loved it!

I had no intentions of this being a good meal at all. When I looked at the packaging it showed that the Panini had grill marks on it and I laughed a little. So when I setup the Panini to grill my curiosity had me looking at the under side of the bread to make sure there was the pre-made grill marks on the package… none? "What is this, I got ripped… no premade grill marks?" I thought to myself. I know these grill marks are all fake and all but why did I get rooked out of my fake grill marks? A little disappointed, and with a heavy heart I put the meal in the microwave and let it cook for 3 minutes. After the suggested, and incredibly short stand time of 30 seconds I took the Panini out of the microwave. I flipped over one half of the sandwich onto the other to make my delicious smelling sandwich complete and what do I see… GRILL MARKS. What kind of voodoo magic is this?!?! Where did these grill marks come from? Where in the world did these grill marks come from… someone answer me! I looked around the break room and checked to see if someone secretly put a Panini grill in there, and switched out my meal. No such luck.

I had to take pictures of the completed meal and I just kept shaking my head, I was so impressed with the "revolutionary grilling tray". I wasn't even going to mention every stupid promise that these meals offer, but they really delivered on this one. I am so shocked! Imagine my surprise when I took my first bite into my very toasty Panini. You think I was excited just to see that it looked grilled. It was grilled and it was delicious! It was so tastey and warm! The spinach and mushrooms were incredible tasting and the chicken was spot on. I can't believe that this was that good! It was so good in fact it made me wonder why people couldn't stick to diets (like myself)! I know that is aweful, but now I want to eat one of these things for 4 meals a day… wait 3. L (maybe that is why I have a weight problem.) I don't think I can review anything else for lunch from now on these were that good.

I guess I could review these everyday: "Lean Cuisine Panini… STILL AWESOME!"

I highly recommend this product to anyone that has a taste for mushrooms and spinach, or if you just want to check out its cool "revolutionary grilling technology"

In a word, my meals was amazingly delightful!

Cook time: 2:45 minutes to 3:15 minutes

Stand time: 30 seconds!

Nutritional Information found here.

Looks can be deceiving

Today for lunch I had another Marie Callender Meal that I really wanted to try. It was thier Country Fried Pork Chop, and do I love country fried anything! Too bad this is not another love story like the Rigatoni was unfortunately. I had really high expectations for this meal. Why shouldn't I, the picture on the box is really good looking. The packaging is a bit weird once I opened it but other than that I didn't have a clue that it wasn't going to be good.

The cooking instructions were intriguing when I first read them. The instructions called for the preparer to puncture the gravy bag that is stuck to the top of the microwave trays film covering. After doing the usual puncturing of this and that you have to take the lava-hot gravy bag off the top of the tray and stir the potatoes. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the potatoes, they had seemed like the major selling point when I saw the packaging, and they were just a shadow of what was promised.

Once I was done with the familiar song and dance of microwaved meal preparation and letting it stand I sat down with my disappointing looking potatoes… I mean meal. I shouldn't put all of the focus on the potatoes, but looking at the
picture you have to admit they look awesome on the packaging. I sit down to start eating and put the gravy on the meal like it is illustrated. Wow, this gravy is tasteless, and I am a "gravy man" if there ever was one. I love to slather any potato dish with gravy and this was as tasteless as it gets. Good for my reading audience I can identify all of the ingredients of any meal just on taste alone.

To give you an idea how the gravy tasted I will give you what my interpretation of the gravy recipe was:

2 parts water

1 Dash of black pepper to taste

1 part Saw dust (either pine or maple will do)

So if you want the great Marie Callendar Gravy taste for your meal stop by your local Lowes Hardware store and ask for a bag of their finest saw dust, I am sure they will be happy to oblige.

Overall the most disappointing this was pretty much the mashed potatoes and gravy. The breaded pork cutlet wasn't bad at all, but it was overshadowed by the tasteless sides of the meal. I wasn't a huge fan of the vegetables either; they tasted more like boiled vegetables than micro-waved. I expect sub par vegetables from Banquet but not from Marie Callendar at all.

