Auntie's Food Life - TV Dinner Reviews

Fried Rice Vice (Lean Cuisine Chicken Fried Rice)

2006-12-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

Back in the saddle – sorry, I've been MIA (Missing In Action) for a while, and it's my fault. Between the American Thanksgiving holiday and a killer workload, I've missed two weeks of blogs, and I apologize. To make up for it, this blog is tediously looooong.

Now here's some information that will make your hair stand on end – according to Grocery Retail Online™, "[a]ccording to several research studies, the typical shopping cart handle carries 1 million germs, shopping carts have more germs than a public restroom and food-borne bacteria cause 75 million illnesses annually." More germs than a public restroom? Ick. This may put me off shopping for the entire holiday season! Fear not, though, because apparently there is a company – serendipitously named "Pure Cart Systems LLC" – which is swooping in to save you from those germs, by having developed a cart "purifier." The device seems to work like a car wash…store employees push the unused carts through this large box and 99% of all bacteria and viruses are eradicated with a lemon-scented disinfecting wash which dries rapidly. (Yessirree, you couldn't make this stuff up if you had to....)

I guess plain old Lysol wipes just aren't going to cut it any more.

Turkey turkey everywhere this past week, and yet I threw myself upon my frozen food sword for you, to save you the brain damage of buying bad products. I have two quick reviews for you – one product was edible, the other was dreadful. You say you want the bad news first? So be it:

Lean Cuisine Café Classics Bowl Chicken Fried Rice.

I bought this because (sucker!) the picture looked great. Yes…even I, who know better, can be seduced by the dark side of Stouffer's. Ten ounces of rice, white meat chicken, crispy vegetables and eggs in a sesame sauce; it sounded great. Sadly, it was awful. I try to remember, when I'm eating "diet food," that it's low-cal or low-fat or whatever it is, but this meal flat out sucked. Yes, it was only 280 calories – but who cares? The chicken was edible, although I did get a gristle-y piece; the rice and the vegetables were cooked and mostly inoffensive. The sauce was non-existent in flavor, although evident in a brownish color that became evident when you stirred the "bowl." Nothing I added helped, not even walloping big splashes of Soy Sauce. The meal had that "kiss-of-death-blandness" that cannot be overcome. You might as well be eating cardboard with a splash of teriyaki, because there was no hint of sesame sauce to be had. Not so dreadful that you wouldn't finish eating it, but dreadful enough so that you wouldn't purchase it again, at least not deliberately. Save your money. If you're in the mood for chicken fried rice, grab a $1.00 box of Rice-A-Roni brand Fried Rice and add some shredded or cubed cooked chicken. You'll be far, far happier with the result, trust me.

Banquet Crock Pot Classics Chicken and Dumplings

I've recently had several emails from readers moaning that they can't find Banquet's outstandingly great Chicken and Pasta Crock Pot Classics dinner in a bag, and I'm having the same problem. I seriously hope that Banquet hasn't discontinued this dinner, because it is genuinely comfort food in a bag that I love, and judging from the email I'm getting, I'm not alone in this. I'll keep you posted if I'm able to learn anything further about this particular dinner.

In the meantime, however, when I wasn't able to find the Chicken and Pasta version at the grocer's, I picked up their Chicken and Dumplings dinner instead. The bag is about the same size – 41.5 ounces, or just under 3 pounds – and from the description on the bag, I thought this would be essentially the same dinner as the Chicken and Pasta, but with dumplings instead of the noodles. Same creamy, chicken-y sauce, same vegetables, same chicken, right? Oddly enough, it wasn't.

The Chicken and Dumpling dinner uses thigh meat, instead of white meat, which I do not like nearly as well. It contains carrots, onions and celery as its primary vegetables, while the Pasta dinner uses carrots, peas and celery. There are clearly some seasoning differences, as well; the Dumpling Dinner has a more peppery taste than the Pasta dinner. Nonetheless, there's certainly nothing inedible about the chicken, sauce and vegetables – just not as good, in my opinion, as the chicken, sauce and vegetables contained in the Chicken and Pasta Crock Pot Classic dinner.

I wasn't thrilled with the dumplings. They are modeled on the more southern-style dumpling which is basically a large noodle that gets cooked in the sauce or gravy, as opposed to the old-style dumplings that get cooked on the surface of the sauce, and puff up (rise) like biscuits. I actually like both types of dumplings, provided they are done well, but these are not. They came out like fairly heavy noodles, and were just too doughy for me. I felt like the amount of doughy dumpling overwhelmed the rest of the dinner…that I had to dig over and under the dumplings to find the chicken and veggies. On the other hand, if you're looking for a "stick to your ribs" type dinner, this might be just the thing for you, because it certainly thumps your appetite into submission, and you do feel full for quite a while after eating.

The bag claims that it feeds 8 with 2/3 cup servings, but even with a meal as heavy as this one is, that is probably too small of a serving size. I suspect 5 servings is a more realistic figure, but your mileage may vary. (Served with a cheap roll of Pillsbury biscuits and a side of salad, you could probably feed 8). Each 2/3rd cup serving contains 200 calories, 8 grams of fat, 21 grams of carbs and 10 grams of protein. At $5.99, not a bad deal.

Overall, a decent dinner, but I wouldn't look for it like I do with the Chicken and Pasta.

I'm glad to be back on the job! Email us with your suggestions and questions.

Auntie's NutriSystems® Challenge (Can YOU do it at home?)

2006-11-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

Well…last week I rashly promised that I would be writing about Auntie’s Nutrisystems Challenge this week. I was an idiot to say that, but say it I did, and I’ve actually done the work needed to tell you how Nutrisystems® stacks up, both financially and diet-wise.

If you go to Nutrisystems’® website, you can’t really obtain any decent information. I selected their “NutriSystem® Nourish™ Women’s Program,” the details of which are basically nonexistent. The gist is that you “select your foods online (or on the phone) and they arrive on your doorstep.” The website does provide a listing of the foods from which you can select, like a Chinese menu – one from column A, one from column B - but all it lists is the name of the meal or snack – for example, “Blueberry Bran Muffin,” or “Teriyaki Sauce and Beef with Rice.” The listing doesn’t tell you calorie counts, weight of the dish/portion or detail other micronutrient information. The current emphasis of the program is eating “low glycemic index” foods as opposed to “high glycemic index foods,” which is the newest dieting fad to reach North American shores.

If you’re not au fait with glycemic index foods, it’s a rating of how rapidly carbohydrates break down in your system. “Low” glycemic index foods (think “good carbs”) break down slowly and encourage stable blood sugar levels; “High” glycemic index foods (think “bad carbs”) break down rapidly, cause your insulin levels to spike and purportedly, according to NutriSystems®, “cause…your body to store fat while also leaving you hungry soon after a meal.” This isn’t really hard to grasp. It’s the difference between eating oatmeal for breakfast or pounding a doughnut.

Apparently, you select all three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – as well as one dessert and one snack for every day in the month for 28 days (4 weeks). Notably, the desserts and snacks are lumped together in the same category, and are split about 50/50 between savories (salty) and sweets. The lunch and dinner entrees and meals seem, from their names, to be pretty typical frozen meals – Pasta Parmesan with Broccoli, Fettucini Alfredo with Vegetables and Mushrooms, Vegetable Lasagna with Basil Tomato Sauce, as examples. The breakfast foods range from frozen “meals” like “Scrambled Eggs – Smoke Flavor” to your basic granola bar (“Apple Granola Bar”). The desserts and snacks are also not exotic – everything from Almond Biscotti to Sour Cream and Onion Soy Chips. I did note that Soy Chips are predominantly featured among the savory snacks, along with pretzels, both regular and soy versions. If you sign up for “auto-delivery,” a process by which you are basically agreeing to continue to buy their food, month after month, it costs about $10.00 per day - $289.46 per 28-day month on the auto-delivery plan, or $321.62 plus $16.00 for shipping on the one-month (4 weeks) only plan. Anyway…on to Auntie’s NutriSystems® Challenge. Can you match this at home?

I selected one week’s worth of food from the menu choices, as randomly as I could manage. 7 breakfasts, lunches and dinners, along with all of the desserts and snacks. I went searching for suitable substitutes that you could easily purchase at the grocery store. Given that I only had the meals’ names, I had to do some guessing, but I think I came pretty close. As an example, I substituted Healthy Choice Chicken Broccoli Alfredo for NutriSystems’® Fettucini Alfredo with Vegetables and Mushrooms; I substituted Campbell’s Soup at Hand Creamy Broccoli Instant Soup for NutriSystems’® Cream of Broccoli Soup (a lunch selection). Every dish I chose as an alternative was simply heat and eat or unwrap and eat (like granola bars), so that the “work” was equivalent – no cooking or preparation whatsoever. I entered the price for each meal, entrée or snack, adjusted for a single serving size portion in the case of multiple-serving products (like cookies or granola bars), and then entered all of the calorie counts, as well as grams of fat, carbohydrates, etc. I then simply averaged the prices, assuming one type of meal per day, and then totaled the resulting averages.

What’s the result?

Here’s the bottom line: you can replicate the NutriSystems’® plan, with 3 meals a day plus snack plus dessert, for $6.84 per day, averaging 825.71 calories per day. A Hobbit could lose weight on 826 calories a day, and you could save $3.16 every single day, or roughly $100.00 per month, on the “do it yourself” plan. To see the meals, snacks and desserts that I picked, their prices and calories counts, etc., see the tables below, broken out by type of mea - the daily average totals are on the very last table at the bottom. Sorry that the tables are smallish, but bigger ones wouldn’t fit here on Auntie’s Blog; if you click on each table, a much larger, easily readable table will open in your browser window.

Do you want to try it yourself? It’s simple. Just visit NutriSystems’® website, select the monthly plan that best suits you (they have plans for diabetics, men, women over 60, vegetarian diets, etc.), and select 7 days’ worth of meals from their menu selections. Print out their webpage, so you don’t have to write everything down – just use checkmarks or highlighter. Surf the Icebox Diner and/or your local on-line grocery, and find comparable meals – or use the random plan I made up. (If you use the Diner, you can also check for reviews from over 1,000 other folks!). Make up your grocery list, buy only what’s on the list (along with some fruit, please!), and eat from your new meal plan. Splurge that $100.00 you save at the end of the month by getting yourself something special.

So, see you next week! Send email to Auntie with story ideas or product requests!

Lo Mein Event (Green Giant Create A Meal Lo Mein)

2006-11-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

My much beloved and maligned Spouse – the Hubster – has a long track record of mangling the English language. It’s not malapropisms, like some comedians…it’s more a tongue-twisting that ends up creating phrases that end up living in infamy around here. We have some unique desserts – for example “puddo jelling,” which has always been a favorite of mine, followed closely by “cook and milkies.” (I defy you to read that and not think it from this point forward in time whenever confronted by a Toll House cookie.) The other day, though, he was staring forlornly at some items he had scavenged from the refrigerator, and wanted to know if I could manage to whip something up out of my “trick of books.”

Sadly, I wasn’t able to whip up something from Ye Olden Trick Of Books, but in that vein, I did find something else that will be helpful to those of you that have limited time or energy to cook. I tried one of Green Giant’s Create a Meal Stir Fry dinners (add meat and stir), and selected their “Lo Mein” version. It’s billed as “Lo Mein Noodles, Broccoli, Carrots & Mushrooms in a Flavorful Stiry-Fry Sauce, and after all is said and done, my overall opinion is: it’s not bad, and it’s a very easy way to “home-cook” a meal.

The general idea is that you take ½- ¾ pound chicken or pork, slice it into ½” strips, sauté (fry) the meat in a 12-inch skillet/frying pan for 4-5 minutes, then add water, the provided veggies and sauce…cook another 8-10 minutes and dinner is done. The 21-oz. package has additional serving suggestions printed on it (e.g., add variety by using beef sirloin instead, spice it up by adding crushed red pepper, stir in bean sprouts, etc.). I made it, and it’s extremely easy. You could make it even simpler by either buying meat already cut into strips (like fajita meat) or even using leftovers. If you use leftovers, you would just mix the meat, water, sauce and veggies together and cook the 8-10 minutes specified on the package. The bag claims about 3½ servings, and I think that’s about right – maybe 4-5 if you served it with a side of rice, assuming some of the diners were kids. The Lo Mein has 140 calories per serving (excellent!), 1 gram of fat (even better!), 28 grams of carbohydrates, and 5 grams of protein, so it even constitutes diet food. Granted, you then have to add in the caloric value of the chicken, but still - not bad.

The veggies were pretty good. The carrots were average, the broccoli was crisp and tasty, although the mushrooms seemed less prominent than I should have liked. The noodles held together surprisingly well, and the sauce was reasonably flavorful, although not quite as tasty as I would have hoped. I would recommend that you spice this up with a dash of your own stir-fry sauce, or dribble some Sesame Oil over the dish after you have prepared it. For hardier souls, the red pepper sauce (sold in specialty stores if you can’t find it in your grocery) would be a lovely addition.

This normally sells for $3.99 – which I think is a bit steep – I scored it for $2.75, and that’s a good price. I’m not sure I’d pay the four bucks, but I would buy it again on sale. I still don’t recommend it as highly as some of the other pseudo-Chinese dishes we’ve had around here, but it’s worth a try to see if you would like it better, and a product like this allows you involvement in the preparation of the final dish, unlike most frozen meals.

Still, though, for “frozen Chinese,” I definitely recommend Contessa’s products above all others that I have tried. I had their Chicken Stir-Fry again this past week, and it really is an excellent product…and as you can see from my earlier review, their Kung Pao Chicken really will “wow” your taste buds (particularly if you're an onion fan).

Next week: I’m going to be doing something a little different. You know, you cannot turn on the television, or pick up a newspaper, without being barraged by Nutrisystem advertisements. Now, what is Nutrisystem, really? Basically, it’s prepared foods (like granola bars) and frozen meals (like the ones we review here) used as a weight-loss program. You buy all of your “groceries” from Nutrisystems, you eat their food 3 times a day (plus a snack/dessert) and, purportedly, you lose weight…all for a mere $10.00 a day…$70.00 a week, $280.00 a month. Is it worth it? For that matter, can you emulate the Nutrisystems diet plan and spend less – and still lose weight?

In my next column, I’ll be posting a sample one-week menu, copying Nutrisystems’ meal plans, listing specific brands and meals, estimating what it would cost you to “copy” Nutrisystems’ diet meal plan at your own grocery store. As merely one example – Nutrisystems lists a dinner called “Basil Chicken with Tomato Sauce.” Why not try instead Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Cafe Classics Chicken with Basil Cream Sauce, costing $3.99 (regular price), currently on sale most stores for $1.99, with 270 calories?

Let’s find out if that $10.00 a day is such a great deal, or if you could save money by buying similar products yourself (and still lose weight!) in Auntie’s Nutrisystems Challenge.

Until next week….

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Six Degrees of Chinese (Stouffer's Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken)

2006-11-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

The subconscious is a remarkable thing. Sometimes, the things you do without actually using your frontal lobes just make you go “hunh?” I unintentionally picked up not one, not two, but three “Asian” or “Pseudo-Chinese” frozen meals during my last shopping spasm. I certainly hadn’t planned to do so, and to the best of my knowledge, I wasn’t even thinking about Chinese food…but I have been thinking about home (New York) a lot lately – the impending holidays always do that to me – and usually what that means is that somewhere in the back of my mind I am yearning for the ease and tastiness of Chinese takeout, a facet of New York living that I miss enormously, here in the desert life of Phoenix, Arizona. So, this week and next, I’ll be reviewing two very different “Chinese” frozen meals, for those of you that also don’t live in New York, or Los Angeles or San Francisco.

The allegedly Pseudo-Chinese meal I popped into the nuker on Tuesday night was Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken. As you may know, I’ve been a fairly big fan of Stouffer’s Corner Bistro line – I really do love their Chicken Carbonara, Grilled Rosemary Chicken and Seafood Scampi dinners. I was less impressed with their Garlic Chicken Pasta.

Sadly, the Sesame Chicken dinner falls into that “I suffer so you don’t have to” category of dinner adventures upon which I’ve embarked. It’s not dreadful; unlike the Michelina’s Penne Pasta, which I literally couldn’t eat, I finished this meal. But it’s just…bland. Blah. BORING!!

The “breaded sesame chicken tenderloins” were mushy and flavorless, the coating having succumbed to being stuck inside a cellophane wrapper while being nuked. The noodles were equally insipid, but that’s more forgivable, because they’re noodles, after all. The carrots were actually the one bit of inspiration in this dish, julienne and crisp, providing good texture, which this dinner desperately needed. The sauce simply seemed to disappear into the ether, after providing an initial piquant tease by actually smelling like sweet and sour sauce. I honestly could not tell you what the sauce tasted like…neither sweet, sour, salty…in Stouffer’s attempt to please everyone, the sauce had been rendered so inoffensive that it ceased to exist for all intents and purposes.

Overall – just do NOT waste your money. I paid $4.59 for this meal, which serves one. If you’re in the mood for “Chinese,” you would be far better off grabbing one of Contessa’s stir-fries or Kung Pao dishes. If you’re looking for breaded or battered chicken in that Chinese dish, Contessa’s Orange Chicken is noteworthy, and you’ll get two to three servings from a Contessa dinner for only a dollar or two more than the Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken.

Calories, 510; Total Fat 15g; Saturated Fat 2.5g, no Trans Fat; 75 mg. Cholesterol, 1380 mg. of Sodium, Total Carbohydrate 72g., Fiber 5 grams, Sugars 19g, and 22 grams of Protein.

SUPERPRETZEL

Superpretzel – yes, I know I told you I would review Superpretzel this week, but after trying two, I’m still undecided. I paid $2.50 for a box of 6 (regularly $2.79), so they run $0.42 - $0.46 USD per pretzel, which certainly isn’t back-breaking. They’re…okay. They’re not stupendous, and if you’re a New Yorker, they don’t compete with eating off the street. But if you’re a hot soft pretzel fan, and you aren’t surrounded by pretzel stands, they’ll probably do, and they’re cheap enough to try. They’re easy enough to prepare – take it out of the bag, dampen the top slightly, nuke for 30 seconds – voilá – hot pretzel, ready to eat. The actual size of the pretzel is probably slightly smaller than what you would expect from the picture on the carton, but it’s filling enough.

I will warn you that the instructions for salting the pretzel are a joke. Allegedly, you’re supposed to open the salt bag (contains “pretzel salt” – think rock or sea salt) and salt the pretzel before you nuke it. After several tries, I can’t get the salt to stick, not even with slightly dampening the pretzel. I think you would have to hammer the salt into the pretzel to get it to stick, which is tricky with a frozen pretzel. Overall, I found it easier to put the salt on a plate and just dip the hot pretzel into it, along with mustard or other condiments.

