Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Serving: 1 box: 5.7oz. of food + 6.75 fl. oz.
Calories: 440
Fat: 15%, 10g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 40%, 960mg
Protein: 20g
Carbohydrates: 24%, 71g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 9 Points

Lunchables says: Lunchables Mini Tacos includes three soft flour tortillas and seasoned ground beef in taco sauce, Capri Sun 100% Fruit Juice and Wonka Nerds artificially flavored cherry candies.

Abi says: $2.50 is a lot to pay for a Capri Sun, some Nerds and lost dignity. I didn’t know that ground beef could be so finely pureed, which is good to know if I ever have the combination of a feeding tube and a hamburger craving.

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: $1.50 (on sale)
Serving: 1/3 box, 1 cup prepared
Calories: 220
Fat: 7%, 5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 24%, 570mg
Protein: 8g
Carbohydrates: 13%, 39g
Fiber: 10%, 2g
Sugar: 8g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 points

Near East says: A delicate and flavorful dish consisting of 100% semolina wheat couscous combined with savory roasted garlic, onion and olive oil.

Abi says: Dear readers, please allow me to completely revolutionize your dinner time. If your are unfamiliar with couscous, don’t be scared. If you are familiar with couscous you’re nodding your head right now thinking ‘Dang, why don’t I make couscous all of the time?!?!’ I am appalled that I haven’t written about couscous before now.

For the uninitiated, couscous is basically tiny pasta balls. It is not a grain, like rice or bulgar, but essentially super-chopped spaghetti. But it is 18 times better than spaghetti because it is the easiest pasta ever invented. Also, it will not get marinara sauce on your white shirt. Oh, you are saying ‘What is easier than boiling water, putting in pasta and then draining it?’

Consider this couscous workflow:

• Measure 1 1/4 cups of water into a pot. Add a glug of olive oil and the seasoning packet, bring to a boil.
• Stir in couscous, cover and remove from heat.
• After five minutes lift lid from pot, fluff couscous and serve

How insanely easy is that? You can’t even think of anything easier! Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is more difficult! Okay, faster - but you have to use a knife!

Now, this couscous from Near East is ‘instant’ couscous, which accounts for its super-speedy cooking time. Near East carries a wide variety of instant couscouses, but I have to say that the Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil variety holds a very special place in my heart. I like it because each box comes with enough seasoning that I don’t have to flavor the other ingredients I add to the dish. Shown here are chicken and peas. I’m also enamored of the serving size. Sure, 1 cup of food doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but once you add a chicken breast and a cup of vegetables you’ve got a remarkably filling, colorful, delicious meal for three.

Or if there are two of you, you can put the 3rd serving in a refrigerator box (anyone want to buy these for me so that I can stop using Ziploc containers?) and one of you can have it for lunch the next day. Couscous reheats beautifully.

You might be confused by my enthusiasm now, but once you give yourself over to the cult of couscous you’ll finally understand what fueled the Islamic Golden Age.*

*This statement is speculation based on a combination of claims in two Wikipedia articles. It should in no way be construed as a definitive statement on the existence of couscous in 7th century Arabia.

Price: Free/$2.56 (on sale)
Serving: 9 oz.
Calories: 240 per serving
Fat: 5%, 3.5g
Cholesterol: 11%, 30mg
Sodium: 21%, 490mg
Protein: 9g
Carbohydrates: 11%, 34g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Sugar: 14g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Smart Ones says: White meat chicken with diced mangoes in a honey barbeque sauce and orzo pasta

Chaviva says: Oh Smart Ones, you’ve finally done it! A Smart One I will look forward to purchasing in the future. My only two beefs on this chicken meal are that

1. It lacks any fiber. At all. Note zeros above.
2. The barbeque flavor is completely missing.

Luckily, I chose this dish because I was stoked about the idea of a mango sauce. I cooked the package in the microwave according to the instructions and after it’s few minutes of sitting idle, I dove in. I was trying to decide whether the bbq flavor was meant to be in the sauce, which essentially just looked like a mango chutney, or if it was some type of flavor cooked into the chicken. Either way, the flavor was not apparent, though there definitely was a zing and bite to the chicken and mango sauce. The orzo pasta was delicious, though I have no gauge as I’ve never had orzo pasta before. It has a slightly cheesy flavor to it, which I didn’t mind. I’m pretty sure the mix-ins were spinach and red pepper, and I dumped the orzo pasta over into the
leftover mango sauce.

I think the pro to this dish was that it wasn’t all watery like a bulk of the Smart Ones I’ve purchased. That extra watery goo just rains on my eating healthy parade, and it often turns me off from an entire brand. But this one was spot on. The mango sauce was not watery and didn’t require any mixing in with spare moisture left by the chicken. The orzo also lacked any overly liquidy content, making it just darn near perfect.

I’ll admit that I ate this dish super fast – it was that good. I could probably go for a whole additional one, but at 5 points it pretty much rings in as a good dining choice for Weight Watchers folks. I imagine that the point value would drop dramatically if there were some fiber enjoined in this fruity concoction. So I implore you, pick up this fruit creation and enjoy. And avoid those other Smart Ones (especially the Chicken Santa Fe, oy, that gets a 1 star on my radar, if even that).

Now to go find some more fruits to fill the void left by the consumed mango sauce … oh, and sorry for the poor photo quality – my small, convenient digicam is broken, so the blackberry is serving as my on-the-go camera for work photos. I can guarantee that the colors of the mango sauce and the chicken and orzo are much more appetizing and bright than this photo portrays!

[The folks at Smart Ones’ PR company sent coupons for free meals to reviewers as part of their ‘Fruit Inspirations’ promotion. Yes, we got this meal for free. Actually, Chaviva got one for free. I paid for one and until I saw this review, I was trying to figure out how I could trick George into eating it. -Ed.]