Maybe I will chalk up today's review to false advertising. There is no way that this meal could look as good as it does on the packaging and I was really disappointed as a result of this (well, that and the really bad gravy…shame shame shame.) I guess with this long of cooking time and preparations that had to be made I expect a much better meal.

Overall, this meal was not very delightful.

Cooking time: 4 minutes, then 4 minutes

Stand Time: 2 minutes

 

Where is the Banquet?

Today for lunch I had Banquet's Pork Barbeque patty with corn and mashed potatoes. To be honest, you would be shot in St Louis if you did a taste test between these and real ribs. Heck, you should be shot in South Carolina for even thinking that! Whether or not you like a dry rub or a liquid smoked pork bbq rib will not matter when it comes to these ribs, they are about as much a rib as I am Jamaican. I have had Banquet's Micro-waved "meals" plenty of times, most of those times I was broke and a bachelor too. They are like one step above eating Raman Noodles in my book and just a few steps below eating a burger off Burger King's dollar menu. I never really thought of the irony of the brand name Banquet until I started writing this review. There is a bit of false advertising with their brand name in my opinion, in order to better reflect their name they should be called "school cafeteria" or "Airplane Food". (I tried to come up with something better believe me, I am just not that clever)

Just look up what a banquet is on google image search here. The general populace has a different idea of what a banquet is and what they are selling for $0.88 a pop at Wal-Mart. I know, it is terrible that I am reviewing this product to begin with but when I think of bad, inedible food I think of Banquet. I used to eat the hell out of these things, I won't lie about that, but I was young and naive. You can't blame me for being young and broke. J

The one redeeming factor of this meal is that they barbeque sauce isn't as bad as one might imagine. The downside is everything else, literally. The packaging seems to be like every other microwave meal, except for the fact that the food compartments don't really hold the food as much as they kind of just have an idea of where they should go. The corn will be in the potatoes and visa versa, and there is always something from both sides in the main entrée section. I don't know why they even bother dividing the food, they clearly fall short with this in every Banquet meal I have EVER had. The sad thing is that none of that was an exaggeration. The "pork" was more soy than meat in my opinion. If you look at the ingredients it says that the pork bbq rib is pork and soy proteins. I think I could fool a vegetarian into eating this and they wouldn't even notice it was pork. On a side note too the potatoes looked like potatoes this time and not potato soup which is always an improvement. The corn was terrible, it tasted like corn but had the texture of raisins (just imagine that for a minute for me.)

Also, I tried to make this meal look good. I tried to make it as awesome as it is on the packaging and I failed miserably. There is no way that you can make it look that good, given the same plates and props you would find out that you are 4 oz of potatoes short and you would need real corn (not the corn-raisin hybrid I had to endure earlier.) I found that once I had the whole meal on the paper plate that I had way less than the promised 10 oz of food on the packaging. Looking at my abandoned sauce filled container I realized how they got the 10 oz mark that they promised… with about 2 to 3 oz of sauce. The sauce filled plastic container was not a surprise to me, it is the same tricks that canned vegetables have doing to us for years with added water content.

I really can't believe how many bad things I have to say about this meal, but then again I am not surprised.

In a word, this meal was not at all delightful.

Cooking time: 3 minutes, stir then 2:30 minutes
Stand time: 1-2 minutes

I am not going to list the nutritional information because you should not be eating this, but if you want to know who to blame click here.

Can you tell what one of these is the microwaved meal?

My inspiration

Ok, so today's lunch is an easy one, and considering how tired I am that is a good thing. This microwave meal by Stouffer's is the reason why I wanted to start doing a blog to begin with. It is the Stouffer's Corner Bistro Chicken Quesadilla Flatbread Melt! WOOT! This thing is so good! I had 2 of my coworkers come into my office asking me what that great smell was. Normally I would offer them a bite but I had to keep its roasted red peppers, poblano peppers, onions, cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, and chicken on a seasoned flatbread to myself! I really do love this and it beats the hell out of any cold and thrown together sandwich (right Tony… yeah I

called out my brother.) I posted a pic of this on my facebook lastweek recomending this to everyone and to my surprise people listened. My friend, and arch-enemy, Brandon tried this and he liked it so I decided to go ahead and do a full review.

