Critique: Four Cheese Ziti Marinara

This will be the last review of this excellent line of the Healthy Choice Baked entrées. Ziti macaroni and sauce are tube shaped pasta's that are characteristic of Italian-American cuisine. The other meals they offer (I've reviewed three others) are of little interest to me.

Other than the Ziti pasta, this boxed TV entree also contain Marinara sauce which is an Italian tomato sauce usually made with tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and onions. (Usually a very tasty and nutritional sauce to eat)! The four cheeses consist of fine Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, and mozzarella. (Not the best things for you to eat). So, what we have here is a ying and yang meal deal that will only kill you slowly... you have been warned!

Now what caught my eye originally while surveying the entire line of these 'Baked' products at the grocery store was the word 'ziti'. At first my mind confused it with the word 'titty' and so aroused my interest. Even after I worked it out mentally, I thought it might be an interesting if not a little bit dangerous meal to try. Why dangerous? Well, contrary to culinary lore, eating cheese which contains saturated (read as harmful) fats does not directly cause coronary heart disease – it just doesn't help all that much. So, eating cheese once in a while is probably OK.

The directions, as they are for most all this line, are simple to execute. Slit the plastic and then nuke for four minutes! I like meals like this!

Even though this is a meatless pasta dish, I still liked eating it! I mean those, oh so bad for you, mix of cheeses were hard to resist! This 260 gram meal has 310 calories, 5 mg of Cholesterol and 560 mg of sodium. Not all that bad! I scored it a 7 on a scale of 10!

Critique: Knorr beef flavor Pasta Sides

After picking up a bag of frozen meatballs at the local grocery store, I added Knorr's Beef Flavored Pasta Fetticcini Sides to my shopping basket as an impulse purchase. This stovetop, 230 calorie per cup side dish also advertised a Swedish meatball skillet recipe on the back side of the package that caught my eye and which looked pretty good, so I thought what the heck.

The directions on the package were pretty straight forward; just add the contents, a pat of butter and 2

cups of water to a medium sauce pan. Bring this to a brief boil, stir and then simmer for about seven minutes. The frozen meatballs were nuked as per package instructions and then added to the pasta. An easy greasy meal deal that serves 2!

I gave this meal deal a 7 on a scale of 10. The noodles were al dente and the sauce was also very good. The addition of the meatballs, however really helped to put this whole culinary affair over the top! The only downside of this dish was the high caloric content, but that's what portion control is all about!

Critique: Ole South sausage links!

If you want to indulge your body in some fast fat, few things can top a pork sausage link!

This package of Ole South Pork Sausage Links caught my eye at a local grocery store and I purchased it even though just 8 links cost cost about a buck on sale. Normally, they cost $2.29, so I thought this a rather good deal. Nutritionally, they really suck as each sausage link contains 87 calories (most of which is from fat), 17 mg of cholesterol and 170 mg of sodium. The good thing is that they can be microwaved in just 40 seconds. So, I consider that to be pretty much of a wash!

Taste-wise, these links are OK to eat even if they are very greasy. This is the kind of product I'd pick up to eat only very occasionally or to have on hand to serve to friends I'm secretly trying to kill. I scored it a solid 7 and would recommend it as a sometimes item to serve with your scrambled eggs.

Critique: Lean Gourmet Salisbury Steak

At just 180 calories, you'd think that no matter how good or bad it might taste, this would be a great entrée for anyone grinding through a diet. And, please don't get me wrong. 'Taters and meatloaf' are alrighty with me – true comfort foods that they are. (But, at a mere 213 grams, just be prepared for not all that much comfort)!

You'll note that the picture on the package looks pretty enticing. Those heaping mashed potatoes and that big old hunk of meat! Wow! I may have to loosen my belt a notch for this meal! But, then, things begin to go a little bit sideways...

