Adina
Hi my name is Adina and I review microwave meals. I come from a Jewish family; when my mother found out I occasionally eat food that is flash frozen for freshness, she made five pounds of brisket and FedExed it to my apartment.
I lean towards Lean Cuisine and Trader Joe's because they are familiar and I am nothing if not a slave to my routine. Occasionally I'll buy Healthy Choice, but only when they are on sale and I have a strong craving for very bland tasting food. When I look at the 9 or so ounces of food I eat for lunch, I often wonder if fitting in my jeans is overrated. Lately I've been leaning towards "totally overrated" but I continue to eat them because they are closer to my mouth than the food they keep in restaurants.
I live in Philadelphia and oversee biomedical research. What qualifies me to tell genius scientists that their research sucks eludes me, but they continue to pay me so I continue to dish out the heartbreak. During lunchtime, I sometimes feel a little self-conscious about taking pictures of microwaved food, but I just remind myself that I do it to warn the internet about food that tastes even crappier than you would think. I do it for YOU, remember that when I ask you to give me your liver because mine is just so damn tired.
I have a personal blog at CraziAsian.blogspot.com where I talk about my true passions in life: noodles and farting. I am married to a wonderfully private man named Mr. Anonymous. Our wedding was this past September and my veil was actually a large paper bag that I wore over my head lest someone recognized me from my blog. It was a precaution I was willing to take for love.
Happy Eating!
Latest Reviews by Adina:
Lean Cuisine Spaghetti with Meatballs
April 15, 2009 | Reviewer: Adina
Price: $2.25 (on sale)
Serving: 1 meal, 9.5 oz.
Calories: 260
Fat: 8%, 5g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 23%, 560mg
Protein: 18g
Carbs: 12%, 35g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points
Lean Cuisine says: Roasted and seasoned meatballs in a chunky tomato sauce accented with basil and mushrooms. Served with a side of spaghetti.
Adina says: First off, I’d like everyone to take a very close look at the box. And count the meatballs. And then count the meatballs that were on my plate. And then read my letter to Lean Cuisine, which I believe to be a really nice letter considering I was cheated out of a meatball, those bastards.
Dear Lean Cuisine,
Please do not ever ever EVER false advertise how many meatballs there are in a meal to dieters. We pore over those pictures, counting every single mushroom and thread of noodle and dash of basil before committing ourselves to yet another disappointing and unfulfilling lunch. And do not think we won’t notice once we start eating because WE DO. I always do a visual comparison before eating your meals in three fell swoops. This is your first warning – do it again and be prepared to suffer (like being force fed your shrimp & angel hair pasta or something equally as maniacal.)
Love,
Adina
My second complaint is when I went on the Lean Cuisine website to copy the description of the meal, I read this “review”: This spaghetti is almost as good as mine! (SMILE). I love everything about this…SHANNON R. ARDMORE, PA.
Dear Shannon,
Your spaghetti must really suck.
Love,
Adina
Seriously, who says that? People don’t buy Lean Cuisines because they are GOOD. They buy them because they are small and encourage you to count every single calorie you put into your body so that when you gorge on ice cream later that night you don’t feel as guilty. Nobody thinks Lean Cuisine pasta tastes as good as authentic homemade pasta. That is crazy. I am 100% convinced that Shannon from Ardmore, PA is the brain child of one of the LC web developers named Howard. I hate you Howard for underestimating me.
All this aside (and I realize it is a lot of “all”), the meal itself was not bad. The meatballs were meatbally – not as tasty as their swedish meatballs) half cousins, but no one can beat those damn Swedes. The pasta was a little overcooked but I actually think that was my fault. I wouldn’t necessarily call the sauce “chunky” but it was flavorful and red so what more can you ask for.
The problem with this meal is that I definitely have expectations for any meal called “Spaghetti and Meatballs”. And that expectation is that it is going to be a heaping pile of steaming hot spaghetti and giant delicious meatballs covered in a blanket of parmesan cheese. I think any food loving person would agree – Spaghetti and Meatballs is not the kind of meal you eat only one serving of. It is the kind of meal you eat until you want to slip into a food coma and die. And so even though this was a tasty enough meal and in all honesty I’ll probably buy it again despite the false advertising the Shannon, it made me feel depressed that I wasn’t sitting at my mother’s kitchen table, gorging myself on homemade food.
So I gave it a three. Because it made me sad.
Healthy Choice Café Steamers Creamy Dill Salmon
February 12, 2009 | Reviewer: Adina
Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 meal, 9.8 oz.
