Price: $2.59 for two cups
Serving: 1 cup, 3oz.
Calories: 100
Fat: 3%, 2g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 6%, 150mg
Protein: <1g
Carbs: 5%, 16g
Fiber: 4%, <1g
Weight Watchers Points: 2 Points

Mrs. Smith says: Finally, a 100 calorie dessert that really satisfies your sweet cravings. Mrs. Smith’s Heavenly 100 is big on decadent flavor in 100 calorie portions. Now you can enjoy the indulgent taste you love-without the guilt!”

Jennifer says: One night, while searching for a good dessert at my local grocery store, I started thinking about Apple Crisp. I love a good Apple Crisp, with hot cinnamon apples and a crunchy, oaty topping. I searched high and low through the freezer section before I saw a line of Mrs. Smith’s Heavenly 100 Vanilla Custards. Close, but not quite apple crisp. I looked closer and noticed the shelf tag said there should have been an Apple Crisp on hand as well. Nope. All Vanilla Custards. Now I was intrigued. I was on a mission to find those missing Apple Crisp desserts.

After driving all over town, I found and purchased not only the Apple Crisp but I also bought a nice tub of Cool Whip to go along with it. I was excited to find my favorite dessert in a diet friendly way.

The instructions on the box said to microwave for 30-45 seconds. I had to ultimately microwave the damn cup for nearly three minutes. Three minutes! Lets just say that I hoped the unattractive dessert would emerge from my microwave looking like a nice, crispy, and delicious Apple Crisp. Not the case. The cup consisted of tons of sauce, maybe about 15 miniscule pieces of apple, and a teaspoon of soggy topping. I mixed it up with a little Cool Whip thinking that would make it taste even better, but now I’m surprised that I did not develop an automatic cavity from the sweetness of the dessert.

I took about 4 bites of the supposedly heavenly apple crisp and threw it in the trash. By that 4th bite I was close to vomiting from the extremely sweet taste.

This morning I decided to doctor up the second cup with a tablespoon or two of oatmeal. Can’t go wrong with oatmeal, I thought. Nope. Nothing could change this nasty cup of apples. And this time I found 4 chunks of hard apple peel and/or seed particles.

Maybe one day I will try the other desserts in this 100 Calorie line. I’ve learned that Apple Crisp in a microwave is not a good idea, though. It is certainly not “heavenly” and although just 2 Weight Watchers points, its not worth the point value. If you want Apple Crisp either make one or go buy one from a restaurant.

I’m giving Mrs. Smith’s Heavenly 100 Calorie Apple Crisp one star. Maybe it will kill someone’s sweet craving. It certainly won’t defeat anyone’s Apple Crisp craving.

Price: $4.99
Serving: 1/4 cup, 2.25oz.
Eight servings per container
Calories: 70 per serving
Fat: 2%, 1g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 13%, 310mg
Protein: 7g
Carbs: 2%, 7g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Weight Watchers Points: 1 Point per serving

Trader Joe says: All White meat chicken with barbeque sauce

Abi says: I love barbecue. I liked barbecue before I moved to Texas, but once I got to the Lone Star State, my affair with barbecue went into fullblown love mode. I also stopped being a vegetarian. Who can possibly resist meat that’s been cooked for a really, really long time inside an enormous cooking device? Certainly not me. I have two great barbecue loves: brisket (like the kind my grandma made) and Carolina-style pulled pork or chicken, but pork loin is amazingness. It is as though pigs were invented to be turned into pork sandwiches, but I digress.

This love of barbecue was not well sated in Washington, DC. Sure, there were the summer cookouts and the pulled pork sandwiches from Tonic, but for the most part I lived a barbecueless existence, drifting from one supposed barbecue restaurant to another like a lost sould seeking ever-elusive redemption. When I saw pre-made barbecue at Trader Joe’s, I thought that all of my barbecue-needing prayers had been answered. I trusted Trader Joe and I knew that his pre-cooked chicken had been the answers to many a quesadilla’s loneliness. Finally, I would be saved.

Until I learned the difference between pulled meat and shredded meat. Shredded meat is basically meat for people who’ve lost their dentures. It is meat mush, protein without texture, baby food with the slightest hint of tomato sauce.

Meat Purgatory.

The meat you see before you isn’t even the actual shredded meat that I had when I started this sorrowful journey. The original meat was a pale, quivering mass of shredded pink chicken flesh, held together by a taste-free barbecue sauce lacking any of the necessary complexity or depth of real barbecue sauce.

So, while I was heating this sorry excuse for barbecue on the stove, I tossed in a half cup of real barbecue sauce (the embarassingly titled Bone Suckin’ Sauce), simmered the now-mahogany meal for a couple more minutes and called it done.

When purchasing food and buns and imagining side dishes, my original intent was that George and I would each eat two of these larger-than-sliders, smaller-than-burgers barbecue sandwiches, but after finishing the first one and finding that the meat was more appropriate for people who’ve recently had surgery on a fractured jaw than regular well-toothed adults, I was compelled to snack on fresh sugar snap peas and hummus for the rest of the evening.