I wouldn’t rave about Superpretzel, but I wouldn’t turn it down, either. I don’t think I would buy it again, just because it’s not that exciting, but it isn’t bad, and if you’re a pretzel fan, it’s cheap enough to try. The kids would probably really like them, too.

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WHAT a Crock! (Marie Callender's Crock Pot Meals)

2006-10-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Marie Callender's Crock Pot Meal Chunky Chicken and Noodles
vs.
Banquet Crock Pot Classics Creamy Chicken with Pasta

While at the grocery the other day, I noticed that Marie Callender’s has put out a new line of Crock-Pot™ meals to compete with Banquet and the other meal-in-a-bag competitors like Bertolli and Contessa (although neither Bertolli nor Contessa has slow-cooker meals).

Now, I’ve had some pretty terrific Marie Callender’s frozen meals; their Fettucini with Broccoli & Chicken is fantastic, if not exactly diet food. And who doesn’t love their Pot Pies, which are incredibly nummy? So, naturally, I thought that the idea of a Marie Callender’s slow-cooker meal made up of chicken, sauce, peas, carrots and noodles - pot pie without the crust, basically - sounded enticing. The Banquet version had been absolutely to die for (see Diner reviews), so I thought I’d try it and compare the two.

What a disappointment! The cooking is simple enough; open the bag, take out the sauce pouch, stick it under hot running water to defrost it, put the sauce (along with 3 cups of water) in the cooker and stir; add chicken and vegetables, cook for 8-11 hours (or 4 hours on high). A separate bag of noodles is included, which you stick back in the freezer until 30 minutes before mealtime – then you add the noodles to the mixture, cook on High for 30 minutes, and the cooking is finished. As I said, it couldn’t be simpler, and unlike the Banquet version, you don’t need milk.

But any comparison ends there. The Marie Callender’s sauce was insipid and flavorless. It wasn’t quite papier-mâché, but it was close. Unlike Banquet’s delightful, pot-pie type sauce, this didn’t even rise to the level of your basic Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup-type base. The chicken chunks were all thigh meat, some with “icky” parts still visible, while Banquet uses large cuts of breast meat. The two meals are like night and day; Banquet wins, flavor-wise, by a mile.

To add insult to injury, Callender’s charges $7.99 USD for their version, which contains 44 ounces, while Banquet regularly charges $5.99 USD (and you can usually find it for $5.00 or less on sale) for their 42-ounce product. In other words, Callender’s costs more than half again as much. Banquet is dramatically the much better buy, ounce-for-ounce.

Lastly, I really get heated about food companies playing games with serving sizes in order to fool their customers. Callender’s claims that its Chunky Chicken and Noodles will serve 8, each serving being “2/3rd of a cup.” This serving size is nonsense. I’m far from a big eater, and this is about half of a serving for me. Realistically, Callender’s product would serve the same number of people as Banquet’s – 4 or 5, depending upon whether you’re feeding kids, or folks with large appetites.

Here’s what Callender shows as its nutritional information for Chunky Chicken and Noodles, but please remember that this is for their serving size, which is about half of what someone would actually eat: 220 calories, 10 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams Trans Fat, 40 mg of cholesterol, 590 mg of sodium, 18 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar and 12 grams of protein. Taking into account Banquet’s far more honest serving sizes, the two products are roughly comparable in calories, fat, carbs and protein.

I give this product a BIG thumbs-down. Don’t waste your money. This product doesn’t compare with Banquet’s version, and you’ll save about a third of your food budge by purchasing Banquet's Creamy Chicken with Pasta.

Next week: Superpretzel! Hot or Hype?

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Don't Stew Over It! (Chicken Alfredo Chowder and White Winter Stew)

2006-10-18T15:14:00.001-07:00

Around this time of year, I start to yearn for soups and stews...those hearty meals in a bowl that remind me of cold days in my childhood, along with the crusty breads Mom used to make in order to mop up all the stock and sauce. In early October in Phoenix, it's still too hot to spend all day simmering stocks on the stove, so I went out searching for quicker, easier methods to satisfy that comfort-food craving (without going to a restaurant). I found these two, both of which are terrific, and couldn't be easier to prepare. Don't forget to buy a loaf of french bread from the grocery, or a can of Pillsbury's bread sticks to have with these dishes.

Chicken Alfredo Chowder

Yield:4 servings, total time, prep to finish: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 package CONTESSA CHICKEN ALFREDO Convenience Meal
1 15 ounce can CORN
1 cup SOUR CREAM
2 cups MILK
2 cups MONTEREY JACK CHEESE, grated
1/2 teaspoon CAYENNE PEPPER
SALT to taste
BASIL for garnish (optional)
BREAD STICKS (optional)

Steps:

In a large soup pot combine the Contessa Chicken Alfredo, corn, sour cream, milk, cheese, and cayenne pepper together.

Simmer the mixture (DO NOT boil) on low heat for 25-30 minutes or until the mixture is completely cooked through.

Garnish with basil and serve with Pillsbury bread sticks, or fresh crusty bread, like French or Italian bread. If you really want to blow their skirts up, serve this in a fresh bread bowl!

We thank Joni Hilton for creating this fantastically easy soup – she won $1,000 from Contessa Premium Foods for this chowder, and it’s worth every penny.

Winter White Stew (Chili)

Yield: 6 servings, 30 minutes total time, prep to finish.

Ingredients:

1 package Tyson® Fresh Reduced Fat GROUND PORK, 1 lb.
1 medium ONION, diced
1 can CHICKEN BROTH, 14 oz.
1 tablespoon ground CUMIN
2 teaspoons CHILI POWDER
1 can WHITE BEANS, 16 oz., drained
1 can CORN, 14 oz., drained, and,
1 can GREEN CHILES, 4 oz., diced

Steps:

Crumble up and brown pork with onion in large saucepan. Add cumin and chili powder; stir well.

Stir in all remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Cover and simmer 15 to 20 minutes or until heated through and flavors are blended.

Serving Suggestion: If you're from the southwest, serve with hot cornbread (if you haven't tried Marie Callendar's Cornbread mix, you're missing out) instead of french bread and fresh fruit; I like to top the stew/chili with a dollop of sour cream for a piquant contrast.

Auntie Tip: You can make this White Winter Stew with any leftover pork from a roast; simply brown the onions, adding the leftover meat when the onions begin to become transparent; when the meat and the onions have both browned slightly, add the rest of the ingredients and cook the 15 or 20 minutes until the stew is ready. You could also substitute 1/2-lb. of chicken for 1/2 of the pork to create a variation and to make use of leftovers.

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Chicken Fixin' Vixen (Chicken, Broccoli & Rice and Chicken Paprikash Recipes)

2006-10-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

This week I recevied a request from a Reader for recipes for "comfort food" for folks who just don't have the time to cook like Mom used to (or some Moms, anyway). So, here are a couple of quick and easy recipes using Tyson “IFF” (means, “individually fresh frozen”) Boneless, Skinless chicken breasts, to make the preparation time short and the enjoyment time long.

Both of these easy, family-friendly recipes use the breasts straight out of the freezer – fully frozen – so you don’t even have to defrost them!

Chicken, Broccoli & Rice Casserole:

4 Tyson® IFF Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts with Rib Meat
1 box Uncle Ben's® Country Inn® Broccoli Rice Au Gratin
2 cups water, boiling
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
2 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Combine rice and contents of seasoning packet in 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Add boiling water; mix well. Lay frozen chicken breasts on top of rice, sprinkle with garlic powder, cover and bake 30 minutes. (You can cover your baking dish with foil as a cover).

2. Add broccoli, cover and bake 4 to 6 minutes or until chicken is done (internal temp 170°F).

3. Remove foil, sprinkle with cheese and bake, uncovered, 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and begins to brown.

Total Prep time, 5 minutes; total cooking time, 40 minutes. Serves 4, with 572 calories per serving (remember, this is a complete meal), 17 grams of fat, 71 grams of protein and 35 grams of carbohydrate. Serve with fresh hot rolls, to maximize your enjoyment.

Auntie’s Note: I suspect this dish could be easily adapted for your slow-cooker, but I’ve not tried it yet. I would put the rice and water on the bottom, followed by the frozen chicken breasts, followed by the frozen broccoli florets, covered with the cheddar, and put on LOW. If you try this in a slow-cooker, please let me know how it comes out!

Chicken Paprika

4 Tyson® IFF Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts with Rib Meat
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chicken broth (I use Swanson, but broth made from a bouillon cube is fine)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons paprika
1 container sour cream, 8 oz.

1. Rinse frozen chicken with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.

2. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high. Cook chicken, covered and turning once, 6 minutes or until golden. Transfer to plate.

3. Cook onion in same pan over medium heat 3 minutes or until crisp-tender. Sprinkle with paprika; cook, stirring onions and paprika together, 1 minute. Return chicken to skillet; add broth. Cover; cook over medium-low heat 10 minutes or until chicken is done (internal temp 170°F). Reduce heat to low; stir in sour cream. Cook 2 minutes or until heated through (do not let boil).

Serving Suggestion: Serve chicken and sauce over cooked egg noodles (I like to add dill to my cooked egg noodles for this dish) and steamed asparagus spears…don’t forget lovely crusty French bread to really set the stage for this meal!! Cook’s Note: after making this dish, you may decide you prefer more paprika; increase it as you will, but make sure you add it at the onion-saute stage, otherwise the paprika never really blends with the sauce.

Prep time 5 minutes, total cooking time 25-30 minutes; Serves 4, with (per serving) 225 calories, 11 grams of fat, 27 grams of protein and 5 grams of carbohydrate (without the noodles).

Both of these recipes will replicate that "comfort food taste" that you're seeking with a minimal amount of work. (Many thanks to the folks at Tyson for the images).

THAT'S using your noodle (Weight Watchers' and Bertolli Pasta Dinners)

2006-10-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

One of the main stories in today’s daily newspaper has a headline that reads: “Make-a-meal Business is Cooking,” as if the rest of us didn’t already know this. The focus of the article, a woman who owns a “My Girlfriend’s Kitchen” franchise here in the Valley of the Sun, goes on to relate that she is so busy preparing ingredients for other people’s meals (500 of them a week) that she and her kids were walking around a Target at 9:00 at night eating hot dogs and popcorn. This woman creates menu plans, recipe hunts, grocery shops, prepares the ingredients and preps the meal for you to then take home and “cook” yourself – all for a “mere” $4.00 per serving.

Four bucks a head? Let me see if I have that right –a family of four would cost $16.00 a night for dinner? $112.00 a week? $140 a week for a family of 5? All things considered, that’s actually pretty cheap, but I think most folks would find that amount off-putting. It’s all well and good here in Scottsdale, but $448-560 a month in grocery bills, just for dinner (not including breakfast, lunch, snacks or beverages, remember) is probably more than normal people can afford. It might be worth a look for an occasional break from kitchen drudgery, though, or a once-a-week thing.

An Auntie Tip: Speaking of taking a break from kitchen drudgery, I don’t know if you hungry readers know that you can cook and then freeze pasta (spaghetti, macaroni) without any type of sauce and it keeps beautifully. Simply cook your spaghetti for dinner one night, making some extra servings; toss the extra pasta with a light coating of olive oil or margarine (whatever you usually use) and when cool, put it into a freezer bag and freeze. When you’re in the mood for pasta, take the bag out of the freezer and defrost…if you’re in a hurry, you can run the spaghetti under hot running water. It’s then ready to eat, covered with your favorite sauce. When you're tired, (or just lazy) this is a real time-saver.

More about pasta….our couponing affiliate is having a special on Bertolli’s frozen pasta dinners for two – a whopping $3.00 off coupon is yours for the asking. Just click here to download and print the coupon. That’s about 50% off the regular price, and the Bertolli dinners always get 4-5 fork ratings both here and at the Icebox Diner. Personally, I would avoid the Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Ravioli dinner, though; when I tried it I thought it was dreadful.

And making this a pasta trifecta: our latest review at the Diner from chemeg72380 is for Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones Three Cheese Ziti Marinara, rating it a walloping 5 forks. Chemeg72380 says: “Ziti is one of my favorite dishes and this ziti doesn't disappoint.” To read the rest of Chemeg’s review, click here.

Don’t forget that you can subscribe to Auntie’s Food Life using Feedblitz. Just scroll down past the "About Me" section on the right and use the “Feedblitz Me!” box. You will receive Auntie’s Food Life every time a new blog is published (weekly), and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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A Napoleonic Ode (and Lean Cuisine Pizza!)

2006-09-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm…staring at your pantry, cupboard or freezer, wondering what to eat? Jams, jellies, preserved fruit, frozen food or canned ham? Who do you have to thank for this cornucopia of chow? Clarence Birdseye? That Foster Farms chicken guy?

How about Napoleon?

Napoleon? Auntie, you ask, can you be serious? Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Emperor?

Apparently…yes. I have to confess, as the doyenne of the deep-freeze and mistress of the masticated, I was surprised to find out just how much the much-maligned 18th-Century Emperor of France contributed to our daily diet. 12,000 francs, to be exact, although that was 1810 francs, so I suspect it was indeed a lot of dough.

In 1795, (Wikipedia claims 1800) the French Directoire, apparently serious about that “an army marches on its stomach” quotation, offered a 12,000 franc prize to anyone who could develop and prove a new, efficient means of food preservation. A man named Nicolas François Appert (1750-1841), variously known as a confectioner, hotelkeeper, brewer and chef, wanted that prize money and spent 15 years of his life perfecting a method of preserving foods. Interestingly, he never actually understood what it was about his process that made it work, but work it did. Appert’s method was surprisingly simple; partially cook various foods, place them in a glass jar, seal the jar with a cork, and then cook it further in boiling water. The result was an airtight container holding cooked foods that would keep for long periods of time, a method that is still used in concept by today’s home canners. Appert demonstrated his methodology by sending a collection of preserved food to Napoleon’s army, which took the samples to sea with them for over four months. Appert gleefully wrote about the experience that “[w]hen opened, 18 different kinds of preserved foods were tasted, every one of which had retained its freshness, and not a single substance had undergone the least change at sea.” Given that he had sent preserved partridges, vegetables and gravy to Napoleon’s troops, one has to wonder just how tasty months-old boiled partridge can be, but given the preponderance of scurvy at the time, I would bet that the seagoing soldiers fell on this new delight like ravening wolves. Appert indeed received the 12,000 franc prize – from Bonaparte himself - and unwittingly launched the era of preserved foods with his "partridge cartridge," so to speak.

Within a year, a fellow Frenchman, Pierre Durand, (also known as Peter Durand) had relocated to Great Britain and had applied for a British patent to preserve food “in vessels of glass, pottery, tin, or other metals or fit materials.” King George III of course saw the value in keeping up with his rivals across the sea and granted the patent. Durand surpassed Appert by using tin instead of glass – creating the first canned food – and ushered in the advent of supermarkets (if you think about it).

On a humorous note, Appert used the proceeds from Napoleon’s prize to set up his own “boiling factory,” to sell preserved foods to others, but it was burned down less than ten years later…during the Napoleonic Wars. The Emperor giveth, and the Emperor taketh away, apparently.

Now, wasn’t that Appertizing?

Meanwhile, over at the Diner, ChristenW has just reviewed Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Casual Eating Spinach and Mushroom Pizza, giving it a walloping 5 forks. She writes:

“This pizza is SOOOOO good - easily the best

frozen pizza I've ever had, diet or otherwise.

I'm a fan of 'white pizza,' "…

read the rest of ChristenW’s review here.

Visit us at the Icebox Diner!! Read over 1,000 consumer-to-consumer reviews of frozen food, prepared meals and convenience dinners.

Photos: Napoleon image, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons; Canned foods, copyright istockphotos.com, all rights retained. Please do not steal the images.

Fighting the Freshman 15 (30 Low-Cal Frozen Meals)

2006-09-21T01:33:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, the emails have started coming in, complaining about the infamous "Freshman 15," the ubiquitous weight gain suffered by every young person beginning his or her college adventure. For some of us, it's temporary pudge brought on by the stress of a new place, new people, new lodgings; for others, it's just more of an ongoing struggle with food. Regardless of which category you belong to, if you're eating frozen food, TV Dinners and microwaveable meals - and you know you are - we're here to help. In honor of the Freshman 15, we've compiled a list of 33 frozen entrees and dinners, all 200 calories per serving or less.

We've tried to include a wide variety of meals, to account for differing tastes and lifestyles. So - in order, starting with the lowest per-serving calorie count:

Amy's Organic All American Veggie Burger, 120 cal., 15 g. carbs, 10 g. protein, 3.0 g fat;
Amy's Organic Texas Veggie Burger, 120 cal., 15 g. carbs, 12 g. protein, 2.5 g fat;
Stouffer's Classic Welsh Rarebit, 130 cal., 14.0 g carbs, 12 g protein, 9 g fat;
Amy's Organic California Veggie Burger, 140 cal., 19 g carbs, 6 g protein, 5 g fat;
Stouffer's Classic Creamed Chipped Beef, 140 cal., 9 g. carbs, 9 g protein, 8 g fat;
Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Cafe Classics Chicken Marsala, 140 cal, 12 g. carb, 14 g protein and 4.0 g of fat;
President's Choice Blue Menu Tomato and Herb Chicken, 150 cal., 14 g carbs, 15 g. protein, 3.5 grams fat;
Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Comfort Classics Roasted Turkey & Vegetables, 150 calories, 12.0 g carbs, 15 grams protein, 5 g fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Sweet and Sour Chicken, 150 cal., 13 g carbs, 21 grams protein, 3.0 g fat;
Amy's Organic Chicago Veggie Burger, 160 cal., 20 grams carbs, 10 grams protein, 5 g of fat;
Amy's Organic Light in Sodium Black Bean Enchilada, 160 calories, 22 grams carbs, 5 grams protein and 6.0 grams of fat;
Gorton's Grilled Fillet Meals Alfredo, 160 calories, 14 grams of carbs, 19 grams of protein and 3 grams of fat;
Michelina's Avantage Creamy Parmesan chicken, 160 cal., 9 g. carbs, 18 grams Protein and 6.0 grams of fat;
Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Cafe Classics Garlic Beef & Broccoli, 160 cal., 17 g carbs, 15 grams protein, 3.5 grams fat;
Banquet Select Swedish Meatball Meal - 170 calories, 33 grams of carbs, 22 grams of protein and 19 grams of fat;
Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Cafe Classics Orange Beef, 170 cal, 16 g carbs, 13.0 grams of protein and 6 grams of fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Beef Pot Roast, 170 cal., 9 grams caqrbs, 25 grams protein, 9.0 grams fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Chicken Marsala with Broccoli, 170 calories, 12.3 g carbs, 19 grams protein and 5.0 grams fat;
Amy's Organic Black Bean Vegetable Enchilada, 180 calories, 26 g carbs, 5 grams protein, 6 grams fat;
Michelina's Lean Gourmet French Recipe Chicken, 180 calories, 23 grams carbs, 10 grams of protein and 4.5 grams of fat;
Stouffer's Hearty Classics Stuffed Peppers, 180 calories, 21 grams carbs, 8 grams protein, 7 grams of fat;
Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Cafe Classics Steak Tips Portabello, 180 calories, 14.3 grams carbs, 15.0 grams protein and 7.0 grams fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Angel Hair Pasta with Tomatoes, Zucchini, Mushrooms - 180 calories, 32.0 grams carbs, 9 grams protein, 2.0 grams of fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Bistro Selections Roasted Chicken w/Sour Cream and Chive Mashed Potatoes - 180 calories, 19 grams of carbs, 14.0 grams of protein, 3.5 grams of fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Chicken Mirabella - 180 calories, 30 grams of carbs, 11.0 grams protein and 2.0 grams of fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Creamy Chicken Tuscany - 180 calories, 9 grams carbs, 22 grams protein, 8 grams of fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Shrimp Marinara, 180 calories, 31 grams of carbs, 9 grams of protein and 2.0 grams of fat;
Michelina's Avantage Wholesome Menu Meatloaf in Gravy - 190 calories, 11 grams of carbs, 17 grams of protein and 9 grams of fat;
President's Choice Blue Menu Chicken Curry - 190 Calories, 17.0 grams of carbs, 19 grams of protein and 5.0 grams of fat;
President's Choice Blue Menu Sesame Ginger Chicken, 190 calories, 17 grams of carbs, 18 grams of protein and 5.0 grams of fat;
Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Comfort Classics Herb Roasted Chicken - 190 calories, 23.0 grams carbs, 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of fat;
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Grilled Chicken in Garlic herb Sauce - 190 calories, 9 grams of carbs, 23 grams of protein and 8 grams of fat, and, last on our list for today,
Weight Watchers' Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Chicken Santa Fe - 192 calories, 10 grams of carbohydrates, 33 grams of protein and 2.5 grams of fat.