The seasoned flatbread is really good, it is one of the meals many defining qualities. I remember the first time I had tried it I had thought "oh this is so good!"and as the bits of seasoning was falling off onto my plate I was trying to use other bits of flatbread to take back what gravity had stolen from me. The peppers and onions are great, that seams to be a strong suit of Stouffer's so far. I just imagine the execs sitting around their oversized table, all brainstorming ideas for new food, and one of them hatching this idea: "If we put really good vegetables on the sandwiches they will not care what they rest of the sandwhich tastes like" and another one pipes up "or if our toasted subs arent really toasted…" The rest of the room glares at him, then they burst out in laughter "hahaha". [see the Toasted Sub review] The chicken is good, it has those fake grill marks on it wich always kind of make me laugh to myself, I don't know who they think they are fooling. The chicken isn't bad by anymeans, but we know it isnt really grilled. Then again the chicken is as real as any sandwich meat is, except it has more of a texture of what real chicken is like. I really like the texture of the meal as a whole, every thing blends well overall. I really can't say enough good things about this meal, but if I could just say one thing it would be "try this". I greatly enjoyed this, and it is probably my first or second favorite thing I have reviewed so far.

In a word, my meal was very delightful.

Let me know what you think! If you try this or any of the products after I suggest it let me know, I would love to hear your feedback. Thanks again for reading, god bless.

Cook Time: 2:30 minutes

Stand Time: 1 minute

Nutritional information here.

I apologize about the lack of pictures on this review... the pictures must have been so delicious that my camera ate them. :)

Asian Inspired?

I really feel like a new food critic now. This weekend I went to a couple of grocery stores to get things for the house, but not with out stopping at the frozen food section each time to see if there was any standout items there. While perusing the different selections at my local Wal-Mart I noticed the freezer end-cap had NEW! Marie Callendar's Asian Recipes that had the same packaging as their Al Dente meals and it really caught my eye. It was another meal that promises to deliver on its steam basket packaging. Having such good luck with the last meal that promised the same thing I was sure that this would follow in its footsteps. To be exact it promises "steam fresh taste" which sounds great if you ask me.

I grabbed a couple of the new selections that were in the case, and today I tried the Chicken Stir-Fry with vegetables. The "stir-fry" had all of the elements of a great stir fry: chicken, white rice, carrots, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and water chestnuts in a soy garlic sauce. I really like the variety of vegetables that they used for the meal, they added a lot of flavor to the meal as a whole. The problem as a whole was that it was anything but Asian to me in my eyes, it was pretty good, but certainly not Asian or even Asian fusion. I was really expecting more flavor to the meal that made the meal compliment each other as a whole, for example a Terriaki flavor would have been appreciated. Instead I get this bland sort of illusion of what Asian food is supposed to be. I was eating the meal and picked up the packaging re-reading the cover. I had to make sure I didn't skip a step…

1. Remove contents from package (ok, I got that one)
   




2. Microve on high 4 1/2 minutes… yada yada yada
   




3. Carefully take out of microwave..something something something
   
   

Nope, there isnt a line that says "add Asian flavor" as I was hoping that I was missing something. Then as I looked over the package again I saw it in little print on the back of the package… "Asian Inspired"… "Oh my god! I have been duped!" They pulled a fast one on me, this isnt even close to an Asian flavor in my mind and then I read their subconscience disclaimer to avoid comsumer complaints. This asian meal is as asian as Chef Boyardee is Italian.

I really feel like they just dropped the ball with their sauce choice, it is good don't get me wrong, but it isnt really asian. I don't know if doing asian food in a steamer basket is a good idea anyway so maybe in that is the core of the problem. I make some Asian fusion foods for my wonderful wife all the time (she loves it when I mention her) and the best part… no, the make or break part, is always getting the sauces just right. I don't know if it is the lack of quality ingredeants or just for lack of trying, but a wise man once told me that you cant make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I don't think I will be trying any more "asian inspired" meals anymore, outside of the ones that I have already purchased. I will make sure that I point out anyone of them that stand out as good, but for now I will stick with my final say on this matter.

In a word, my meal was not as delightful as I hoped.

Cooking Time: 4:30 Minutes

Stand Time: None Listed

Nutrional Information for this and all other Marie Callendar meals can be found on the ConAgra website.

