Price: $2.50 on sale (usually $4.00)
Serving: 1 package, 4.25oz.
Servings per package 1
Calories: 180
Fat: 10%, 7g
Cholesterol: 15%, 5mg
Sodium: 17%, 400mg
Protein: 7g
Carbohydrates: 8%, 23g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Sugar: 15g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 Points

Eat Smart says: A local favorite here in the Santa Maria Valley, this salad combines our California Slaw with soy nuts, sunflower kernels, dried cranberries and a tangy low fat dressing.

Abi says: This salad consists of about a cup of vegetables, plus a small handful of fruits and nuts, plus an enormous package of dressing.

While that small a quantity of green items would never do in an at-home dining situation, it seemed a nice thing to keep in the fridge in anticipation of craving some green during the work day. And with the warmer weather (nearly 80 degrees in San Francisco!) I’m no longer ardent about the Green Giant Green Beans with almonds.

It is with great regret that I’m also not ardent about this salad. Instead of bringing fresh coolness to my afternoon, the broccoli acted as a delivery system for the mouth burningest salad dressing ever. I like vinegar. It makes egg salad zippy and brings pep to the easiest salad in the universe (also, the most universally loved salad I’ve ever made). It does not belong in this quantity in a salad dressing unless you are playing a cruel joke on a loved one. And that loved one better really, really love you if they’re going to get over this one.

At first I didn’t even think it was the fault of the dressing. It didn’t smell spicy, so perhaps the broccoli was extra astringent or the fruit and nut combo (soynuts, sunflower seeds and cranberries, yum) contained an unknown spicy element. Neither happened to be the case, but a girl can wish. I love spice and heat, but after a few minutes I was glad that I’d only used 1/3 of the dressing packet.

If you feel brave and not-too-hungry and this is on a tremendous sale, go for it. Otherwise, you’d be better off buying a head of broccoli (or purchasing a bag of pre-chopped, pre-washed broccoli) and keeping a bottle of your favorite salad dressing in the office fridge.

Price: $3.29
Serving: 8 fl. oz.
Calories: 120 per serving
Fat: 2%, 2g
Cholesterol: 2%, 5mg
Sodium: 31%, 750mg
Protein: 3g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 20g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 6g
Weight Watchers Points: 2

Pacific Natural Foods says: The delicious taste of fresh picked sweet corn is blended together with black pepper and butter for a mouthwatering creamy new soup. Tastes like fresh corn right off the cob.

Davie says: Rhetorical question time! What vegetable says “summer” better than sweet corn? None, of course, especially if you’re from New York, like I am. Long Island sweet corn is some of the best you’ll taste in America. It is actually one of the few stomach-friendly things to sprout from Long Island during the summer—I mean, are you familiar with Ira Rennert and his Hamptons monstrosity?

In spite of it not actually being high season for the stuff yet, I’m starting to crave corn. Perhaps it’s my way of dealing with the impending temperature increase. (Gotta find SOMETHING about summer that makes me happy, after all.) And so today I pulled Pacific Natural Foods’ Buttery Sweet Corn Soup out of my pantry and got about snacking. I heated this up on the stove, but microwave directions are available as well (you have to heat it up in a nuking-appropriate bowl, not the box itself).

There are three major flavors working in this soup: sweet corn, “butter,” and pepper. The corn flavor is strong and tasty, and the pepper is more prominent than I expected it to be (not a problem for me personally). As for the butter flavor: it works, but according to the ingredients list, it comes from butter as well as “natural butter flavor.” The more I think about that “natural butter flavor,” the more I start to feel cheated by this “natural” soup. There are some other seemingly extraneous ingredients in it—nothing terribly offensive, mind you, but Imagine Organics makes a competitive product of more virtuous constitution that I’m inclined to try next. Too bad Imagine doesn’t package their soups with a convenient plastic flip-top the way Pacific does. I’m all about the flip-top making it easier to store your leftovers.

Anyway, what we have here is a solid B- of a soup that is creamy but not exactly thick. I’m not sure I would buy it again, but if you see it magically on sale, go for it. It would make a decent snack or buddy for a main dish—I’m thinking something like Trader Joe’s dee-lish vegan black bean & corn enchiladas.

Price: $2.00 (on sale)
Serving: 10 oz.
Calories: 340 per serving
Fat: 11%, 7g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 31%, 740mg
Protein: 11g
Carbohydrates: 19%, 57g
Fiber: 34%, 8g
Sugar: 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Eating Right says: Indian-style vegetables, spices, and basmati rice in a flavorful masala sauce.