The directions, which are on the back of the package, ask you to grasp a corner and lift to vent the meal. OK... You then are supposed to nuke the whole thing for 3 minutes at which point you need to remove the package, open the top and stir them that potaters. The problem is, by that point, I'd forgotten the rest of the instructions and had to lift the whole thing carefully over my head to read them – awkward! Ah, yes – the instructions continue by asking that you re-close the lid (hard to do) and then nuke it for another 2 minutes to finish the cooking cycle. Well, in order to keep that lid closed I had to place a plat on top of it! A heads up Michelina – please consider putting them instructions on the front of the package and rework the lid so it doesn't want to curl up! Duh!

Well, here is the finished meal! (It reminded me of my last ugly date)! You'll note I stuck a piece of toast in there as otherwise this deal

would look like an abortion that had been left out in the sun awhile. And, while the taste wasn't all that bad (score it a 7), I don't feel it was worth the money.

Critique: Chicken Margherita by Healthy Choice!

Take a pass unless you like overcooked pasta!

This frozen TV dinner from Healthy Choice informs me in no uncertain terms... 'Attention all taste buds! This deliciously inspired dish marries juicy chicken breast tenderloins with al dente angel hair pasta, roasted garlic and tomatoes, and a rich balsamic vinaigrette sauce. It’s a meal worth savoring and without a single preservative.' Wow! Now that's some recommendation. And,at a sale price of just $2.50 each, I felt I just had to gloom one up and take it home for dinner.

Nutritionally, this is not a bad deal. Like most all of the Healthy Choice line of frozen meals, you're talking both low calories and low salt. Two items that are important to most every obese American (which is most Americans now a days).

After nuking this meal for 4 minutes and then eating it, I'd give the whole affair a middling score of 7. The main problem – the pasta was overdone! That fact took down my overall enjoyment considerably. If the pasta problem ever gets fixed, it would be a pretty good meal deal.

Critique: Michelina’s Salisbury steak!

This small, yet so very interesting, offering by Michelina gives a man just what he wants – meat and taters boy! It’s just too bad that this entrée is good to go for only us smaller dudes. At a bare 330 calories, there just ain’t enough ‘beef n spuds’ to satisfy most he-man types.

Having said that, I felt that this frozen meal deal might still be a good candidate for anyone looking to lose a few pounds (like me). And anywho, it was cheap! (I bought it at a local grocery principally because it was on sale for just $1.25). These days, while basking in that post coital Obama election glow, I find myself forced to limit my dining selections to the stuff that’s on sale. Long gone are those days where I’d stop over by the old meat isle and just grab myself a cheap porterhouse steak! Hey! Obama baby, I could use some o that free money right about now…

Yes, I'm afraid its become infected...

Quickly then, onwards to the bottom line….

After nuking in the microwave as per the directions and looking at the result (see picture), I really had no great expectations. (After all, by the time I’d gotten to this meal, I’d had a history of disappointing meals strewn out behind me in the form of previous posts. I was also reminded that I needed to get after a clogged up cesspool out back). So, it was with a heavy heart and a diminishing appetite that I took my warm meal to the dining room table.

Egad! This stuff wasn’t all that bad! I have to give the Michelina folks some credit where credits due. The steak tasted a lot like meatloaf and the mashed potatoes, well, they tasted like they were supposed to. All in all, a great little meal for the money. I’d give this one a solid 7 on a scale of 10!

Critique: Banquet’s Wings!

Finally, after all this time, I get to critique some real man’s food! Wings! Or, more correctly, ‘breaded chicken wing sections’. Anyway, it promises to be HOT & SPICY! A perfect snack to serve to your buddies who have come over to sponge off bask in your culinary generosity while watching the Chiefs trash Oakland.

As is my custom these days, I have a panel on which to score this entrée:

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Pkg art:      5    The artwork could use a little bit of improvement! (See veggie entry).

Reality:      8    Not bad. About what I was hoping for.                       

Cost:          5    At $4 for a box of 12 pieces, it’s on the pricey side!

Smell:        9    The great smell got all my juices going!                

Texture:     7    A little crunchy, but not bad!                      

Taste:         8    Great tasting. Not too hot! The problem is eating only three!   

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Avg:           7    Overall, good food! But, also high in calories!

