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After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives. ~Oscar Wilde

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Stouffer’s Spinach Souffle

January 29, 2009 | Reviewer: Paige

Price: $3.29
Serving size: 4oz
Servings per box: 3
Calories: 150 per serving
Fat: 15%, 10g
Cholesterol: 34%, 110mg
Sodium: 16%, 390mg
Protein: 6g
Carbohydrates: 3%, 9g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Sugar: 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Stouffer’s says: Chopped spinach baked with skim milk and eggs. No preservatives.

Paige says: This spinach souffle and the Stouffer’s macaroni & cheese were the only frozen items my mom would allow me to eat growing up. Everything else was homemade. In fact, I wasn’t allowed to eat mac & cheese from a box. When I went away to college and made mac & cheese from that blue box, I realized how artificial it really is. I also liked it.

I hadn’t had the Stouffer’s Spinach Souffle in about 15 years, so I thought it was time to remind myself why I hadn’t been eating it. It’s actually not bad. It does NOT taste like creamed spinach, which I don’t care for at all. t solidifies to the point that if you insert a knife, it comes out clean. Of course, you can make it runnier, but I prefer my souffle with a bit of crisp skin on the outside. And while I enjoy crisp skin on my souffle, I do not like any skin on my pudding. No pudding skin singles for me.

But back to spinach. I love spinach. Cooked or not, I think it’s delicious. My favorite is spanakopita, which is spinach and feta cheese layered between phyllo dough. That’s spinach at its greatest. Anyway, the souffle. It does rise and has a bit of a fluffy texture to it, but I think a real spinach souffle would likely have more seasoning and some diced onion and maybe even some cheese. Alas, this has none of those things. But it’s frozen and cooks in only a few minutes, so I won’t complain. It really does taste like spinach, eggs, and milk. I ate about half of it for a meatless lunch. I also ate a red bell pepper separately, but that’s just because I love red peppers. I was definitely full. Not like some frozen meals that have me craving a candy bar 30 minutes later. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Who makes the best frozen pie?

January 27, 2009 | Reviewer: Abi Jones

You want to know why I play so much Tetris on the iPhone? Because I have to figure out how to put things in my freezer. I have an INSANE freezer. And an insane freezer means that there’s no room for pie. Well, that and I tried a peach cobbler a week ago that make me sort of want to cry because it was so horrible.

The pie department on Heat Eat Review needs a lot of help. Mostly because there isn’t even a pie department (there is however a dessert section and it includes Duncan Hines Oven Ready Brownies, Gluten Free Cookies, Betty Crocker Warm Delights Cinnamon Swirl Cake and No Pudge Fudge Brownies).

Until we start featuring pies on this here site, you can amuse yourself with the follies of Kristen Browning-Blas as she evaluates pies from the freezer and bakery section in Taste Test: Love pie but don’t bake?.

Photo by net_efekt.

South Beach Living Chicken Santa Fe Style Rice and Beans

January 26, 2009 | Reviewer: Jess

Price: $2.50 (Free from Abi)
Serving: 1 oz.
Calories: 340 per serving
Fat: 18%, 12g
Cholesterol: 27%, 80mg
Sodium: 31%, 750mg
Protein: 22g
Carbohydrates: 12%, 35g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugar: 3g
WW Points: 7 Points

South Beach says: WHITE MEAT CHICKEN DICES, SOUTHWESTERN STYLE BROWN RICE & BLACK BEANS WITH A ROASTED PEPPER & CILANTRO SOUR CREAM SAUCE, TOPPED WITH REDUCED FAT CHEDDAR CHEESE

Jess says: I’ve always stayed away from the South Beach series. I think it’s because I didn’t really understand what the South Beach diet was. From the insanely skinny people I’ve seen on beach vacation brochures, I can say that they look happy, relaxed and tan, but don’t really look like foody people. These are not the folks that I’d go to for meal advice. Also, it’s the packaging. Everything about it says, “Gross diet food. Bland. Bland. For the love of fullness, don’t eat me.” I never got that same vibe from Lean Cuisine which says, “Eat me. I’m cheap. I’m probably tasty. And oh yeah, I love your heart more than Marie Callender does”. I did finally look up the South Beach diet, and it’s insanely complicated. It’s eating along the biblical dichotomy of good versus evil. And there are phases. Whatever dude.

As far as taste goes, though, it turns out that I was wrong and I had judged on the base of packaging to my own loss. This meal tasted like the insides of a delicious burrito. The meal was nicely spicy, with a sour creamy burrito sauce that was much thicker and more substantial than what I was expecting. The chicken was in these small bits so that each bite included a well-proportioned mix of chicken, beans, rice and sauce. The portion was about average for the lean food varieties. Looking at the nutrition information I see that it’s on the salty side for a “healthy meal” and my current thirst agrees. But this was an entirely acceptable lunch meal which I would probably eat again. Double true if it was cheap or free. And if the side affect of eating this meal is a well-preserved hot beach body and a tan, you won’t hear me complaining.

Safeway Select Thai Style Coconut Chicken

January 22, 2009 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $2.00 (on sale)
Serving: 1 tray, 9oz
Servings per package: 1
Calories: 310 per serving
 Calories from Fat: 110
Fat: 19%, 12g
 Saturated Fat: 27%, 5g
 Trans Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 11%, 35mg
Sodium: 29%, 700mg
Protein: 12g
Carbohydrates: 12%, 37g
Fiber: 5%, 1g
Sugar: 6g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Safeway Select says: Chef’s recipe simmers coconut milk, lemon-grass extract and chili paste into a rich sauce, then pours it over moist, white meat chicken strips and rice. A Thai feast!

Abi says:The best box blurb is not the one above, but one that is on both the front of the box and the back and reads ‘Exotic Spices, a Hint of Heat, Exploding Taste!’

Seriously, EXPLODING TASTE? I don’t want to eat that for fear of what it will do to my guts. Fortunately, I didn’t see that until this little guy was in the microwave. Four minutes on normal power, a quick stir, then one more minute on normal power. I could inform the next person in line that it would take me five minutes and be done with the microwave jockeying that plagues many an office kitchen. My coworkers were also intrigued by the black box, which reminds me of nothing so much as Dynasty. Yes, I know it is supposed to mean ‘classy’ and ’sophisticated’ but instead I keep picturing Joan Collins being forced to eat these after being locked in a basement by a demented Linda Evans.

This meal also reminds me of a super-old Betty Crocker cookbook that my dad gave me for Christmas a few years back (I asked for it). Why? Because it contains an insane amount of pineapple. And while I went pineapple crazy on my honeymoon (which wasn’t even a month ago), ordering every pineapple-containing creation in the known universe (fried rice, salad, nachos, smoothies, pina coladas, yogurt, ice cream, breakfast pastries, etc), I could still eat more pineapple. In fact, right now I could go for some pineapple

Fortunately for me, this dish contains a heck of a lot of pineapple. Scads of pineapple. Gobs of pineapple. Considerably more pineapple than you’d guess from the ingredients list, which lists tomatoes immediately prior to the pineapple. Amount of tomato in actual dish: 1 tablespoon. Amount of pineapple in the dish: look at those arrows. Those are pointing to visible pineapple pieces.

Aside from pineapple, Safeway Select brings delicious, not-super-processed chicken, a moderately lemongrass-flavored coconut sauce and the weird rice that comes in some microwave meals. They need to get in touch with Lean Cuisine, because Lean Cuisine rice (specifically the rice in the Tortilla Crusted Fish) brings it. This rice does not bring it. This rice is just mushy and boring. Fortunately for all of us, the sauce is so good that I ate every speck of food in the tray.

And my guts were fine.