Price: $2.50 on sale
Serving: 1 package, 10oz.
Calories: 340
Fat: 10%, 6g
Cholesterol: 19%, 55mg
Sodium: 28%, 680mg
Protein: 24g
Carbohydrates: 16%, 47g
Fiber: 17%, 4g
Sugar: 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Smart Ones says: Indulge in all-white meat chicken and ribbons of tender pasta in a rich creamy parmesan cheese sauce, topped with a sprinkling of parsley and a dash of ground pepper.

Abi says: I admit it, I’m a Smart Ones hater. While other reviewers toss around stars like they’re handing out candy at a parade, I’m less likely to hop on the Smart Ones bandwagon. For one, I am not on a diet. For two, they make mediocre food. For three, when you go to their website there’s a woman on there who starts talking and the last thing I need is a website to start making noise when I go there. This is not MySpace. This is food.

At least, I think this is food. The all-white meat chicken looks like its been grilled, but a quick perusal of the ingredients label reveals that ever-present caramel color glaze. Caramel color is the world’s most consumed (by weight) food colorant. I understand when it appears in cola. I don’t need it on my microwaved chicken.

The noodles are the same limp noodles that appear in just about every microwave meal. They are easy to cut with the side of a fork and hold sauce well. The little specks of parsley and black pepper shown on the box are also evident in the cooked dish. Is microwaved parsley delicious? Nah, but it is nice to have a break from the visual and textural monotony of faux-cream sauce.

Smart Ones’ Chicken Fettucini proclaims to be diet food, but when it comes down to it, you can get a tastier, non-diet entree that’s just one WW point more than this junk. Does Chicken Fettucini really require ‘corn syrup solids’ and ‘cheese flavor’? No, it doesn’t.

If you want something with a chicken and a creamy, cheesy sauce, stop buying stuff like this. Make the one-point-more sacrifice (okay, and wallet sacrifice) and pick up a couple of Michael Angelo’s Chicken & Asiago entrees.

Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1 package, 6oz.
Servings per package 1
Calories: 330
Fat: 11%, 7g
Cholesterol: 15%, 5mg
Sodium: 21%, 510mg
Protein: 20g
Carbohydrates: 16%, 47g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Sugar: 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Eating Right says: Tender diced chicken, creamy garlic sauce, reduced fat cheese, diced garlic and onions on a brick oven crust.

Abi says: What does brick oven crust mean? Does it mean ‘in the style of a brick oven crust’? Does it mean ‘Partially cooked in a brick oven so that you can later finish cooking it in your home?” Does it mean “The words ‘brick oven’ sound cool and remind us of the Rick James song ‘Brick House’ so we use the phrase with the hope that you’ll get it stuck in your head every time you think of pizza.”

I’m going with the middle idea, which equates ‘Brick House Oven’ pizza to ‘chocolatey’ coating on Baby Ruth candy bars. It simply is in the style of chocolate, but it not chocolate itself.

This item is in the style of pizza. It has crust and sauce and cheese and toppings (maybe on the toppings), but it is not something I would actually call pizza. No, this item from Eating Right is an approximation of pizza.

First, the brick oven crust offered no hint of flavor. It was just a bread base made to hold the toppings. And the toppings? They’re awful. The picture on the box shows a moderate-to-skimpy amount of cheese, some herbs and an estimated 17 pieces of diced chicken. Reality reveals a different story: lots of cheese, tons of what I assume are herbs, 9 pieces of chicken and one cube of a completely unidentifiable substance that was probably a chunk of chicken fat.

Considering how generally accepting I am of mediocre microwavable pizzas (evidence: Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Steak Fajita Flatbread, which I should have detested and Lean Cuisine Roasted Garlic Chicken Pizza, which is multiple degrees better than this lame imitation), this pizza combined with the time of day and conditions in which I ate it (2pm lunch after having no breakfast and just 15 minutes to eat before yet another meeting) should have made it instantly accepted.

Instead I ate a third of the pizza and tossed the rest, resolving to get to 4pm with only the assistance of a Diet Coke and a granola bar. Yes, that’s all I ate until 4pm: a freaking granola bar. Okay, and a third of this pizza, which is a grand total of 110 calories.

I really wish that I could describe the taste of this pizza for you, but the problem is that it was so bland that there was only one flavor: light garlic. Now, if Eating Right has somehow managed a new method for imparting a light garlic flavor to foods, they should get on the horn with Kashi and help them rescue their Garlic Chicken Pizza. The garlic was so much in the ‘hint’ category that I didn’t worry about heading into 2 hours of meetings after such a lunch.

On the other hand, this pizza also included chicken, imaginary onions, herbs, cheese and crust and I can’t tell you a single memorable thing about any of them.

Price: $5.00 on sale (usually $7.00)
Serving: 1/3 package, 7oz.
Servings per package 3
Calories per serving: 320
Fat: 19%, 13g
Cholesterol: 22%, 65mg
Sodium: 59%, 1410mg
Protein: 24g
Carbohydrates: 9%, 26g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 7g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points per serving
Reality Points: 11 (for 1/2 the package)

Chli’s says: Two grilled chicken breasts with rib meat in barbecue sauce with smoked bacon and cheese. Includes garlic mashed potatoes.

Abi says: The Chili’s food collection is a series of products that meld restaurants and homes, capturing the least delicious parts of each environment.