So - there you are. Thirty-three pretty terrific waist-watching meals that you can heat and eat without guilt and with blithe unconcern about contributing to your "baby fat." Try these meals, and ensure that the "blossoming" you do at college is between your ears...and not between the seams of your pants. Good Eating and Good Luck!

Don't be Cranky - Get Crabby! (Crab ‘n Bacon Appetizers)

2006-09-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

(Credit to Meghan Pembleton, Special for the Arizona Republic)

I’m going to be out of town for the next few days, so I’m writing this and putting it up earlier than usual. I admit I was at a loss for a dish this week, but stumbled across this fantastic use of frozen food in The Arizona Republic. It takes a mere 4 ingredients, and almost no preparation or cooking. I’m absolutely disgusted and unspeakably jealous that I didn’t think of it myself. (Photo credit Meghan Pembleton, for the Arizona Republic).

Crab & Bacon Stuffed Mushroom Caps

1 4-oz. crab cake (fresh or frozen will do – use the kind with breading)
16-20 medium sized fresh mushrooms (½ - ¾ lb.)
2 tablespoons Hormel Real Bacon bits (or other quality real bacon bit brand)
1 tablespoon butter

Cook crab cake according to package directions. Wash mushrooms and break off stems. Place cleaned mushroom caps upside down on ungreased baking sheet. Preheat oven to 375º F.

Dice the mushroom stems and place in small bowl. Add cooked crab cake and bacon bits and mash mixture with a fork; stir well to combine mushroom pieces to mix.

Spoon mixture into mushroom caps on baking sheet. Dot with butter. (Auntie tip: dice ice-cold butter up into tiny pieces, to make it easier to dot these smallish appetizers). Bake for 7-10 minutes.

Serves 4. One serving is about 4-5 stuffed caps; about 314 calories, 22 grams of fat, 90 mg. of cholesterol, 14 grams of protein and 16 grams of carbohydrate per serving. But, let's be serious - if we're eating crab- and bacon-stuffed mushroom caps glazed with butter, who's counting calories?

This is a really terrific use of frozen food. It’s the kind of appetizer that will get you the kudos of “home-cooked” or “hand-made,” when it is really more….what’s a good phrase? Ah…. “Home-assembled.” Trust me – nary a soul will guess that you used prepared or ready-made “help” in creating these tasty morsels. Yum!

And don’t forget…visit the Icebox Diner to read more than 1,000 consumer reviews of frozen foods, entrees, side dishes and meals.

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Don't Skimp on That Shrimp (Contessa's Ragin' Cajun Shrimp)

2006-09-09T00:11:00.000-07:00

Howdy, all:

This week is a quickie review, designed to make your cooking life easier. I'm reviewing Contessa’s “Ragin’ Cajun Shrimp,” and all I have to say about this entrée entry into the dinner sweepstakes is:

Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler!

In English, let the good times roll!

Having tried and loved Contessa’s garlicky Shrimp Scampi, I decided to take their Cajun Shrimp out for a spin, even though the description on the box – “whiskey flavored sauce” – left me a bit discomfited. Whiskey is for drinking, not cooking; I’ve never found anything flavored with whiskey fit to eat…until now.

Contessa’s Ragin’ Cajun Shrimp comes in a 12-ounce box, claims to contain “about 3” servings, each serving with 170 calories, 10 grams of fat, 9 grams of carbs and 11 grams of protein, and let me tell you, those calories are worth eating. The picture on the front of the box is deceptive; it makes the sauce for the shrimp look transparent, a bit “buttery,” for lack of a better word. The sauce is anything but buttery in taste, transparency or texture. Think instead of a sauce more akin in color, consistency and fire to “buffalo” sauce on chicken wings…orangey-red and hot hot hot.

Yes – bizarrely enough, this dish will knock your socks off, burn your tongue and amaze your taste buds. It’s actually HOT. Not just “spicy,” like Contessa’s Kung Pao Chicken meal in a bag; it’s hot enough where I will tell you not to try to feed it to the kiddies. In fact, if you’re not used to eating hotter dishes, you might want to give this one a pass. If, however, your taste buds crave heat and shrimp, shop no further. The sauce is salty, hot and full-bodied, replete with the bite only real peppers can bring to the table. Plan on a side of rice or angel hair pasta to complement the (more than enough) zesty sauce.

My sole complaint is that the sauce made this dish a bit trickier to sauté than the scampi version, because the heavier sauce coated the shrimp thoroughly in the frying pan, making it a bit harder to judge whether or not the shrimp were adequately cooked. The instructions call for 3-4 minutes on each side, and I found that you need the 4 minutes on medium-to-high heat to ensure that the shrimp are cooked; I judged by taking a shrimp out and cutting it apart to see if it was done when I’d had them on the second side for 3 minutes (they weren’t, and needed that last minute). The dish couldn’t be easier; plop the frozen shrimp, which come already-coated in a bag, into the preheated frying pan or skillet, cook 3-4 minutes each side, serve.

What could be simpler?

Vector Graphic, Shrimp: copyright Miroslaw Pieprzyk, 2006, istockphoto.com

Meatball Mania (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Cook the Beefy Bomb)

2006-08-31T01:54:00.000-07:00

First, a quick shout-out to Susan over at Party Meatloaf Blog. She’s dropped by for a visit, telling me how much she likes Auntie’s blog, so the least we can do is return the favor. Susan’s blog is about 1950’s kitsch, and it is a fun bit of nostalgia coupled with insightful barbs. Good reading.

Second, a thanks to Emily, who writes about the Contessa Shrimp Scampi I recommended:

“This is an extremly [sic] rare frozen food product! … I now buy it at least once a month. It is GREAT! The directions are easy to follow, it comes out looking like it's picture on the box and it takes just a few minutes to prepare. My favorite thing to do is cook it and add it too angel hair pasta! It's a super fast, easy dinner! I can't say enough good things about this product! I LOVE IT!!!!!”

Yup…another satisfied reader. Wiseass remarks aside, I really am happy when I recommend a product and somebody loves it.

This week’s column is about three quick meals you can make with ready-made frozen meatballs; all can be used as quick suppers, or handy appetizers or snacks for get-togethers. Rosina, for one, has a line of ready-made meatballs, $8.99 for 38 ounces ($3.79/lb.) both “plain” and “Italian style.” For those of you trying to eat less red meat, Foster Farms also has a line of Turkey Meatballs, although I’ve not tried these and therefore don’t know if they are any good or not, but they are out there if you’re interested. All three of today’s recipes use the plain, not Italian, type of meatball.

First up is Sweet and Sour Meatballs, an adaptation of an old tried-n-true recipe at allrecipes.com, and this one couldn’t be easier.

1-1½ pounds ready-made frozen meatballs (plain)
1 cup water
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Defrost meatballs (I put them in the fridge the night before, it’s the easiest way). In large skillet, sauté (fry) the meatballs until they’re hot and as browned as you like.

In a separate bowl, combine the water, vinegar, ketchup, corn starch, brown sugar and soy sauce. Add to the meatballs in the skillet and cook over medium heat, allowing the sauce to thicken, just a few minutes. When the sauce starts to bubble, it's done.

Serve “as-is” with toothpicks as an appetizer or party dish or over rice for a super-quick family dinner. Should serve 5.

Swedish Meatballs

1-1½ pounds ready-made frozen meatballs (plain)
butter
1 can condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
1 can condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
Fresh chopped parsley

Defrost meatballs. Saute meatballs in butter until hot and as browned as you like. Drain on paper towels.
Preheat oven to 350°.

In bowl, mix together the soups and the evaporated milk. Place meatballs into a lightly greased (or use cooking spray) 2-quart casserole dish. Pour the soup mixture over the meatballs. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for about 40 minutes. Serve over cooked egg noodles or rice, sprinkling the fresh parsley over each serving. Serves 4+. (Although I haven’t tried it, this recipe probably converts well into a crockpot dish; place all the ingredients except the butter into a crockpot, set on low, cook about 6 hours, serve over freshly cooked hot noodles).

German-Style Beef Stew

1-2 Tblsp. Olive Oil
1½ lbs. ready-made frozen meatballs (plain)
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
3 large carrots, sliced
1¾ cups water
1 package Knorr® Sauerbraten (Pot Roast) dried mix
Egg noodles, cooked

Place 1 tablespoon of the Olive Oil into a skillet and heat the meatballs until hot. Remove and set aside.

Add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and cook onion and carrots about 5 minutes or until onions are golden, stirring occasionally. Stir in water and Knorr ® Sauerbraten (Pot Roast) recipe mix and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 2 minutes. Return the meatballs to skillet and cook about 8-10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve over hot cooked noodles. Serves 4-6, depending upon size of appetite.

Three quick and easy recipes, all of which can be prepared in minutes, which your family will love. And I didn’t even break out the old grape jelly meatball recipe that has been around for 30 or 40 years, despite the temptation. While we're on the topic, let’s not forget the most obvious use of ready-made meatballs – the ubiquitous meatball hero, always a favorite with kids.

Take some sub rolls, ready-made meatballs, a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce (or your homemade sauce) and sliced mozzarella and you’re good to go. Slice the rolls in half lengthwise and run under the broiler to toast the bread; meanwhile, heat the meatballs in the microwave or warm them in the sauce on top of the stove. Place the hot meatballs on the toasted sub roll with some sauce, cover with sliced mozzarella, return to the oven briefly to melt the cheese, and – voila ! – Meatball Subs.

Auntie’s Meatball Sub tip: For those of you that hate messy eating, I usually cheat and slice the meatballs into manageable-sized (¼” thick) slices before mounding the slices on the sub roll. It makes eating the subs a lot easier…and a lot less likely that one of your kids will try to take a bite and send a sauce-and-cheese covered meatball rolling.

Don’t forget to visit us at the Icebox Diner!!

Takes on Snakes On A Plane...some musings

2006-08-24T02:23:00.000-07:00

Given the hoopla surrounding Samuel L. Jackson’s “Snakes on a Plane,” I predict that it’s a sure thing that Hollywood in its infinite capacity for duplication will have a plethora of SOAP rip-offs ready for viewing by next summer. Some of my prognostications are:

(Photo credit Philippe Noret - AirTeamimages)

Bakes on a Plane: Duncan Hines launches an assassination plot against Martha Stewart, forcing her to judge an airborne bake-off using ready-made cake mixes. Fortunately, she escapes her fate when Master Baker Jim Dodge, who is traveling on the same plane, whips up two “real” desserts from scratch in the airplane galley, assisted by a perky Flight Attendant who took two courses in Home Economics while in High School.

Fakes on a Plane: In an attempt to corner the gel-breast-implant market, a trio of nefarious gel-breast-implant marketing executives stashes a crate of nanobots in the cargo hold of a plane carrying a convention of Liza Minnelli, Cher and Madonna imitators. The nanobots are programmed to search and destroy all silicone breast implants. (Yes, I know that there is an intrinsic plot conflict here, but it’s Hollywood – they’ll overlook the silicone-chip in the bots issue). Fortunately for the imitators, a handsome, recently-divorced computer programmer is also traveling on the plane. Assisted by a plucky Flight Attendant who is really a Fulbright Scholar working on her thesis on Artificial Intelligence in her spare time, they race to save the world from a future in which we are all in danger from dangerously depleted silicone boobies.

Stakes on a Plane: In a desperate attempt to get out from underneath his evil web of influence, NBC executives place caskets carrying the undead on a 747 carrying Donald Trump from New York to London, working on the assumption that it takes bloodsuckers to kill a bloodsucker. Trump and his entourage are nearly torn to shreds by the rampaging vampires. However, rabid but intrepid “Sex in the City” fans are onboard, and aided by a pert gay male Flight Attendant, spring into action, sacrificing their Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos, impaling the undead evildoers right in the heart with their 3-4” stiletto heels while sipping on Starbucks Low-Fat Macchiato Lattes.

Drakes on a Plane: The Brothers Grimm hatch a gruesome plot to assassinate Mother Goose, shipping a cargo-hold full of male Mallard ducks, loaded up with testosterone to make them highly sexually charged and not very picky about the specie of their partners. Fortunately, a widowered, black-leather-wearing veterinarian is also traveling on the plane, and is ably assisted by a plucky Flight Attendant who took two courses in comparative Biology while in community college. Can they save Mother Goose from being ducked to death?

(Duck photo credit: Wikipedia Commons Public Domain)

Shakes on a Plane: Mel Gibson and Andy Dick agree to do a charitable function which consists of a non-stop airplane flight around the world, lasting well over one day with in-flight refueling. Sadly, neither Mel nor Andy’s agents bother to check to see who is sponsoring this charity, which is Adult Jewish Children of Alcoholics. Only too late do they find that the non-stop flight is alcohol-free. Fortunately, they are rescued by Robert Downey, Jr., who parachutes in, cross-dressed as a perky Flight Attendant wearing a Silent Bob overcoat packed with full flasks, saving the vibrating stars from terminal D.T.’s.

Flake on a Plane: A planeload of 50 working women, all full-time moms in addition to holding down full-time jobs, are returning from a Psychiatric Medicine Practitioners’ Convention in Chicago when they realize that Tom Cruise is sitting in First Class. Springing into action, it takes 49 of them to hold him down, but only one to administer the badly-needed injection of Thorazine while explaining to him the meaning of the term “manic-depressive.” As penance for his career as a jackass, he is forced to have “I’m Sorry, Katie” tattooed across his chest without benefit of anesthesia, although the psychiatric travelers do allow him to take vitamins to cheer himself up. No one tries to save him, but several months later, he does audition at Paramount for the part of a perky Flight Attendant.

Yes, I know….what about FOOD, you ask? Sometimes, you just have to feed your soul, not your body, and this was one of those days. Scout’s honor – I’ll be back to food next week. P.S. – Has anyone out there actually found an edible ready-made or frozen potsticker? Drop us a line and let us know – we would like to try some, and we’re leery of Pagoda’s line after our dreary recent experience with their Chicken Egg Rolls. Until next week!

These "Sensations" are....MEH. (Asian Sensation Egg Rolls & Lean Cuisine Jumbo Rigatoni)

2006-08-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a depressing week here at the Icebox Diner in Freezerville. We’ve had a whole lot of “meh” going on, without much WOW.

First, a “call-out” to Kim at her new blog – http://averageladyofthehouse.blogspot.com, who has been kind enough to drop by and say hello. Kim’s blog is new, so please give her a visit and some comments to let her know she’s not typing into the Black Hole of Blogger.

Back to Work…

Our first “meh” product this week is Pagoda’s Asian Sensations White Meat Chicken Egg Rolls. Man, WHAT a disappointment these turned out to be! Truthfully, I’d been skeptical that anyone could produce a good frozen egg roll, and I was right to be dubious.

The “full-size” egg rolls (Pagoda carries a selection of “mini” egg and spring rolls, as well) are decent sized, although not generous – each one is just under 3 ounces. The rolls are about 1½” in diameter, and about 3½-4” in length. I prepared them in the oven, assuming that microwaving them would render them inedible by making the egg roll wrapper too chewy, and not crisp. The cooking instructions are simple; heat the oven to 425º F, place the egg rolls on a baking tray on the top oven rack, and cook for 18-20 minutes until crisp. I did so, baking them for just about 20 minutes, and the wrappers did indeed crisp.

The taste, however, was seriously lacking. The egg roll wrapper is too thick in texture, so that while the outside is crisp, the inside portion of the wrapper is chewy and tastes of raw dough. The interior veggies and chicken – the latter of which was in short supply – were all uniformly diced into squares, which was a little disconcerting when you’re expecting teeny-weeny little shreds of vegetables and chunks of chicken. The filling was also strangely bland and peppery at the same time, which I can only explain by assuming that Pagoda tried to compensate for the lack of flavor in the overwhelmingly-cabbage filled interior by adding plain old black pepper, which did nothing for me and less for the overall flavor, leaving an unpleasant tang aftertaste. The package costs $3.59, which averages out to $0.90 USD +/- a roll. All in all, I can’t rate these more than a 2 out of 5, and I do not recommend them. There are plenty of frozen appetizer brands out there that provide much better value and enjoyment than these.

My second flirtation with disappointment this week comes from Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects “Jumbo Rigatoni with Meatballs.” Normally, Lean Cuisine’s Dinnertime Selects line is nothing short of excellent, giving good value and great taste for very few calories – and many of the Dinnertime Selects meals include healthy and tasty dessert, which is always a plus for dieters. Sad to say, the Jumbo Rigatoni with Meatballs dinner is not one I’ll ever be buying again.

