Price: $2.50 on sale (Free from supplier)
Serving: 1/2 bowl, 3oz. plus water
Who eats a half bowl of microwaved soup? Nobody. That’s why the information below is for the entire bowl.
Calories: 300
Fat: 4%, 3g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 60%, 1460mg
Protein: 10g
Carbohydrates: 20%, 60g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 Per Serving, 6 Per Bowl

Annie Chun says: I love Thai food and one of my favorite dishes is Tom Yum Soup. I make Tom Yum Soup for myself and have wanted to share it with my customers, but it has taken me a while to perfect. Now I am excited to have a recipe that I can share with you. Tom Yum is the main soup in Thailand - light, fragrant and calming, wonderful on either warm or cold days. This Tom Yum Soup Bowl is super convenient and great tasting, ready in just one minute.

Andrew says: This is the tale of the four-star soup that shouldn’t have been. This soup tried so hard to turn me back, to make me hate it, and yet it was still pretty awesome.

In the beginning, I followed the package’s instructions to submerge Annie Chun’s famous FreshPak noodles (read: pre-cooked noodles vacuum sealed in a plastic chamber) in hot water to break them apart a bit. Upon attempting to pull the noodles apart, though, I was met with a most familiar odor. Could it be … yes, it was Play-Doh, the childhood modeling clay that smelled unsettlingly like bread dough and melted crayons. Was I really about to eat Play-Doh-smelling noodles? Yes. For science.

Then, after draining away that water, I was to add the soup’s flavor essence and toppings. I started with the package of sauce, the heart of the Tom Yum experience. I wrung it from its packet and was met with yet another pungent odor, this one too foreign to describe. After looking at the ingredients I decided that fish sauce, ginger, chilis and lime could well account for the odd spiciness of the scent penetrating my brain. Moving on to the little briquette of toppings, I decided to bust it apart a little before depositing a stone of dehydrated veggies onto my odoriferous concoction. This helped, as I was able to identify individual flecks of red pepper and wild onion.

Next, I added water to the bowl and put it in the microwave for 65 seconds. After I removed the bowl, I recognized that, miraculously, the flecks of veggies and other toppings had indeed reconstituted in the broth to look like actual food! And even though the aroma was still fairly foreign (I’ve never had Tom Yum before), it did smell somewhat appetizing! I spent a minute or so stirring and breaking apart chunks of Play-Doh noodles and then … it was time to eat.

I’ve only ever had one other Annie Chun’s bowl before (Abi: I believe I have you to thank for that as well), and I recall being amazed at the tenderness and utter edibility of these pre-cooked, shelf-stable noodles. This held true again for these Play-Doh-scented noodles. I couldn’t believe how perfectly al dente they ended up being (even if they stuck to each other a bit much).

And all those crazy, fishy, spicy scents from before melded to make a very enjoyable flavor on my tongue. I’ve had other corporate attempts at fusing chilies and lime before and it generally ends up being either too limey or too chili-y. In this soup, those two flavors, along with the fish sauce (as gross as that sounds) and ginger presence combine to bring a satisfying, tangy heat. Even the little flecks of onion, red pepper and — holy crap is that a mushroom? — other veggies added a little something to the experience. It’s not a five-star soup because, well, the veggies are still dehydrated and as much as I’m surprised at the successful flavor integration, I feel that if they could manage to make the broth mixture more hearty, they could squeeze another star out of me. As far as shelf-stable meals go it’s amazing, but I feel as though technology may yield us a more perfect Tom Yum soup before the next decade is out.

All in all, this soup tried really hard to gross me out with its fish sauce and putty noodles, but Annie Chun wins again with an interesting and hearty soup that somehow survives months on end in a pantry. The fish sauce will unfortunately disqualify this for vegetarians and vegans, but the rest of us can marvel at this wholly-natural wonder of modern food science.

[This meal was provided by Annie Chun’s PR people. -Ed.]

Price: $2.99
Serving: 1 tamal, 5oz.
Calories: 240
Fat: 20%, 13g
Cholesterol: 5%, 15mg
Sodium: 29%, 670mg
Protein: 12g
Carbohydrates: 9%, 26g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugar: 0g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Trader Joe’s says: Handcrafted beef tamales wrapped in corn husks

Abi says: To be honest, I don’t care if the tamales I eat are hand-crafted. It seems sort of special until you think about what a pain it is to make tamales and that there’s probably already some sort of extrusion machine that would do a great job of making sure that every tamale was just as well-formed as the last one. Also, I am completely willing to eat tortillas made by a machine. Have you ever had El Machino tortillas? Delicious!

I am in love with gadgets and most Mexican food. I am only in a high degree of ‘like’ with these tamales.

For one, the fastest cooking method (the microwave) is also the method most prone to making the tamale rubbery on each end. This means that even though there’s no meat in those sections (similar to the well-known burrito conundrum), they are now inedible for a completely different reason.

