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New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin. ~Mark Twain

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Amy’s Kitchen Single Serving Spinach Pizza

February 19, 2008 | Reviewer: Nicole

Serving Size: 1 pizza, 7.18oz.
Calories: 440
Total Fat: 28%, 18g
Saturated Fat: 30%, 6g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 33%, 780mg
Total Carbs: 18%, 54g
Dietary Fiber: 12%, 3g
Sugars: 5g
Protein: 19g
Weight Watchers Points: 10 Points

Amy’s Kitchen says: Even if you don’t ordinarily eat spinach, you’ll like this pizza. The light, tender crust made from organic wheat flour and extra virgin olive oil is first topped with our savory italian sauce made from organic tomatoes. Then we add organic spinach blended with feta and sprinkle mozzarella on top. Delicious and satisfying.

Nicole says: It’s rare that I review two meals in a day. Rarer still that I eat organic, vegetarian fare. But see, I’m hungry, and just about all the meals in the fridge are too-be-reviewed. And I like spinach. I’m just not in the mood for Pineapple Black Bean Chicken. And not just because it comes with raisins.

Amy’s pizza has “No GMOs”, or biologically engineered ingredients.

The preparation of Amy’s pizza is onerous and does not allow for the use of a microwave, so you’d better have a conventional or toaster oven. Preheat your toaster oven - okay!… remove the pizza from it’s outer wrapping - this doesn’t look too bad… and let it thaw on the counter for 15-20 minutes. Are you kidding me? I suppose if you love this thing, you’d know about the thaw time, and would plan ahead for your hunger. But being an Amy’s pizza newbie, I was disappointed, and my tummy was growling. I waited, and waited… 15 minutes. Toaster oven bake time is seven to nine minutes - my cheese browned just a bit after 7.5 minutes in - but the meal was cold again fifteen minutes later.

I should probably mention that this pizza was a tad bit freezer burnt out of the work freezer - it’s been in there at least five months [It has been there for at least 10 months - Ed]. This may have affected the quality. But that happens to all of us - you keep pushing back the toaster oven meals in favor of microwave meals so you don’t need to get your security key and enter the other side of your office and wait in a strange, small kitchen for seven to nine minutes rather than returning to your desk to work.

Amy’s pizza crust looks quite lovely, but you can see an awful lot of it - the cheese on this pizza is a hair skimpy. It did crisp up well on the edges, but was a bit soggy towards the middle of the pizza. Back to the cheese, there are two kinds - feta mixed into the spinach and mozzarella to cover. I love feta, but I couldn’t taste it at all. The spinach is about the only flavor you really get out of this pizza. When I hit a tomato, it was juicy and had great texture but it tasted of spinach. This pie is lacking a complexity of flavors that we’ve come to expect from . . . pizza with more than one topping. The spinach, feta, and tomato were concentrated in certain areas, and I liked those bites, but other bites were flat-out bland.

I’m still hungry. It’s just a hungry day. But my stomach stopped growling at me, so I suppose I’m full. I would recommend a side or snack if you wish to make a meal out of this 7.2 ounce pizza. Although it’s like the healthy, vegetarian equivalent of a Celeste pizza. Still, I wouldn’t push this one on anybody unless they had a strong spinach craving.

Fresh Express Pacifica Veggie Supreme Salad

February 18, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $2.50 on sale
Servings per package: 2.5
Serving: 3 cups prepared salad
Calories: 220
Fat: 23%, 15g
Cholesterol: 3%, 10mg
Sodium: 14%, 340mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 6%, 18g
Fiber: 9%, 2g
Sugar: 14g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Fresh Express says: Chef-inspired Pacifica! Veggie Supreme makes it easy for you to have a restaurant style salad right at home! We start with crisp spring mix and a delicious veggie combination of carrot strips and tender pea pods. Then we add lightly roasted soy nuts and sunflower kernels for a tasty crunch. Our premium Cafe Fresh Poppyseed Vinaigrette Dressing adds the perfect amount of sweetness and balance of flavors.

Abi says: I’m addicted to this salad. It has a million problems, but I just can’t stop buying it. First, the carrots shreds are rare and rubbery. Second, the peapods are practically nonexistent. For the first few bags I thought that the single peapod included was a production-line mix-up, not an purposeful ingredient. So I didn’t eat them. Finally, the dressing’s first ingredient is High Fructose Corn Syrup. I kid you not. I feel wrong for liking this salad so much.

