Abi Jones, Editrix

Hi, my name is Abi Jones and I created HeatEatReview.com to showcase the best and worst in microwavable meals. I’ve been called the “Robert Parker of Hot Pockets” and HeatEatReview.com has been featured in Real Simple magazine and on FoodCandy.com.

I wasn’t born an expert frozen meal critic. First, I earned a rather handy degree in Art History from Seattle University. While in Seattle, I led gallery programs at the Frye Art Museum and drank a lot of coffee.

My original aim of becoming ridiculously rich and famous upon graduation was supplanted by the Jesuit call to social justice. In the Spring of 2002 I joined Teach For America, for a two-year hands-on experience in improving education in a single classroom in one of America’s most impoverished communities. It was an empowering and humbling time in my life. If you’re thinking about applying for or giving money to Teach For America, I’d be more than happy to have a conversation with you about my time in Texas. Summary: I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Now I’m an Information Architect and User Experience Designer in Palo Alto, California. I love being a professional designer and I express that love in websites, administrative systems, process workflows, and eCommerce paths. Who else gets to have their ideas turned into products, and then refine those products to help other people achieve their dreams? Not too many people.

If you’d like to contact me for an interview, feature HeatEatEatReview.com on your food show, or ask me to be a guest on your History channel retrospective on frozen food, just use the contact form or send an email to abi-at-heateatreviewdotcom. If you’d like to see your product featured on HeatEatReview.com, please check out the review policy.

Latest Reviews by Abi:

Healthy Choice Meat Loaf : Video Review

July 27, 2009 | Reviewer: Abi

Healthy Choice Meat Loaf Price: $4.99 (ow)
Serving: 1 package, 12oz
Calories: 300 per serving
Calories from Fat: 80
Fat: 12%, 8g
Saturated Fat: 10%, 2g
Trans Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 17%, 50mg
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrates: 13%, 40g
Fiber: 36%, 9g
Sugar: 18g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 POINTS

Healthy Choice says: Comfort food’s all-star: Meat loaf and savory brown gravy with creamy mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple-cranberry crisp deliver 15 grams of protein.

Abi says: I tend to stay far away from highly processed meat products. In this instance, Healthy Choice reminds me why that’s a good survival strategy.

This is my first video in a long, long time, so I don’t think I’ve done a very good job describing the food. If I manage to make one video every week, then I should get better at this. Also, the beginning of the video got all wonky during the upload process and I’m tired of messing around with it…so here you go!

Filed Under 6 WW Points, Beef, Healthy Choice Reviews, One Star, Pork, Video Review | 14 Comments

CedarLane Chicken Tikka Masala

July 23, 2009 | Reviewer: Abi

CedarLane Chicken Tikka Masala Price: $4.99 (ow)
Serving: 1 package, 10oz
Calories: 420 per serving
Calories from Fat: 210
Fat: 36%, 23g
Saturated Fat: 48%, 10g
Trans Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 13%, 40mg
Sodium: 30%, 710mg
Protein: 14g
Carbohydrates: 16%, 47g
Fiber: 13%, 3g
Sugar: 6g
Weight Watchers Points: 10 POINTS

CedarLane says: Introducing Chicken Tikka Masala from your friends at CedarLant. We use only the most flavorful ingredients to bring you this international delight: Basmati Rice, chicken, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cilantro, curry, cayenne and a medly of other international spices. For over a quarter of a century, we’ve been making all natural entrees with absolutely no artificial ingredients or preservatives.

Abi says: All dislike of CedarLane’s past internet practices aside*, this is one horrifically disappointing meal.

My first impression was ‘Hey, this looks sort of like every other chicken tikka masala I’ve ever eaten.’ Okay, so the rice and the rest of the meal were in the same container, but I thought it couldn’t be that bad. It turns out that there’s a very good reason for these two items to be somehow separated. The rice turned out to be a goopy, mushy mess. But I have a feeling that even if the rice had been in a different area of the container, I would still have been unhappy. CedarLane might be starting with Basmati rice, but by the time its been processed into oblivion I’d rather just have a bowl of Minute Rice and be done with it.*

And then there’s the sauce-meat combo. The sauce is sauce. It tastes nicely, mildly spicy, it has small chunks of what appear to be vegetables and there is enough of it to mix adequately with the water-rice and the chicken-mush. Yeah, I wrote chicken-mush. Hiding underneath that bright orange tikka exterior is a depressing mass of gray proten in a semi-solid state. The box says ‘chicken thigh meat’ so I assume that’s what it is, I just have never seen any reason for someone to nearly puree chicken meat. Maybe this meal is secretly for people with dentures? Or folks who are on a semi-liquid diet? Whatever the case, I still lament the $5.00 I wasted on this meal.

*CedarLane is not of my favorite companies. In fact, I’ve resisted posting reviews of their foods because I didn’t want to give them attention. Why the drama? Well, last year at about the same time I started working at a marketing agency, someone at CedarLane thought it would be awesome to pretend to be a fan of the company’s foods and start posting comments to Heat Eat Review. This guy went so far as to create a site for CedarLane fans, all the while pretending to be a fan, not an employee. I’m not saying that you can’t be a fan of your company’s products. What I’m saying is that I don’t appreciate it when people try to game Heat Eat Review.

**I searched ‘basmati’ on Heat Eat Review and went back through our history of rice-containing dishes and could not find one that had rice this bad.

