Price: $2.19 – $2.50 coupon = -31¢
Serving: 8.6 oz.
Calories: 260 per serving
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 15%, 45mg
Sodium: 23%, 560mg
Protein: 18g
Carbohydrates: 11%, 32g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 POINTS

Healthy Choice says:Nice cuts of chicken tenderloin in a smoky cheddar cheese sauce with bacon served over beautiful brown rice and a side of vegetable medley make this dish worth 28 grams of whole grains. Ingredients you need to eat well & live a Balanced and Healthy Life!

Daria says: As far as Healthy Choice meals go, Bacon and Smokey Cheddar Chicken is a winner. I’m not sure that’s saying much, considering some of the atrocities Healthy Choice has brought us in the past. Or considering that my favorite frozen meals are Smart Ones broccoli and cheese potatoes and Santa Fe Rice and Beans? I am a fan of Teh Cheese, in any form.

This meal consisted of several large chunks of white-meat chicken, a wild-rice mix, and a few firm, tiny bacon bits, all smothered in a cheese sauce redolent of Liquid Smoke, with a side of mixed broccoli and cauliflower. If you use your imagination, you might consider how good this dish would be with a buttery homemade sauce of cheddar and smoked Gouda, big chunks of just-cooked crisp bacon, and slowly braised, skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts. It would be even better served over roasted potatoes! But, alas, that meal would not be a Healthy Choice, unless your cholesterol was somehow dangerously low.

Since I have to eat the real meal and not the one in my imagination, I’ll note that the rice is perfect – each grain is separate but tender without being chewy or sticky. The broccoli and cauliflower on the side were even better stirred into this meal. The chicken was very flavorful and smoky (no E, thank you), and just a tiny bit too dry. It was not pressed together as in some other frozen dinners, but real pieces of chicken. What pleasant surprise! The bacon bits were a bit firm, but gave just the right amount of bacon-ness to the meal without being annoying. They were there for appearances, since Old Smokey, or Natural Smoke Flavor, was present in the cheese sauce.

It is always depressing to look at the ingredient list for a meal like this. If I were making it, it would consist of: chicken, rice, wild rice, broccoli, cauliflower, cheese sauce (milk, cheddar, smoked Gouda, butter, flour), bacon. Instead, it looks like something someone made with a chemistry set (as does anything preprocessed; the food is actually created in a lab, not a kitchen), and reminds me why I have been buying fewer such meals of late. Still, as far as excessively salty chem-lab creations go, this one was pretty tasty. I would buy it again, especially if I got paid to do so. Just don’t ask the guy behind me in line at the grocery store whether I should use so many coupons.

Price: About $8.00
Serving: 1 souffle, 3.77oz.
Servings per box: 4
Calories: 317 per souffle
Calories from Fat: 189
Fat: 32%, 21g
  Saturated Fat: 65%, 13g
  Trans Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 17%, 50mg
Sodium: 20%, 490mg
Protein: 7g
Carbohydrates: 9%, 26g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Sugar: 12g
Weight Watchers Points: 8 POINTS

Entree Foods says: Using traditional methods, we have combined real Belgian bitter chocolate, thick Jersey double cream, free range Welsh eggs and fresh vanilla to create the perfect chocolate soufflé. To make it even more special try drizzling some luxurious brandy into the middle of your soufflé and serve with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream on the side.

Abi says: Commenters often implore me to sample items from Costco, but I live in a tiny apartment (497 square feet) with a moderately sized freezer and one other person. It is not the sort of situation that allows for Costco anything.

Until the day I saw these souffles.

I was at Costco to see if they had spa gift certificates at a good price (which they did), and to pick up a couple bottles of champagne. I did not intend to purchase any frozen foods, just to graze my way through a lunch worth of samples (and they had booze samples there that day! crazy! I did not drink them. Ahem.). I wound up with the following items: socks, gift cards, champagne, and chocolate souffles. And when I got home I did everything wrong with these souffles and they still turned out delicious. Okay, so they’re made with Belgian chocolate and that’s something pretty difficult to screw up, but boy did I suck at following directions.