How Italian is this? About as Italian as this meal was Asian.

Toasty

Let me just start out by saying thank you to all of my friends and family that have bothered to read my blog this week. I have had a tremendous amount of fun doing this, and I hadn't anticipated liking it this much. Please feel free to leave any comments that you have on any of my "reviews" and thank you again. :o)

Being that today is Friday I thought that I would do a sure fire, easy, and sure to be delicious review. For lunch today I had Stouffer's Corner Bistro Philly-style Steak & Cheese Toasted Sub (say that 5 times fast). One of the first things I do now when I am getting ready for lunch is I prepare myself for what could be a possibly long wait for my meal. I had no idea until the other day that you don't necessarily cook micro-waved meals on your time, but their time *shakes fist at Boston Market Oven Roasted Chicken Review*. I read the time to animate my "Toasted Sub" that clearly says "Bakery Fresh Taste in minutes." I read that the cooking time is 2 minutes and 45 seconds with a one minute wait time. I can handle that kind of wait" I think to myself as I take the "Toasted" sub out of its lifeless packaging. It is wrapped in plastic and I am assuming to look like a sort of Sandwich-body-bag. I rearrange the Stouffer's packaging I am now pretty familiar with and place it on its perch. A short 4 minutes or so I take it out of the microwave and it smells pretty good, but I am sure it wouldn't turn any heads for my friends from Philly. The sandwich really looks edible to me. You wouldn't be able to tell by the picture I provided, but mixed with the smell it is pretty good looking.

As you can tell by the tone of the article I wasn't very impressed with the sub when I picked it up. The bread was moist and squishy at best, and wasn't the "Bakery Fresh" texture I expected. I worked as a baker for years, you couldn't pass this off as dough in a bakery. Should I be forgiving of the fact that it is in fact micro-waved, probably not. My reasoning is this, micro-wave pizza doesn't outrageous claims like "brick-oven fresh" on them. Everyone knows that is a ridiculous claim so I shouldn't dwell on it, but c'mon! REALLY? BAKERY FRESH!, lol jk

In all seriousness the bread was a little moist for my taste and not very toasty at all. I like the "steak" portion of the sandwich and the cheese was good, but a little unrecognizable in flavor. The vegetables in the sandwich were good, I am really always surprised when I can say that. The sandwich was a quick cook and was eaten pretty fast by myself. I think it was because I didn't want to get cheese dripped on me. :o) The cheese was pretty unrecognizable too. I didn't know if there were going for a particular flavor or not, but I have to mention that I am pretty sensitive to different flavors and I got nothing. I am as surprised as you may be by this review, I sincerely expected more from Stouffer's than this. I don't think I will be purchasing a "toasted sub" from them again, but overall I will not be giving up on the brand as a whole. If I do purchase another toasted sub it will be a different variety, but for now I will not.

In a word my lunch wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Time: 2:45 minutes

Stand Time: 1 minute

Nutritional Information found here.

I wish I could speak Italian

Oooh, Mama mia this is deliscioso… or something. I wish I could speak Italian so I could give this meal the proper praise that it deserves. I had Marie Calender's Pasta Al Dente: Rigatoni Marinnara Classico today for lunch and it was sooo good I wanted to write about it today (as opposed as a day later which is what I do in all of my previous cases… yeah all two of them.) The packaging promises "Steams to Perfection" and that it is "Rigatoni in a Slow-Simmered Marinara Sauce with Meatballs and Italian Sausage" my thoughts are simple…"ok, lets see" as I roll my eyes.

A minute or two into the microwave process I begin to eat my words… the room fills with this amazing, spicy Italian aroma, and I can't wait to get my hands on this meal. I lift the film cover and as the rush of hot steam escapes its plastic prison my mouth begins to water. I absolutely love the packaging of this meal, the steam basket is suspended above the sauces, which are cooked separately below the pasta. Once the meal is cooked you put the pasta from the upper tray into the bottom sauces. After I mix together they form a match greater than Luke and Laura (oh yes, that was a General Hospital reference.)