In other areas of the tamale the masa is tender and fragrant, still moist thanks to the corn husk wrapper. The meat within each tamale is a bit skimpy, which is the scourge of tamale eaters everywhere. Fortunately, the beef is nice and spicy, plus it is shredded rather than decimated, offering a pleasant counterpoint to the mushy (but in a good way) masa.

If you don’t have access to fresh tamales these ones from Trader Joe’s will do. If you do have access to fresh tamales and you live within the San Francisco Bay Area, please tell me where you are buying them.

Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 meal, 10.3oz.
Calories: 260
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 12%, 35mg
Sodium: 25%, 600mg
Protein: 22g
Carbs: 9%, 27g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
WW Points: 5 Points

Healthy Choice says: Savory white meat chicken is covered with a tangy roasted red pepper alfredo sauce and served over tender linguini pasta with a side of fresh broccoli florets.

Adina says: Disclaimer: I might have eaten my body weight in sugar this morning, so there is a very good chance this review will be highly delirious and/or incoherent. I’m sorry.

I would like to start off this review by just shouting the word chicken over and over again, partially to release some of this excess sugar energy and partially because I think the best way to celebrate good food is by shouting. CHICKEN CHICKEN CHICKEN YUM YUM YUM. I have a pretty loyal dislike for white chicken and also for pepper. White chicken because it is always dry and chewy, and pepper because it is just so . . . peppery. This chicken was peppery but in a really good way – all zingy and zesty and party-ish in my mouth. Like pop rocks, but with less pop and more rock. Plus, it was so tender and non-chewy and just melt in your mouth-y.¹

The broccoli florets were crispy and quickly consumed, which should be counted as a huge moral victory for any food maker since I liken vegetables to cute little green bundles of death.

For those not already in the Adina know, I only buy microwave meals that feature noodles. This is because I try to have at least one type of noodle product during both lunch and dinner. It’s true – on any given day, I will eat cottage cheese and noodles for dinner, with a side of ramen and kraft macaroni and cheese (with a hot dog mixed in, if I am having protein cravings).

Sadly, I found the noodle part of this meal the most disappointing. Not so much because they were not good (it is fairly hard to mess up microwave meal noodles unless you are Chef Boyardee) but because the sauce was so…Healthy Choice-y. It is an art form, really, how Healthy Choice continues to make bland sauce. They must get loads of letters that read: “YER SAUCE SUX” and “your mama has more flavor than your sauce” or equally profound notes, and yet they continue to mass produce horribly bland sauce. Why is that? Are they trying to kill us à la pure food boredom? I had so much hope for this sauce, after my pleasant encounter with the Chicken Tuscany Café Steamer, but was sadly let down.

So I am giving this meal a 4 overall, although I would rate the chicken a 700. CHICKEN CHICKEN CHICKEN. Sigh so good.

¹ I am trying to end as many words in this review with “y”. I have no idea why but at least I have a realistic goal, versus my unattainable goal of taking a multivitamin with breakfast every morning. Ha!

Price: $3.00
Serving: 1 cookie, 1.28oz.
Calories: 200
Fat: 18%, 12g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 6%, 150mg
Protein: 5g
Carbs: 7%, 20g
Fiber: 5%, 1g
Sugar: 14g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Trader Joe says: Nothing

Abi says: Before I get your hopes up too high, I should point out that these cookies are not as good as the chocolate chip ones. Did you really think that peanut butter cookies (or any sans-chocolate cookie) could win? No, it cannot. Chocolate is always the winner.

The other downside of these cookies is that while they seem all healthy with the ‘Gluten Free’ splashed everywhere, they are actually quite calorieriffic. A 1.28 ounce cookie clocks in at 200 calories. Yowzers. I could eat four, no problem. Which makes it all the more silly that earlier today I pulled a Stouffer’s meatloaf entree out of the freezer and then put it back because it was about 640 calories and seemed like too much food.

Also, the Stouffer’s company was joyous about the fact that there were two meatloaves in the package. If I find a single hamburger filling I probably don’t need two loaves of meat. Yeesh.

Yet I will gladly consume many, many cookies. Mmmmm. Each of these Trader Joe’s peanut butter cookies features the heft of a large clam fresh from the ocean, still filled with the brine of the sea. They are delightfully weighty, meaning that you’re not likely to grab more than two at a time. Well, until you finish those. Then you will get more. The cookies are crumblier than I’d like, which is likely related to their lack of gluten. This means that you’ll need to show care when you eat each cookie, handling them gently lest they turn to sand in too-rough hands.

The peanut butter shines through here with a gentle nuttiness that brings back elementary school sack lunches. The cookies weren’t too salty or too sweet, just simple and balanced.

You can easily make your own gluten free peanut butter cookies and forego this pre-made gluten free cookie dough. But if you’re into convenience (and not into washing dishes) and want the ability to bake just a few cookies at a time, pick up a box the next time you’re at Trader Joe’s.