Exhibit A: Instructions in bold that say Previously frozen do not refreeze.
What did I do when I got these home from Costco? I froze them. I thought they were from the freezer section! And I was leaving on a camping trip (which I’m now back from – woo Internet! And sleeping inside where it is not 35 degrees!), so I wasn’t going to stick a bunch of prepared egg-containing things in my fridge. Did the refreezing make these not-good in any way? No. They were super-delicious. The outer 1/2 inch of the souffle puffs up into almost-cakeyness and exhibits a dryness that nicely contrasts with the OMG LAVA HOT BURNING ARHG NO! HELP! CAN’T STOP EATING EVIL TOO-HOT! center of the souffle.

Exhibit B: Instructions to cook fully.
I did not cook these souffles fully. Well, the first time was my husband’s deal. We’d already been through multiple instances of ‘Oooh, let’s eat these chocolate things in the freezer!’ ‘Wait, WTF? 24 minutes in the oven? Plus preheating? No way.’ (Yes, we’ve been spoiled by the 55 seconds of microwave time required by Trader Joe’s Chocolate Lava Cakes) We finally got up the strength to cook these things for 24 minutes and they were underdone. Well, screw an extra 3-5 minutes in the oven – we had serious chocolate needs! The second time? Hey, those souffles were great underdone the first time….

Exhibit C: Well, look at that photo…. go on, click on it for a BIG version.
If you don’t cook the souffles all of the way then they don’t rise fully meaning that in just 30 seconds you’ll end up with a collapsed souffle because the inside is a puddle of chocolate goo. Belgian chocolate goo.

That’s fine because I like chocolate goo. If you are lucky enough to live near a Costco and have a Costco membership or have a mom as nice as mine who gives you a Costco membership (and AAA!) as a gift, then go to Costco and buy these. And if you think that everything at Costco sucks and you are a hater of big box stores and you love local foods and fine cuisine, then a) I am with you on a lot of those points…usually, and b) watch this video of Eric Ripert:

Costco!

Ingredients: Chocolate (cocoa liquor, granulated sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soy lecithin, vanilla extract), pasteurized free range egg, double cream, granulated sugar, cream cheese (cream, water, skimmed milk powder, salt, dairy cultures), vanilla extract, leavening agent: sodium bicarbonate.

One year ago: Lean Cuisine Steak Tips Dijon
Two years ago: Green Giant Healthy Weight Frozen Vegetables
Three years ago: Kashi Pesto Pasta Primavera

Price: $1.75 (with a $1.00 coupon at Wal-Mart)
Serving: 7.95oz.
Calories: 390 per serving
Fat: 5%, 3g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 17%, 400mg
Protein: 12g
Carbohydrates: 26%, 78g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Sugar: 22g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 POINTS

Healthy Choice says: Tender, marinated white-meat chicken and fluffy rice topped with a sweet and sour sauce gives you 13 grams of protein.

Chavi says: I maintain my livelihood with six things: a toaster, a coffee maker, a microwave, a microwave “omelet maker” (the Big Man’s gift to those of us limited in the cooking department), a crockpot, and a mini fridge with a tiny, tiny freezer that doesn’t understand that freezer burn is bad. My options are limited, and I tend to prefer microwavable goods that are shelf stable but that won’t eat away at my precious insides.

So, after spotting these microwavable steam meals while walking through an East Coast supermarket not that long ago, I found myself elated. I’m not a Healthy Choice kinda gal, as I prefer Lean Cuisine for flavor, quantity, and quality, but none of those brands offer shelf-friendly items like this. The other brands that do — like Hormel — turn out food that just doesn’t make my yummy censors go off (and believe me, I’ve tried one or two of those meals in my day). The downside was that at this particular chain, this meal was running nearly $4.00 and despite saying “NEW ITEM,” it wasn’t on sale. So I waited it out and then, heaven help me, while shopping at Wal-Mart I spotted these puppies for $2.75 and the gentleman caller just happened to have shared his $1.00 off coupons with me. I picked up a couple, and this Sweet and Sour meal was my first go at Healthy Choice’s adventures in meals beyond the freezer section.

The process is simple: You open it up, take out the sauce packet, fill up the plastic container (with water) to a marked line, put on the steam cover, pop in in the microwave and wait. It says you can heat up the sauce (be it spaghetti sauce or sweet and sour sauce depending on your meal), but the rice was hot enough that I just threw the sauce on top, mixed it in with the hot rice, and blamo! It tasted like any other Healthy Choice Asian selection, but it didn’t taste as . . . . post-frozen. The sauce was thick and sweet, and the chunks of chicken didn’t taste stiff or squishy, but they were few in number. The vegetables could have been more numerous, but there were enough to match up with the quantities of chicken. The rice cooked to near-perfection, with just a bit of water left after heating, making the sauce a little soupier than preferred.

