Price: $2.32
Serving: 8 oz
Calories: 180
Fat: 5% 3.5g
Cholesterol: 11%, 35mg
Sodium: 23%, 540mg
Protein: 18g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 20g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 Points

Lean Cuisine says: Chicken breast and creamy herb sauce, roasted potatoes and vegetables

Becky says: I love me some chicken and ‘taters. I live in Idaho – I think that’s a prerequisite to live here. Now, I won’t mention that ‘chicken and potatoes’ really means ‘fried chicken and potato wedges. Uh, wait . . . okay, well, I won’t mention the mounds of sour cream that I dip my potatoes into. Er, so I’m feeling honest today! Yes, I need to eat healthier. I do pretty good during the day, but the minute I walk in my front door, any attempt at healthy goes out the window, all thanks to my chef husband who flips his lid anytime ANYTHING ‘low fat’ occupies space in the kitchen. They do say opposites attract.

When I picked this meal up, I had mixed feelings. It looked promising, but with less than 200 calories, how long would it be before I’m raiding the bottom of my purse for change so I could make a selection from the vending machine? I’m up for the challenge!

UGH – this is yet another one of those meals where they torture you with cooking at 50% power. Luckily, I have that cooking method down to a fine art. 10 minutes later, I peeled back the plastic and was disappointed. It looks PUNY. But, using the ‘don’t knock it until you try it’ school of thought, I dug in.

WOW. Don’t judge this book by its cover! The sauce (which contains mushrooms) in this dish is fantastic. There’s enough to stir into the potato/veggie (which consisted of broccoli and a few red pepper pieces) mixture, as well. Only mildly salty, this sauce packs a lot of taste, and for that I was grateful. The chicken was tender, although tough to cut (yes, I did break a tine on my standard-issue plastic fork before I went in search of a knife), was moist and tender. All in all, this was a great dish, much better than I expected – I just wish there had been more substance to it!

Update – Okay, so it’s 2½ hours later, and I’m hungry again. Not a good sign, especially considering the fact that it’s going to be 5 hours until dinner. I have a feeling that I’m going to succumb to the power of Cheetos. Remind me to get some healthy snacks to bring to work!

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: $4.00??
(don’t know for sure - paid for by sweet potato daddy)
Serving: 1
Calories: 460 per serving
Fat: 22%, 14g
Cholesterol: 14%, 45mg
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 19g
Carbohydrates: 21%, 64g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugar: 46g
Weight Watchers Points: 10 points

Boston Market says: Our cranberry relish is a tantalizing blend of dried cranberries, pineapple, orange juice, raisins, onions and jalapeño peppers with balsamic vinegar. It’s perfect complement to the roasted white meat turkey. Served with a side of our signature sweet potato casserole, you’re sure to love.

Jess says: My beau bought me this meal because he is aware of my near obsession with sweet potatoes. Of course, it would be difficult for him to be unaware considering the amount of talking and plotting I do about eating and finding places that serve this delectable sweet starch of tongue tantalizing smoothness. Still this gesture on his part meant quite a lot to me. A man that will encourage and fund your strange food habits is not one to take for granted.

I honestly didn’t think I would make it to lunch time before tearing into this meal, I was so excited. But luckily I live in DC and so I had to engage in fruitless political arguments of mutual reaffirmation of our original stances. So this made the clock magically go to 1:00! Oh joy!

Can I just say, HOT DAMN? Because I will. Hot damn. This meal is mighty good. Of course, the sweet potato casserole got the first bite straight out of the microwave and still steaming. It was oh so sweet and delicious. I believe that my heart melted a tad upon that first taste and then recrystalized to a slightly larger form to make room for all that extra love. The creamy burnt sienna-colored casserole includes brown sugar and pecans, both of which add extra sweetness and richness that enhance both of these intrinsic sweet potato flavors. A good hearty portion of something so perfectly lovely keeps the fun going and going. Of course I could have eaten a second helping, but at 460 calories for this meal, my thigh/ass region is rather glad that this wasn’t an option.

While I have always been a side-dish favoritist, the turkey medallions are not to be ignored here. Well, turkey is turkey but these were nice sized pieces of white meat without any of the nastier chewy bits. The turkey maintained a nice poultryish texture and handled the microwave process well without becoming too chewy. But it was really the nice coating of cranberry relish that shined. The cranberry brings tartness while the pineapple flavor and raisins bring sweetness. I’ve always been quite the sweet and sour sauce fan and this meal accomplishes the marriage of these flavors well. Again a large portion. Lots of cranberries to go around. All together this meal brings all the warm fuzzies of Thanksgiving to your probably less than warm fuzzy workspace, unless you are a sports team mascot or a costumed Disney character Ice Capade star. Then I guess you have all the warm fuzzy you need.

Another interesting note, this meal includes 100% of your daily need for vitamin A, which wikipedia says helps with vision. Who among us couldn’t use a little extra clarity? So yeah, I know its 460 calories which is a little much for a female who keeps an eye on those things, but if you love sweet potatoes even a fourth as much as I do, you will be doing yourself a favor to give this one a spin. Mmmmm. Hmmmm.

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.