Healthy Choice Garlic Herb Shrimp

Just a simple meal review here…

Today’s meal is the Healthy Choice Garlic Herb Shrimp.  This is one of Healthy Choice’s “Steaming Entrée” products – which is not the line with a colander nested into a bowl, but the line that includes a small, single tray that does not require puncturing of its plastic wrapper for cooking.  The cardboard packaging portrays the product to be chock full of vegetables and other natural ingredients; there is even a stamp-like image that states “Fresh Taste from Quality Ingredients” and photographs of the individual natural ingredients.  The ingredients listed begin with whole grain pasta, zucchini, asparagus, and shrimp.

Another thing that further solidifies this product’s description as “healthy” is its taste.  Which is to say…it tastes very boring.  Now don’t get me wrong; as I’ve said on many occasions, I like the taste of a good fresh vegetable.  But somehow this product’s bits of asparagus and zucchini just didn’t add the flavor I desired.  Additionally, the sauce was overly mild – a bizarre statement, many would say, about a garlic-flavored sauce (since afternoon meetings following consumption of such a named sauce are typically not a good idea). 

I wouldn't say I would never eat this again, but I can’t say I’d turn to it if I was looking for rewarding flavor. 

Details

Calories:  260
Fat:  7 g
Sodium:  600 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  Folic Acid 20%
Notes on cooking:   single shot, 3 - 3 ½ minutes
Notes on packaging:  clear plastic tray, recyclable 

Confessions of a Dieter

Here’s a confession:  I went on an actual, follow-the-instructions diet a few weeks ago.  I’d never done this before because – frankly – I never had to.  Not so anymore.  The physical toll of pregnancy added to the fact that I’m not in my twenties anymore elevated the need for a diet – at least, if I wanted to fit into those pre-pregnancy t-shirts.  Also adding to my need for a diet was the fact that I was – and am – still only learning how to buy and prepare food for just one person. 

The diet I followed was the much-publicized, post-holiday Yoplait Two-Week Tune-Up.  The plan is centered - of course - on Yoplait yogurt, which I already eat quite a bit of.  The gist of the plan is to eat a yogurt cup, a serving of fruit, and a grain for both breakfast and lunch; two servings of vegetables as snacks throughout the day; and a sensible, lean-protein dinner, adding additional dairy servings as necessary to achieve the recommended daily allowance. 

I am well aware that dieting only works when it is part of a lifestyle change that also includes exercise.  I think I’m doing pretty well with that.  Never one to refuse fruits and vegetables, I have now made a deliberate choice to always eat these *first* in my food day.  And the exercise has been helped tremendously by my discovery of a couple of well-scheduled group exercise classes at my gym and some work colleagues who have been doing some group P90X workouts midday (thank our work at a university, which affords us some empty classrooms with projectors very near our offices). 

The result?  Well, in five weeks, I’ve lost half of the pounds I’d like to lose to get to that pre-pregnancy weight.  That seems like a good start to me.  More to come…

So all that said, I’ve had little opportunity to enjoy frozen meals, due to all the fresh fruits and veggies.  But I did have the opportunity recently to enjoy Marie Callender’s Penne Chicken Piccata.  As a Marie Callender steamer, it automatically starts with a gold star and after eating it, I’m comfortable leaving the gold star.  This one contained capers, which is a fun, welcomed flavor.  But there weren’t nearly enough of these flavorful gems.  I would have loved more.

This meal is in a white wine lemon butter sauce.  Call me crazy, but I swear that I could actually *feel* the alcohol a little bit.  Maybe the relaxation of a Friday evening caused me to feel this, but I just can’t be sure.  I do know that it was pleasantly flavorful.  The parmesan cheese also added positively to the flavor. 

Overall, I would have preferred more vegetables, but the flavor truly could not be beat. 