Price: $1.49
Serving: 3/4 cup, 2.5 oz.
Servings in Container: 2
Calories per serving: 160
Fat: 12%, 8g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 12%, 290mg
Protein: 1g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 20g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 Points

Ore-Ida says: Introducing new Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Easy BreakFast Potatoes - deliciously crispy on the outside, light and tender on the inside. Specially prepared diced potatoes are tucked between an upper and lower crisping sheet and the heat from your microwave cooks them to crispy perfection in just FOUR minutes.

Abi says: Dang it. I didn’t read the back of the box before I cooked these. Yes, I read the instructions, but I missed this important tip:

Did you know that you could prepare an egg or bacon in the box with Easy BreakFast potatoes and cook a complete breakfast in the box in just minutes?

Does this mean that I should throw a raw egg in the box and microwave it all at once? Are they serious? Being the intrepid food reviewer that I am, I had to track down this egg and/or bacon-making recipe. It turns out that Ore-Ida (which is a combination of Oregon and Idaho, the two great potato producing states) has an entire recipe section. They claim “If you think Ore-Ida® fries taste great on their own, you’ll love them in one of our recipes designed to truly make mealtime special and delicious.” Does telling me how to microwave an egg in your special cardboard container really make mealtime special and delicious?

Actual Instructions from Ore-Ida website:

• 1 box Ore-Ida® Extra Crispy Easy BreakFAST Potatoes
• 1 strip bacon

One strip of bacon? You’ve got to be kidding me. Oh, I guess you’re supposed to cut the bacon in half, making it two strips of bacon:

Lift black tab on box and tear along dotted lines saving the top. MOVE frozen BreakFast Potatoes in single layer to outer edges, leaving a 3 inch open space in center. CUT 1 thin slice of bacon in half, and PLACE the 2 bacon halves side by side in open space. Put top on box silver side down. Push top down into carton flat on top of Easy BreakFast Potatoes™. MICROWAVE on HIGH for 4 minutes and 15 seconds.

If I’m picturing this correctly, your breakfast is going to be a ring of doughnuts (can you tell what I’m craving right now?) potatoes surrounding a single, shrunken slice of bacon. And considering that Ore-Ida thinks there are two servings in the container, you each get a bit of potatoes and half a slice of bacon. That is one of the dumbest breakfast ideas I’ve ever read. Considering that these potatoes aren’t all that great (as in bland, boring and overpriced. Okay, pretty much the least delicious frozen potato item I’ve ever encountered.), I think I’ll stick to the oven-baking method for my Ore-Ida products. It is definitely worth the extra time if you want pre-prepared crispy-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside breakfast potatoes.

SRP: $5.99
Serving: 1/3 pizza, 4.15oz.
Calories: 290
Fat: 14%, 9g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 24%, 570mg
Protein: 14g
Carbohydrates: 12%, 37g
Fiber: 18%, 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 6

Kashi says: Tomatoes & five signature cheeses including asiago and parmesan with tomato basil sauce on stone-fired Kashi 7 whole grains and sesame with flax seed crust

Abi says: If there was a competition for Most Boring Pizza Ever, this one from Kashi would win hands down. I know, I complained about the Kashi Garlic Chicken Pizza having too much garlic, but this one exists at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Hello, blandosity.

Originally, George and I were excited about sharing this pizza. It appeared to have plenty of cheese and herbs. We like cheeses and herbs on our pizza, which is one reason why the Freschetta brand is such a hit in our household. When I say household, I mean me and George. We don’t have any dependents, though if we did I’m sure that they’d probably like Freschetta pizza too. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice slice of pizza? Uh, probably the people who just heated up the Kashi Five Cheese Tomato Pizza, that’s who.

After pulling this baby from the oven, George and I selected our preferred slices. I am not a tomato fan, so I opted for slices on the right side of the pizza while George went for the more tomato-intensive slices. We sat down to eat our pizza and after a couple of minutes of silent chewing an intense paying attention to Law and Order: SVU, I turned to George and said “This pizza isn’t very good.” His response was in the affirmative and we decided that we’d consumed a couple of slices of the most deceptive pizza ever and then we tossed the rest in the trash.

Have you ever thrown away part of a pizza? A freshly baked frozen pizza? I’ve only done it once, when I had the awful CPK Thai Chicken Pizza. Even when people at last year’s NCAA pizza party said specifically that they did not like the Amy’s Kitchen Mediterranean Pizza with Cornmeal Crust, they still consumed the entire thing.

Because it is pizza and pizza (in general) is terrific.

So why did this pizza from Kashi look so good, but have a flavor less appealing than the pizzas produced by Lean Cuisine and Tombstone? I supposed it will always remain a mystery. If you’re looking for a simple pizza, consider the Amy’s Kitchen Cheese Pizza instead. It isn’t that spicy either, but at least it has some fresh flavor.

On a note unrelated to taste, why does this pizza, with its 4 grams of fiber provide for 18% of your daily fiber needs, while the Kashi Garlic Chicken Pizza, also with 4 grams of fiber provides for only 16% of your daily fiber needs? I don’t get that.

[This pizza was free from Kashi. At the rate these reviews are going, the Kellogg’s company might never send us another frozen meal again.]