I’ll say this for it – you get a good amount of food for your money, which is $3.99 for the 15-⅜ths ounce package. A little over half an ounce shy of one pound of food, the total calorie count is only 390 calories, 8 grams of total fat, 56 grams of carbohydrate (including 7 grams of fiber) and 23 grams of protein. The problem with this dish isn’t that the serving size is too scanty.

However, I’m one of those transplanted “New Yawkuhs” that just cannot abide a “sweet-ish” tomato-based pasta sauce. I know that this type of sauce is fairly popular in the Midwest, and if you are one of those people that like a sweet tomato-based sauce, you might genuinely enjoy this dinner. The sauce includes carrots, yellow carrots, onions and red peppers (although it’s hard to find the peppers) as well as the requisite chunks of “fire-toasted” tomatoes. The meatballs are smallish – about an inch in diameter – and there are only five of them, but they’re moderately good flavored. It’s just that nasty sweet sauce that I find so repugnant that ruined this dinner for me. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t actually eat it (unlike that memorable Michelina’s Penne dinner about which I told you six months or so ago); but I shan’t be buying it again. I’ll rank it a three – primarily because it does provide a lot of food for less than 400 calories – and because I know that there are indeed people who actually prefer a sweeter pasta sauce who might find this dinner enjoyable.

That’s all for this week – it’s been chaos around here!! Enjoy, and don’t forget to write and let us know how you like our picks and pans.

Summer Fever (2-Ingredient Chicken Alfredo and Birds Eye's Steamfresh Corn)

2006-08-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

Stuart Weitzman has a lot to answer for. I know that this is a food column, but I recently received an Arthur Beren catalogue, and saw a pair of 3” stiletto heels, in, I kid thee not, tortoiseshell patent leather, that just siren-called me to buy them. Seductive, alluring, expensive, and completely impractical, they whispered to me….Auntie, buy us! I nearly succumbed; I even fell so low as to cruise Beren’s website, ready for one of those impulse buys that the girly-girl inside you never regrets…but they were completely sold out in my size. Weitzman, you tease; to work a girl up like that and then leave her gasping!! The shoes were aptly named “Fever;” and, indeed, they caused brain fever in old Auntie, but I’m over it now.

Back to work…

If you’re as sick of summer as I am, the last thing on your mind is cooking. Here is an incredibly quick, easy, and satisfying summer “recipe” to feed your family:

Auntie’s 2-ingredient Fettucini Alfredo with Chicken and Broccoli (May substitute ham and mushrooms):

1 24-ounce bag of Green Giant Pasta Accents Pasta, Broccoli & Alfredo Sauce ($4.99)
2 cups cooked chicken, in pieces (I normally use leftovers, but on busy nights, I recommend buying a Deli Rotisserie or Roasted Chicken – about $5.50 for a whole bird - and using it for dinner the first night, then shredding the leftovers, without skin, for this dish for the following night, thereby getting two meals out of it).
Alternate option: 1-1/2 cups cubed cooked ham, or chopped up cooked ham plus
1 can sliced mushroom pieces, drained very well.

To assemble: simply prepare the entire bag of Pasta Accents as directed on the bag; when warm, add the 2 cups of chicken, (or the chopped/cubed ham and the sliced mushroom pieces) heat slightly more (30 seconds – 1 minute) in the microwave to warm the chicken, and serve. No one will ever know you didn’t make it yourself. Serve with crusty hot French bread, and enjoy! Feeds 4 healthy appetites, maybe even stretches to five, depending upon your family’s appetite size.

Today’s quick review: A few columns back – during Blogger’s big outage – I told you I had purchased Birds Eye’s new Steamfresh Technology Super Sweet Corn, and that I would report back to you on this product when I tried it.

We tried it tonight.

On the plus side:

1. Incredibly fast and easy
2. Really does heat right in the bag, no cooking utensils necessary, not even scissors to open the bag after cooking
The corn really DOES taste fresher than “regular” frozen corn
The corn really is quite sweet, although not as sweet as some other premium brands.

On the minus side:

It’s somewhat more expensive than regular frozen corn, although not more expensive than other premium brands;
I’m not sure it’s remotely different enough to warrant the price differential, and
The corn has a slightly odd color – a grey-ish tinge to it that’s not marked, but rather subtle – it’s not quite the bright yellow corn that we’ve become accustomed to over the years.

All in all, I’m not sure what market they are targeting. If you’re really a fresh sweet corn nut, I suspect you’ll stick with just that – fresh sweet corn. For most buyers of frozen corn, I don’t think that the Steamfresh bag makes enough of a difference to warrant switching, but we’ll see. I’m going to try their broccoli to see if I think that the “steam in the bag” approach makes a sizeable difference in that particular vegetable before I pass “final judgment” on the Steamfresh Technology line from Birds Eye. If you’re curious, try it – but I just don’t think it packs a lot of “wow” factor.

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Cool Summer Treats (Lightspeed Quick Oriental Steak Salad and Ben & Jerry's Milkshakes)

2006-08-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Just in time for these record-breaking searing summer temperatures, Ben & Jerry’s – yes, that Ben & Jerry’s – has released its latest sinful creation - Ben & Jerry's Milk Shakes. Rich, creamy drinkable treats in three classic flavors - Cherry Garcia , Chunky Monkey, and the one I’m lusting after, Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Currently available at grocery and convenience stores nationwide. Like all Ben & Jerry's ice cream products, the milkshakes are made with naturally good ingredients, including milk from cows that are not treated with rBGH. Available in eight-ounce glass bottles, the company promises to donate 1% of the net sales of Ben & Jerry's Milk Shakes to Clean Air-Cool Planet, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding and implementing solutions to global warming. Me? I’m heading out to find a scrumptious Chocolate Fudge Brownie Shake as I write this.

In keeping with the theme of cooling down, this week’s column is an incredibly quick and easy Oriental Steak Salad, using convenience foods, that goes from start to serve in less than 20 minutes (courtesy of our friends at Birds Eye):

Oriental Steak Salad

Ingredients:

1 package (3 oz.) Oriental flavor instant ramen noodles;
4 cups water
1 bag (16 oz) Birds Eye Frozen Cauliflower, Carrots & Snow Pea Pods
2 Tblsp. vegetable oil
1 lb. boneless beef, cut into thin strips (I prefer top sirloin, but top loin is fine - you can find beef cut into strips at any grocery store to speed up the process)
1/3 cup Oriental Sesame Salad Dressing
1/4 cup chow mein noodles
lettuce leaves (optional)

Instructions:

Bring water to boil in large saucepan
Add noodles from Ramen package, but not the seasonings
Add vegetables, return water to boil.
Boil 3 minutes, stir occasionally; drain and put in large bowl.
Heat the oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; when hot, add beef and cook, stirring, for about 8 minutes or until browned.
Sprinkle the reserved Ramen seasoning over the beef until it is well coated.
In the large bowl, add the cooked beef to the Ramen noodles and vegetable mixture; toss well;
Add the Oriental Salad Dressing, toss, sprinkle with Chow Mein Noodles.
Serve over shredded lettuce (optional), and you're done!

Total prep time, including slicing the meat, 11-12 minutes; total cook time, 10 minutes. If you buy pre-sliced beef, the prep time is non-existent, making this a ten minute meal. This can be served with the meat and noodles hot OR cold, it's excellent either way. You can also make the noodles-veggie-meat mixture ahead of time, and then toss it with the salad dressing and add the chow mein noodles when you're ready to serve for a quick solution to a hot day's meal.

Serves 4; calories per serving 490; Total Fat 30g; Sat. Fat 7g; Carbs 24g; Fiber 3 g and 28 grams of Protein. An excellent source of Vitamin A (50%), Vitamin C (25%) and Iron (20%); only provides 4% of the daily requirement for calcium.

Enjoy!

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The Garlic Harlot (Contessa's Shrimp Scampi)

2006-07-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

I guess this is my Summer of Shrimp. I’m not really sure why, because I’m not normally a huge shrimp fan. Yes, I like it; but normally I eat it a couple of times a year, not several times in the course of one summer. Perhaps, here in Phoenix, where it has been even more sweltering than usual, the idea of shrimp is particularly appealing due to its ease of preparation. Of course, dishes I don’t have to prepare are even more attractive, and I’ve found another one from Contessa that deserves mention.

I’d seen Contessa’s boxes of Shrimp Scampi (they have 12-ounce and 32-ounce sizes) in the freezer section and the frozen seafood section of my local groceries, but had not tried one until this past week. I was rushed at the store, getting ready to go out of town the following morning, when I spotted the tasty-looking picture on the front of Contessa’s box, and decided to give it a try. Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting much, but I’ve had pretty good luck with Contessa’s convenience meals, so I was willing to risk a test-drive.

The preparation was simplicity itself; open the plastic bag-type container inside the box; add the shrimp to a pre-heated skillet; sauté 3-4 minutes on each side, and serve. I made plain white rice to accompany the dish (more on this choice later). Inside the bag were 25-30 medium-sized shrimp, which initially started out with a frozen coating that melted during the cooking and became the buttery garlic sauce.

I’ll save you the suspense – this dish wasn’t just okay; it wasn’t just pretty good for frozen – it was fantastic. I was completely shocked. I’ve been making scampi from scratch forever; and I’m pretty sure that if the Hubster hadn’t seen the box, he would have cheerfully devoured this Scampi and never thought for a moment that it wasn’t homemade.

The sauce was perfectly seasoned, buttery and garlicky with a slight hint of herbs; the sauce was neither too thin nor too thick. The shrimp, although a smidgen on the small side for my taste, were cooked to the right degree of doneness, not overcooked to the rubbery brink of death, as is so often the case with convenience meals.

And the damage to your waistline? Per 4 oz serving (see my criticism of the serving size estimation, below), 290 calories; 27 grams of total fat, including 7 grams of saturated fat and 4 grams of Trans Fat; 4 grams of carbohydrate (so lo-carb friendly), 2 grams of fiber and 9 grams of protein. If you split the box between the two of you, it would be a little under 450 calories each. It's not a Budget Gourmet item at $8.49+/- for the box, but I am absolutely going to buy some more of these and keep them on hand. In fact, I liked this so much, I'm going to see if my grocer will carry some of their other speciality seafood/shrimp items, like Coconut Shrimp and "Ragin' Cajun Shrimp." After the Scampi experience, I'm game to try these out.

My only criticism of the meal is that Contessa claims this serves “about 3;” the Hubster and I are not large eaters, and although we had about 4 shrimp left over, that hardly constitutes a third portion – realistically, I’d say the 12-ounce size serves two, and that’s with a side dish of starch and a vegetable. If you’re going to eat this without rice or pasta and a vegetable, assume one 12-oz. serving per person. I would, in the future, make pasta with this, instead of rice – the garlicky butter sauce would suit angel hair better than the rice as a side. Definitely include a loaf of Italian bread, to sop up the sauce, so you don’t miss one delicious bite.

If you want to try Contessa's Shrimp Scampi, just click here.

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Sinful No-Sweat Summer Sweets (Banquet Dessert Bakes, Edwards Oreo Cream Pie, and others)

2006-07-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, having tortured some of you, apparently, with recipes for desserts last week, I thought I’d pick some of the Diner’s quick-serve desserts or treats – that is, desserts you either serve right from the freezer or make from a mix. Luscious, sinful, make-you-moan chocolate sins that you can have near-instantly, to satisfy your summer sugar cravings...cold from the freezer, to add to the joy.

For those who love chocolate cream pie: not counting various pints of ice-cream (Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk is the top-rated ice cream of all time at the Diner, by the way), the best-rated dessert was, surprisingly, from Banquet, in a line called “Banquet Dessert Bakes.” This is a dessert-in-a-box to which you add water, stir, and refrigerate. Okay…you have to make the crust and the filling separately, but, really, it’s that simple. The winning dessert is called Chocolate Silk Cream Pie, and gets rave reviews – one reviewer, tiamsea, said “Tastes scrumptious too, I even had someone ask me to make it for them because they thought it was a secret recipe haha.” Three different reviewers ranked this dessert 5 stars, not only for taste but for ease of preparation; you may want to stock up on the whipped cream when you make this!

Speaking of chocolate, one of the top-rated desserts is from a brand I’d never heard of before I started the Diner – Edwards. Edwards sells whole, ready-to-eat frozen pies – I’m dying to try the Mocha Mudslide myself – but they also offer the convenience of buying slices of pie, which I think is a boon to those living alone, or, for that matter, couples who just don’t have the oomph to eat a whole pie. Our Regulars at the Diner rate their Oreo Cream Pie a solid 5-stars, with Kwils, our non-dessert eating regular, admitting “…this one I just can't resist and buy it rather often.” She goes on to say that “[t]he crust and filling are both very tasty and this pie doesn't taste "fake" like some frozen desserts do.”

What the heck – let’s make it a Chocolate dessert trifecta: Our third selection for the night is Pepperidge Farm’s Dessert Classics Chocolate Three Layer Cake, which snuck in with a 4.7 out of 5-star rating, earning this enthusiastic review from longtime Diner Regular PattyE: “This is a great chocolate cake. I have to be honest, I am not a chocolate cake fan. I love chocolate, but not chocolate cake. I loved this one! The cake was moist and the icing was very creamy. It is a great cake to have in the freezer for unexpected company.” To be fair, Pepperidge Farm’s Dessert Classics Carrot Cake actually earned a higher ranking – a straight 5-stars from three reviewers – but since chocolate seemed to be the theme of the night, I slighted it in favor of its chocolately three-layer cousin.

And, last but by NO means least - if you love dark chocolate (oooooh, and I do!), want to cut out unnecessary fat and calories, and want a sensuous surprise, run, do not walk, to your local grocer and treat yourself to Haagen-Dazs' new Chocolate Sorbet. Made not with cream, but with Filtered Water, Sugar, Corn Syrup, Egg Whites, Lowfat Cocoa and Cocoa Processed With Alkali, Fruit Pectin, Natural Vanilla, Salt, this sorbet will knock your socks off. Deep, rich, dark and ultimately satsifying, this product is a sleeper that will satsify the hardest of the hardcore chocaholics. It's a perfect summer treat - cool and served without guilt. Enjoy!!

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Berry cool and berry easy summer desserts (Using Frozen Blueberries)

2006-07-13T01:11:00.000-07:00

This week, I’m going to give you two different ways to make berry crisps/cobblers – one the “old-fashioned way,” which requires a little mixing and a little blending of the topping; the other is a near-instant dessert recipe which uses only one dish, no mixing, no cooking techniques required, and will fool most people into believing it’s “homemade.” In fact, the preparation for the Berry Cobbler for Dummies Recipe is so fast that you can have it ready to go before your oven preheats to the cooking temperature! A perfect recipe for novice cooks, or just folks pressed for time.

The “Original” Blueberry Crisp Recipe (originally by Master Chef Jim Dodge)

6 cups blueberries (I use frozen wild blueberries, defrosted)
1 tablespoon instant tapioca
1½ cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 stick (4 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (see note for substitution options)

1. Preheat the oven to 375º F. Put the berries into a 2½-quart oval baking dish, about 12”x10” (or a 9x13” rectangular dish), about 2 inches deep. In a small bowl, blend the tapioca with 2 tablespoons of the Sugar. Add to the berries and toss to mix.
2. In a medium bowl, blend the flour with the remaining 1½ cups sugar. Add the butter pieces and toss the mixture to coat the butter pieces. Then pinch the butter pieces between your fingers to form thin flakes. Then picking up small handfuls of the flour-sugar-butter topping mixture, gently rub the dough between your hands repeatedly (like rubbing your hands together for warmth, when you’re cold, but more slowly) until it turns golden in color and forms a coarse meal (like cornmeal). Add the lemon zest and toss to mix well. (Note: if you don’t have or don’t know how to make lemon zest, ignore this step, adding 2-3 drops of lemon juice to the fruit mixture instead).
3. Squeeze the topping mixture into clumps with your hands, and crumble the clumps over the blueberries, covering them evenly. Do NOT press the topping into the fruit.
4. Bake at 375º F for about 35 minutes, or until the juices start to bubble and the topping is a scrumptious golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes; serve warm. (It is also excellent cold, but warm really is my personal favorite). Serves 6-8.

The “Berry Cobbler for Dummies” Recipe

(Adapted from Meghan Pembleton’s Easy Berry Cobbler recipe)

1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling (I use Comstock);
1 pint (16 ounces) blueberries, either fresh or defrosted from frozen;
1 box yellow cake mix (Moist Deluxe Duncan Hines works well);
1½ sticks butter, melted (3/4 cup)

1. Preheat oven to 350º F.
2. Spread Cherry Pie filling in an ungreased 9x13 baking dish.
3. Top cherry pie filling with blueberries
4. Sprinkle the dry cake mix over the top evenly; shake the baking dish back and forth a little if needed to evenly distribute the mix over the fruit filling.
5. Pour the melted butter over the top.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top is a light golden brown. Allow to cool in pan 5-10 minutes before serving. The crust will be dry and crumbly.
7. As you serve this, mix the crumb topping into the fruit mixture a little. If you want to be really decadent, top with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream.

And that’s all there is to it. Either of these recipes will delight your family or friends or coworkers, and the Berry Cobbler recipe really couldn’t be easier – I timed it, and it took me 3 minutes from start to finish. The Cobbler recipe is also a very handy dish to take to pot luck summer get-togethers!

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French Fry Frenzy (Ore-Ida's Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries)

2006-07-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

Can you get good French fries at home?

Boy, there’s a question. For years, I made my own from scratch; I’d select the best potatoes, peel them, slice the potato sticks just so, deep-fry them to a golden crunchy outside and a soft inside, and they were good, but not quite great. “Great” is hard to achieve with any food, but oddly enough, French fries can be tricky. Too greasy, not quite cooked enough or overcooked are all easily achievable, sad to say…and regardless of whether they come out excellent or lousy, the amount of work for homemade fries is the same.

As acknowledged by practically everyone – okay, maybe not Burger King or Wendy’s, but everyone who counts – the gold standard for French fries is McDonald’s® fries. Every other fry, whether homemade, sold by McDonald’s® competitors, or served in a four-star restaurant, is measured against the collective consciousness that agrees that McDonald’s® fries are the zenith of French fried potatoes. (Although in the 1960’s and 70’s, there was a place called the Circle Diner in NJ that served heavenly fries laved in [of all things] gravy, that were the raison d’être for truckers, diners, high-schoolers and party-goers trying to sober up after closing time).

Bearing in mind that McDonald’s® is that gold standard, I have happy news for those of you who love fries, but want to watch your pocketbooks and your waistlines as well. Ore-Ida® has come out with a fairly new line out of the frozen potato empire, called “Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries,” and I’m here to tell you that these really do taste like Fast Food fries, and come very close to the vaunted McDonald’s® benchmark.