Details

Calories:  370
Fat:  14 g
Sodium:  860 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  15% Iron / 10% Calcium / Folic Acid 35%
Notes on cooking:   single shot, 3 ½ - 4 minutes
Notes on packaging:  clear plastic bowl and colander, reusable/recyclable 

Let’s Talk About Mac & Cheese

Today’s meal is Marie Callendar’s Fresh Flavor Steamer Smoky Cheddar Mac & Uncured Bacon.  I should begin with a disclaimer: my family doesn’t have a tradition for homemade mac & cheese.  I realize that for many people, this is absolutely sacrilegious.  Well, we’re sorry.  We make many awesome homemade dishes in my family, but mac & cheese just isn’t one of them; the Kraft box was always good enough for us.

That said, though, as soon as I got over the initial childhood shock of mac & cheese that didn’t look exactly like the box variety of which I was accustomed, I have always been able to appreciate a good homemade mac & cheese, when offered to me by another family.  But I have absolutely no expectation for it, so I don’t have particularly discriminating taste for this dish.

As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed the taste and texture of this meal.  But then I got to looking more closely at the nutrition information.  Nineteen grams of fat.  Nineteen!  Most of the meals I’ve eaten for this blog have had 5 or 6 grams of fat.  840 mg of sodium.  Whew!  At a total of 380 calories also, this will not be a meal I’ll buy again in the new year of babyfat-losing resolutions! 

  

Details

Calories:  380
Fat:  19 g
Sodium:  840 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  15% Calcium / 25% Folic Acid
Notes on cooking:  one 3 ½ - 4 minute single shot
Notes on packaging:  clear bowl and colander, reusable/recyclable

Could it be? A steamer product she doesn't like??

It might seem as though I’m a sucker committed entirely to any “steamer” meal Healthy Choice or Marie Callendar can offer me.  Well, I’ve found one that is not a favorite, proving that I may not be as much of a sucker as you think I am!

The meal of which I am speaking is Healthy Choice Café Steamers Chicken Pad Thai.  Now, I love pad thai, as a general rule.  But this meal doesn’t taste like what I expect pad thai to taste like; it tastes of more ginger, basil, and curry and no peanut flavor.  This experience caused me to second-guess my expectations of pad thai, which led to my search for pad thai recipes online.  What I learned was: a) pad thai does include peanuts and b) I am happy to just let the frozen food companies and Thai restaurants make pad thai for me – don’t think I’ll be cooking it anytime soon!  So many specialty items that could only be found in an Asian grocery store! 

In addition to the flavor, another unexpected, unwelcome element to this chicken pad thai is the type of pasta.  On the ingredient listing on the package, the pasta is identified as linguini, and this pasta definitely does have a thick, linguini texture to it.  It seemed to me like pad thai noodles are usually thinner and perhaps even glassy.  A quick glance through some of the online pad thai recipes indicated that the pasta generally used in pad thai is identified as “rice stick noodles” or “Thai rice noodles.”  I would certainly frefer the Asian noodles over the linguini. 

So there you have it.  My first not-so-favorable review of a steamer product. 

Details

Calories:  270
Fat:  3.5 g
Sodium:  540 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  40% Vitamin A / 35% Folic Acid
Notes on cooking:  one 3 ½ - 4 ½ minute single shot
Notes on packaging:  clear bowl and colander, reusable/recyclable

Another complaint about pasta types in frozen meals

Today’s meal is the Smart Ones Angel Hair Marinara.  My problem with the experience of this meal is that it got cold quickly.  Usually this is not a worry from those of us eating on-the-go and yet sometimes I get caught up in some project while I am eating and the meal getting cold becomes *exactly* the worry.  I believe the problem with this meal becoming cold so quickly is because of just how thin the angel hair pasta is.  I seem to recall having this kind of problem with other pasta offerings in the past.  It’s as if there just isn’t enough density to the pasta for it to hold the heat for a sufficient period of time.  I have no idea if there’s any actual science to this; it is just my observation and recollection. 

