Heat Eat Review

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The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. ~George Miller

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Reader Letter of the Week #1

April 9, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi Jones

Today Ethel wrote to Heat Eat Review thinking that we make the Simply Enjoy meals. We’re speculating that she thought she was getting Chicken Marsala, not Tikka Masala. I understand because I’ve made the exact same mistake, but the other way around.

I purchased several of these dinners and I this is the second day that I brought one for lunch and yuck, yuck! On Monday I brought the Chicken Tikka Massala for my lunch had to throw it in the trash. Okay, I’m a glutton for punishment because since I had already purchased several of these dinners to use for my lunches during the week I said give it another shot with a different dinner. Today, it was the Butter Chicken, again YUCK, YUCK. I was unaware that this was suppose to be Indian food - this should be clearly labeled on the front of box. This was about the nastiest food that I have tasted in quite some time.

Dear Ethel,

If you’re reading this, Nicole requests that you send her any unwanted Butter Chickens. Also, were you thinking of something like the Butter Burger, featured on Jorge Reyes’ blog (SFW, but not for the weak of stomach)?

Sincerely,
Abi Jones
Editrix, Heat Eat Review

Hungry-Man Buffalo Style Chicken Strips

April 8, 2008 | Reviewer: Nicole

Price: $2.75 (4/$11 sale, Safeway)
Calories 920
Total Fat 54%, 35g
Saturated Fat 35%, 7g
Cholesterol 42%, 125mg
Sodium 39%, 930mg
Carbohydrates 24%, 71g
Dietary Fiber 5%, 6g
Sugars 34g
Protein 34g
Weight Watchers Points: 21 WW Points

Hungry-Man says: Fried chicken patties coated in a floured buffalo style seasoning with french fries, corn & a brownie.

Nicole Says: If chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows, where does chocolate corn come from? At some point in its short life, my Hungry Man meal must have defrosted pretty well, because not only did I have a significant portion of corn enter my brownie section, but some of the kernels were actually frozen in. So I had no choice but to bake them in. And that’s after 5 minutes of digging conglomerated frozen corn out of said brownie section.

The cooking is also less-than-straightforward. Remove film over all except corn, five minutes cook time, remove brownie (not so easy to scrape it all out) and then back in to nuke for two more minutes.

I went into this with some skepticism. Buffalo Chicken and a Brownie? Is this for overweight pre-teen males (1 LB. OF FOOD)? Although, hey, I’m excited about the brownie.

So beginning with the safest route, the fries are good, not too soggy, but they could use a touch of salt (and why, oh, why, don’t I have a small ketchup bottle at the office?) There are a lot of fries here - maybe a McDonal’ds Medium? But thick and crinkle-cut, like classic frozen fries.

The corn is buttery in flavor without being in a soupy pool of buttery water. There’s also a slight sweetness to the corn, but that could be bits of brownie mix baked on. In the brownie-to-corn direction, this is not a tragedy. The serving size is slightly larger than your average section-meal’s veg serving.

Four chicken strips sit atop my fries, each about the size of two McD’s nuggets - looking sort of splotchy red-and-yellow and … crispy?! Upon closer inspection, there is some visible sogginess on the bottom of a couple strips. Perhaps they should be flipped at the cooking-interruption point where the brownie is removed to crisp on both sides? Because the tops and sides are actually crispy, and I’m totally impressed. I think it’s the fact of cooking atop the fries that helps this out - on the undersides, the soggy sections were only those touching plastic during the cooking process rather than resting atop french fries.

(It’s too bad country/chicken-friend steak/chicken goes so well with smashed potatoes. Otherwise we could cook that atop fries, too, and make Nicole’s world complete.)

The “buffalo” flavor of the strips is questionable. I was expecting a sharp, tangy vinegar-hot sauce experience, but the tang isn’t really there. However, there is a subtle, slowly building spice and heat flavoring the strips, and it’s damn tasty. If you like REALLY spicy food, well, you’d better have your bottle of hot sauce handy.

After chicken-strip-happiness began, I decided to interrupt for a mid-meal dessert, out of fear that a less-than-great brownie might leave me on the wrong foot. The brownie (corn and all) is very so-so. It is chocolately but not very sugary (slightly towards bitter), pretty moist in texture. I think that chocolate lover (not connoisseurs, but lovers) would be very pleased. I, myself, am glad I have some crispy spiciness left.

Surprise, surpise, this meal is quite filling. I think that the spiciness of the chicken combines with the 1 LB. OF FOOD to make me . . . full . . . and happy . . . I will absolutely buy this meal again, but I may save it for dinner, because I might just be ruined as far as working goes for the next 30 minutes.

