Office Microwave Etiquette

Last week, I cleaned the office microwave.  If you’ve ever worked in an office, been to an office, or merely observed office life on television, you have some idea about the importance of – and potential problems caused by – sharing an office microwave. 

I first came to work here ten years ago next month.  We have had the same microwave the entire time, and it is a dinosaur.  There is a property tag on the microwave indicating property of the institution name that pre-dates our current institution name - and we’ve had the current name for 15 years.  But I believe the giant Kenmore microwave is even much older than that.  There is no “popcorn” button and I’m pretty sure no one had even thought of a “popcorn” button at the time this machine came out of the factory.

About five years ago, I left my employment here for fourteen months.  At least one fellow employee is pretty sure that no one cleaned the microwave while I was gone.  Eww. 

There is much to be said of office microwave etiquette.  Perhaps the most succinct listing of such etiquette is here. 


And if individuals in your office are in need of some serious microwave etiquette overhaul, perhaps G.Neil’s “Microwave Do’s & Don’ts” sign will do the trick.  Personally, I think it’s more fun when bad behavior continues until the neat freak in the office can’t stand it anymore and explodes with a series of “your mother doesn’t work here” emails and posted 48-pt. font signs.  Sometimes I’m the neat freak and sometimes I’m not.  

A good, solid vegetarian meal

Today’s meal is the Lean Cuisine Santa Fe-Style Rice & Beans.  This is a solid, moderately filling meal that I have enjoyed before.  There’s nothing particularly special about it but nothing particularly offensive either; I tend to gravitate toward meals containing beans and this one contains both black beans and pinto beans.  At the Lean Cuisine website, I noticed that one reviewer suggested a few spoonfuls of salsa be added to this meal to add flavor; I think that’s an excellent suggestion that I may try next time. 

Since we’re talking about microwave etiquette today, it is worth noting that this meal takes six minutes to cook.  At first thought, it seems like six minutes is a ridiculously long amount of time to consume the office microwave, but when you think about the fact that many dinners *do* consume the microwave for this amount of time, it’s just in smaller increments with stirring in between, then six minutes doesn’t seem so bad anymore. 

Details
Calories:  290
Fat:  5 g
Sodium:  590 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  20% Calcium
Notes on cooking:  6 minutes - yes, 6 whole minutes – but in a single shot
Notes on packaging:  black tray, recyclable

A fruit meal that doesn't measure up

Those who have become faithful readers of this blog will be able to immediately guess why the Smart Ones Fruit Inspirations’ Orange Sesame Chicken might get high marks from me.  I’ll give you a few seconds to think about it…Can you guess?...If you answered “because there’s fruit in it,” you are correct!  I’m a big fan of fruit in my frozen meals.  Fruit seems to raise the nutritional value and usually help counteract the saltiness of the meal.

However, the fruit in this meal is not a dominant enough flavor.  Though mandarin oranges are listed as the third ingredient (after rice and chicken), their flavor doesn’t seem to press through strongly enough.  Also, this meal includes one of my *least favorite* frozen meal elements: breaded chicken.  For the most part, breaded chicken just never seems to withstand microwaving and remain respectable, and the chicken in this meal proved to be no exception. 

This meal was so salty that I HAD to take a bite of chocolate immediately afterwards.  It won’t be on my “buy again” list anytime soon.    

This being the first Smart Ones meal that I have reviewed, I was surprised to find the packaging woefully lacking information.  Sure, the required nutrition facts were present, and a text box about Weight Watchers offered some details on the program’s point system, but compared to the helpful http://mypyramid.gov information generally contained on a Healthy Choice package, this Smart Ones packaging was disappointing. 

