Critique: Lean Cuisine's Sweet & Spicy Koren-Style Beef!

Other than going for the longest name ever on an entree, I wasn't sure about how I'd like this offering by Nestle USA Inc out of Ohio. First of all, were they talking North or South Korea. I didn't want nothing to do with anything Kim Jon-Un might have had his fat little hands on. So, I assumed it was a south Korean dish and therefore somewhat safe to consume..

At 320 calories, this offering was not bad, assuming it would fill me up. Also, the 650 figure for sodium was a livable amount. At least the food wasn't soaked in salt!

After performing the rather simple preparation deal in the microwave, I noticed that the meal didn't look much like the picture displayed on the box, but it was close! It also helped a lot that I was hungry as this food was a wee bit too sweet for my pallet. If this is what they eat in Korea, I could better understand why everyone is skinny. It wasn't something I'd ever order seconds of... that was for sure! Of the visible vegetables, I was certain of the carrots and only guessed that what looked like zucchini really was. The cook prime beef steak was OK and I never really made out the green onions or the host of ingredients like whey solids, molasses or succinic acid. Not sure that was really a bad thing. In the final analysis, this meal was sort of like what I thought K-rations must have tasted like in WWII. You ate the stuff and then didn't feel too bad about going off to die.

I rated this entree a 4 on a scale of 10 and honestly do not intend to purchase it again in the future... unless we have another war or something...

Critique: Chicken Margherita by Healthy Choice! Horrible!

Tasted like crap!

After mentally noting that the term Margherita translates to 'a pizza topped with tomatoes, cheese, and traditionally also basil' and not that wonderful drink. I elected to purchase one of these meals, anyway, at a local grocery for $3.94. I mean who could resist 'Chicken tender-kins with angel hair pasta, burned garlic and tomato sauce all swimming in a balsamic vinaigrette soup. [Note: I took some liberties with the wording, but you get the point].

Nutritionally, this meal really shines! Calories were a mere 280 while the cholesterol came in at 35 mg and the sodium was a measly 530 mg. For a frozen TV dinner, these are very good numbers, (and also part of the reason why they cost more when compare to Banquet offering you might get for a buck)!

Taking the subliminal title hint to heart, I prepared the meal while sipping on a few true margaritas. It wasn't a problem. The directions were pretty easy, even after my third drink when things began to get a little fuzzy. Take the meal out of the box, nuke for about four minutes and dump into the provided sauce bowl. Yes sir! Even a drunk could do that!!

Unlike most of the meals produced by Healthy Choice, this was a most horrible offering, even for someone in an inebriated state! Most importantly, the pasta was very mushy. That was a sure turnoff. And, while the chicken was tender and moist, I found myself gagging and so dumped the whole meal into the trash! Scored this one a 4! I'd eat it, if I was dying and had no other choice!

Critique: Spaghetti Squash

It's ALIVE!!! This is sooo wrong!

What man or women who have been locked into a diet of some kind have not, at some point, thought about a substitute dish for pasta! A quick perusal of the internet will fill you in on all the bad things there are to say about regular pasta and how much better it is for you to sub in a nice steaming plate of squash! Well - they got the steaming pile part right anyway!

My reaction….balderdash! After trying a plate of this I will admit that if my life depended on eating spaghetti sauce layered over a plate of spaghetti squash, I could do it, but I would not be a happy camper while I was doing it.  Sure, I’d save a few calories in the process, but life is not just about saving calories. It’s also about eating and living well! This squash thing just didn’t cut it with my taste buds and that as they say is that! I’ll give this one a score of 4. It was edible, but only just!

My advice to you dieters out there....eat small portions of the real deal!