We start with the main dish, the Chicken in the Chicken Monterey. This meal of 3 servings contains 2 chicken breasts (great math there, Chili’s). Each breast is the size of my hand if you cut off my fingers at the knuckle and both are sealed in a heavy-duty plastic bag along with about a cup of barbecue sauce.

The first cooking round involves venting the chicken pouch and microwaving on 1/2 power for 3-4 minutes. Or until hot. After that microwaving session, the preparer opens the pouch and dumps everything into the provided tray. This sounds easy, but really involves significant dexterity in handling a vented (read: has holes in it) package of super-hot liquid and meat. Into the tray the chicken breasts go, with a bit of time for spooning sauce over them and about 30 seconds for opening and sprinkling the cheese and bacon bits. Mmmm, cheese.

Zap they newly exposed breasts (okay, now covered with cheese and bacon) for 1 minute at 50% power (Ugh, again with the 50% power) and then set aside while you ‘cook’ the mashed potatoes.

At this point, the instructions take a turn for the worse, telling me about microwaving times and powers before saying ‘Oh yeah, remember to vent this or potatoes will explode all over your microwave.’ Fortunately, I read ahead.

Unfortunately, at some point one must take the vented potato pouch out of the microwave and get the potatoes from plastic to plate. This involves cutting open the pouch (not hard) and squeezing out the appropriate amount of piping hot potato glue onto each plate (potentially blister-inducing).

And then there’s the actual meal consumption.

The sickly-sweet barbecue sauce is thin and runny, with the consistency of hot maple syrup, but no flavor depth. The chicken breasts are edible, but not delicious or even ‘good’. There’s a reason why microwave meals rarely include whole breasts of chicken: microwaves abhor density. Things in chunk form are ideal for microwave heating, things thing size of my hand are not. Keep that in mind the next time you think about heating up a body part. The resulting chicken is something that the Cylons would make thinking that it could imitate the best of the human experience (which would be barbecue).

The included cheese and bacon bits seem like a good idea, but the cheese quickly hardens into a bland, greasy carapace. This is one of the great weaknesses of microwaved cheddar and the reason why I show no shame in using Velveeta and Ro-tel to make dip.

The potatoes are a gluey, gooey replication of good mashed potatoes. The problem is that they’re overwhipped, turning them into a vat of tightly strung starch molecules. And you know what you make with starch? Piñatas, that’s what.

I do not eat piñatas.

Price: $4.19
Serving: 1/6 package, 9oz.
Servings per box: 6
Calories: 360
Fat: 11%, 7g
Cholesterol: 22%, 65mg
Sodium: 34%, 820mg
Protein: 31g
Carbohydrates: 14%, 42g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Campbell’s says: Campbell’s perfectly blended baking sauce seasons your chicken for a moist savory meal in no time. A taste so homemade, it could only come from Campbell’s.

Abi says:Just like the dad in From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I take the train to work every day. I even have a 10-ride ticket, though I don’t think it is redeemable for 2 child fares. Unlike the dad in From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I make dinner. The San Francisco train station is across the street from a very nice Safeway, so if I miss my train I have time to browse the aisles for new and interesting things to review.

Too bad this chicken bake is amongst the worst things I’ve ever consumed in my life. I’ve had a lot of bad frozen meals, so I’m used to disappointment. But I also wasted $6.00 worth of fresh chicken, which sucks. I cook meat so rarely that when I do have to handle bloody animal muscles I want some delicious results.

The cooking process for this meal was something of a pain. I put some hot water in a Pyrex baking dish, added the pasta, seasoning, and Campbell’s baking sauce (which was Cream of Nothing in disguise) and stirred. I then placed raw chicken on top of the pasta and watery cream from a can (shudder), then covered the whole thing with foiled and baked it for twenty minutes at 400 degrees. After the initial baking time I uncovered the whole thing, sprinkled breadcrumbs atop it and popped it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Those of you who know anything about chicken know that this is the stupidest way to cook chicken, ever. I basically steamed the chicken, which is a fine idea when working with broccoli or green beans, but completely idiotic when dealing with chicken. I went against my instincts, instincts that were screaming ‘You baked chicken last week and it was marinated and it only took 12 minutes!’ and ended up serving a meal that featured horrible steamed chicken covered in pointless breadcrumbs (they’re pre-browned, which is sick). And that awful chicken rested atop a pile of flavorless pasta. GARLIC chicken? Who do they think they’re kidding? Ugh.

After a few bites of the meal, George and I determined that it was completely inedible. The chicken was tough and bland and basically everything that is possible to hate about chicken. And the pasta? No flavor what so ever. I posited that perhaps it was developed for midwestern supertasters, but really nobody should be eating this.

Thank God I have the most ridiculously packed freezer at Stanford. I went to the kitchen, pulled out a box of Tandoor Chef Chicken Tikka Masala, mentally took back anything bad I ever said about the lack of rice in the dish, and tossed a couple of Trader Joe’s Naan under the broiler (which was still toasty from the worst chicken ever). The chicken tikka masala and naan were so good that my mouth waters as I write this review.

If you want to know how to make good chicken, check out these tips and recipes from Chris Kimball, the editor of Cooks Illustrated (one of my favorite magazines). And if you’re not a fan of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, you’ll find a friend in Deb at Smitten Kitchen. Though, I provide the link with a warning that after reading about S’more Pie you’ll feel the need to purchase a kitchen torch.