Not only do these taste great, and completely satisfy any fast food craving, but they are lower in fat and calories than their McDonald’s® cousins by far. Ore-Ida’s® Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries can be oven-, stovetop- or deep-fryer prepared, so I chose the oven preparation method. Using this method, nine minutes later I had crispy, golden fries with soft fluffy interiors that tasted perfect. And here’s the calorie and fat savings:

McDonald’s® serves its fries in multiple sizes, as well all know – a small order is 2.6 ounces, a medium is 4 ounces. Ore-Ida’s® serving size is 3 ounces, so it compares more accurately to the small size at McDonald’s®, which is four-tenths of an ounce smaller than the Ore-Ida® serving.

Comparing the two, McDonald’s® small fries have 250 calories, 13 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 3.5 grams of trans fat, 140 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, no sugar and 2 grams of protein. In contrast, the Ore-Ida serving, at 3 ounces, contains 160 calories, 6 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 2.0 grams of trans fat, 270 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, less than 1 gram of sugar and 2 grams of protein. Ounce for ounce, the Ore-Ida fries are simply a better deal; the taste is comparable, they cost a lot less and they’re 90 calories less for a nearly twenty-percent arger serving size.

What’s not to love? The next time you get a craving for fries, try the Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries; the oven method works beautifully, it’s easy and you save both money and unwanted fats and calories.

Check out other great frozen meals, TV Dinners and frozen side dishes at the Icebox Diner!

Frittering the Summer Away (Auntie's Fabulous Broccoli Fritters)

2006-06-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

I am in electrical appliance hell.

I don’t know what I ever did to appliances to deserve what’s happened in 2006, but whatever it was, my appliance karma is seriously out of whack. You’ve read about the refrigerator and its death throes; you’re read about the dishwasher’s dastardly defiance; you’ve read about the microwave mutiny…now, here in Phoenix, Arizona, in the middle of summer, I awoke yesterday to every Arizonan’s worst nightmare – the air conditioner DIED. Considering it costs anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 to replace an air-conditioning unit these days, this had the potential to be fairly catastrophic, as the cost might be more than my net worth. We were able to get it repaired fairly inexpensively, but the repairman ominously intoned that the 20-year old unit is teetering on its last legs….so now we’re sitting vigil on our air-conditioning unit, which is a necessity item, not a luxury, when temperatures are routinely over 110º F here in the summer. All I could think when the Hubster awakened me with the news yesterday of yet another appliance meltdown was “make the lambs stop screaming.” (If you’re too young to get the pop culture reference, just ignore the last sentence.)

Back to Work…

I’m always hearing parents comment that they can’t get their kids to eat vegetables, certainly not a new lament. So, I’ve decided to publish my world-famous Spinot Bomba recipe, developed by my great-aunt, handed down in the family. I absolutely guarantee that if you make this recipe, not only will your kids love it, but they’ll ask for it again (I get asked for the recipe wherever I make it), and it’s a great way to get them on the road to eating and enjoying vegetables. This “Broccoli Fritter” can be made with either frozen spinach or frozen broccoli, so you can vary it. It’s easy-peasy to make, only 5 ingredients, but it takes a bit of watching while cooking, so if you’re planning to make it, do it on a night when your other half is grilling the meat or chicken, or you’re cooking a tenderloin or roast in the oven – something that you don’t have to watch very much. If you want to get an idea of what the finished product will look like, visit this link – our finished product will look very similar, but ignore that chef’s toppings.

Spinot Bomba (Broccoli Fritters, or Spinach Fritters)

1 package (usually 9-10 ozs.) chopped frozen broccoli, cooked & drained, allow to cool;
3 medium-sized eggs, separated
3 Tablespoons Flour
1 Tablespoon Oil
½ Teaspoon Salt

In large bowl, combine egg yolks, flour, oil and salt; mix well. Add enough water to make a thick, creamy mix. Add in broccoli and mix well.

In separate bowl, whip egg whites until they form stiff, not soft, peaks.

Heat lightly oiled frying pan on medium-low to medium heat on stove.

Now, gently fold egg whites into egg-broccoli mixture. After the egg whites and egg-broccoli mixture are combined, drop mixture by 1 tablespoon each into lightly oiled frying pan. Mixture will start to spread, and then stop as it cooks. After about 30 seconds – 1 minute, flip fritters over, finish cooking on other side. Fritters should be lightly golden brown on each side, this doesn’t take long, so don’t overcook. Serve alone, or (my favorite) with butter as a topping. Yummm.

NOTE: Click on this link if you need any help in separating eggs (yolks from whites), beating whites or folding whites into batter. This page has delightful, step-by-step instructions, even down to illustrations - perfect for novices.

Variation: Before mixing up the egg-broccoli mix, fry up 4 slices of bacon in the frying pan you’re going to use, cook bacon well. Remove bacon from pan, allow to cool, then crumble into small pieces and add to the egg-broccoli mixture in the first step. Reserve bacon fat to use when frying the fritters, adding a small amount to the oiled frying pan. This variation is FANTASTIC, and my personal favorite.

Variation 2: Substitute one package (9-10 ozs.) frozen chopped spinach, and use the bacon as well. This is the original “Spinot Bomba” recipe, and is also terrific; make sure you drain the cooked spinach thoroughly.

Make-Ahead Note: This recipe can be doubled or tripled, but do not make the mixture up ahead of time, as once combined, the egg whites rapidly lose their volume, and the mixture will become “soupy,” and will not fry and puff up properly. You can make up everything ahead of time EXCEPT the egg whites, so if you want to prepare everything early, mix up the egg-broccoli mixture, but place it and the separated egg whites in the refrigerator until you are ready to whip up the whites and add them to the egg-broccoli or egg-spinach mixture. I'd take the egg-broccoli mixture out of the fridge a little ahead of time, allow it to come back up to room temperature before whipping and then folding in the egg yolks.

Again – this recipe is absolutely fantastic, and guaranteed to knock their socks off. If you try it, please come back here and let me know that you liked it!

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Duh-oh! (John Dough; Mrs. Smith's Pies made with Splenda; Schwan's Cheese Bread)

2006-06-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

This week’s “who’da thunk” is welcoming a new product into the marketplace that is having surprising success – “John Dough,” a “grab-n-go” sandwich. What we old-timers used to call a “meat pastie,” which is basically beef or other meat, potato and vegetables (most often cabbage) stuffed in a soft yummy bread wrapper/crust. No muss, no fuss, heat in 45 seconds and eat. I absolutely adore the name, and wish I’d thought of it myself. John Dough debuted last year, and is offering Philly Cheesesteak on White, Pepperoni Pizza on Parmesan and BBQ Beef on Sun Dried Tomato, along with other varieties. The company also offers a selection of breakfast Doughs (couldn’t resist), including Sausage, Egg and Cheese on White (watch out, Burger King Croissanwich), and Ham Egg & Cheese on White (ditto, Egg McMuffin). I predict that these cuties will make a goodly dent in the convenience food market, and show up in grocer’s shelves soon.

For you dieters, and everybody watching sugar intake, happy news indeed comes to us from Mrs. Smith’s, the company that introduced “traditional slices,” single-serving, microwaveable, ready-to-eat pie slices in the freezer case. Mrs. Smith’s, owned by Schwan’s, has announced a new product line being sweetened with Splenda brand sucralose, resulting in 60% less sugar and zero trans fats. At this time, they are available in Apple and Mixed Berry (whole red raspberries and blackberries).

Direct from the Mrs. Smith’s website: “Serving Suggestion: Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream or topping.” You know, we just can’t make this stuff up.

What are we recommending this week?

In keeping with our initial theme of stuffed breads (in honor of John Dough), this week we’re recommending the Schwan’s Cheese Stuffed Bread with Sauce as an appetizer for a good-sized crowd. It’s a ready-to-bake ring of dough stuffed with cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, topped with parmesan and spices, served with a marinara sauce on the side. You bake it – get this, from a cold oven - in 22-24 minutes to a piping-hot golden brown crust, and it’s a terrific snack to get for your Fourth of July guests. This appetizer gets 5-fork ratings at the Icebox Diner, so don’t hesitate.

Looking for Schwan's? Just click here.

Simple & Sexy Summer Shrimp Recipes

2006-06-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

Father’s Day is rapidly approaching, and if you’re like me, you have absolutely no idea what to get for Dad. I mean, realistically, how excited can a man get about a tie? I know that while I occasionally get pleasure out of replacing some of my business suits or shirts, those items aren’t high on my wishlists for birthdays or Christmas.

This year, you can surprise Dad with something nifty that he’ll probably actually use – Morton’s Steak Bible (see picture), put out by Morton’s Steakhouse. This new book contains step by step recipes for appetizers, desserts and, naturally, the main course - selecting and cooking the perfect steak. It’s also full of commemorative stories about celebrity guests at Morton’s, from movie stars to Presidents. If your Dad is a grilling fiend or a steak aficionado, this is the perfect gift for him (or for yourself if you want to learn about beef). Although you can buy it at Morton’s own website for $30.00, you’re better off buying it at Amazon for $18.90 – a savings of over 30%. Here's the link to this book at Amazon.

Ah, Summertime.

For those of us who live in the desert southwest, the idea of summertime is not cheery. In fact, summer here has major suckage. Trying to contemplate any type of cooking is more than I can face, as running the stove or oven when it’s 112º-F outside is just too much to take. It’s a little easier if you can shortcut some steps, though…so here are a few quick recipes using prepared meals or foods. Both of these dishes can be prepared in under 10 minutes and take about 15 minutes in the oven, so...enjoy!

Chicken and Shrimp Italiano Casserole

1 package Contessa Chicken Italiano Meal-in-a-bag
12 ounces medium, uncooked tail-off shrimp (Contessa 51/60 count shrimp)
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon dried basil
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, oil-packed
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated.

Thaw the 12-ounces of uncooked shrimp. Prepared the Contessa Chicken Italiano per the package instructions, set aside. In a large bowl, combine the uncooked shrimp and the prepared Chicken Italiano. Add the sun dried tomatoes, heavy cream and herbs to the mixture, mix well. Pour into a baking dish; sprinkle mixture with the grated parmesan, bake at 350º for 15 minutes or until golden brown, serve with crusty italian bread. Serves 4.

Lemon Butter Shrimp with Macadamia Nut Crust

24 ounces large Contessa uncooked (tail-off) shrimp
1-1/4 cups breadcrumbs
3/4 cup macadamia nuts, chopped finely
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1-1/2 tablespoons Lemon Zest
1 cup (fresh) parsley, chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a small mixing bowl, combine melted butter, lemon zest, parsley, garlic and salt and pepper to taste; mix well and set aside. In a small skillet, toast (brown) breadcrumbs and macadamia nuts over medium heat and set aside. Butterfly the shrimp and sprinkle with the melted butter mixture. Top with toasted breadcrumb mixture and bake at 375º for 15-20 minutes, or until shrimp is cooked (orange outside, opaque white inside) and mixture is bubbly. Serve with a side of rice. Serves 4-6.

So, gang...have a great Father's Day, enjoy your steaks or shrimp, and don't forget your sunblock.

Find other great frozen food meals, recipes, TV Dinner Reviews, etc., at the Icebox Diner. Drop in, grab a stool and visit with us for a while.

n.b. - edited to correct typo in Macadamia Nut recipe...sorry, folks!!

Is That An Empanada in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Glad To See Me? (Goya Frozen Empanadas and Goya Ropa Vieja)

2006-06-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

Not to ruin your appetite, but USA Weekend’s June 2nd-4th edition carried a large article about the dangers of visceral fat, which is the weight we all gain around our middles, variously called “beer belly,” “belly fat,” “love handles” or “gut fat.” This type of fat is very different than subcutaneous fat, which lies just under your skin on top of muscle. Visceral fat, on the other hand surrounds and invades your vital organs, storing fat inside your midsection, beneath your muscle tissue. If you haven’t read any of the studies or news stories about this health hazard, you can read their article here.

And, back to work....

I thought that today we would do something a little off the beaten track…something not Stouffer’s, or Lean Cuisine, or Banquet. I cruised the Diner seeking ideas, and stumbled across the Goya line of frozen entrees. Goya, like most frozen food lines, seems to range from the incredible to the inedible. Goya categorizes their frozen lines into “Prepared Specialities,” “Entrees,” “Vegetables,” “Plantains,” (bananas to us Norteamericanos) and a line of dips (Recaito, Sofrito and Guacamole).

According to Diner Reviewers, the two top products seem to be the Ropa Vieja (Shredded Beef braised with onions and peppers over rice) and the Empanadas, which are meat pasties made from seasoned beef, bell peppers, tomatoes and onions in a traditional Spanish style turnover. One reviewer from the Diner, Mayadevi, rated the Ropa Vieja 5 forks and said:

I have never actually had anyone beg me to serve them a frozen dinner before I served this one ! It is truly delicious and very filling. Perfect for comfort food on a cold winter's evening. I served it to a friend who helped me put a cabinet together one night and now every time they come over they ask if I have any of, "that Spanish Ropa stuff..." I try to keep some in the freezer just for him but it's almost impossible !

The Empanadas also get killer reviews; from Kwils, who rated them 4 forks:

I first enjoyed empanadas in St. Augustine, Florida and they were authentic Spanish food. These frozen empanadas come pretty close to the same flavor and make a great meal or snack. I'd definitely buy them again. The meat is flavored perfectly and the seasonings are done in good proportions.

Historynut also gave the Empanadas 4 forks, and said:

The last I was able to buy these, they were on a close-out at the grocery store. I hope I will soon be able to find them again. They are best when made in the oven or in a pan and lightly browned. The meat and seasonings inside the pastry crust are perfect in taste and it's very much like the way the meat turns out in a homemade empanada recipe.

Alas, not everything is fabulous; the Ham Croquettes earned big thumbs-down ratings from both Kwils and Mayadevi; Kwils actually threw them out after multiple attempts to choke them down, and Maydevi threw out the 5 remaining in her 8-serving package. So – you’ve been warned about the Goya Ham Croquettes, which get the Icebox Diner Toxic Waste Award. But if you’re in the mood for authentic Spanish, you apparently can’t go wrong with the Emapandas or the Ropa Vieja.

Note: There would be pictures of these products, if Google's Blogger platform was functional. It isn't, nor has it been for now nearly 10 days. Sorry about the lack of pictures; I know how important they are to Blogs in general. If and when Blogger comes back up, or I change hosts (an increasingly attractive option), I'll put the Goya products pictures back up. In the meantime, if you want to see pictures of the product, or read more Reviews of Goya and other frozen meals, go to the Icebox Diner.

Do you have questions or suggestions for Auntie? Just send us mail!!

Dwight Yoakam's Twang-y Shrimp (Yoakam's Bakersfield Biscuits, Lego Eggo Waffles and Birds Eye Vegetables)

2006-05-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m embarrassed to admit that I clearly have zero sales resistance, because I immediately dashed out after last week’s column here on FoodLife and bought a box of White Castle burgers, which, for the record, I have thoroughly enjoyed.

I apologize in advance for the problem with photos this week - something is amiss with Blogger, Google's blogging platform, and I - along with apparently hundreds of others - can't upload photos. I managed to get the three I'd planned uploaded, but the formatting functions are still problematic. If and when Google ever addresses this problem - or I change platforms in frustration - I'll upload the remaining photos and update the blog. Sorry!!

Some New Product Alerts:

Did you know that Dwight Yoakam – yes, the Grammy winner – has a line of frozen foods? Dwight Yoakam’s Bakersfield Biscuits brand has a line of “country-style foods” available in supermarkets. The line includes:

Chicken Lickin's Chicken Fries™ (breaded, fully-cooked chicken breast patties with rib meat shaped like french fries), comes in three flavors - original, Sweet Barbeque and Chili Cheese;
Chicken Lickin's Buffalo Bites™ (breaded, fully-cooked chicken breast patties with rib meat, shaped like chicken drumsticks and wings, seasoned with red pepper sauce);
Lanky Links (Fully Cooked Pork Sausage Links);
Platter Patties (Fully Cooked Pork Sausage Patties);
Boom Boom Shrimp (my favorite product name so far this year - Par-fried, tail-off, buffalo style flavor);
Border Shrimp (Par-fried, tail-off Mexican Style Flavor), and,
Border Dips - (both bean and cheese dips).

Do you think that the Department of Homeland Security has approved the Border Shrimp, or will the Minutemen turn them back at the Rio Grande?

You can find Dwight's Twangy Shrimp at your local supermarket.

For Kids:

Will the commercial cry now be "Leggo my Lego?" Kellogg's Eggo Waffles has teamed up with LEGO™ brand building block company to create a new line of Eggo Waffles, branded as Lego Eggos (you cannot make this stuff up). The box tells kids to "toast, break and build," so I guess you don't get to tell your kids not to play with their food anymore.

Meanwhile, Birds-Eye has introduced a new upscale vegetable product line called "Steamfresh," which Birds-Eye states will offer "unmatched taste, quality and convenience" to consumers. From your refrigerator to the table in under 5 minutes, steaming in its own container, which utilizes patented steaming technology to steam your veggies in the microwave.

For all your frozen food needs - whether grocery or delivery - come to the Icebox Diner. Find complete nutritional information, reviews by regular folks and pictures to assist you in making your life more convenient.

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Slyding Into the Holiday Weekend (White Castle, Steak-Umms and Smucker's Sandwiches)

2006-05-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Well, catastrophe has struck yet again. Not quite on the scale of Katrina, mind you…but mere weeks after the self-destruct of my side-by-side refrigerator/freezer (and the concomitant loss of all the groceries and goodies that were stored in it), my microwave has betrayed me. I was tootling along, preparing dinner on Sunday night….had popped in a Green Giant bag of asparagus (Asparagus Cuts, No Sauce – 9 ounces, absolutely fabulous!), was getting ready to take it out when C-R-R-A-A-A-C-K! – the handle on the door of the microwave broke off in my hand, rendering the nuker inaccessible. Oh, sure, you can weasel it open and closed by wedging your fingers under the door, but it’s a pain in the butt. My husband, hearing the expletives I was uttering, sauntered into the kitchen, took one look at the microwave door and announced “Well, it’s been nice to know you.” When I looked at him and asked him what the hell he meant by that, he continued, “Obviously, this means we’re going to starve to death, so I just wanted to say that to you before the end.” (Yeah, you betcha, honey...."Survivor: Microwave Meltdown").