Filed Under Cedarlane Reviews, Chicken, One Star | 16 Comments

Trader Joe’s Steakhouse Sides Creamed Corn

July 13, 2009 | Reviewer: Abi

Trader Joe's Steakhouse Sides Creamed Corn Price: $2.99
Serving: 1/2 cup, 4oz
Servings per box: About 3.5oz
Calories per serving: 220
Calories from Fat: 130
Fat: 23%, 18g
Saturated Fat: 46%, 9g
Trans Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 16%, 45mg
Sodium: 9%, 210mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 21g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 POINTS

Trader Joe says: Trader Joe’s Steakhouse Sides are where comfort food and elegant dining find common ground. These are substantive side dishes that will simultaneously remind you of Mom’s kitchen and a fine steak house.

Creamed Corn is a savory side of fresh white corn blended with Asiago cheese, butter, cream and just a touch of real maple syrup to finish it off. It’s delicious with any kind of grilled meat, and complements seafood especially well. Trader Joe’s Steakhouse Sides – when you need to put your best food forward.

Abi says: Corn is one of the best parts of summer. Unfortunately, it goes from perfect to bland after just a couple of days in the fridge. Plus, corn is crazy expensive in Palo Alto ($1 per ear – yikes!). But oh my goodness do I love corn, corn that’s barely blanched and crisply sweet, corn that’s cut off the ear and mixed with a bit of butter and brown sugar, corn that’s grilled and then sprinkled with fresh lime and chili powder. Corn, corn, corn!

Alas, come October there will be no more fresh corn. And that is why I am giving you a chance to stock up on Trader Joe’s creamed corn right now. This is perhaps the easiest side dish I have ever consumed, easier even than those steam-pouches of vegetables. This is corn in a buttery, sweet and salty cheese sauce. Not a velveeta-y cheese sauce, no this is more of a savory, clumpy medium that indicates real cheese, real delicious cheese.

The heating process is simple: put in microwave for 3 minutes, stir, then microwave for 2 more minutes. Yeah, the box has all of this “5 minutes at 50%” junk but I am telling you that you will waste multiple minutes trying to heat food that way. Another downside: the weird serving size. According to Trader Joe’s there are 3.5 servings in this package. Honestly, there are 3 side-dish sized servings that will satisfy starved adults. And when potluck time comes this fall and winter, all you have to do is buy 2 or three packages of this corn, throw some freshly-chopped (or deep fried) sage on top and you’ve got a dish that appears to have been cooked by an actual person.

Ingredients: Sweet white corn, heavy cream, unsalted butter, asiago cheese, maple syrup, rice starch, salt, black pepper.

Filed Under 5 WW Points, Five Stars, Gluten Free, Trader Joe's Reviews, Vegetarian | 8 Comments

Trader Joe’s Butter Chicken

June 29, 2009 | Reviewer: Abi

Trader Joe's Butter Chicken Price: $3.49
Serving: 2/3 box, 8.333oz

All info below is for the whole box, not a 2/3 of a box serving.

Calories: 405 per box
Calories from Fat: 105
Fat: 18%, 12g
Saturated Fat: 30%, 6g
Trans Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 33%, 98mg
Sodium: 59%, 1410mg
Protein: 27g
Carbohydrates: 17%, 50g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
Sugar: 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 9 POINTS

Trader Joe says: Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice

Abi says: I never order butter chicken at Indian restaurants. Part of this is that I did not understand that the butter part of the name really referred to the tenderness of the meat, not that it would be sitting in a pool of butter* and I am addicted to Anything Tikka Masala. And buttery spinach. And dal. And samosas with chutneys. But when you’re looking for lunch in San Francisco’s SOMA district those are not options. Sure, we have great hamburgers and artisan cheeses, but good Indian food? Zip.

Thank goodness for Trader Joe’s and the amazing microwavability of frozen Indian foods (you can see my other suggestions in an article in the Arizona Star or just check out the 5 star category on Heat Eat Review for our picks), because butter chicken is now on my list of things to eat if an Indian restaurant is out of Anything Tikka Masala, Vindaloo or Curry. Okay, so Butter Chicken is maybe 4th of my list of preferred chicken preparations in restaurant settings.

But it is number one (okay, maybe number two) when it comes to frozen chicken-containing Indian meals, mostly because I fear that my favorite meal ever no longer exists.

Why do I rate Trader Joe’s Butter Chicken so highly?

First, because the sauce was piquant without overwhelming my tastebuds. I love spicy foods, but I also like being able to taste my dessert. Trader Joe’s Butter Chicken is like the Goldilocks of Indian chicken dishes – not too spicy and not boring either – so, just right. Maybe this is because it is made in Canada, a nation full of moderate folks who know how to combine yogurt and ginger and tomatoes and butter into something lip-smacking.

Second, the rice is nice. I know, there have been raging debates on Heat Eat Review about the merits (or unmerits) of including rice in a frozen meal. Let me state for the record that rice at lunch = awesome and rice at dinner = they should have left out the rice because I’m at my house and I can just make rice for myself. I ate this for lunch at the office and was quite pleased that it included rice that was fluffy and aromatic.

Third, the chicken is more than decent. So often the chicken in frozen meals is, well…scary. Unfortunately, this decent chicken is also minimally present. Sure, there’s a whole lot of sauce, but when it comes to chicken the picture on the box shows almost 3x the amount of chicken that comes in this meal. Goodbye, 5 star rating.

If you’re looking for something decently spiced and nicely priced, I recommend keeping a box of Trader Joe’s Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice in your freezer. If you’re looking for a hearty dinner, then you’ll definitely need to add some side dishes. May I recommend Trader Joe’s Jaipur Vegetables and Garlic Naan?

*One of my favorite Indian restaurants in Silicon Valley describes it as “Shredded tandoori chicken in a tomato, butter and fenugreek sauce” which could be pretty much anything.

Filed Under 9 WW Points, Chicken, Four Stars, Trader Joe's Reviews | 8 Comments