The pasta is tossed with marinara sauce, spinach, and yellow and green zucchini.  All in all, very healthy but not particularly flavorful.  However, it is the heating problem that will prevent me from purchasing this meal again in the future.

Details

Calories:  230
Fat:  4 g
Sodium:  640 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  15% Vitamin A / 10% Iron
Notes on cooking:  3 minutes, stir, 1 minute more
Notes on packaging:  black tray, recyclable

I will buy this one again!

This meal, the Healthy Choice Ravioli Florentine Marinara, was delicious, starting with the delightful pillows of spinach-stuffed ravioli.  I have lamented in the past about ravioli not always cooking well in frozen meals.  Perhaps one of the reasons for this is the squared-off corners of most ravioli varieties, which have a tendency to become tough due to overcooking.  This product has rounded ravioli, and it cooked quite well. 

The marinara sauce has both visible spinach and onions in addition to tomatoes; it has a distinct, better-than-your-typical-frozen-meal flavor.  I was surprised to read that the meal only provides 15% of RDA Vitamin A and no other vitamin mentionables, and yet is said to provide 30% of your daily vegetables.  I sense some nutritional research is in my future in order to better understand the nutritional content of these meals and to better plan my daily diet to best include these meals. 

All in all, this was a great meal, and at only 230 calories, I will definitely be buying this one again. 

Details
Calories:  230
Fat:  4 g
Sodium:  540 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  20% Calcium / 50% Manganese / 30% Selenium (What *are* these two things?  I don’t have time to investigate right now!)
Notes on cooking:  2 minutes, stir, 1 ½ - 2 ½ minutes more
Notes on packaging:  black tray, recyclable

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

High hopes and disappointing return on a fall-flavored meal

On the menu today is the Healthy Choice Pumpkin Squash Ravioli.  As a general rule, I love the vegetarian meals that are pumped full of interesting vegetables.  I hadn’t tried this one previously, so I was oddly excited about it since pumpkin, squash, and asparagus are among my favorite cooked vegetables.  Plus, while there is no indication that the meal is only available seasonally, its flavors and colors are clearly indicative of autumn, and here in early November, the brisk scent of fall in the air is a welcome presence. 

Sadly, I was disappointed.  The pasta was very tough; I think I’ve stated previously that I believe ravioli to be particularly difficult pasta for a frozen meal to tackle.  Both the pumpkin inside the ravioli as well as the butternut squash were simply not flavorful and the texture of the squash was positively awful; I’m sure I was making a terrible face while I ate it.

On the bright side, the asparagus was just the right texture, flavor, and firmness, and I wish there had been more of it.  I was also surprised to discover a few welcome bites of apple, which hadn’t been particularly indicated on the box, only listed in the ingredients. 

For as many vegetables as this meal contained, I was surprised to read on the packaging that it was only the equivalent of 20% of the RDA of vegetables.  I would have expected more; without a larger percentage in this area, I can’t imagine why anyone would bother with this meal. 

Have no fear – other great, nutritious vegetarian options will be coming!

Details

Calories:  300

Fat:  6 g

Sodium:  600 mg

Notable good nutritional content:  40% Vitamin A / 35% Folic Acid / 25% each Thiamine and Manganese

Notes on cooking:  2 ½ minutes, stir, 1 ½ - 2 minutes

Notes on packaging:  black tray, recyclable

Introducing the addition of labels

As a result of a reader suggestion, I’m adding some labeling tags that will make these blog entries sortable in a way useful to all readers.  By selecting any of the labels listed to the right, you can pull up all reviews that have been labeled in a particular way; I've gone back and labeled previous entries.  As you have suggestions about improvement of this labeling, or additional labels that should be added, please let me know.  

Another Marie Callendar Steamer…yum!  

I think I’m in love with Marie Callendar’s Fresh Flavor Steamers.  So far, I think that if I could only have one line of frozen meals for the rest of my life, this would be the line I’d choose.  Of course, I base this gut reaction solely on flavor and overall experience with the meal.  In the final analysis, issues of nutrition and calories must be incorporated into the assessment of the product, and that’s when I get somewhat bummed about these meals.