So, then Tuesday arrives, and I find myself wrestling with a rather stubborn roasting chicken (instead of just nuking some chicken breasts and making a quick, cool chicken salad, mind you). It’s already well over 100º F here in Phoenix, Arizona, and running an oven for over an hour isn’t precisely a cheery thought, before the betrayal of the microwave. I’d cleaned the chicken, rinsed it, patted it dry, and was trying to get it ready for roasting. However, the wings and legs simply would not cooperate, so instead of just being able to tuck the wings under, I had to actually subjugate the bird by lashing it up. In this household, it’s lucky I didn’t use handcuffs…but a short while later, there it was – all nicely submissive and tied up with roasting twine. Bird Bondage. I suppose this makes me a Domina-chix.

Back to Work….

This week’s ode to frozen delights is about something obscure…frozen ready-to-go sandwiches, in honor of Memorial Day Weekend and picnics. I freely admit, as a scratch cook, that the idea of frozen sandwiches leaves me…well, cold. But I once again must be in the minority, because they are increasingly available on the grocer’s shelves.

First up is an old friend in new form – Steak-Umms frozen steak sandwiches. Now, I’ve chowed down on Steak-Umms in their original form – basically, pre-packaged thinly sliced sandwich-sized steaks that you could sauté (fry) and throw in a sub or kaiser roll, or between two slabs of bread, and loved them. You could get close to Philly Cheese Steak heaven using Steak-Umms, and they’re incredibly handy to keep in the freezer for those nights when you’re just too tired, or too bored…or just too anything to cook. Five minutes, and you have a tasty sandwich. Now, the Steak-Umms people have taken it a step further – to four new “steak” fillings, called “Steak-umm Express.” You don’t even have to dirty a pan or turn on the range…just microwave, slide into a roll or bread, and eat. Available in four flavors – Sliced Steak (the original), BBQ Beef, Cheese Steak and Meatball Mozzarella. Steak-Umms also carries “Steak-Umms Sandwiches,” which are Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches (roll included) that you can microwave and eat. The Steak-Umms Express get 4-fork ratings from Regulars at the Diner…so give them a try this weekend!

On the kids’ front, if you’re packing a picnic or just need to load up a cooler with some tasty foods for the small fry, turn to a trusted name for kids’ sandwiches – Smucker’s. Yes, as strange as it sounds, Smucker’s makes a line of ready-made sandwiches for kids called “Uncrustables,” which are round, pasty-like sandwiches (see picture). For cold varieties, they come in two flavors – Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly or Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jelly. Directions are to keep frozen, thaw 30-60 minutes at room temperature; you can keep them chilled for 8-10 hours before eating. Both sandwiches have 210 calories, 9 grams of fat, 25 grams of carbohydrate (2 grams of fiber) and 7 grams of protein. Smucker’s also has a Grilled Cheese Uncrustable, but this requires heating, whether through a microwave or conventional/toaster oven. On a bright note, though, the grilled cheese can be made from its frozen state and is ready in under one minute if you use a microwave. This Smucker’s sandwich contains 150 calories, 6 grams of fat, 17 grams of carbs, and 6 grams of protein.

Last, but not least by any stretch, we pay homage this three-day-weekend, the unofficial advent of summer, to the King of all sandwiches – the White Castle Slyder. Grilled onions, a 5-hole burger, the pickle, the ketchup…the bun. The best 140 calories you can stick in your mouth. I’m a rather notorious White Castle Ho….to the point where one of our family myths is actually a story involving White Castle. The family legend is that once upon a time in the not-too-distant past, six of us were packed like sardines into my Mother’s car, returning from a funeral in New York to various homes in New Jersey. The weather was hot, and my Mom has never seen the need to rush into things like air-conditioning repair, so we were sweltering in her car. We had stopped somewhere along the way in North Jersey and – upholding family tradition - purchased a large order of White Castles, which we threw in the trunk due to lack of room, intending to eat them after we got home (unlike McDonald’s, WC burgers and fries actually travel well). We coasted along the Garden State Parkway, indolently watching the miles roll by. A sign cruised by, in advance of Route 78, advising us that we were coming to a toll booth.

“We’re coming to a toll booth,” I announced from the front passenger’s side seat. Vague murmurs greeted this revelation, coming from the semi-comatose rear-seat passengers. Glancing left, I wasn’t certain that the driver, my brother-in-law, was actually more awake than the others, but I certainly hoped so. I asked everyone if Jersey had those auto-booths – where sensors detect a sticker on your window or plate, and lift the arm so you can zoom right through, like they do in New York. Whether they do or not, my mother didn’t have the requisite sticker, was the response. “So,” I continued, “this means we have to stop the car at the toll booth?” My sister sat up, knowing instantly as only a sister can where I was going with this line of inquiry. She looked over at me. “You’re the fastest of everybody here,” she said. I did a quick mental inventory of the car’s occupants, and agreed. “Bob,” I told my brother-in-law, “make sure you get into a toll lane without too many people in line.” He looked at me curiously. “Just do it,” my baby sister ordered, and Bob did, careening across 5 lanes of traffic as he did so. He pulled up to the tollbooth window, and gently rolled to a braking stop to put the money in the basket.

My sister lunged across the car seat, slammed the car into park, grabbed the keys, turned off the ignition, and threw the keys at me. I clambered over the seat and the purses on the floor, threw open the door of the car, skidded around to the trunk, opened it, grabbed two large bags of White Castles, and sprinted back to the passenger’s side door, throwing one of the bags through the window to my brother in the rear seat, who nimbly caught it. The other bag grasped to my chest, I slid back into my seat and tossed the keys back to my poor brother-in-law, who was sitting there with his mouth hanging open. The toll booth operator stared at me like I’d lost my mind – right up to the point where I leaned across Bob and said “hey, it’s White Castle. Want one?,” which she accepted with a huge smile. We proceeded on our way, after restarting the car, with a minimum of horn-blowing and obscene shouts from other drivers – and me munching down on the rescued slyders. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was already a grown-up, middle aged woman when this happened; but the moral of the story is: sometimes, ya just gotta have a White Castle. (They are also notorious NJ hangover cures).

The frozen version of White Castle Slyders is available in the freezer section of most grocery stores: 140 calories, 7 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbs, 6 grams of protein. An important note: White Castle does not attempt to freeze the pickle or the ketchup, so to emulate the real thing, you’ll have to add your own. Why not feed your White Castle craving this Memorial Day weekend? You won’t be sorry.

Have a GREAT HOLIDAY!!!

Buy White Castle Slyders!!

Check in with Auntie and the Regulars at the Icebox Diner - find nutritional information and reviews on over 1,500 frozen entrees, TV Dinners and frozen meals.

Sparking My Interest - (Sparkpeople and Contessa Shrimp Primavera Dinner)

2006-05-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

Any of you guys ever been over to the happening that is SparkPeople? If you haven’t, it’s essentially one large very simplistic message board, coupled with daily informational articles, aimed at people trying to lose weight and get fit. It’s divided (as are almost all such websites) into various diets, fitness plans, etc., and has some rather cool tools, like workout calculators, food calculators, calories-burned, and so on. Personally, I really don’t care for their forum product, which has very limited tools and isn’t very useful for any type of in-depth discussion, but I’m clearly in the minority, because the website is mind-blowingly popular, probably because the overriding theme is encouragement and support.

I was surprised and pleased when I recently received one of their nightly newsletters that trumpeted an article entitled “Fantastic Frozen Dinners - Go from Diet Disaster to Diet-Friendly!” Written by Becky Hand, Licensed & Registered Dietitian, the article actually promoted the concept of using frozen meals as a dieting and cost-control tool. (Not to say “I told you so,” but….I told you so).

Like some of my previous articles here, Ms. Hand listed the “perks” of frozen dinners, ranging from quick and easy (we all knew that), to built-in portion control, being perfect for singles, and economical (less expensive than dining out or take-out).

My sole disagreement with her is that she says “Beware of potpies with crust, Hungry Man dinners, and stuffed-crust or extra-cheese pizzas.” As I’ve discussed here before, Hungry Man shouldn’t get such a bad rap; I’ve compared Hungry Man to Marie Callendar’s, Stouffer’s, and other brands and demonstrated (see Hungry Man article in the archives) that it’s not the brand, it’s the individual dinner…if you’re weight-watching, you simply need to check out the meals you’re going to buy beforehand, make a list, and stick to it…don’t impulse buy based on enticing pictures at the supermarket. Ms. Hand further states that dieters should choose dinners or entrees with no more than 300-400 calories. To search in advance for dinners that meet this or other criteria, use the Choose menu functions at the Icebox Diner, where you can quickly pull up a table of brands of TV dinners and frozen meals, sorted by calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, etc., to help you create your shopping list. Ms. Hand recommends Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and Weight Watchers, but as I’ve explored here, many frozen meals that aren’t marketed as diet choices can be found with less than 400 calories. I'm glad to see a dietitian that didn't take the easy road of dismissing all frozen meals as garbage - it's long overdue.

A quickie review:

I recently had the Contessa Shrimp Primavera – shrimp in a scampi sauce, linquini, broccoli, green beans carrots and red bell peppers. Because it is a shrimp dish, I prepared it in the skillet, instead of in the microwave. It was simple, quick and easy – and fantastic. I really liked the buttery scampi sauce, the shrimp were fresh-tasting as were the veggies. I give it 4 forks for flavor, maybe an additional fork because it only has 350 calories per serving, 30 grams of carbohydrate, 11 grams of protein and 21 grams of fat (obviously, high in “fat” due to the butter sauce). Definitely a winner.

An Auntie Frugality tip: If you have a beloved pet, the Icebox Diner's couponing affiliate has a coupon running currently for $5.00 off Petmeds, along with free shipping, for Frontline, Heartgard and other pet medications. Get this coupon here .

Before you buy, check out your frozen dinner selections at the Icebox Diner - over 1,500 products, with nutritional information and independent consumer-to-consumer reviews.

The Taming of the Stew (Banquet's Crock-Pot Classics™ Beef Stew Challenge)

2006-05-10T01:01:00.000-07:00

Halt! Before you read further, did YOU remember Mother's Day this year? Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 14th. If you forgot, try one of these last-minute lifesavers to save your bacon with YOUR Mom:

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Okay, Back to Work:

As promised last week, I made a pot of stew this past Sunday, in order to compare the cost between homemade stew and Banquet’s Crock Pot Classic version (which a reader has pronounced “excellent”). Banquet’s Crock Pot Classic Beef Stew contains 44 ounces (unprepared) and costs $5.99, serving 5 at a cost of about $1.20 each.

I started off with a 2.61 pound rump roast at $2.49 a pound for a total of $6.50. Obviously, I was already off to a bad start, having exceeded the $5.99 purchase price with the meat alone. However, I was pretty certain that I was making a larger pot of stew than Banquet’s version, so I continued to march ahead with the experiment. All told, the ingredients for the stew were:

2.61 pound rump roast, $6.50;
3 14-oz cans of Swanson’s Beef Stock, at $1.29 each, $3.87;
1 32-oz wax carton of Swanson’s Beef Stock, $2.79;
8 ounces of fresh mushrooms, $1.99;
2 lbs. of potatoes, at $2.49/5 lbs., $0.99 total; and,
16 ounces of frozen mixed vegetables, $1.69

I’m not counting the flour to coat and brown the meat, the herbs and spices, or the “sploosh” of sherry I used to heighten the flavor of the stock, because it’s simply too brain-damaging to calculate how much one pinch of parsley costs or how much a splash of sherry constitutes.

So…all in all, the total for the ingredients simply to make the stew came to $17.83, which is three times as much as Banquet’s Crock Pot Classic meal. Did I get three times the yield? Or was the end result three times as tasty?

I trimmed and then cut the rump roast into stew-sized pieces. I seasoned and floured the meat. I seared it, a quarter of it at a time, so as not to crowd the pot. I drained off any excess fat, returned the meat to the pan, and added the stock. I simmered and tasted and seasoned and tasted some more. After about 3 hours, I added the frozen veggies and continued the simmering. A while later, I peeled and chopped the potatoes, adding them carefully to the just-below-boiling mixture. An hour passed, and the stew was complete, after thickening…some 6 hours after starting.

My stewpot is a 6.3-liter pot – about 6¾ quarts. The completed stew filled it to about ¾ of the pot, or 4 ¾ liters (20 cups of stew). Our serving bowls are usually filled to 1-1/3 cups, or 300 ml. (for our Canadian cousins), so 15.38 of our home-style servings. The Banquet version claims 5 servings, each just under 9 ounces (8.80 ounces), so our serving sizes aren’t far apart. To compare apples to apples, using about the same serving size:

Auntie’s Homemade Stew cost about $1.15 per serving; Banquet’s cost $1.20. And with Banquet, you don’t have to chop, dice, slice, peel, season, simmer, trim, or watch the meal. You can simply throw it in the Crock-Pot, leave for work (or shopping or soccer or classes), come home six to eight hours later, and it’s ready.

For a five-cent per serving difference, it’s definitely worth a shot.

Auntie Frugality Tip: Obviously, you can make your own beef stock if you’re so inclined, but one of the easiest ways to save some money and make a delicious stew is to start what I call a “stewpot” in your freezer. Place a Tupperware-type freezer container in your freezer, and every time you have some “schnibbles” left over – that pesky tablespoon of peas, or a small corner of your steak that isn’t enough to make a sandwich from, your kids leave a mouthful of their corn, or you have some beef gravy left over – throw that “schnibble” into the stewpot. Keep adding bits and leftovers to the stewpot. After about 2-3 months, plan to make a pot of stew, and use the contents of the stewpot after defrosting. You’ll be amazed at how many leftover veggies, bits of beef and gravy you can accrue in a short period of time, and it adds a lot of flavor and depth to your stew for essentially no cost. This is a real money-saver. You can use the contents for beef stews or soups, and you can start a second container for chicken-based soups.

Have a question for Auntie? Have a product you want to see reviewed? Email Auntie!

Find over 1,500 frozen meals, TV Dinners and prepared foods, along with consumer-to-consumer reviews and complete nutritional information, at the Icebox Diner!

Diet-us Interruptus - (Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Select Meals)

2006-05-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

An astute reader points out, after reading the blog two weeks ago mentioning the NASCAR-branded lunch and snack meats, that Rival™ has launched a NASCAR-branded Crock-Pot™ line that you cannot buy in retail stores. Yes, you too can own a crockpot adorned with your favorite NASCAR driver’s face, car and number. I’m not sure I get the tie-in between slow cookers and fast drivers, but what the heck…from Jeff Gordon to Jeremy Mayfield to Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart (the Tony Stewart Crock-Pot™ is pictured), you have a choice of 17 different drivers. The Icebox Diner is a Rival Crock-Pot™ affiliate, so if you’re interested, you can see these NASCAR-branded Rival Crock-Pot here.

Another reader contacted me, telling me that she and her husband had purchased the Banquet Crock-Pot Classic Beef Stew to try, after reading some of the reviews about Crock-Pot Classic meals here and on the Icebox Diner. They rate it as fantastic, and said that they couldn’t reproduce the meal for the $5.99 purchase price if they tried. I wondered if that was true – how much, exactly, does it cost me to make stew when I prepare it? So that will be next week’s blog. Sometime this week, I’m going to make a pot of stew (had one planned, anyway), and actually calculate exactly how much it costs me, and how many servings we eventually get out of it. I cook by taste and experience, and don’t really use recipes much, so I’ll have to stop at each step of the way and measure or weight ingredients (like potatoes, as an example), but I think it’s an interesting exercise – compare Banquet’s Crock-Pot Classic Beef Stew to my own, cost-wise. Next week: The Taming of the Stew!!

Back to work THIS week, though....

This week’s review is about Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects. I’ve eaten three of these over the past month or so, those being:

Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Chicken Tuscan;
Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Balsamic Glazed Chicken, and,
Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Chicken Fettucini.

Notice a chicken-y trend here? These range in calories from 280-380, so they’re a good choice, diet-wise, if you’re counting calories.

I thought that the Chicken Tuscan was, overall, pretty boring. Basically, it's chicken medallions and spaghetti in a marinara-like sauce with a side of veggies. The chicken was adequate, the vegetables (broccoli and shredded carrots) were very good, but the pasta sauce seemed confused, as if someone couldn’t decide if it was spaghetti sauce from a jar (the sweet-ish kind) or a sun-dried tomato sauce. This meal provides a fair amount of food for only 280 calories, but it’s nothing to write home about.

Next up was the Balsamic Glazed Chicken, coupled with orzo pasta and vegetable medley and an apple crisp dessert. Clearly, Lean Cuisine assumes that people buying their dinners have a sweet tooth, because this dish was heavily slanted toward sweets rather than savories. I was surprised, because the equivalent dish in Stouffer’s Corner Bistro line (Stouffer's Corner Bistro Grilled Rosemary Chicken) isn’t sweet as all, and I was expecting something similar. The balsamic glaze was very heavy – sort of thick – as well as sweet. The orzo, coupled with green beans, spinach, and some red peppers, was pretty bland, but filling. I will say that the apple dessert was really quite good – sweet and crunchy. If you love sweets, this dinner may be for you. Not so much for me; I rate it 3 forks, I’m more of a savory person. The Corner Bistro version only has 420 calories, as opposed to this dish’s count of 380 – if you’re looking for the meal, rather than the dessert, I would choose the Corner Bistro Rosemary Chicken over the Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Balsamic Glazed version, for only a 40-calorie difference.

The most recent experiment was the Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Selects Chicken Fettucini. Again, I’d expected something a slight bit different – given the fantastic success Stouffer’s has had with its parmesan and romano-tinged sauces in their Corner Bistro line, I’d thought that this chicken, fettucine and broccoli dish would have more “zip.” Unfortunately, it’s pretty bland, lacking piquancy, and even more unfortunately, it doesn’t smell very good when cooked. (Hubby came into the kitchen and announced “[t]hat kind of stinks, doesn’t it?”). The sauce also tended toward a sweet note, which isn’t what I’m looking for in an alfredo-type dish…I suspect that is due to the use of skim or powdered milk to make the sauce rather than whole milk or cream, to reduce calories and fat. On a bright note, it tastes better than it smells, for which I suppose I should be grateful. If you’ve tried the various Lean Cuisine chicken fettucini or alfredo dishes, and liked them, then you will probably like this one, which also comes with a baked apple dessert coated in a caramel sauce. It packs 360 calories, in total; unless you’re sold on the baked apple dessert, my first choice would be the Contessa Chicken Alfredo, at 330 calories per serving and a significantly better taste.

So, next week: The Taming of The Stew, where your intrepid reviewer makes her own homemade stew and calculates the actual cost.

