Heat Eat Review

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A good, simple, homemade cookie is preferable to all the store-bought cookies one can find. ~James Beard

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Video Review #2: Lunchables or Hungry-Man?

March 6, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi Jones

Hey everyone, I’ll be in Austin, TX for the next week attending SXSWi and hanging out with other Internet nerds. While I’m there I’d like to record another video review. I’m not going anywhere near seafood, so you can get that out of your head right now. Instead, I’m offering you the choice of Lunchables or Hungry-Man.

My ideal review item for the Lunchables are the Mini Tacos. In terms of Hungry-Man, I’ll just look for a meal that Nicole hasn’t yet reviewed.

Please participate by voting below. The poll will be available until Monday, March 10.

Voting is Closed

P.S. If you’d like to get a cup of coffee with me @SXSW, just drop me a line via the contact form. We can talk about ramen.

Boston Market Lasagna Recall

March 5, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi Jones

The danger-beef used in school lunches across the country was also part of the Boston Market Frozen Foods supply chain. According to Nicole, Boston Market Lasagna with Meat Sauce is a five star meal, so I don’t look forward to her reaction when she sees this news.

Boston Market is currently recalling 40,000 cases of potentially harmful lasagna, which is an insane amount of lasagna when you think about it. You could build a house out of that much lasagna.

At this time, consumers with questions can contact the Boston Market Frozen Food Consumer Helpline at 1-800-488-0050. The Boston Market Frozen Meals website is generally static so I’m not sure when they’ll be updating it with recall info.

Update: Products affected by the recall have lot codes: NQ7K04, NQ7K11, NQ7K22, NQ7L13, NQ7M21 and NQ8A24.

I’ll update this post as further information becomes available.

Trader Joe’s Angus Cheeseburger Sliders

March 5, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $4.59 (spendy!)
Serving: 2 sliders, 3.5oz.
Servings per Package: 2
Calories: 260
Fat: 15%, 10g
Cholesterol: 17%, 70mg
Sodium: 19%, 450mg
Protein: 16g
Carbohydrates: 8%, 25g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Trader Joe says: Beefy goodness

Abi says: When I pulled these out of my Trader Joe’s shopping bag, my fiance, a man who has been known to eat burnt cookies, $1.00 pizzas and mushrooms, looked at them with both disdain and disgust.

“Hey,” I said “these will either be awesome or they will be horrible. So I have to try them.”

He verbally agreed, shrugged and left me to the rest of my unpacking because our freezer is now like a game of Tetris and I’m the only one who really knows how to play (which is actually not true, my mom rocks at Tetris. It is scary how good she is.).

These hamburgers were neither super nor bad nor superbad. They were exactly what I’d expect from a microwaved slider. Each was smaller in diameter yet thicker than a KFC Chicken Little. The bun was incredibly soft and peppered with sesame seeds, which made me realize that I dislike sesame seeds on buns. They get everywhere: teeth, carpet, in your bra - I am not kidding about the bra thing.

The next layer in the slider is the cheese. If there’s something that Trader Joe’s is going to get right, it is cheese. Each mini burger was topped with a square of yellow cheddar and each square of cheddar melted perfectly. It didn’t taste like much, but it looked really nice.

And the meat part? Have you ever defrosted frozen hamburger in the microwave but forgotten to flip it and essentially cooked a pound of hamburger via magnetron? That’s how this beef tasted. It was cooked, but lacked the slight char necessary to a good burger What, you think char is not necessary? Then you have not seen people weep when the Whopper was discontinued. Each little burger patty was a hockey puck of chewiness, so springy that I briefly contemplated trying to bounce a piece of it on the kitchen floor.

Two sliders is a snack and four sliders are too many to eat in a state of sobriety. As cute as they were, I won’t be buying these again. At nearly $5.00 for four sliders, I’m better off waiting until I go to DC where I can get freshly grilled mini-burgers sandwiched between layers of buttered and grilled brioche.

Eating Right Chicken with Basil Cream Sauce

March 4, 2008 | Reviewer: Adina

Price: $2.50
Serving: 1 meal, 8.5 oz.
Calories: 280
Fat: 11%, 7g
Cholesterol: 12%, 35mg
Sodium: 20%, 480mg
Protein: 19g
Carbs: 11%, 34g
Fiber: 9%, 2g
WW Points: 6 Points

Eating Right says: White meat chicken and spaghetti in a rich basil cream sauce.

Adina says: This meal had a lot of things working against it. For one, it had been sitting in my work freezer for over 6 months. When I opened it up, there was quite a bit of frost covering the food. Two, I ate a very similar dish from Healthy Choice’s Café Steamers line (Chicken Tuscany, which I also reviewed) and that dish made me seriously consider leaving my husband so I could make babies with a microwave meal. Weird, but true.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the taste and nutritional facts of this meal. The chicken was tender, surprisingly tenderer than the Café Steamer chicken. It had a nice texture and was seasoned well. The basil was a subtle yet present accent to the cream sauce. I love basil in cream sauce, I think it pulls out flavors that you wouldn’t normally experience in a cream sauce. The noodles were slightly mushy, but I blame the layer of frost for this shortcoming. The peppers didn’t punch a lot of crunch or flavor, but they also didn’t suck. So better than most microwave meal veggies, if you ask me.

The only shortcoming is that this is a fairly small meal, weighing in at only 8.5 oz, where the Chicken Tuscany weighed in at 10.6 oz. You’re definitely going to have to supplement this meal with a warm piece of whole wheat bread or a giant candy bar (whichever one is closer), but is that such a bad thing? Candy bars go with everything.

Overall, it wasn’t a completely mind altering experience, but it was definitely much better than other frozen entrees I have sampled. The nice thing about this meal was that it had more impressive nutritional facts than most. Low fat, low carbs, and definitely lower sodium compared to other microwave meals. Plus, it accounts for 38% of your daily protein, which is a huge selling point for me, considering most of my protein consumption comes from looking at cows when I drive through the country and from greasy medium-rare cheeseburgers from Good Dog Bar (best burger in Philadelphia, possibly the world).

I am pretty sure these sell for $2.50 at Genuardi’s and Safeway, which is cheaper than most microwave meals off-sale, so that is also a plus. In conclusion, this was not a bad meal. It didn’t hurt me to eat this food. I even enjoyed the time I spent eating it, all two seconds of it. Yes, I might be eating a super pretzel later, but what else is new? I could eat a 7 pound burger and still eat a super pretzel for dessert, that is how much I like super pretzels. So I give this meal 4 stars, although it is more of a 3.5 star meal. I am rounding up so that one day God will take pity on me and send me a pasta microwave meal that is 100 oz and zero fat and zero carbs. I am waiting for that day, God.