Price: $1.99
Serving: 1/2 package, or ¾ cups
Calories: 250 per serving
Fat: 14%, 9g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 27%, 650mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 13%, 38g
Fiber: 0%, >1g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 POINTS per half box

Trader Ming’s (Joe’s) says: Our green curry meal features a richly flavored green curry sauce made with creamy coconut milk and fragrant spices, then paired with a mix of veggies, including baby corn and mushrooms. Each package contains jasmine rice to complete the meal.

Our Trader Ming’s Rice Boxes are inspired by the exotic flavors found in Thai cuisine. Now you can experience the sweet and spicy flavors of Thailand in just minutes. Just about two minutes in fact.

Maggie says: Oh, Trader Joe’s. Even your copy is funny.

A little background: It’s overstatement to say I have a love-hate relationship with the Trader Ming’s series of trapezoidal-shaped noodles-in-a-box lunches. It’s more that our relationship is “meh”. I was excited when they were first introduced, as I was vegan at the time, and so were the noodle boxes! And they were cheap—well, cheaper than the name-brand version. Kismet! And then, after I consumed several—perhaps dozens—of Trader Ming’s noodle boxes, I was pretty over it. They’re too sweet for me, like much Americanized Thai food. But I when saw this new flavor, I was intrigued again. I love green curry sauce, as a rule, and I even like the Trader Joe’s version of green curry sauce, and so I thought I would give this a shot.

On opening the box and the packages, I was reminded of the huge strides processed food has taken. How can they make packaged rice with just the right flavor and texture? When I can’t even make it that well at home? The green curry sauce, unheated, was less impressive. It was more gray than green and had that funny metallic scent common in packaged sauces. However, as I was mixed up the sauce and the rice, a little sauce got on my spoon—the directions say to use a fork, but I’m a rebel like that—and I licked it, and…hmmm. Tangy. Lemongrassy. This might be excellent, I thought.

And it was — in spite of me boiling the heck out of it. When you heat shelf stable meals, remind yourself: this stuff is already cooked. You are not cooking it, or defrosting it; you are simply heating it so that you will enjoy it more. No need to blast it up to “thermonuclear”.

On to the food: Someone at Trader Joe’s obviously heard my complaints about too sweet Thai food, because this green curry sauce is not too sweet at all. It has a little kick—they weren’t shy on the green chili paste—and the kaffir lime leaves are strongly represented, which is excellent as that is one of my favorite Thai ingredients. The coconut milk gives it a nice depth of flavor. In short, this is real food—it’s as good as anything you’d find in a restaurant. The problem: I gave it three and a half stars (we no longer allow half stars on Heat Eat Review, so I moved this to 4 stars - Ed.) because there are nowhere near enough veggies or sauce, so what I ended up eating was excellently-flavored rice with a few bamboo shoots. And I took this shortage personally, because every sauce-soaked vegetable was so darn tasty.

Update: I’m only moderately full after eating the Trader Joe’s Jasmine Green Curry, but it seems like the somewhat-full feeling will stick around for awhile. That’s the good news. The bad news is, I found a whole chunk of rice at the bottom that hadn’t even been touched by the sauce. Not NEAR enough sauce here, Trader Joe’s!

Price: Free from Lean Cuisine
Serving: 1 Container, 9 oz.
Calories: 320
Fat: 8%, 5g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 22%, 520mg
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrates: 18%, 54g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
Sugar: 18g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Lean Cuisine says: Sweet & spicy Asian style sauce, pasta, beef and vegetables.

Matt says: One of the nice things about the Stouffer’s line, Lean Cuisine and otherwise, is that the lack of descriptive words on the box. No boasts of “delicious” or “easy,” the tagline is simply the ingredients. Three minutes in the microwave followed by a steamy stir, and another minute of cooking; Lean Cuisine could easily brag that this meal is delicious and easy.

The box claims the sauce is sweet and spicy. It was definitely sweet but not spicy at all. That said, the ingredients include pineapple juice concentrate, brown sugar, soy sauce, and garlic and ginger puree. The ingredients do not lie – it tasted really good. And that normal-ingredient-containing sauce set the tone for the meal.

The plentiful meat tasted like some form of beef. My only complaint is that it resembled a thicker version of the shaved meat on an Arby’s sandwich. This prompted me to look at the ingredients. The meat is identified as “seasoned cooked meat product.” That definitely sounds like Arby’s.

Isn’t it awful how the Simpsons is ingrained in one’s memory? Once I thought of Arby’s I thought of the twins at Bart’s school, Sherri and Terri, one of which spoke the immortal words, “I’m so hungry I could eat at Arby’s.”

Each thick ribbon of pasta was surprisingly firm for a frozen meal ingredient. As far as texture goes I came in with low expectations. I was surprised at not only the dense texture of the pasta, but also the way it succeeded with the sauce. It was quite impressive to say the least. The “meat product” easily became an accompaniment rather than the meal’s focus.