My principle gripe concerns the lame photo replete with those great looking crispy veggies and dip in the background. Warning Will Robinson! There is no such thing inside the box, so don’t go spending your time looking.

I’m also not sure of what to make of those perky little pyramids on the bottom right corner of the box. Gee, only 25% of the recommended amount of daily meat! I’ll bet there are plenty of nutritionists out there that would like to see people eating NO meat at all! And, right above those nutri-breasts, I’m informed that the ‘Serving suggestion [is] enhanced to show quality’. What the heck are they referring to?  I’ll go out on a limb and say that the 'serving' shown here is actually the entire box of chicken. Eat that and you'd be getting a waist expanding 1,080 load of calories! (Just out of curiosity, I wanted to see what the ‘recommended’ serving amount of 3 ounces actually looked like…see below).

Turns out it’s just three pieces! What? Try serving that to your buddies at your next NFL football get together! "Hey guys! Have some nice hot and spicy wings,” you proudly announce as you carefully place a tiny paper plate with three wings in front of each of your beer bozzeled buddies. Three pairs of slightly unfocused eyes first look down at this meager offering and then back up to your smiling and oh so generous face. I can just hear their comments now….

In the end, however, this was a pretty good deal even at $4! Just watch out for those calories. This one's a heavy hitter in that department!

So, consider picking up a couple and stuffing them in the fridge for the next big game!

Banquet pot pies. How they've changed!

“The Greeks cooked meats in open pastry shells called ‘artrocreas’ however it was the Romans who added to top crust making the first pot pies.”

I can remember buying Chicken Pot pies back when I went to college. I had little money (much like now) and they cost less than a quarter (not like now)! At that time, there were no microwave ovens anywhere and so you had to have access to a real oven. Back then, they also came in little aluminum circular trays and were made by iconic companies like Stouffer’s, Banquet and Swanson. I’d pop one in the oven and a half hour to forty five minutes later, dinner was served! Chicken pot pie, long hair and plenty of beer was definitely my scene back then. Peace man!

Cycle forward (quite a few years I might add) and pot pies today come in all sorts of interesting combo’s. They even have fruit pot pies (I plan to eat and post one of these soon)! Most cost about a buck or sometimes a little more, and you can nuke them in the microwave in just a few minutes for a really fast hot meal. That then, is the subject of this post. I will be delving into the world of pot pies to see if they still measure up to my boyhood memories.

My selection for today will be the Chicken and Broccoli pot pie made by Banquet and distributed by ConAgra Foods. The picture looks pretty good, doesn’t it? A delicate, thin brown crust filled to over-brimming with all sorts of tasty morsels. Gotta love those advertising folks! Just look at the shear size of that hunk of chicken in the picture will you? I wondered briefly if I would be able eat all this in just one sitting?? Well, as the Chef on the Food Channel is known to say, ‘Allez Cuisine!’

In honor of this meal, I have a new ranking score card that looks like this:

      Category              Score                     Comments

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Package artwork:         1-10                 How appealing is the package artwork?

Visual appearance:      1-10                 Does the food look as good as the package?

Smell:                          1-10                 Is my nose aroused? Is it happy, shocked or only running?

Taste                            1-10                 1 = you don't wanna know whereas 10 is a mind blowing culinary experience!

Texture:                       1-10                 1 = cardboard & 10 = melt in your mouth!

Cost:                            1-10                 1 = RU crazy, 5 = Affordable, 10 = Just about free?

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Score:                          1-10                 An average of all the above!

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As you might imagine, a score much below a 5 would not be a good thing to eat. (Especially if that score was being helped by a high mark for the package artwork and cost factor)! So, now that we have that settled, what say we take this pot pie for a spin?

After removing the packaging and carefully checking the instructions,

Score Card for Banquet’s Chicken and Broccoli Pot Pie

      Category              Score                           Comments

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Package artwork:       8                        Mouth watering comes to mind! Nice picture.            

Visual appearance:    3                        Stark realities can be hard to bear! Can’t they?

Smell:                        7                        Very nice and pot pieesh!

Taste                          8                        Satisfying and filling. Like a pot pie should be!