I recently enjoyed the Fettuccini Chicken Balsamic for the first time. As with the previously reviewed Pasta al Dente Garlic Chicken, the cooking technology is impressive with satisfying, tasty results.  The balsamic taste is wonderful and offhand, I cannot think of another frozen product that boasts balsamic.  However, this product is somewhat lacking in vegetables, causing me to pay close attention to its nutritional labeling, suspecting that it might be lacking anything substantial in terms of vitamin and nutrient content.  Indeed, that proved to be correct.  The vegetables in this product are spinach and mushroom – a tasty combo, but not of enough volume to generate much nutritional content.  Fifteen percent of the RDA of iron and 10% of Vitamin E are the only nutritious elements it boasts.  

Despite my sadness at the lack of nutritional mentionables, there are other positives to this line of products, including this particular meal.  I love that the cooking takes place in one single 3 ½ - 4 ½ minute shot, not even requiring the puncture of the plastic wrap for venting, and the bowl and steaming colander are reusable and recyclable.  

Details

Calories:  440

Fat:  18 g / 0 g trans fat

Sodium:  990 mg

Notable good nutritional content:  15% Iron, 10% Vitamin E

Notes on cooking:  One 3 ½ - 4 ½ minute shot

Notes on packaging:  the bowl and steaming colander are reusable and recyclable

Food thermometers and your frozen meal

Let’s talk about frozen meals and food thermometers.  What?  Food thermometers??  Do I even own a food thermometer??  Well, according to many manufacturers’ cooking instructions, it seems as though internal temperature testing is a critical component of frozen food preparation.  Indeed, in the meal I just enjoyed, the final cooking instruction was: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”

Hmmm.  Read that again.  While still technically listed as an instruction, it is a passive statement that doesn’t make a demand of its reader.  It seems as though CYA tactics may be at work here.

But wait, this food has already been fully cooked, hasn’t it?  Well, yes.  But it seems as though a salmonella outbreak is still possible.  Earlier this year, the CDC reported that 30 people in 15 states became infected with an identical strain of Salmonella Chester, and many of the victims reported having eaten an identical Marie Callendar’s frozen meal in the week before they became ill. The CDC recommended testing frozen meals to assure that they reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit as a method to prevent Salmonella contamination. 

Do what you will with this information.  I’m considering a food thermometer for my pencil cup on my desk at work.  Maybe.  We’ll see. 

A frozen meal for the upper crust?

Today’s meal is the Healthy Choice Lobster Cheese Ravioli.  I believe it would only take one hand to count the number of times I’ve eaten lobster in my life.  Perhaps this is not an opinion held widely, but I sort of feel like lobster is a bit too rich for my blood.  So a frozen meal that contains lobster, albeit in a small, ground portion like in this ravioli, just *feels* sort of odd to me.  As I sat in my office, catching up on some emails from earlier in the day and pondering a financial spreadsheet, it just seemed like a weird thing to be eating. 

Lobster strangeness aside, there are several good things about this meal.  The sauce is a thin but tasty “vodka” sauce, according to the package; there’s a lot of it, which is good.  The yellow and green zucchini (is the word “zucchini” interchangeable with “squash”?  I’ve never been too sure…) developed the expected mushy consistency when it was heated, but the flavor was good.  The ravioli was somewhat tough; as a rule, it usually seems to me as though ravioli is often one of the tougher pastas out there, but it could also be that the circa 1977 microwave in the office contributed to the toughness (more on that microwave in a future post…). 

This meal is not particularly notable as a source of key nutrients; 20% of Calcium and Vitamin B12 are the only nutritional contents worth mentioning.  In the end, I don’t think I’d put this meal on a list of personal favorites, but it is good to know that there’s a frozen meal option with lobster meat, given the seemingly endless parade of chicken entrees.  