The only thing I’d hope for differently in this meal is the Weight Watchers point value. It’s not too high in cholesterol and even has the Heart Association’s stamp of approval (for people over age 2, it appears). But for 7 points, I was left feeling hungry. I used to be a big snacker, but I’m not so much anymore, and maybe that’s my problem, and I shouldn’t be taking it up with the kitchen gnomes over at Healthy Choice, but a girl wants her healthy meal to be filling, too.

This experience left me wondering: How is it that the frozen Sweet and Spicy Orange Zest Chicken meal I have in my fridge by the same company is a mere 5 points and packs 2 more ounces of food? Is frozen really better than shelf stable? Are these new meals really better or healthier than the frozen? They are more convenient for those of us with small spaces or people on the go without access to a freezer. But if this is the case, I — and you — better start saving up to invest in a bigger freezer.

[/caption]Price: $3.99
Serving: 1 croissant, 1.5oz
Calories: 150 per serving
 Calories from Fat: 80
Fat: 14%, 9g
 Saturated Fat: 27%, 5g
 Trans Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 6%, 150mg
Protein: 3g
Carbohydrates: 5%, 16g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers: 4 POINTS EACH

Trader Joe’s says: Croissants are meant to be served and savored fresh from the oven. Chef Jean-Yves Charon shapes these croissants to a smaller size that’s ideal for feeding a crowd. He makes the puff pastry in the traditional style, using butter and ultrathin layers of yeast dough, laboriously folded and refolded, cut and shaped by hand. You’ll appreciate how easy it is to bake them: Let the frozen croissants rise for about nine hours or overnight, then bake and voilà: warm flaky croissants. Set of 24. A Williams-Sonoma exclusive.

Abi says: Yes, that text above is from Williams-Sonoma. Why? Because Trader Joe’s didn’t put a pun-filled story on the box of Mini Croissants. Instead, they are suspiciously quiet about the origin of these flaky crescents of buttery love. But I have a feeling these pastries have the same maker as the Trader Joe’s Chocolate Croissants: world famous pastry chef Jean-Yves Charon. He also makes the Trader Joe’s Lemon Tartes. I did not like those.

But I liked these croissants a lot. Also, I’m easy. After 10 minutes spent trying to think of croissants I don’t like, my only conclusion is that letting croissants go stale makes them inedible in non-bread-pudding situations. Now, considering Williams-Sonoma wants me to share other consumer’s reviews over my own Facebook or Twitter profile I figured I’d cobble together a few statements to show why these croissants are so awesome (and why you shouldn’t pay $40 for the ones from William-Sonoma – unless you live 500 miles from a Trader Joe’s, then you should consider it – these croissants are quite nice with a bit of homemade blueberry jam).

Culled from 44 pages of positive reviews, here are some comments from William-Sonoma purchasers and my own additional remarks.

These are by far the best Croissants I have ever tasted and at 235 lbs I have tasted a lot.

I can’t decide if this is my favorite quote or if it makes me think twice about making croissants for the weekend.

These frozen mini croissants are exceptionally good – far better than those I make from scratch – (which I thought were pretty good!).

She’s right, they are better than the ones from scratch. It goes to show you that professional pastry chefs know their stuff.

I originally heard about these croissants on the Oprah show. I decided to try them, although they were more than I wanted to pay for them. After I served them for the brunch on Christmas Day, one of my two sons said, “Mom, you have to have these every Christmas now – they are fabulous!”

Oprah: making you buy stuff that is wonderful, but way, way too expensive.

They are like having a french baker living in your freezer.

But easier to explain to your husband. And the police.

Calling them ‘mini’ is a bit of a misnomer. They look tiny out of the box, but once you’ve baked them each croissant is about the size of a champagne mango, albeit nearly hollow inside. They make for a great sandwich, but I prefer pulling apart a croissant and spreading each bit with some jam. No butter is necessary.

The major drawback of these croissants? You have to think ‘I’m going to want croissants in the morning’ and then put out the croissants and have an apartment that is warm enough for bread to rise. Unrisen croissants are one of the saddest sights on a sleeting Saturday morning.

P.S. Trader Joe’s charges you 50¢ per croissant. William-Sonoma charges $1.67 per mini croissant. Are you willing to pay 3 times what you should (plus overnight shipping!) for mini croissants? I sure hope not.