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Once, during prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water. ~W.C. Fields

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Trader Joe’s Mac ‘n Cheese

December 16, 2006 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $3.89 (worth it!)
Serving: 1/2 tray, 7 oz.
Calories: 360
Fat: 23%, 15g
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 24g
Carbs: 14%, 42g
Fiber: 4%, 1g

Trader Joe says: Four Cheese: Cheddar, Swiss, Havarti, Gouda

Abi says: I was skeptical when I opened this box of TJ’s macaroni and cheese; it contained nothing more than a bunch of macaroni piled high with shredded cheese. That and butter.

“Ha!” I thought with awakening memories of Girl Scout camp. At the age of 10 I attended Girl Scout camp in rural Oregon and spent a week learning how to take care of and ride horses. Everything but the food was great and I learned some interesting lessons:

1. It isn’t that fun or nutritous to eat Girl Scout cookies for dessert every day for a week
2. Campfire songs are overrated
3. People from the city don’t know how to whittle
4. Just because you mixed cooked pasta and shredded cheese together doesn’t mean you actually made mac and cheese

I was a picky kid and didn’t eat much at camp. That was partly due to my macaroni and cheese preferences and partly due to the fact that I am a picky eater. I enjoy mac and cheese baked or from a box, but the prospect of just mixing some hot noodles with cheese in the hope that it would make some luscious comfort food seemed more than a bit absurd. By ‘more than a bit absurd’ I mean ‘disgusting’.

So when I opened up this box and found a bunch of shredded cheese over noodles, my hopes fell precipitously; I popped the tray in the microwave expecting nothing more than a mediocre noodles+cheese=lunch experience.

I could not have been more wrong in my assumptions. Trader Joe’s Macaroni and Cheese is clearly the best microwaveable macaroni and cheese in existence. If it was legal (and sane) to marry food, you’d see me walking down the aisle with a box of Trader Joe’s Macaroni and Cheese.

The cheese melts perfectly to become one with the noodles. I have seriously contemplated buying a couple of boxes of this, topping it with seasoned panko, broiling, and calling the whole thing my own homemade mac and cheese creation. This macaroni and cheese is so freaking good that if you are anywhere near a Trader Joe’s you need to buy it right now.

Eagerness aside, this is not a healthy meal. It is full of buttery cheesiness and delightfully firm noodles. Just 7 oz. will run you 360 calories. But when you think about it, there are about 360 calories in 2 small cookies. Go for the mac and cheese!

Betty Crocker Bowl Appetit Three-Cheese Rotini

December 16, 2006 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $1.00
Serving: 1 bowl, 3.1 oz. plus water
Calories: 360
Fat: 16%, 10g
Sodium: 43%, 1020mg
Protein: 13g
Carbs: 18%, 55g
Fiber: 8%, 2g

Betty says: Rotini pasta in a rich three-cheese sauce

Abi says: FYI, the three cheeses in this meal are cheddar, parmesan, and blue cheese. This meal is superbly cheesy and when on sale for less than a dollar is definitely worth the price. I ate mine with an apple, a couple of hardboiled eggs (only the egg whites, I can’t stand yolks), and a couple of squares of dark chocolate. It made for a warm and satisfying lunch on what turned out to be a glorious (60 degrees in mid-December) day.

I wasn’t pleased with the 5 minute, 30 second microwave time required of the meal. I also wasn’t pleased with the immense amount (40 seconds) of stirring required to mix all of the cheese powder with water. Yes, I am that lazy. The stirring was a lot of work, but the results were well worth it.

At first I didn’t understand why I was so loathe to stir this uncooked meal when I have no problem making a temporary foil baking dish for my Morningstar Corn Dogs. Then I realized that I was worried I might splash bright orange macaroni water on myself. This meal is an orange that could best be described as ‘nuclear’. It contains no artificial flavoring (go cheese!) but has artificial coloring up the wazoo. If Betty took out the artificial flavoring, I would probably be a lot happier to eat this meal regularly with less worry about splashing myself with bright orange dye. On the upside for Betty, this meal could be relabeled as ‘All Natural’ and she could start making a ton of money off of yuppyish moms everywhere.

Notice I didn’t mention the 43% of daily sodium? Well, now I am mentioning it. This meal contains a heck of a lot of sodium. I was sort of embarrassed when I commented on how the meal was pretty good and my coworker Chad admonished me with “Yeah, but I bet it contains a lot of sodium.”

He’s right. It does.

Hormel Cheezy Mac ‘n Cheese

December 15, 2006 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $1.00
Serving: 1 cup, 7.5 oz.
Calories: 280
Fat: 25%, 16g
Sodium: 34%, 820mg
Protein: 10g
Carbs: 8%, 24g
Fiber: 8%, 2g

Hormel says: These are wholesome meals or snacks that kids can make themselves in 90 seconds, giving them the feeling of satisfaction and independence. Each tasty flavor is considered a good source of protein for kids. They’re perfect for snacktime - lunchtime - anytime!

Abi says: I buy most frozen meals on the basis of two qualifying factors: price and looks. I will buy super-nasty items if they are very cheap. I will also buy fantastically good looking things if they are less than $3.00. Yeah, that’s my threshold and the reason why I wrote multiple pages of prose regarding a sale on Amy’s Bowls (specifically, the Pesto Tortellini Bowl).

This item falls into the super-nasty-cheap category. Sure, I felt a sense of independence from heating up my own meal. I also felt a sense of nausea from tasting the toxic orange sludge oozing from this ’snack’. While Hormel is known for meats, it is not known for pasta. There is a reason for that notoriety.

Safeway Macaroni and Cheese

December 15, 2006 | Reviewer: Sarah

Price: $1.99 (on sale)
Serving: 1 cup, 8 oz.
Calories: 350
Fat: 29%, 19g
Sodium: 52%, 1250mg
Protein: 15g
Carbs: 11%, 32g
Fiber: 7%, 2g

Safeway says: A Real Indulgence! Prepared to perfection with the finest quality ingredients, including fresh cream, and real butter, delicately topped with toasted bread crumbs.

Sarah says: Now don’t get me wrong, Safeway’s macaroni was delicious. But unfortunately, dear reader, I cannot give you a strong recommendation to buy said macaroni. Because while it was cheesy, filling, and, well, macaroni-y to the last bite, it was also HUGE. To their credit, Safeway does clearly state on the front of their box the fact the meal inside contains 2 servings—an apparent attempt to indicate to you, the buyer, that you are supposed to share.

But I ask you: who shares macaroni?

Not I. When I heat up some frozen macaroni at work, I want to eat every last cheese-a-riffic noodle in the box. When faced with the giant box of Safeway noodles and mystery cheese, I had a difficult decision on my hands. Act properly and eat the entire thing, thus consuming 700 calories, or be a wimp and break out the Tupperware?

Those who know me well will know that I ate it all. However, I wouldn’t allow myself to be tempted into gluttony a second time, and thus would probably not purchase Safeway’s macaroni again. I would really only recommend it to people with a strong willpower than my own, or those who are eating it for dinner after a very long (and calorie burning!) day.

As for the actual food? The noodles were of a good consistency, and the cheese was thick. The added “bread crumbs” didn’t really seem to be bread, as far as I could tell, but they were tasty nonetheless. The only other complaint that I had is the amount of time it took to cook—approximately 15 minutes in the microwave! I could have boiled up an entire pot of Kraft in that time… and they come in spirals.