Frozen meals - from passion to suicide (actually vice versa)

While I certainly don’t subscribe to the idea being mocked here, I do find this clip from The Onion about a frozen food company printing suicide prevention tips on its packaging as hilarious as Jim Gaffigan’s “Hot Pockets” bit.  It seems as though it’s a necessary addition to a blog about frozen meals. 


If the embedded video doesn't work in your browser (I've found that it doesn't in some), click the link below the embed to watch from The Onion's site.

Stouffers To Include Suicide Prevention Tips On Single Serve Microwavable Meals

However, I am of the opinion that it is not so much loneliness that causes the consumption of frozen meals, but the need for speed.  Many times I find that I don’t even have the time for the 4 ½ minutes in the microwave required by the product.  Many times, while facing an impending 1 p.m. meeting, I’ve postponed my microwave lunch until 3 p.m. or later, sometimes even ultimately eating while standing up.  More on this later…


The favorite brand in the office

In our office, it seems as though Lean Cuisine is the single-serving frozen meal brand of choice.  That being the case, I can’t believe it has taken me until now – my fourth entry – to write about a Lean Cuisine product.  Today’s meal is the Lean Cuisine Ginger Garlic Stir Fry with Chicken. 

I don’t believe I’d ever tried this product before.  Primarily, that’s because of the broccoli.  Broccoli and I generally don’t get along, though we were able to be civil to each other on this particular Tuesday.  The other vegetables and the chicken were also good – moderately flavorful and of a good consistency – and the ginger sauce was a bit more unique than some of the other Asian-inspired sauces found in frozen meals.  The noodles, however, left a little something to be desired.  I am not well-versed in Asian noodles, but these seemed rather thick and spaghetti-like and not very Asian by my taste.  They are whole wheat, though, and that nutrition should be worth extra points. 

When I went online to find the official company information about this product, I was amused to discover that the Lean Cuisine website gives consumers the opportunity to review products.  I clicked on the link to read the customer reviews.  Well!  APPARENTLY, this product used to have brown rice in place of the whole wheat noodles and let me tell you, there are some consumers out there who are quite unhappy about the change!  I can’t help but repost some of my most favorite comments on the topic:

I kept looking for my fav dish and I just realized today that the rice was replaced with noodles!! Whyyyyy? It tastes weird with the noodles.

Sad indeed to have a great product with the rice and flavor then to change it. Guess you lost two customers completely. Seems the powers that be don't listen. 

I'm so happy i'm not the only one here who thinks the rice version was way better. Please Lean Cuisine change it back if you love ur customers! Honestly the rice one was my favorite... I miss it A LOT

I was very disappointed when they switched the recipe from rice to pasta. The meal just isn't as good anymore. Bring back the rice!

Do you guys read the reviews that we take our time to write? It seems everyone is asking for the rice and you guys are still producing this. Was the rice that expensive? Please bring the rice back!!

I fear I don’t presently possess this level of passion for my frozen meals. I think that's fine, and it's probably fine for you too!

Reducing the carbon footprint of your frozen meals

As a result of a little online research, I was pleased to discover that much of the plastic packaging in the frozen meals I eat is indeed recyclable.  In my community of Springfield, Illinois, all numbers of plastic products are recyclable except for #6.  My most recent meal had one of those black plastic trays and it was a #1.  Of course, in order to recycle this tray, I had to clean it.  But even though the meal had some melted cheese involved, the tray still cleaned up rather easily; it was worth it to me to spend a few extra seconds at the sink to get it clean for recycling.

What was disappointing in my findings about recycling was that the cardboard boxes in which most frozen meals are packaged may not be recyclable.  It seems that boxes built for the freezer are sprayed with a plastic coating that protects the contents against freezer burn. (If you haven’t noticed this before, you might want to compare a frozen meal box with a cereal or cracker box and you’ll find this coating to be obvious.)  At any rate, it seems as if the coating makes these boxes unable to break down in the recycled paper pulping process, according to several websites. Prior to this research, however, I’d never been instructed to not include frozen meals boxes in with my other cardboard recycling.  This gives me pause…and hope…about the possibility that perhaps some facilities are able to recycle it.