Calories: 240
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 5%, 15mg
Sodium: 25%, 600mg
Protein: 19g
Carbs: 9%, 26g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
WW Points: 5 Points
Healthy Choice says: Wild Salmon Fillet Slices Over Penne Pasta & Broccoli Florets with Creamy Dill Sauce
Adina says: So it has been about 15 minutes since I’ve eaten this meal, and I am still alive. Amazing, since I just ate three full salmon fillets cooked in the microwave. There is something so unholy and seemingly unsafe about cooking raw fish to fruition in the microwave that I half expected to drop dead right there after the first bite. But I didn’t and haven’t and so I guess that means it is time for me to review this meal versus just sitting here, contemplating my sorry sack of a life.
I am having a hard time deciding which way to go with this review. On one hand, I didn’t die! (Plus!) On the other hand, I just ate microwaved salmon. (Minus.) I’m sort of full! (Plus!) But with microwaved salmon. (Again, minus.)
It wasn’t bad. It was the way cooked salmon usually tastes, maybe even a bit more tender than most salmon. And the overall meal wasn’t bad tasting. The sauce would have definitely been the poster child of Healthy Choice sauces if it weren’t for the dill. The dill actually pushed the taste a little beyond “well accented” into “I can’t feel my tongue and I am now having nightmares about a dill plant eating my face.” At first, I wasn’t that fond of the face eating dill plant feeling, but then I was like…well, it is dill. That is the way dill can be. And every now and then, it can be exciting and kind of delicious, even if it is in a Little Shop of Horrors kind of way.
My final word on this meal - if you don’t have a problem with eating microwaved fish, then this is the meal for you. It is fairly tasty and filling and yes, it makes your life flash before your eyes, but it flashes slowly, so it is not that bad. If you do have a problem with eating microwaved fish, like I apparently do, then don’t eat this meal. You will spend the next three hours thinking about all the things in your life that you are grateful for.
Progresso 100 Calorie Chicken and Herb Dumplings Soup
November 17, 2008 | Reviewer: Adina
Price: $1.25 on sale
Serving: 18.5 oz.
Servings per can: 2
Calories: 100 per serving
Fat: 4%, 2.5g
Cholesterol: 9%, 30mg
Sodium: 33%, 790mg
Protein: 5g
Carbohydrates: 5%, 14g
Fiber: 3%, less than 1g
Sugar: 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 2 per serving
Weight Watchers Points: 4 per can
Progresso says: Progresso offers 32 delicious soups that can play a key role in your weight loss plan with 100 calories or fewer per serving. Research shows that soup can be a satisfying choice and help curb your hunger on fewer calories.
Adina says: Ok. I am going to try to review soup now. This is hard for me because I don’t really consider soup a lunch. It is basically flavored water with vegetables floating around in it. I don’t care how “hearty” soup is, I will never be someone who can just eat soup and not couple it with a cheesesteak, or something equally substantive.
That said, I can appreciate soup for its taste value. And soup does give you the opportunity to really appreciate each individual taste (although this could ultimately be bad for tastes that suck). The broth of this canned soup is really quite zesty, a peppery version of good old fashioned chicken broth. I think canned soup base tends to struggle to mimic the flavorful aromas of homemade soup base, but this base really seems to capture the essence of “herb” (regardless of whether they captured said essence with actual herbs or with monosodium glutamate).
So if the soup base is my lunch high, then that would mean that the low is the dumplings. I have very limited dumpling exposure – I know what my mother’s dumplings taste like and that is it. And this is an unfair advantage because my mother’s dumplings float effortlessly in a sea of homemade tomato based sauce, a sassy compliment to the baked chicken main event. These dumplings are floating in canned soup. And unless that soup is some magical unicorn-producing soup, there is just no way Progresso’s dumplings will ever measure up. They instantly disintegrate in your mouth to produce no taste. I would discuss their texture but wait? Where did they go? Oh I already chewed, swallowed, digested, and passed it without even realizing it. If Houdini dumplings were marketable, well then Progresso would be rolling in dough (no pun intended) but they are not so…sucks for them I guess. And also for those all those starving dumplings who could have made it big in the biz if they just had gotten a break.
Generally, everything else in this soup is mushy which I think is acceptable for the carrots and celery. I am not a huge fan of lots of chewing in general so it is nice when something is so overcooked that it just melts in your mouth. Note: this is only okay if what is melting in your mouth has TASTE. Those dumplings were tasteless and thus I was just eating empty dumpling-shaped calories versus smooshy but carroty-tasting carrots.