On the plus side: mini bags of sesame seeds and soy nuts make for a perfect non-crouton crunch and just about anything that adds more salad to my diet has to be good, right? Delusions are a strong, strong thing. I’ve been extending this salad by adding a diced apple, dried cranberries and diced chicken breast. Oh man, does this make the most fantastic lunch, full of crunchy, satisfying deliciousness. Plus, the bag really does contain 2.5 servings, so it is easy to estimate actual HFCS intake.

I know, I should just buy a bag of sesame seeds and a bag of roasted soy nuts and make my own darn salad already! But until I find a dressing that matches the one included in this salad, I’ll keep sinking money into Fresh Express.

UPDATE: BRIANNA’S Rich Poppy Seed dressing (the one with the peach on the bottle) tastes exactly the same as the Fresh Express variety and is all natural. If you’re in love with the Pacifica dressing, but not the packaged salad price, be sure to pick up a bottle of BRIANNA’S Rich Poppy Seed dressing. I know, this reads like an advertisement. I wish they’d send me some dressing.

Smart Ones Anytime Selections Calzone Italiano

February 15, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $2.50 on sale
Servings per package: 2
Serving: 1 calzone, 5oz.
Calories: 290
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 26%, 620mg
Protein: 14g
Carbohydrates: 16%, 47g
Fiber: 23%, 6g
Sugar: 6g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Smart Ones says: Low fat mozzarella cheese, the zesty flavor of Italian sausage and hearty tomato sauce in oven baked bread.

Abi says: While visiting a college friend in Seattle, I left a box of these in her freezer. When I returned a month later she informed me that she’d consumed both calzones. I took this as a sign that they’d be good. It was actually a sign that people who teach middle school science and have a lot of student loans to pay back will probably eat any food that you leave in the freezer.

This Smart Ones calzone tastes like high school. No, not Teen Spirit deodorant, fresh notebooks and formaldehyde. These calzones tastes exactly exactly like the pizza pockets available for $1.00 each in the cafeteria. I was a cold lunch kid (thanks, mom!), so I rarely had the opportunity to eat those pizza pockets. They stood for a level of unattainable coolness that I’d try to achieve by becoming a cheerleader.

The pocket itself is innocuous, at once crackery and soft. Not a spectacular pocket, but not a horrible one. It is a bit thicker than I’d expect for a ‘weight loss’ calzone and basically tastes like bread minus flavor. The sauce had an element of low-sugar Ragu and appeared to be pre-blended with cheese. I could have made sculptures with the sauce. Instead, I just smeared it around my plate debating my own hunger vs. walking to Potbelly for a cup of chili.

The sausage in this meal is made up of a variety of meats, making it off limits to Kosher friends by its existence and the inclusion of pork. Don’t worry about feeling left out; this stuff is rubbery, with a too-chewiness that will make you wonder if you’re eating spiced bouncy-balls. Smart Ones has a way to go in pursuit of perfectly microwavable sausage.

I paired this calzone with one of those ubiquitous Green Giant vegetable steamers (yes, I ate the whole thing). While I was full, I wasn’t satisfied from this trip back to angst-ville.

Trader Joe’s Goat Cheese Pizza

February 14, 2008 | Reviewer: Guest Reviewers

Price: $3.69
Serving: 1/2 pizza, 4.5oz.
Calories: 280 per serving
Fat: 16%, 11g
Cholesterol: 35%, 11mg
Sodium: 33%, 800mg
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrates: 11%, 33g
Fiber: 5%, 1g
Sugar: 5g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Trader Joe says: Goat cheese pizza with mozzarella, asiago, smoked provolone and romano cheeses, garlic and basil.

Kelly says: My apologies to all of you without a Trader Joe’s nearby. I keep finding wonderful things there and you’ll just have to deal with it. I found this pizza in the refrigerated section, so don’t go confusing it with frozen food. It is not frozen, it is fresh, fresh, fresh! It is also sublime with garlicky goodness and savory goat cheese.

I know that there are also a lot of people in this world who find goat cheese intolerable. In some ways I am sorry about that because you won’t like this pizza. I also have to admit that your weird taste buds make me happy because I don’t have to worry about this item being out of stock. Vive la difference!

Because it comes from the fridge section, this pizza cooks up faster than your standard frozen fare. The small size also helps with that speedy cooking, but it means that you’ve got to watch the oven really closely. There’s no catching up on Tivoed episodes of Lost. No, you can just wait for the hotness that is Sawyer until after this thing is done cooking (please, no spoilers in the comments).

This pizza isn’t health food, but it does cook up brilliantly, with a fantastic cheese variety (five types!) and lots o’seasoning all on a chewy, fresh crust. If you’re counting calories, half of this plus lots of vegetables will be satisfying. Unfortunately, unless you have someone else around to eat the other half right away you’ll probably find yourself sneaking a little slice out of the fridge come midnight.