The final element in the meal were all vegetables. The snap peas tasted like good frozen vegetables, with a literal snap with each bite. The red peppers were soft, and gave mild flavor at best. This is not a criticism, because can frozen peppers truly freeze and microwave well? The serious criticism regards the presence of large water chestnuts as pictured on the box. I counted three water chestnut thirds in the dish. If I were a water chestnut junkie I’d be protest this misappropriation. Well, if I were a water chestnut junkie I would have other issues than frozen food to worry about. On a positive note, the noodles, snap peas and sauce were so good that the scarcity of water chestnuts was a minor flaw.

Lean Cuisine’s Beef Chow Fun tastes far better than the “lean” 320 calories involved. Typical of Lean Cuisine products the meal is small and I think that if it were a Claim Jumper or Marie Callender portion the calories would be far from “lean.” This is not a lunch for the breakfast starved; nevertheless, Beef Chow Fun is a solid meal that I recommend for its ingredient ratios and flavor.

If you’re wondering whether or not Heat Eat Review carries canned meal reviews, let me tell you that we do. You can find them in our No Freezer Needed section and soups are also in the Soup Reviews section.

Unfortunately, you won’t find any of the following canned items on Heat Eat Review:

• Sweet Sue Canned Whole Chicken. I don’t recommend looking at this if you’ve just eaten. You also shouldn’t look at this if you’re about to eat. Basically, if you’re planning in coming into contact with food, don’t look at it.
• Bacon in a can. Amazingly, this one does not require a warning before viewing.
• Cheeseburger in a Can. If this were in English (the site’s in German) there’d probably be a line next to the photo reading ‘Serving Suggestion’.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen in a can? What would you like to see available as a canned good? And what’s your favorite canned food ever?

Photo canned bread?! is by Mike McCune and used under Creative Commons licensing.

Price: $2.50 - sale at Whole Foods
Serving: 1 package, 9.2oz
Calories: 400 per serving
  Calories from Fat: 140
Fat: 25%, 16g
  Saturated Fat: 35%, 7g
  Trans Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 15%, 45mg
Sodium: 16%, 390mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 18%, 55g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: <1 g
Weight Watchers Points: 9 Points

Gluten Free Cafe says: For gluten-sensitive consumers who don’t want to sacrifice taste, Gluten Free Cafe offers delicious, all-natural gourmet gluten-free frozen foods bursting with bold flavor and rich herbs and spices. Like Fettuccini Alfredo, an Italian classic - tender rice noodles smothered in a delicious creamy parmesan and romano cheese sauce.

Abi says: It took a horrible cold and a trip to Whole Foods to purchase a neti pot (I chickened out. Also, neti pots are expensive!) to introduce me to Gluten Free Cafe’s line of foods. Ever on the hunt for a great microwaveable cheese sauce, this dish looked up to my challenge.

And what a challenge it was. In all of my frozen meal eating, the only cheese sauce containing meals I’d really liked weren’t office friendly. And those microwavable ones? Sigh. Marie Callender’s Fettuccini with Chicken and Broccoli? Bland. Michael Angelo’s Grilled Chicken in Creamy Garlic Sauce with Pasta? Bland. South Beach Diet Chicken Alfredo a la Roma? Bland, also from the emails I’ve been getting it seems that South Beach foods now only exist in theory.

So I grabbed this on-sale meal, prepared for another trip to blandville, and then forgot about it for two months. Fortunately, even when it is 75 degrees where I live, it will only be 57 degrees in San Francisco, where I work. A day with a high of 57 is an optimal day for cheese sauce.

After pulling the box from the office freezer in a moment of triumph, I realized I was about to eat a meal that consisted solely of white noodles in white sauce. Mmmm, variety. Before we get into the prebiotic fiber that makes digesting a usually fiberless meal a bit easier on the body, please know that the cooking instructions listed on the box are going to totally screw you over. Instead of cooking on high for 3 minutes, stirring, and cooking on high for another 2 minutes, stir as often as humanly possible. This sauce has the impressive ability to form solid masses of overcooked dairy, an unfortunate side-effect in the microwaving process.

If you do happen to adhere to a strict stirring schedule, one that will most likely annoy your fellow officemates who are waiting for the microwave, you will be treated to a bubbly, creamy mass of noodles bathed in sauce. And what’s in that sauce? Normal stuff like cream, parmesan cheese, uh, corn starch and flavoring. Okay, so you can’t have it all. Keeping this meal from attaining a five-star rating is the somewhat imperfect experience of eating semi-gooey rice noodles when you prefer your pasta al dente.

If I lived in a cold land and required gluten-free products, I’d definitely keep a couple of these in the freezer. Being able to digest gluten, I probably won’t buy this again because the stuff at Whole Foods is far too expensive for everyday consumption.