The one non-mush item in this soup was the chicken, which I am still deciding on how to describe. I mean, I have a hard time with chicken. I never know exactly how I should be reviewing it. I personally like the microwave meal chicken that is so soft that its origins are questionable. However, I think that freaks people out a bit. Me, I don’t scare easy when it comes to food. I recently picked up an m&m that fell on our office rug the day before and popped it in my mouth. And then I ate a hot pocket.
This chicken was a bit tough, which I guess confirms that it is indeed chicken but makes me a little grumpy because I am training my mouth for old age by only eating food that I can slurp or swallow whole. It did have nice texture and the flavor was impressive (although you could be a man in a chicken suit, and standing next to those dumplings you would have tasted like a bucket of fried freaking chicken) but it was just a bit too tough for my liking. But maybe you like your chicken tough, the way you like your women. In which case, you are a glutton for punishment and I find your irrational determination sort of sexy.
Anyway, this is a three star meal. I would ultimately buy this again because (1) it was like a buck, (2) it is 100 calories per serving and (3) it really is quite filling. But those dumplings were just such a disappointment, that I could not bring myself to give it 4 stars. Sort of like when I was a freshman in high school and my English AP teacher couldn’t find it in her heart to round my final GPA from a 91.4 to a 91.5 (the difference between an A and a B since we didn’t have pluses or minuses). Look where I am now, Mrs. O’Keefe! I am writing reviews of microwave meals! Who’s laughing now???
Kraft Chive Bagel-fuls: Pro
August 29, 2008 | Reviewer: Adina
Price: $2.39 (free from Kraft foods)
Serving: 1 Filled bagel, 2.5 oz.
Servings per package: 4
Calories: 200 per serving
Fat: 8%, 5g
Cholesterol: 5%, 15mg
Sodium: 9%, 220mg
Protein: 7g
Carbohydrates: 10%, 31g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points
Kraft says: A bagel and cream cheese all in one. The warm, golden crust and soft, chewy texture of an authentic bagel wrapped around a center of cool and creamy Philadelphia cream cheese.
Adina says: I had doubts about this product. First off, I am not a big breakfast eater. I know it is the only way to start your day and your metabolism, blah blah blah when fact is, I find breakfast food sort of uneventful. The options are so limited – bagel, eggs, Danish – and I guess in the end I would rather wait the two hours and load up on delicious noodley noodleness than spend five minutes eating something just to fill the void. I am not a eat-to-liver. I am a live-to-eater and I am damn proud of it.
So knowing all of this, you should take what I am about to say very seriously. I loved these Bagel-fuls. LOVED THEM. For the past two weeks, I found myself biking just a little bit faster to work because faster biking equaled sooner bagel eating.
When my two boxes of Bagel-fuls were delivered to me (I received these free from the company), I immediately stuck them in the freezer without first reading the labeling. While I think the “bagels” would have tasted a bit more fresh if I had put some in the fridge, in the end it worked out well as there were four “bagels” in each box.
I keep on putting the word “bagels” in quotes because I am really struggling with whether or not I can honestly call these things “bagels” without angering Yahweh. I mean, can I really call them “bagels”? Does this make my Jewish grandmothers and grandfathers cringe? That this creation, what is basically a healthier version of a Twinkie, dare bare the name of my ancestor’s finest creation (second only to Manischewitz Wine, ahem)? I think I will play it safe and use the quotes when referring to these “bagels” just in case this is the very moment God points to when I am trying to enter Jew Heaven and says, “No real Jew would call those bagels. Shame on you. Go eat your preservative-laden chicken-fatless gentile food!”
Regardless, these things were a delight. I heated them in the microwave for 30 seconds and then toasted them for about one minute. This left the outside slightly crispy and the inside cream cheese still cool yet creamy. If you toast these suckers for too long, the cream cheese gets a bit warm, which some people enjoy, but not me. I like the contrast of heat, the warmness of a freshly microwaved bagel with the coolness of recently frozen chive cream cheese. Mmmm.
This is great bang for your buck – I have kept my eye out for them in the supermarket, and they consistently fall in the $2.50 price range. And with 4 to each box, that means each bagelful costs you a little over 60 cents. And yes, they are tinier than full sale full sized bagels, but they are also significantly healthier for you than the average bagel with cream cheese. And they will leave you feeling satiated well into lunchtime. Because of these little buggers can curb my appetite to noon, then they could quell Attila the Hun’s hunger. Because seriously, I have hunger that is comparable to a barbarian’s. It is disturbing but true.
So buy these. In bulk. And eat them every morning. And die happy. And leave me all your money in your will as your token of appreciation. Because while money might not have bought you happiness, I think you might just be spending it on the wrong things. As in, you didn’t buy a house down the shore. Shame on you.