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Orange You Gonna Say You Love Me? (Contessa Orange Chicken)

2006-04-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

Ian’s Natural Foods, based in Lawrence, Massachusetts, has launched a line of frozen meals designed strictly for kids. Free of artificial colors and flavors, preservatives and trans fats, Ian’s is promoting a program called “I’m a Superfit Kid,” which is supported by games on their website (iansnaturalfoods.com) and materials located on the product boxes themselves. Ian’s “snack” or entree line includes Mini Hamburgers, Mini Cheeseburgers, Mini Chicken Patty Sandwiches, Chicken Nuggets and Fish Sticks. The meals line matches the entrees with a potato dish called “Alphatots,” (allergen-free) a vegetable and a dessert, and features the Hamburger Meal, the Chicken Nugget Meal, Fish Stick Meal, and Pizza Meal. Specialty entrees and meals – all wheat and gluten-free – include the Chicken Nuggets, Fish Sticks and Popcorn Turkey Corn Dog entrees/snacks, and the Chicken Finger Meal and Popcorn Turkey Corn Dog Meals. For busy moms with kids who are sensitive or allergy-prone, check out Ian’s at your local supermarket.

Now, on to Contessa's Orange Chicken...

As you may recall, I tried out Contessa’s Kung Pao Shrimp some time back with mixed results. I loved the spiciness, the shrimp was surprisingly good, firm and sweet-fleshed, but I was a very unhappy about the inclusion of nearly a cup of onions to add cheap volume with few calories to the meal. Despite the purported 3 servings per bag, there wasn’t really enough to feed both me and my husband, and since we’re not big eaters, that’s saying something.

I viewed my next experiment with Contessa – the Orange Chicken - with some trepidation. In fairness to Contessa, they are hardly the first food company to tackle frozen “Chinese” cuisine with at-best lukewarm success, but I’m a New Yorker by birth if not by current residence, and I’m pretty spoiled when it comes to excellent “Chinese” food. So, hang on to your knickers when I tell you – this meal is really, really good.

Yep, outstanding. Not just “okay,” not just acceptable…tasty beyond all measure of what I had expected.

Having experienced some watery results with previous Contessa meals when microwaved, I prepared this meal in the skillet, and I was very glad I did. The meal comes with separate bags of white rice, battered/breaded chicken, vegetables, and the orange sauce. Note: do NOT follow Contessa’s stove-top instructions for the white rice, save yourself some brain damage and just follow the microwave instructions for that part of the meal. I followed their stovetop rice instructions and nearly burned the rice because I was busy preparing the chicken portion – so use the microwave, it works perfectly for the rice portion and you don’t have to watch it while you’re stirring the chicken and vegetables.

I followed the skillet instructions, using a cooking spray (Pam) for my trusty frying pan. I sautéed (fried) the battered chicken pieces for 5 minutes, then added the vegetables (consisting of broccoli, red peppers, baby corn, water chestnuts and shredded carrots) and sautéed for another 5 minutes. You then simply add the thawed bag of sauce, stir for 30 seconds or until heated through, and the meal is ready.

I expected the meal to be sweet- what I didn’t expect was that the chicken would be tender but the batter coating would be crispy, the vegetables would still have snap, and the sauce would not only be orange-y but also have some spicy bite, which is just about perfect for Orange Chicken (which can go so wrong at so many bad restaurants). The orange sauce had even caramelized on some of the chicken, which added to the impression of professionally-prepared Chinese food.

The bag claims to contain three servings, but I think that’s stretching it a mite. The two of us did not finish off the contents, but it’s more like 2½ servings than three. If you need to stretch it, I would suggest adding some rice or a complementary side dish, perhaps something savory (salty). Only 2 grams of fat per 8-ounce serving, (about 1¾ cups), 230 calories, 11 grams of protein and 41 grams of carbohydrate…this is a dish you should really try.

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Find Frozen Food, Prepared Meals and TV Dinner reviews along with complete nutritional product information at The Icebox Diner.

Where's the Beef? (Or, how much DO those frozen meals, cost, anyway?)

2006-04-20T00:18:00.000-07:00

According to Refrigerated and Frozen Foods, Monogram Food Solutions has entered into a licensing agreement with NASCAR™ to produce and market NASCAR™-brand deli meats, smoked sausage and hot dogs. At the rate America’s fastest-growing sport is going, soon you’ll be able to wash your Mark Martin Dog or Jeff Gordon Smoked Sausage down with NASCAR™ beer, right before you pop your nightly NASCAR™ Viagra™ or Ricky Rudd Zoloft™. (Mark Martin photo courtesy of TheAutoChannel.com).

And Back to Work in the Frozen Foods Biz...

Over at the Diner, a young working mom posted a thread asking for quick and easy recipes, and affordable meals, saying she was trying to save on her grocery bills. Naturally, everyone’s first response is to tell her to stop buying frozen prepared foods and TV dinners, and to prepare meals from scratch, in order to save money. Even I – the official Doyenne of the Deep Freeze – was guilty of immediately thinking that cutting out convenience foods was the first order of business. But then I started to wonder – in this day and age, is that still true?

I’d posted a recipe for the young woman – my never-fails Enchildada Casserole recipe – along with some pricing for the ingredients. To my surprise, the ingredients added up to a whopping $15.00, give or take. This is for a (admittedly hefty) 9x12 casserole that feeds between 6-8 adults, including a side dish of refried beans and some chips. Assume 6 larger appetites, and this dish costs $2.50 per person. How does this compare to convenience foods in the cost arena?

Taking a quick look, like most things, it matters how carefully you shop. For example, Banquet’s 31-oz. “Crispy Chicken” has 8 servings, each just under 4 ounces, averaging $.67 (Sixty-Seven Cents) per serving. If you buy their Jumbo Pack, however, at 47 ounces, the serving size is slightly bigger, costing $.41 (Forty-One Cents) each, saving you over 20 cents per serving. Banquet’s Crock Pot Classics meals, another handy multi-serve dinner for busy moms, will run you, on average, between $.80 and $1.00 per serving, each serving ranging from 8 to nearly 10 ounces of finished Stew, Stroganoff, Chicken & Dumplings or other Crock Pot Classic meal.

Let’s check out Chicken Patties – I know a lot of working moms like to keep these on hand, both for quick hot sandwiches and for entrees. Banquet’s 35-ounce Original Chicken Patties come in a merely $.27 per patty. Tyson’s 10.5-ounce Breaded Chicken Breast Patties, on the other hand, are approximately the same size serving, but will set you back nearly $1.25 per patty – a whopping difference. The huge winner in the Chicken Breast patty contest, though, is Schwan’s, delivering up Breaded Chicken Breast Patties for merely $.17 a patty. Quick math? For a family of four, serving Schwan’s patties would cost Sixty-Eight Cents; to serve Tyson’s patties would cost $5.00. Obviously, smart shopping can save you a lot of dough.

Stouffer’s Large Family Size Chicken Alfredo will set you back $5.98 to serve 7 people (or $.85 per person), while Schwan’s Blackened Chicken Alfredo with Fettucini Noodles will save you almost $.20 per serving, coming in at $.63 each. Birds Eye’s Voila Classic line of the same dish – Alfredo Chicken – will set you back $1.33 for each 7-ounce serving.

Gorton’s products vary widely, so shop smart. Gorton’s Crunchy Golden Fish Fillets will cost you $1.81 per person for a 3.75-ounce serving, but their 18-ounce Crispy Battered Fish Fillets, on the other hand, will serve 5 people for $3.98 – about $.80 per head.

For those of you on the East Coast and in the South, keep an eye out for On-Cor’s line of classic family-size entrees. Ranging from Chicken Parmigiana at a high of $.69 a serving, to Salisbury Steaks in Gravy, Sliced Turkey & Gravy, Lasagna with Meat Sauce, Macaroni & Beef with Tomatoes and Sonora-Style Enchiladas with Meat and Sauce, all costing between $.50 and $.60 per serving, On-Cor is clearly a good candidate for families trying to keep their grocery bills in line.

Do you have a product you want reviewed? A comment? A story to suggest? Email Auntie! We welcome any and all suggestions, comments and ideas.

Find Frozen Food, Prepared Meals and TV Dinner reviews along with nutritional product information for all of them at The Icebox Diner.

What's A Hungry Man to do? (Swanson's Hungry-Man Dinners)

2006-04-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s article is admittedly going to be a bit short; I had a catastrophe this week that included the self-destruction of my side-by-side refrigerator/freezer (yes, thank you – the irony is not lost upon me) and the ensuing loss of hundreds of dollars worth of groceries, which has left me a little…irked. It’s also left me more than a titch discombobulated. You genuinely don’t realize the changes refrigeration has made in human living until you attempt to live without it, even for 24 hours. We grumble about having to shop weekly or bi-monthly being onerous…daily shopping for sustenance is a near-forgotten task lost in the mists of human time. The ease of storing staples, condiments...replacing them was a startling lesson in taking things for granted.

Anyway, enough self-pity for tonight. Onwards to the much-maligned Swanson Hungry-Man Dinners!!

Poor Swanson Hungry-Man. As a frozen meal, this line is the Rodney Dangerfield of TV Dinners; it “don’t get no respect.” Nobody will ever confess to actually eating one; it is frequently the butt of jokes. Yet, as I reported in January, Hungry-Man actually outsells a number of other TV Dinner brands, and nearly matches Marie Callendar’s, going head-to-head in number of dinners sold per quarter (10 million for Hungry-Man; 12 million for Marie Callendar’s in the same third quarter of 2005). Above and beyond that, Hungry-Man’s sales are increasing, kicking up about 20% over the same period in the previous year. (No, I don't know where that picture came from...now ask me if I care. He looks like a hungry man, doesn't he?).

Does Hungry-Man really deserve such perceived disrespect? According to Regulars at the Icebox Diner, Hungry-Man dinners are pretty darn tasty, and in general, their dinners seem to earn a 4-to-4.5-star rating. One thing that Hungry-Man certainly delivers is volume and a feeling of satiety, which is something frequently lacking in other frozen meals. Are Hungry-Man dinners really worse, ounce-for-ounce, than other dinners?

Let’s do a quick comparison between a few selected Hungry-Man meals and some from other brands. Hungry-Man’s Chicken Pot Pie has (per 8.5-ounce serving, of which there are two in this pot pie) 520 calories, 50.8 grams of carbs, 14.0 grams of protein and 29 grams of fat. Marie Callendar’s White Meat Chicken Pot Pie? This pie also contains two servings, of 8 ounces each, each “serving” containing 510 calories, 43.0 grams of carbs, 14.0 grams of protein and 31 grams of fat. So far, between the two brands, virtually no difference.

How about Hungry-Man’s Boneless Fried Chicken Meal? Weighing in at 16 ounces, and served with corn and mashed potatoes, it packs 700 calories, 73.5 grams of carbohydrate, 34.0 grams of protein and 30.0 grams of fat. Let’s compare this to Banquet’s Select Boneless White Fried Chicken Meal, which comes with corn bread and French fries. This Banquet meal weighs 8.25 ounces, and delivers 540 calories, 41 grams of carbs, 16 grams of protein and 34 grams of fat. Banquet’s meal is half the size of the Hungry-Man meal; ounce-for-ounce, the Hungry-Man meal has significantly fewer calories.

In the Roasted Chicken frozen dinner category, Hungry-Man outperforms Marie Callendar’s, with the Hungry-Man version (both are served with Mashed Potatoes) weighing in at a little over one pound and 440 calories, while the Callendar’s meal weighs in at only 14 ounces but contains 580 calories. Again, both ounce-for-ounce and overall, Hungry-Man is the better choice, calorie-wise.

So, don’t be mislead by misperception. Four of the Hungry-Man meals are under 500 calories in total, which is less than many Stouffer’s Classics or “Hearty Favorites” entrees, just as examples. Read the labels, and if the spirit moves you, indulge. And, really….who could resist a meal called “Sports Grill Chicken with Cheese Fries Dinner?” I know the next time I see it, I’m going to try it. Mmmmm…cheese fries. What’s not to love?

Asian Sensations, Indeed! (Frozen Asian Foods)

2006-04-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

This week's prologue is dedicated to my sister, who shall remain nameless, to protect the innocent (me). The following is intended to be sung to Crosby, Stills & Nash's immemorial "Marrakesh Express," with my humble apologies to the group for my parody.

"Menopause Express"

Looking at the world through hotflash misted eyes,
Feeling beads of sweat run down across your thi-i-i-ghs,
Mood swings coming end-to-end,
You think you’re going ‘round the bend,
Don’t laugh too hard, so you don’t need Depends!!!

Pouring nightsweats daily soak your queensize bed,
Being told the crazies are all inside your he-a-a-a-d,
Men get cars and trophy wives,
We just get our sweaty lives,
How come we don’t get the red ‘Vette too?

Don’t you know you’re riding on the Menopause Express
Don’t you know we’re riding on the Menopause Express
I’m just a damsel in distress.

Can you take the strain,
As it rots your brain…

I’ve been saving all my money just to buy some Spanx
To hide the extra pounds on my fla-a-a-a-nks,

Rub those swollen feet right back down to size,
Smile at the sweet young things that you now de-spi-i-i-i-se,
Hubby thinks it’s pretty funny,
Up until you boil the bunny,
Those homicidal rages will soon pass!!!
Well, girl you listen now,

Don’t you know you’re riding on the Menopause Express
Don’t you know we’re riding on the Menopause Express
You’re just a damsel in distress.

Don’t you know you’re riding on the Menopause Express
Don’t you know we’re riding on the Menopause Express
Just try not to obsess….

Can you take the strain,
As it rots your brain…

"Menopause Express," ©, Auntie's Food Life, derivative copyright, all rights reserved.

Back to the Frozen Food biz....

According to an article over at Cygnus’ Frozen Food Age, so-named “Asian foods” are becoming a forceful frozen-food market driver, creating double-digit sales growth for their respective companies.

Asian foods seem to be a category in search of a home. Grocers don’t know whether to place frozen asian-style foods in the meal, appetizer or snack category, resulting in foods being sprinkled throughout the frozen food aisle. Nonetheless, the North American market is gobbling up several brands with abandon.

Asian Sensations is Schwan’s Pagoda brand, which primarily features an assortment of egg rolls, spring rolls and appetizers, including Crab Rangoon and Thai Chicken Mini-Crisps. These products range from 140 to 260 calories and 6-14 grams of fat per serving. (For Asian Sensations product reviews, click here; for Asian Sensations nutritional information, click here). Schwan’s advises that new products will be available in the line commencing in mid-summer of this year. Supported by TV advertising that is conveying the message of “everyday Asian,” Pagoda is enjoying double-digit sales growth, and is focusing on mainstreaming Asian food snacking.

The “big dog” of sales growth in this market, however, has to be Kahiki Foods, reporting quarterly sales reports indicated increased dollars sales of about 47%. Launched in 1995, (from a Ohio plant next to its founding restaurant, which suspiciously resembled an old Trader Vic’s), and initially featuring “Polynesian” cuisine, Kahiki has exploded onto the foodservice scene, now providing dozens of frozen entrees, multi-serve meals, appetizers, rice bowls and tempura kits. According to press releases, Kahiki has just added what I would describe as “fusion” frozen foods. As examples: a chipotle-lime chicken egg roll with Monterey cheese, black beans and corn in a sesame ginger sauce, retailing for $3.49; a lemon grass chicken “stix,” also in a sesame ginger sauce, at $2.99, and a coconut curry chicken Samosa, in sweet and sour sauce, retailing for $2.99. For more information, Kahiki has its own website, which you can find by clicking here.

Regionally, Tiger Thai, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, serves up foods to grocers west of the Mississippi, primarily the west/southwest and upper Midwest regions, and is growing in sales to the tune of 10-15% per year. The company has specialized in tempura products, wowing consumers with its authentic tempura shrimp, cod, salmon, calamari rings and its January 2006 launch of coconut shrimp. Even more recently, Tiger Thai has branched out into spicier offerings, including a Thai Spicy (breaded) Shrimp, replete with a chili dipping sauce. (For those of you who participate in contests, you may wish to note the website contests 6-8 times a year in which consumers can win a case of tempura shrimp.)

I think it’s clear that Asian foods, being market-driven by Schwan’s Pagoda line, are emerging at a time when frozen food technology is rapidly adapting to allow ever-increasing varieties of foods, textures and flavors to be nutritiously served up to the North America market. Given the American propensity to constantly demand new tastes, it seems likely that we’ll be seeing many new brands jumping into the Asian foods market before year’s end.

Find frozen food and TV Dinner consumer reviews and nutritional information at the Icebox Diner.

Hangin' On The Corner (Stouffer's Corner Bistro™ Dinners)

2006-03-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been seeing a lot of searches, both here on Food Life and over at the Icebox Diner, for information on Stouffer’s Corner Bistro products, both the regular frozen meals and the panini. You can find consumer reviews of Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Panini here; today, I’m going to provide mini-reviews of the Stouffer’s Corner Bistro meals.

Click here for nutritional informatio n and additional consumer reviews (or to add your own reviews to the Diner's growing database of over 1400 products) of Stouffer's Corner Bistro meals at the Icebox Diner.

The Stouffer’s Corner Bistro meals line consists of 6 dishes, of which I’ve tried four that I’ll mini-review here:

Stouffer's Corner Bistro Chicken Carbonara;
Stouffer's Corner Bistro Garlic Chicken Pasta;
Stouffer's Corner Bistro Grilled Rosemary Chicken;
Stouffer's Corner Bistro Monterey Chicken;
Stouffer's Corner Bistro Seafood Scampi, and, lastly,
Stouffer's Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken.

It's a tie for first place in my affections between the Chicken Carbonara and the Rosemary Chicken dishes.

The Chicken Carbonara, served over pasta, has a nice, creamy taste, the chicken breast is an actual chicken breast, the peas and bacon add a nice textural touch. Absolutely yummy. Definitely a dish I not only recommend, but actually look forward to eating.

The Rose m ary Chicken is also excellent; served over a bed of veggies in balsamic vinaigrette, along with penne pasta in a yummy fontina sauce. The flavor is excellent, and the combination of the sweet/tart vinaigrette coupled with the salty fontina is surprisingly successful. My sole complaint with the dish is that the "veggies" are roasted red, yellow and green peppers; I think some variety would have added texture to the dish. Again, however, I genuinely enjoy eating this meal, and gave it 4 stars at the Diner.

The Seafood Scampi is a little less successful, although still not bad. Shrimp and scallops are lavished over a bed of linguine in garlic-butter sauce, with a serving of green beans and julienne yellow carrots on the side. I thought the sauce need a little "something," although truthfully I'm not quite certain what it was that it lacked, exactly, and the scallops admittedly were a little worse for wear for having been frozen. The shrimp surprisingly were not too tough. A worthy effort, but not remarkably distinguished. I added both salt and a droplet of lemon juice to make the dish a bit more piquant.