Details
Calories:  320
Fat:  8 g
Sodium:  680 mg
Notable good nutritional content:  45% Vitamin C
Notes on cooking:  3 minutes, stir, 1 additional minute
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

A note on the pricing of frozen meals

I am finding that the pricing of these meals is all relative.  Each time I walk into the grocery, some brand of frozen meals is on sale.  Watch those sales.  In order to maximize your spending, don’t have your heart set on a particular brand during a store visit, but know which meals you like from a variety of product lines and then buy whichever brands are cheapest during a particular trip to the store. 

So far, I have not spent more than $2.50 on any meal reviewed in this blog.  A few have been significantly cheaper than this, but $2.50 has been my top price, and most have seemed to land on or just under the $2.50 mark.  Judging from the price tags seen during my last few store visits, I should be able to maintain this top price and still have *plenty* of meals to review in the months to come.

Best chicken meat consumed so far

Today’s meal is the Healthy Choice Café Steamers Sweet Sesame Chicken.  This is a steamer in the same packaging style as my favorite Marie Callendar’s line; it cooks in a single shot, not even requiring the puncturing of the top film, and the bowl and colander are reusable or recyclable.  What was immediately notable about this meal was that instead of small chunks or strips of chicken (frequently the delivery method for chicken in a frozen meal), this meal contained just three fairly sizable pieces of chicken.  I believe it was the steaming cooking technology that gets credit for heating these sizable pieces sufficiently and for keeping the chicken moist and tender.  It really didn’t taste like chicken from a frozen meal!  I will have to eat more of this line to determine if the hefty-sized chunks of chicken are the norm or if it was just a fluke of this particular package.

I was less impressed, though not entirely disappointed, by the vegetables and the flavor of the meal overall.  The snow pea pods seem as though they’ve been intentionally flattened by an iron and they definitely have a “wet noodle” quality to them.  The carrots were fine.  The mushrooms were quite flavorful, though they were tiny, tiny button mushrooms (not sure I’d ever seen mushrooms that small before).  And in terms of flavor, the photo on the box clearly shows the meal swimming in sesame seeds, but I couldn’t identify any sesame seeds in my meal and the flavor of the sauce was not particularly distinctive, though not unpleasant. 

All in all, this was a good meal and I would buy it again just to enjoy the chicken again.  I noticed on the box that it represents 30% of the RDA of vegetables, so that even without too much in terms of vitamin content, it is still a pretty “healthy choice”. 

Details

Calories:  340

Fat:  6 g / 0 g trans fat

Sodium:  330 mg

Notable good nutritional content:  40% Vitamin A / 25% Vitamin E / 20% each Niacin, Folic Acid, and Phosphorus

Notes on cooking:  4-5 minutes, single shot

Notes on packaging:  clear bowl and colander, reusable or recyclable

Frozen meals' nutritional report card

I have to tell you that I am woefully disappointed in the nutritional content of most frozen meals.  I am discovering more and more that “lean” does not necessarily equal “nutritional”.  Most meals can boast only mentionable percentages of one or two key vitamins.  That said, here are some important things to keep in mind:

1. Take a multivitamin.  I don’t know that I need to say anything additional about this.  You know it’s a good idea.
2. Consider thoughtfully how you will supplement your frozen meal.  Especially for those of us who consume our frozen meals for lunch at work, it is fairly unrealistic to think that we won’t need to eat anything else the remaining hours we work.  While the frozen meal may be good for giving us some calories, protein, and carbs, but may not suffice when it comes to nutrition, why not consider a piece of fruit?  What about some yogurt (again, preferably with fruit)?  Or my favorite from the past few days – some celery with peanut butter?  Yum, yum!  In addition to well-planned supplements providing you with additional needed nutrition, they might also prevent a 3 p.m. trip to the vending machine.
3. You really should opt for the frozen meals that boast healthfulness.  I cannot even imagine the contents of those that do not claim at least “lean” or “healthy” and you likely won’t find me blogging about them.  Of course, these are marketing claims only; I will try to cut through the fat and call them like the contents read here on the blog.
4. Consider your breakfast.  I know it doesn’t really have anything to do with this blog, but please eat breakfast.  You’ve been told by a million sources just how important it is.  In the past year or so I picked up a couple tidbits about breakfast that have stuck with me.  Unfortunately I don’t recollect the source of these tidbits, so take them with a grain of salt and/or look them up if you want to:  one tidbit was that sumo wrestlers do not eat breakfast because this helps them pour on the pounds later in the day.  The other was that if you ate a breakfast that contained *eggs*, you’d likely consume about 300 calories less over the course of the day than if you didn’t.  By consuming early in the day, you avoid some later-day mistakes! 

