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What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead. ~George Bernard Shaw

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Simply Enjoy Chicken Tikka Masala

June 8, 2007 | Reviewer: Jenn

Price: $2.50
Serving: 1 tray, 10.58 oz.
Calories: 390
Fat: 9%, 6g
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 14g
Carbs: 21%, 62g
Fiber: 12%, 3g

Simply Enjoy says: Exotic spices flavor white chicken tenderloins to bring you a Chicken Tikka Masala. Served with a mildly spiced sauce on a bed of fragrant Basmati rice, this is a meal you can delight your friends and family with any day of the week.

Jenn says: The cost of a trip to India - $2,500. The cost of Simply Enjoy's Chicken Tikka Massala - $2.50 (on sale at Giant.) While I know that the two don't actually compare, if you don't have an extra couple of thousand dollars but still want good Indian food, I wholeheartedly recommend this meal.

The sauce is bright and aromatic without being overly spicy. The chicken is moist and tender, though the rice is a bit dry. Personally, I like my rice a little more moist, but I don't think moist rice is commonly found at Indian restaurants.

You could go to an Indian restaurant and get food just as good but it would probably cost you more and you would receive and inevitably eat a much larger portion size than is actually necessary.

I just had a colleague walk by and ask why I hadn't asked them if they wanted to go get take out at the Indian buffet today. Simply Enjoy's Chicken Tikka Massala can really fool you into believing that you went out to eat. Yum.

Annie Chun’s Udon Soup

June 7, 2007 | Reviewer: Adina

Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 Bowl, 4.3 oz.
Calories: 220
Fat: 2%, 1.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 38%, 920mg
Protein: 6g
Carbs: 15%, 45g
Fiber: 5%, 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Annie Chun says: [My] new FreshPak™ Noodles are full of flavor and offer a wonderfully satisfying texture, much more pleasing than everyday dry noodles. They’re the perfect match for the classic, light Japanese broth of tofu, vegetables and shiitake mushrooms. A traditional Japanese Udon soup, all vegetarian, all delicious!

Adina says: This was truly delicious. I eat a lot of authentic udon noodles from our local Asian market. Plus, I worked at a Japanese restaurant for 3 years. Plus, I’m Asian. All these things can lead you to only one conclusion: this girl knows her udon noodles. And this meal, in all its non-refrigerated fresh packed glory, is good udon noodle soup.

The noodles are firm and chewy, just like in the restaurants. The soup base was a little strong but I think it is because I didn’t put enough water in the bowl. And even as a strong soup base, it packed a lot of mushroom and soy sauce flavor without being predictable. The bok choy and green onions were surprisingly fresh tasting, a miracle in and of itself, considering it came in the form of a giant manufactured seasoned square. An added bonus is that the bowl is biodegradable and the meal is vegetarian. The whole bowl is considered two servings now considered one serving, so when you look at the breakdown, the only downside is the sodium (38%), which is still way less than a regular package of ramen noodles (over 60%). The carbs are at 15%, which I’m willing to accept since I was eating a giant bowl of noodles.

I have only one complaint. This meal is semi-difficult to assemble. It requires you to put hot water in the bowl to loosen the noodles, drain the water, add the soup base and toppings, and then add 1 to 1.5 cups of water and microwave. These steps require you to have access to hot water and possibly even a measuring cup. I don’t want you to think I’m a wimping out on the “Heat” part of this blog, I’m just saying. “Draining” and “measuring” equals cooking in my book.

Otherwise, Annie Chun’s Udon Soup is a delicious, inexpensive, and healthy meal.

Brothers All Natural Strawberry Crisps

June 6, 2007 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $0.80
Serving: 1 entire bag, .26 oz.
Calories: 30
Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 0%, 0mg
Protein: 1g
Carbs: 2%, 6g
Fiber: 6%, 1g

Brothers International Food Corporation says: We start with luscious fruit, straight from some of the best growing regions in the world. We then send it directly to our state-of-the-art FREEZE DRIED process that gently removes the water from the fresh fruit, and transforms it into a delicious, delightfully light, and flavorful CRISP. As always, we simply use fruit, nothing artificial, definitely no added sugar…just fruit, THE BEST FRUIT.

Abi says: These berries were one of the many food items I foisted on my colleagues this spring. They were also my first experience with freeze dried food. Somehow, I managed to resist the freeze dried ice cream during my childhood trips to OMSI and the Pacific Science Center. In the gift shop was generally more enamored of the hand boilers.

I considered consuming the entire .26 ounces of fruit myself, but then I would have missed seeing Chad, Kate, and Josh realize that they’d just consumed strawberry-flavored styrofoam. I kid. These are not made of styrofoam, they just taste the way styrofoam would taste if it was made very sour and produced in the color of dried blood. I do not kid about the dried blood part.

Brothers All Natural’s freeze dried fruits aren’t just a flavor explosion, they’re also a textural experience. Each little berry will suck all of the saliva out of your mouth and into the product, thus making it possible for you to experience desert-like thirst and an uncomfortably full mouth at the same time.

Only after exhorting my colleagues to consume these berries did I realize that they were from China. Holy crap, I’m eating freeze-dried strawberries from China? Isn’t that a little ridiculous? I mean, I can see purchasing other things from China, like silk, catfish, and toothpaste, but strawberries? From now on, I’m not willing to go any further than Chile to get my red, sour, styrofoamy fruit.

Lean Cuisine Beef Portabello

June 4, 2007 | Reviewer: Rebecca

Price: $2.50
Serving: 1 meal, 9 oz.
Calories: 220
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 10%, 30mg
Sodium: 28%, 660mg
Carbohydrates: 8%, 25g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Protein: 16g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Lean Cuisine says: Tender pieces of roasted beef in a rich portabello mushroom sauce, accompanied by whipped potatoes made with red skin potatoes, carmelized onions, roasted garlic and chives.

Rebecca says: There is something to be said for the appearance of a dish. The fact that a dish looks relatively unappetizing when it is removed from the microwave could be a sign of disaster. But sometimes, I can be talked out of my initial reaction. So I showed my food to Abi and to Jenn and they both supported my initial hypothesis that my beef portabello looked disgusting. When food looks disgusting (there is a bit of a crust on the potatoes and a thin film on top of the meat portion), that's usually internalized as an omen of bad taste.

The appearance of the food could have been overcome. Sometimes things look bad and taste delicious (and vice versa) but this dish also had a problem with texture. The whipped potatoes, the "cooked beef product,"? the mushrooms didn't really mesh well together and even mixing the potatoes into the sauce didn't work out.

Yes the mushrooms were tasty but my threshold for mushrooms is extremely low. Also, they were so drenched in sauce that I could only distinguish by texture and taste rather than by appearance.

I like the idea of mushrooms, roast beef and mashed potatoes but should have known that mushrooms, roasted beef and whipped potatoes was not the same thing. Don't be seduced by a sale or the desire to try something new. This doesn't taste like how mama used to make it or even how the cafeteria lady used to make it. If you see it in the store, make the wise choice and walk on by.