As I begin to eat the pasta I realize that it truly is "steamed to perfection" and I think "how'd they do that?" The sauce is excellent it is really incredible, and spicy. The meatballs seems to be a little bit more than meat to them, my impression is that they are a little more bread crumb than what you would make at home, but they are still pretty good considering. I adore all of the spices and flavors that I tasted when eating this meal! The sausage and meatball is its weakest asset but they are really not that bad at all, I have had worse sausage that wasn't micro-waved so I am pretty forgiving. The portion size of this meal is great, at 10.5 oz I think this is where my sweet spot is at. I really enjoyed this meal a lot and it made me regretful that I have to review something different tomorrow.

In a word, this meal was very delightful

Cook Time: 4:30 Minutes

Stand Time: None

Nutritional Information here.

Good Gravy!

The first thoughts in my head when I read the instructions for Boston Market's Oven Roasted Chicken Dinner was "Good Gravy!" that is a long time to have to microwave a meal. The instructions called for a 4 minute run on high, 7 minutes on medium, and finally a 1-2 minute stand time. I will point out that the majority of people that are eating these meals have a ½ hour lunch break. I put the meal in the microwave and just hoped that it would be worth the tremendous 13 minute wait. Yes, I said 13 minutes, I am following the instructions to a T for the purposes of this review. The instructions inform me that I have to stir the potatoes after my food is done standing, not an easy feat considering the chicken is placed on said mashed potatoes. I begin to stir the potatoes and realize that they are room temperature at best… things are not looking good so far. I continue to stir the potatoes in disgust and realize that the vegetables cannot possibly be good after all of this time in the microwave… to my surprise I was wrong.

I sit down and begin to take notes on the meal at hand. My first impressions are that the gravy is rich and buttery. That sort of gravy really suits my pallet and it puts a smile on my face. I try the potatoes with the gravy and am greeted with a mouthful of what tastes to be "real" potatoes, in the traditional sense (too bad they were not very warm). The whole meal was full of surprises, the gravy was delicious and buttery, the vegetables were slightly seasoned making the flavor pop just a little bit, and the chicken was in fact real chicken breast (I sincerely didn't expect that.) I enjoyed my meal with what time that I had left in my lunch break, I almost felt rushed through it because of the arduously long wait that I had to endure for it to be done. I don't think that I will be purchasing anything that takes that long again unless I have time for an hour lunch. The negatives of the meal seemed to way out my surprises, time being the biggest factor. For that amount of time I could have went to a fast food restaurant, and that is the whole purpose of me having frozen food for lunch, to avoid having to do that. Also, I really didn't like the packaging that much, I think they could have the tray separated better. I also thought that I almost had too much food to eat. I am not a super big fan of eating a pound of food for lunch, even if it is somewhat decent. If you are a big fan of large portions of potatoes then this meal is suitable for you, for me… well, not so much.

In a word, my meal was not that delightful.

Cook time: 4 Minutes (High), 7 Minutes (Medium)
Stand Time: 1-2 Minutes

Nutrional information here

Image from the Boston Market Website

More than a Hot Pocket

From the moment I had the Stouffer's Pepperoni and Provolone Stromboli in the microwave I knew that I was in for a treat. The air was filled with a very rich Italian aroma that really made me feel like I was in for an authentic Italian meal! After my long one minute waiting period I was ready to try what my nose was promising to be a very delightful meal.

As I began to eat the micro-waved treat I quickly realized that the Stromboli's looks were very deceiving. I anticipated something just a notch above a hot pocket, and I was pleasantly disappointed. I noticed that the filling did in fact fill the Stromboli's crusty bread shell, and not only that but tasted incredible. The provolone that the packaging promises was definitely present along with the "thick cut pepperoni." The provolone was creamy and had a strong enough flavor profile for me to know it was present amongst a lot of very delicious seasoning and spices. The pepperoni is thicker than I usually eat, but true pepperoni fans like my wife would certainly like Stouffer's thick-cut pepperoni instead of the traditional thin-sliced, barely noticeable flavor of a Pepperoni Hot Pocket. I am very sure that I will try more of these and other Stoufer's products.

In a word, my lunch was very delightful.

Cook time: 3 Minutes

Stand Time: 1 Minute

Nutrional Infromation here