Worth it for the dessert

Today’s meal is the Healthy Choice Chicken Parmigiana.  It is in another one of those Old School compartmentalized trays.  Additionally, my meal had another endearing element to it; one broccoli floweret (the side dish) had made its way into the dessert compartment and since it was frozen, could not be removed until the cooking was completed.  As a child, this kind of contamination of one food by another was frustrating, but as an adult, I find it rather endearing to remember how it used to be so incredibly disappointing.

I find that I must start by mentioning the dessert in this meal.  The dessert is identified as “caramel apple multigrain crisp” and it is awesome.  I would be willing to buy this meal again solely for the few bites of dessert. I am smiling now as I reminisce about it…

Moving to the side dish, I found that the broccoli cooked remarkably well, but as it was only vegetables, without any sauce or seasoning, it was woefully in need of salt.  Of course, frozen meals already contain a large amount of sodium, so there is always a question about whether or not one should add additional salt. I found the meal much more enjoyable with the addition of the salt.

Finally, let’s take a look at the main course.  I have lamented about breaded chicken in past posts (breaded chicken seems particularly incompetent at withstanding the rigors of the microwave), but I think the particular breading and non-fried expectation of chicken parmigiana makes for an exception.  It was really pretty good chicken, and the accompanying pasta and tomato sauce complimented it nicely.  The burning question for me was how I was supposed to stir the pasta in the middle of the cooking cycle since it was underneath the slab of chicken???  Not to be overly dramatic about it, but with instructions like that, there is always the possibility of accidently slinging a portion of an already-small meal outside of its tray.  Wouldn’t that be particularly disappointing and frustrating?   

Details

Calories:  350

Fat:  10 g

Sodium:  580 mg

Notable good nutritional content:  50% Vitamin C / 25% Manganese (what the heck is that?)

Notes on cooking:  3 minutes, stir pasta and rotate chicken, 2 ½ - 3 ½ more minutes

Notes on packaging:  black compartmentalized tray, recyclable