Click here for information about Springfield, Illinois’ recycling details.  

A high-brow, vegetarian take on an old standard

Today’s meal is the Healthy Choice Roasted Red Pepper Marinara .  I find this to be a healthy, somewhat more flavorful version of the standard pasta-and-red-sauce concoction.  The pasta is a nine-grain cavatelli and it’s consistency is good.  The sauce, while much more pleasing in consistency and flavor than an old-school spaghetti meal, is not particularly challenging to the palette; red peppers do not really permeate the taste.  Yet this meal is part of a line of products that is designed to feel sophisticated.  That said, I would say this is a good meal for a day at the office when you need to give the illusion of sophistication while in reality, you’d rather just open a can of Spaghettios.

At only 270 calories, this meal is not a significant source of particular vitamins and nutrients.  15% of the RDV of Calcium and Vitamin C are the only mentionable nutrients involved (given the parmesan, romano and asiago cheeses, only 15% of Vitamin C is rather surprising).  Some will balk at the absence of meat, but I think it’s great to see vegetarian options available in the frozen meal section since multiple servings of meat daily are not necessary for continued good nutrition.  

Welcome to Frozen Culinary 101

Most of us have heard of Julie & Julia, the book-turned-film about a young woman cooking her way through Julia Child’s cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I. It’s a lovely idea, in theory. But as a working professional and a brand-new mom on her own, I have no time for such a thing.

However, a girl’s gotta eat. So I’ve got another idea. I am going to eat my way through the single-serving frozen meal section of my local grocery store and write about it here.

For some time, I’ve been known around the office to be a significant consumer of frozen meals, but until now I’ve stuck to only a few brands and – when considering the vast choices available – only a few meal choices. But at my most recent visit the grocery store I noticed all kinds of red tags in the frozen meal section; quite a number of brands were on sale. So I bought a much wider variety, and I bought *a lot* (hooray for the basement deep freeze).

On Thursday, while enjoying the first of the new-to-me meals, it dawned on me that I don’t have to look upon my consumption of frozen meals with culinary and nutritional shame. It isn’t 1985. A frozen meal isn’t necessarily a slab of turkey meat with separate compartments for some dried peas and even drier mashed potatoes. There are healthy, lean options and “cooking technology” that enables vegetables to taste exponentially better than rubber. It is my hope to identify the better options available and share my findings with anyone interested.

The meal that started it all

The meal I enjoyed on Thursday was Marie Callender’s Pasta Al Dente Penne Garlic Chicken. In addition to the pasta and chicken, the dish included spinach, Roma tomatoes, and artichoke hearts. I must say I was quite impressed by the presence of artichoke hearts – not exactly a staple ingredient of frozen meals – though it should be noted that there were only *two* in my meal.

The chicken was tender and bite-sized, and unlike the artichoke hearts, there was a decent amount of it in this single-serving meal. The penne pasta was of a good consistency, another memorable aspect of this particular meal. I believe the reason for the al dente consistency of the pasta was the fascinating cooking technology utilized in the package. The vegetables, pasta, and chicken were in a colander-like plastic bowl that was nested inside of the actual bowl, with some space between the bottom of the colander and the bowl. In that space was the meal’s sauce, and space for the sauce to steam up through the holes of the colander to appropriately steam the vegetables, pasta, and chicken. Unlike other microwave meal technology I have experienced, this process worked impressively well to create a tasty meal.

It should be noted that the sauce for this meal, while quite tasty, was indeed quite garlicky. Perhaps this makes it not the best choice meal for the afternoon of an important meeting, performance evaluation, or anything involving face-to-face contact.