[Nicole, there’s another one in Kitchen 2. -Ed.]

Oscar Mayer Deli Creations Turkey Monterey

April 7, 2008 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $3.00 on sale
Serving: 1 creation, 7.1oz.
Calories: 450
Fat: 26%, 17g
Cholesterol: 18%, 55mg
Sodium: 45%, 1090mg
Protein: 25g
Carbs: 17%, 50g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugar: 13g
Weight Watchers Points: 10 Points

Oscar Mayer says: Oscar Mayer shaved mesquite smoked turkey breast, Kraft monterey jack cheese with jalapeno peppers, Kraft southwestern style ranch dressing, Kraft garden salsa on a country white sub roll.

Abi says: When I saw these on sale at my local Safeway I turned to the guy next to me, who happened to be a stranger, and said ‘Oh man, these things are awful.’ And then I bought two, because my mission is to confuse people at the grocery store.

So, what does cheap (but in reality, really freaking expensive for some bread and meat) get you? It starts with a super-soft roll. If you are at all familiar with Wonder Bread, you know what you’re getting here. Next, you get to top the bread yourself, getting meat juice and dressing and such all over your hands.

I have to admit that I was pleased with the amount of turkey included in this sandwich. It most closely resembled a packed of the Louis Buddig ultra-thin turkey. I love that stuff. For those of you not familiar with Louis Buddig or Land-o-Frost products, just imagine meat paper.

There was enough meat that I was able too eat a few of the slices while assembling the sandwich and still have enough to make a presentable hoagie. Next I topped it with the perfectly shaped sliced of jalapeno jack. Before topping the cheese and meat layers with the other half of the bun I did two things:

1. Decided that Kraft garden salsa resembles nothing more than tomato sauce and tossed it (sorry to those of you who wanted to know how it tastes).
2. Spread Southwestern style ranch on the bread and then realized that warm ranch dressing sounds like pretty much the grossest thing ever.

Unable to reverse my Ranch Dressing Decision, I put the sandwich in the microwave, heated if for a minute (melty cheese!) and dug in.

First impression: Goo.

When you heat ultra-processed lunchmeat, white bread, cheese and flavored ranch it all turns into a mass of gunk. Without any lettuce, sprouts, tomato, cucumbers or onion, this sandwich featured nothing crisp, nothing that indicated ‘Hey, you’re not just eating hot meat. This is a meal!’ Ugh. Separately I enjoyed the building blocks for this sandwich, but once they were put together and microwaved I found myself eating the sandwich as fast as possible just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with having it in my mouth anymore (I was hungry and running late to catch a train).

I sincerely enjoy eating hot turkey sandwiches made from freshly carved meat. I do not enjoy heated up sliced lunch meat. I also do not like paying to put together a sandwich. Sadly, there’s still another one of these in the fridge. I’m going to eat it cold or make it for George and pretend that I picked it up from the Safeway deli counter and see what he thinks.

Lean Cuisine Chicken Fried Rice

April 1, 2008 | Reviewer: Becky

Price: $2.08 + tax
Serving: 10oz.
Calories: 280
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 16%, 50mg
Sodium: 29%, 690mg
Protein: 17g
Carbohydrates: 13%, 39g
Fiber: 14%, 3g
Sugar: 6 g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Lean Cuisine says: Rice & white meat chicken mixed with crispy vegetables & eggs in a sesame sauce.

Becky says: Normally, I’m a huge fan of fried rice, and I make it from scratch quite a bit (my secret ingredient is sesame oil). So during my last lunch shopping excursion, I didn’t object to this meal when my youngest stepdaughter picked it out for me.

I think she just lost that privilege.

When I took this out of the box, I noticed that it was just plain white rice in the bowl. That’s okay – I figured that the sauce was probably at the bottom. Once it was stirred, I realized the not-so-great truth – while there was sauce at the bottom of the bowl, it was not enough to make a difference in taste. I think a little low-sodium soy sauce would’ve gone a long way here, but that’s not in high demand in our office.

On a good note, I was surprised at the quantity of chicken, egg, peas and carrots – they were plentiful, and cooked perfectly. The chicken was tender, juicy, and tasted like chicken. There was more egg than what I had expected, but that wasn’t a bad thing!

As far as the nutritionals are concerned, the only thing that surprised me was the sodium count. I could not taste the 29% of my daily allowance of the stuff – in fact, I could’ve used more! It just goes to show how much salt we take in without knowing it . . . I’m sure that homemade toffee that I’ve been nibbling on all day is packed with that stuff.

I doubt I’ll get this meal again. The sheer lack of TASTE was enough to do it for me – there’s better ways to add flavor without compromising the nutritional value. Get to it, Lean Cuisine.