Texture:                     8                        Carrots were a little crunchy…

Cost:                          7                        Under a buck? That’s cheap these days!           

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Score:                        7.2                     So-so to medium good!

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Overall, pretty decent for 370 calories. You could tell that this dish uses a lot of salt as a substitute for flavor, but then again, most companies do. My only real gripe was that he product was hesitant to come out of the tray. I had to dig it out, ergo the rather poor picture that is still somehow intriguing. Other than that, this is a good product for anyone looking for a hot meal on the run!

Critique: Banquet’s Turkey Meal

Gobble gobble! It’s turkey dinner time and I thought I'd do yet another cheap TV dinner critique of a meal from our friends at Con Agra. Sometimes I get the feeling that they put out a new TV dinner every day cause I'm losing track here!  I'll also admit I’ve become somewhat of a sucker for the fast salt-high that these one buck meals give me. I'll just bet you all that Con Agra’s secret motto is something like, “When in doubt, salt the crap out of it”! But, I digress...

While this 250 calorie mini-meal comes in at a mind boggling 1,060 milligrams of sodium, it really shouldn't be a concern as long as hypertension isn't a problem in your life.( Although if you eat this sort of stuff on a regular basis, it will be)!  And, even though there's not much turkey meat in this meal, the salty gravy was outstanding and made up for it to a great extent. (This was real turkey meat wasn't it Con Agra, you're not sticking a little bit of horse meat in there are you)? I also liked the potatoes and even the peas. Maybe I’m just becoming Banquet-brain-washed. Not sure…

This is one dinner that I would have no problem keeping stashed in the back of the freezer for those occasions when I didn’t feel like cooking something up, which is most of the time. Overall, I would give this repast a solid 7 on a scale of ten.

Update: This meal deal was on sale at .89 cents in Feb 2015 in my small town of Forsyth MO. It's still a great way to get some moderate calories that taste pretty good for cheap money! Ate this again in March and my heart is still pushing the blood through my aging body! Just in case you think I'm a shill for products from Banquet, please check out my review of their pasta and popcorn chicken!

Update: By 2016 (Feb), this meal cost $1.25! And, was now edging closer into the 'Don't Bother' category.

Critique: Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal!

It’s been a while since I reviewed a Banquet TV dinner! (I was eating wholesome food, but ran out of money). So, I thought I'd add their Salisbury Steak meal to my growing collection of dinner critiques. Of the ones I’ve tested thus far, this one ranks up there close to the top (of the current heap). As a side note, that little red dot toward the bottom of the box will inform you that it was 'US inspected by the Department of Agriculture'. For such small print (good for testing ones eyesight) that little mark is destined to become responsible for escalating food prices as a result of the passage of the Food Modernization Act last year. Just another benefit of your ever expanding nanny government. Here's a side bet. I'll wager this seventy seven cent meal will cost over $1.25 by fall. [Update: By fall 2011 it has gone to a buck! And by the fall of 2012 it was still at a buck!]

The Contents

To the best of my knowledge a 'Salisbury steak' is really nothing more than a fancy term for plain old meatloaf. In this package, you get one ‘steak’ soaked in gravy along with a modest amount of mashed potatoes and corn for about eighty-eight cents. (just a few months ago, these were .77 cents each).

The picture on the package is actually pretty accurate to some extent. Some of the meals I’ve tried do not look anything like what’s on the cover of the box. The taste also lived up to my expectations. Meatloaf, gravy and mashed potatoes are comfort foods aren’t they? The corn, well, it’s just corn and tasted as such.

Nutritional content

As to the nutrition (or lack thereof), this meal comes in at 290 calories of which 150 of those are from fat. You also get a not so very healthy slug of cholesterol (30 mg) and about half a persons daily limit of salt (1100 mg), so please don’t make this an everyday meal deal. Having said that, the overall taste is pretty good, so I'd give this one a 7 on a scale of ten.

Note: Banquet foods are made by ConAgra Foods, a company out of Omaha Nebraska so at least you are eating something that's still made in the good old US of A.