Have I mentioned fruit?

Yes, I believe I mentioned it in my last entry.  Fruit, I believe, is the nutritional saving grace of frozen meals.  Today's meal, the Healthy Choice Pineapple Chicken, contains 50% of the U.S. RDA of Vitamin A and 25% of Vitamin C.  I attribute it primarily to the pineapple, but it could also be the yummy addition of carrots and red peppers.  Additionally, this is a brown rice meal – kudos to the whole grain power of brown rice!  And there are only 190 mg of sodium, which seems amazingly low compared to what I’ve noted in other meals (560 mg in my most recent entry). 

Where this meal stumbles is in the chicken.  The chicken is defined in the ingredient list as “fried tempura fritter chicken breast chunks.”  Ew.  I’m just not sure that any kind of frozen and reheated tempura could ever be good, at least not when cooked in a microwave when it is already mixed with cooked vegetables, rice, and sauce.  Not a fan.  A few bites of it were tough and difficult to chew.  I believe there are better textured, better tasting meals of a similar recipe available and I intend to uncover them in the coming weeks.

Details

Calories:  380

Fat:  7 g / 0 g trans fat

Sodium:  190 mg

Notable good nutritional content:  50% Vitamin A / 25% Vitamin C

Notes on cooking:  3 – 3 ½ minutes, single shot

Notes on packaging:  black tray, recyclable

First Compartmentalized Tray

Today’s meal is the Healthy Choice Roasted Monterey Chicken.  This is part of the “Complete Meals” line from Healthy Choice, and it is easy to understand why.  More than any other meal I’ve reviewed thus far, this reminded me of the TV dinners of my youth.  What I mean by that is that the entrée, side dish, and dessert were each compartmentalized in the (recyclable) tray and I got the distinct feeling that I was indeed consuming an *entire meal* and not just an entrée that would likely need supplementing in order to fill me up (note: the package weighs in at 11 oz.).  But also, I believe it reminded me of the TV dinners of twenty-five years ago because even though it was named “Chicken Monterey,” implying a flavorful, distinctive dish, I found the flavor of chicken, mushrooms, and rice pilaf in a cheese sauce to be rather unmemorable, leading me to feel like it could have been named “Baked Chicken,” as it probably would have been named twenty-five years ago. 

The vegetable side was a dry concoction of corn, black beans, poblano pepper, and cilantro, although you could have fooled me on the cilantro because it had absolutely no flavor.  One would have to actually add some salt to bring out some flavor in this side, and I think we’ll save the discussion about sodium and these frozen meals for another day. 

The peach dessert, which contained whole grain rolled oats, caught my attention.  I do love both peaches and rolled oats, so this made it a winner in my book.  It cooked well too.  Additionally, I am starting to suspect that the addition of fruit is what makes the difference between a frozen meal having absolutely no nutritional value and starting to be worthwhile.  This meal has 35% of the RDA of Vitamin C, and 15% of Vitamin B12.  So, that’s something…?

Details

Calories:  320

Fat:  8 g / 0 g trans fat

Sodium:  560 mg

Notable good nutritional content:  35% Vitamin C / 40% Folic Acid / 15% Vitamin B12

Notes on cooking:  4 minutes, stir, 1-2 minutes more

Notes on packaging:  Old School compartmentalized tray, recyclable