Alex says: This review comes with a bit of back-story. Let it be known that I am a huge fan of Amy’s Mattar Paneer. Imagine my shock and glee when I found a four-pack of Amy’s Palak Paneer and Mattar Paneer meals at Costco for a mere ten dollars. Cut to later that day when I come across this meal at Safeway. I thought it was my lucky day! Not only had I found a cheap source for some of my favorite frozen food, but I had also found a potential, economic alternative (sort of) for when Costco eventually stopped carrying them.

Later, I pulled out the meal to cook it and perused the ingredients list, seeing how it compares to Amy’s. The list looked dauntingly long at first, but closer inspection revealed that the ingredients are mostly spices, and that there’s nothing terribly questionable inside. My hopes soared further!

Boy, were those hopes crushed, stomped upon, and totally broken quickly enough. As I pulled back the sheath of plastic that covered the top, I unearthed some of the grossest looking food I’ve seen in a while. I can only describe it as pasty, an adjective that conjures up images of wallpaper paste, library paste, and the paste that kindergarteners consider highly appetizing, and worse yet, it was dried and crusty in some parts.

The meal consists of chana masala (garbanzo beans in a spicy sauce), cumin-studded “basmati” rice, and some kind of unidentifiable cannellini bean (Cannellini bean?! Come on.) product in a similarly spicy sauce that I’m pretty sure was supposed to be different from the chana masala. The chana masala was mostly that pasty sauce with fewer garbanzo beans than I expected. Sadly, all I could really taste was cinnamon, cinnamon, and more cinnamon. It way overpowered the rest of the myriad spices in the sauce/paste. The rice, though topped with cumin seeds and mysterious carrot pieces, only disappointed further. Other companies have figured out how to make rice for the freezer, but not Safeway (who makes all their products). This rice was overly bland and oddly watery and certainly didn’t have the wonderful aromatic qualities that real basmati rice has. The cumin helped a bit, but it was a lost cause. The carrots had a texture unlike any I’ve ever encountered in a frozen meal, floating somewhere between crunchy and soggy and not in a good way. The mysterious cannellini beans had little flavor to them except a mild heat.

Overall, this meal proved to be one of the saddest and most disappointing frozen food experiences I’ve had in a long time. Maybe it was the fact that it was crappy, or maybe it was my poor, shattered hopes begging me not to torture them further, but I could only manage a few bites of strange bean paste and watery rice. Instead, I heated up my second Amy’s Mattar Paneer and reminded my taste buds that there is worthwhile frozen Indian food out there.

Price: $4.19
Serving: 1 package, 10.3oz.
Servings per box: 1
Calories: 360
Fat: 25%, 16g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 33%, 780mg
Protein: 10g
Carbohydrates: 15%, 45g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Sugar: 5g
Weight Watchers Points: 8 Points

Amy’s says: Corn masa tamale filled with Monterey jack cheese and Anaheim chilies. Topped with an authentic verde sauce of organic tomatillos. Spanish rice made with organic brown rice and tender black beans are served on the side. Gluten free.

Abi says: I’ve been eating a lot of small meals throughout the day. Oh, just kidding. I’ve been eating a lot of almonds throughout the day, so many almonds that I think I actually got sick from them yesterday. You see, I discovered some local lightly roasted (baked, not fried) almonds at my nearby natural foods store and I figured that I’d start bringing a million and one little snacks with me to the office and just snack throughout the day rather than eating a big lunch time meal. Because big lunch time meal = nap and I no longer work at home.

This tamal from Amy’s definitely fits into that filling-yet-not-stuffed category. For one, it is much flatter than the image on the box, something I don’t understand because Amy’s seems to have a really compressed supply chain where marketing folks shouldn’t dictate reality. Alas, this tamal is not super cheesy, featuring about half the filling shown in the photo.

On the plus side, the flavors in the tamal are mild and fresh, with a fluffy masa that’s significantly better than the stuff in Trader Joe’s tamales. There’s a tiny bit of heat (spice, not temperature), but nothing that’ll send a midwestern farm boy running for the water pump. The tomatillo salsa isn’t overpowering like a lot of red salsas, so it adds a great color element (definitely some Biggie influence showing through here) while providing balance to bites of earthy masa and rich cheese.

The rice was definitely heavier and had a ‘tomatoes from the can’ taste to it, something that is common in Spanish-style rices and causes me to avoid them whenever possible. I’d like to trade half of the rice for some Wahoo’s spicy white beans (so freaking good!) and add a brownie. With those changes (okay, just the beans, no brownie) then this meal would be a five star choice any day.