But, alas, now we come to the Garlic Chicken Pasta. This dish is supposed to be white meat chicken, with bowtie pasta, asparagus, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes in a garlicky cream sauce with romano; as I said somewhere else, what's not to like, right? But I absolutely hated it. The dish is simultaneously bland and overpowering, as idiotic as that sounds. The romano is undiscoverable, the basil in the dish overpowers any remaining taste in the sauce, is the only thing you can smell, and the garlic leaves you with that yucky burning aftertaste. I don't think any simple addition like salt or romano can save it. At the Diner, I gave this a one-fork rating, although I would note that at 340 calories, this is the "diet" meal of the group.

I haven't tried either the Sesame Chicken or the Monterey Chicken, but they are on my list to try soon. Overall, I genuinely appreciate the Stouffer's Corner Bistro meals. They are definitely an upscale attempt by Stouffer's to compete against chilled prepared meals from companies like Trader Joe's and A.J.'s, and probably a harbinger of yet more frozen dinners to come on a par with the Carbonara and the Rosemary Chicken, and that's good news for busy consumers.

Still hungry? Trying to find more nutritional information, or reviews of other frozen foods, TV Dinners and prepared meals? Check out the Icebox Diner; over 1400 products in our database, nutritional information, macronutrient information, searches that let you compare different dishes to find the best-tasting or the lowest-fat. Write your own reviews of products you've tried!

"Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon" (Banquet Crock Pot™ Classics Stroganoff with Beef and Noodles)

2006-03-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

The quote is from Shakespeare - All's Well That Ends Well, Act V, Scene III.

Recently I decided to get brave, and risk a beef dish from the frozen foods section of the grocery. Generally I stay away from beef (and pork), as for some reason those meats don’t seem to fare well in TV Dinners or prepared meals. I don’t know if this is due to the meats themselves, or more because I’m very picky about texture, and when meats are being processed in bulk, little niceties like removing gristle and fat tend to get overlooked.

I had enjoyed success with Banquet’s Crock Pot™ Classics chicken dishes – the Banquet Crock Pot™ Creamy Chicken with Noodles and the Banquet Crock Pot™ Chicken and Dumplings – so I thought I would try the stroganoff version of Banquet’s fastest growing product line. This family-style meal is called “Stroganoff with Beef and Noodles,” and the product’s subtitle is: “Vegetables with Beef and Noodles in a Creamy Sauce,” which should have been my first clue. I also would have been less surprised had I bothered to research the ingredients list first at the Diner, or read the list off the package while in the grocery store.

The ingredients section starts with “oriental style onions,” which is another way of saying “diced onions.” A lot of diced onions. A boatload of diced onions. More onions than meat; more onions than noodles. In fact, this dish serves 5 1-cup each servings when cooked (in other words, 5 cups), well over 2 cups of which were …onions. Neither the Hubster nor I are big onion fans these days, so I literally fished them out before putting the ingredients in the slow cooker, which is how I know precisely how many onions there were. I must say, that after having been so pleased with the other Banquet Crock-Pot Classics I tried, I was sorely disappointed with Banquet for their use of onions – a notoriously cheap ingredient – to populate this dish.

That being said, however, having fished out the onions and added a quick small can of mushroom bits (to compensate for volume loss and to add a normal stroganoff ingredient), the resulting meal didn’t taste bad. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t as good as Banquet’s other Crock Pot™ Classics meals with chicken, but it wasn’t inedible by any means. The gravy was “creamy,” (note: you have to add a cup of milk near the end of the cooking process, which obviously isn’t included, so if you buy this, don’t forget the milk) although I couldn’t taste any sour cream flavor. The gravy was beefy-ish, and the dish was certainly filling. Even minus the two cups of onions, the completed meal fed me and my husband each three times, for a total of six servings (although we are not huge eaters, and I served a biscuits with the stroganoff). I got this on sale for $5.00, so each serving was slightly less than a dollar.

I wouldn’t rush out to buy it again, but I’d eat it if it was in the house. If you like onions, have a crock pot, and don’t have the time or the skills to make stroganoff, this is probably a reasonably priced dish with a modicum of flavor. At 350 calories per serving, it’s not a bad dish for busy moms with a family to feed – add a salad and fruit to round out the nutritional requirements, and a can of inexpensive biscuits (or Bisquick biscuits) to stretch your food dollar even further.

For nutritional information on Banquet Crock Pot™ Classic meals, click here
For consumer reviews of other Banquet Crock Pot™ Classic meals, click here

Coming next Wednesday: Quick reviews of the Stouffer's Corner Bistro dishes.

From Ugly Ducklings into Schwans...….(Schwan’s Frozen Foods™)

2006-03-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law’s house, which you see pictured in the snow, is on a mountainside in a small secluded valley, population 7, in the western part of Wyoming, nestled in the Gros Ventre mountain range, south of the Tetons and the world-famous Jackson Hole. The other picture – palm trees and swimming pool - is Scottsdale, Arizona, an urban destination resort city, population 250,000+/-, a little under 10% of Maricopa County, Arizona’s, 3,100,000 people.

What do these two places have in common?

Unbelievably, Schwan’s™ delivers to both.

In business for just over 50 years, Schwan’s™ Frozen Foods pioneered the concept of home-delivery of frozen and convenience foods, long before online internet grocers and supermarket chains jumped on the bandwagon. Headquartered in the heartland (Marshall, Minnesota), the Schwan Food Company™ is comprised not only of Schwan’s frozen food delivery, but owns Tony’s™, Red Baron™, Freschetta™, Edwards™ and Mrs. Smiths™, as well. Another top performer owned by Schwan is their Asian Sensations™ brand, which offers frozen “Asian-style” foods such as their Egg Rolls, Spring Rolls, Potstickers, etc., all of which are increasingly popular snacks.

Most of us are familiar with Schwan’s name-brand products, the ones we buy at the grocery, but fewer folks are familiar with the myriad products that Schwan’s offers in their home-delivery service. From fully-prepared meals like their Lemon Pepper Chicken, Stuffed Potatoes & Broccoli (eight adult servings for just under $4/head) to meal components like their “E-Z Fix”™ Smoked & Shredded White Chicken meat, Schwan’s offers convenience foods to suit all tastes; either ready-made dishes or already-cooked meats and veggies that you can use in your own dishes or casseroles.

I keep a package of the Schwan’s Roasted Chicken Breast Halves, along with a bag of Roasted Drumsticks, in my freezer pretty much all the time; not only are they great for a quick meal (just heat and eat), but I use both when I’m in the mood to make a killer chicken soup – the roasted breasts and drumsticks impart an incredible flavor to the stock – or to whip up a casserole. Trust me; no one will ever know you didn’t roast them yourself. Also incredibly handy is the Diced Chicken Breast Meat, which I use in my famous “Chicken-Broccoli Casserole,” (click here for the recipe) a serious comfort food around here, which I serve with biscuits for an added carbohydrate-comfort-food-fix. I’ve used their Beef Sirloin Steak Tips along with Stir-Fry veggies to whip up a quick stir-fry (see here); and you can put together a super-fast stroganoff with the ready-to-go Beef Tips in Gravy. My father-in-law practically lives on their packaged full meals, from the Blackened Chicken Alfredo to the Italian Meatballs. He orders on-line, (as do many of his Wyoming neighbors), and despite the fact that his driver lives in Pocatello, Idaho…Schwan’s delivers.

No matter where you live, or whether you want to cook or simply heat and eat, Schwan’s has a product you can use.

For reviews of Schwan’s foods (along with complete nutritional information) at the Icebox Diner, click here.

Living La Carb-a Loca Part II (Low-Carb TV Dinners and Frozen Foods)

2006-03-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

Forbes Magazine today ran an on-line article entitled "10 Diets that Work," in which author Susan Yara made the ephiphanic assertion that "There are two eternal truths about diets: One, if properly followed they will result in weight loss; and two, most people will cheat." It's tough to recover from that kind of startling relevation, isn't it? Undeterred, Yara goes on to list the ten diets that "work," although there is no information provided as to what criteria was used to determine that these particular diets do or do not work. One that she listed would certainly work for me: the raw food diet recently being hyped by former supermodel Carol Alt, author of (ahem) "Eating in the Raw." Thinking about eating raw veggies is one thing; thinking about merely "searing" and then consuming raw meats is another thing altogether. I actually adore very rare roast beef...but chicken and pork? This reminds me of a recent gag-worthy CSI: New York episode in which people were consuming live critters and bugs...thanks, but no thanks.

And did anyone else see CBS’ new drama last night, “The Unit?” Whoever wrote the plotline for the wives needs to be taken out by an elite anti-terrorist team. I’m expecting copyright infringement suits any second now from either Ira Levin (author of “The Stepford Wives”) or the creators of Dr. Who’s arch-enemies, the Daleks. I half-expected a robot arm to come shooting out of Regina King’s chest while she herded the “Rookie Wife” around, intoning “resistance is futile…resistance is futile….”

Back to work!...

Continuing last week's theme about Low-Carb frozen foods, TV dinners and prepared meals, here are the second 15 dishes, all with about 20 carbs per serving or less:

16. Marie Callender’s Honey Roasted Chicken Breast; 20.0 g of carbohydrates, 440 calories;
17. Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Sirloin Beef with Asian Style Vegetables, 12.3 g. of carbohydrate, 230 calories;
18. Birds Eye Foods Voila! Reduced Carb Chicken & Sausage Tuscano, 10.0 g. of carbohydrates, 170 calories;
19. Schwan’s Roasted Turkey and Vegetable Dinner, 15.0 g of carbohydrates, 210 calories;
20. Banquet Family Size Salisbury Steak, 7.0 g. of carbohydrate and 240 calories per serving, gets 4-forks at the Diner, under $4.00 and feeds 6;
21. Schwan's Traditional Chicken Kiev, 12.0 g. of carbohydrate and 390 calories;
22. Stouffer's Family Size Meatloaf in Gravy, 7.0 g of carbohydrate and 220 calories (serves 6);
23. Gorton's Crispy Battered Fish Fillets, 17.8 g of carbohydrate, 260 calories per serving; this line is consistently rated 4-forks at the Diner;
24. Cedarlane Cheese Enchiladas, 19.0 g of carbohydrate and 270 calories;
25. On-Cor Classics Dinner Partners Gravy & Salisbury Steaks with Macaroni & Cheese, 22.0 grams of carbohydrate and 270 calories per serving;
26. Schwan’s Breaded Beef Steak Fingers, 12.0 g of carbohydrate and 190 calories per serving;
27. Birds Eye Foods Voila! Classic Chicken Fajita, 13.0 g. of carbohydrate and 150 calories per serving,
28. Schwan's Beef Shepherd's Pie, 22.0 g. of carbohydrates, 250 calories per serving, and 4½-star ranking at the Diner;
29. Cedarlane Eggplant Parmesan, 16.0 g. of carbohydrates, 160 calories per serving, and,
30. Contessa Chicken Stir-Fry, 18.0 grams of carbohydrates, and 160 calories per serving – this is a dish I serve at home, just because we like it.

This is just a small sampling of what's available for folks counting carbohydrates. Depending upon where you are in your program (whether Atkins, South Beach, or some combination thereof), there are plenty of good-tasting, portion-controlled ready-made meals to help you stay on your plan. If you don't cook, like the fellow I mentioned last week, or just don't want to cook every night, check out your grocer's Freezer section, and remember to read the labels to ensure that you're getting exactly what you want.

Photos of Schwan's Chicken Kiev and Shepherd's Pie from the Schwans.com website.

Living La Carb-a Loca (Low-Carb TV Dinners and Frozen Foods)

2006-03-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

Today’s prologue ramble:

First, before any food-oriented blathering, let’s hear a cheer for the U.S. Men’s Curling Team, which captured the United States’ first-ever Olympic medal (bronze) in the sport. Pete Fenson, Shawn Rojeski, John Shuster and Joe Polo – you guys ROCK!! (Yes, I know it’s corny and it’s been said a billion times – I don’t care, it needs saying again). Young Emily Hughes (figure-skating) stopped the guys in Torino to get their autographs – proof positive, it’s cool to curl.

Back to Work...

Recently, on a popular Low Carb website forum, a man posted a plea for assistance in finding flavorful TV dinners and frozen meals that would fit in with a low-carb lifestyle, as he didn’t know how to cook. The poor guy took a lot of heat from folks on that list who seemed to rank eating frozen prepared meals right up there with devil-worship. But just as frozen dinners in general have leapt forward light-years in the last decade in terms of taste and quality, so too have “diet” TV dinners. Whether you’re looking for low-fat, low-carb or simply low-calorie, you can find meals that will meet your dietary needs and give you the convenience of heat-and-eat.

So I decided to create a list – 30 Low-Carb Frozen Dinners – to assist low-carb dieters in their search for ready-made meals. Today, Part 1; 15 meals to get you started:

1. Cedarlane Carb Buster Four Cheese Quiche – 5.0 gof carbohydrate, 500 calories, (and organic!)
2. Cedarlane Carb Buster Chili Relleno Pie – 9.0 g of carbs, 520 calories
3. Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones Higher Protein Entrees Home-style Chicken, 8.0 g of carbs, 220 calories (a five-fork rating at the Diner!);
4. Stouffer’s Classic Welsh Rarebit, 6.0 g. carbs, 130 calories;
5. Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones Higher Protein Roast Beef Portobello, 9.0 g carbs and 200 calories;
6. Kraft South Beach Diet Caprese Style Chicken with Broccoli & Cauliflower, 12.0 g carbs and 250 calories;
7. Gorton's Grilled Fillet Meals Alfredo, 14 g carbs, 160 calories;
8. Amy's Organic Cheese Enchilada, 18.0 g carbs, 220 calories (a favorite of my sister’s);
9. Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Café Classics Chicken Marsala, 12.0 g carbs, 140 calories;
10. Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Café Classics Orange Beef, 16.0 g. carbs, 170 calories;
11. Schneider's Classic Homestyle Recipe Shepherd's Pie, 20.0 g carbs, and 200 calories (a Five-star Diner rating!);
12. Schwan's Caesar Parmesan Shrimp, 2.0 g of carbs and 110 calories per serving;
13. Schwan’s Fully Cooked Beef Pot Roast with Gravy, 3.0 g of carbohydrate, and 140 calories;
14. Birds Eye Foods Voila! Reduced Carb Down Home Chicken & Vegetables, 17.0 g of carbohydrates and 180 calories, and,
15. Birds Eye Foods Voila! Reduced Carb Chicken Teriyaki & Vegetables, 15.0 g of carbohydrates and 150 calories (a personal favorite, by the way).

Next week: the second 15 low or reduced carbohydrate dinners; Living La Carb-a Loca, Part II.

Curling Photo by Michael Burns Photography, Ltd., from the Team Fenson website.

Holy Moley, Bertolli!! (Bertolli's Grilled Chicken Alfredo with Portobello Mushrooms)

2006-02-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I was clearing tables at the Diner yesterday, when a Google ad caught my eye. “Discount Frozen Dinners,” it said…and as we specialize in the deep-freeze at the Diner, naturally I read the rest of the ad. It went on to say:

New and Used Frozen Dinners!
Check out the huge selection now! eBay.com

Look, I’m always in the market for a bargain…but I’m going to pass on the used frozen dinners.

Back to work...

In honor of Italy, Torino, and the XX Olympiad, I thought that we should sample something “Italian” this week, so I kept my eyes peeled during my latest trip to the grocery store. Happily, Bertolli indulged my desires, and I picked up a bag of the newest addition to their “Dinners For Two” line, Grilled Chicken Alfredo with Portobello Mushrooms.

As with all Bertolli Dinners For Two, it’s easiness itself to prepare; basically, you open the bag, heat, stir, heat some more and serve. This isn’t cold fusion. Also like all the other products in this line, the ingredient list is simple and straightforward, so for those folks trying to avoid additives, the Bertolli dinners make it easy for you.

The bag contains sliced grilled chicken breast, fettucine pasta, diced tomatoes and Portobello mushrooms in a creamy alfredo sauce with the barest hint of pecorino romano. There are no surprises. This dish is exactly what your mouth is expecting when you think of chicken alfredo. I thought it needed a smidgen of salt, which I added; if you’re a fan of hard cheeses, you might also wish to add a sprinkle of parmesan or romano, but these are just tweaks to an otherwise really good dish. The chicken is tender, the sauce is well-flavored and has a nice body; the diced tomatoes are surprisingly fresh.

The downside is that each “serving” contains a whopping 710 calories, but, having said that, it served me and the Hubster with enough left over for another meal, not two as stated on the bag. If I were consistently trying to stretch it, I’d add a bagged salad on the side and a loaf of “bake-at-home” crusty French bread from the bakery, and this would easily serve three adults or two adults and a child. (To see full nutritional information, ingredients and macronutrient counts for this meal, click here).

For those of you weight-watching, Bertolli has other Dinners For Two that are significantly lower in fat and calories but still deliver outstanding taste. You can check out reviews of other Bertolli dinners by clicking on the “Bertolli Reviews” link on the right-hand side of this page, and that link will take you to a list where you can research the nutritional information for those dinners as well.

Definitely a winner, and a product on the forefront of the new revolution in frozen cuisine. At the Icebox Diner, this dinner gets a Four-Fork rating.

The Michelina's DISadvantage (Michelina's Penne Pollo)

2006-02-16T00:32:00.000-07:00

There’s an old saying that you can’t get blood from a stone…but apparently you can milk one to death. At the XX Olympiad, NBC Curling Commentators got their hands on a promotion from a local baker in Pinerolo (the Curling venue) – bread baked in the shape of a curling stone. To create his Ode to Curling, the Pinerolo baker used a dome-shaped bread loaf and jammed the tip of a super-size croissant right into the center. Not satisfied with just giving some coverage to the oddity, NBC scooped up a bunch of the bizarrely-shaped loaves and Curling Commentator Fred Roggin has been handing them out left and right at their Torino studio as gifts to studio guests. My take on the result of this Olympic moment is that this gesture might go over better if these yeasty gifts didn’t resemble a giant dinner roll with a honking big wrinkly banana sticking out of it. The bakers (Guido and his brother, according to Roggin) proudly display their creations in the bakery window, but NBC reports that local Pinerolo residents who are not familiar with Curling find the shape of the loaves “disturbing.” Tune in daily to CNBC’s nightly curling coverage (5:00 p.m. EST to 8:00 p.m. EST) to see which studio guest will get stuffed with “The Roggin Roll.”

And am I the only person who thought that the so-called “peace dove” made up by the white-clad spidermen looked like a drunken pigeon that had impacted your windshield at about 80 mph? After watching those guys shimmying up and down those ropes, I would have been willing to “give peace a chance” if they would just stop.

Back to work….

I nearly fainted when I somehow ended up at a Michelina’s of Canada website page - http://www.michelinas.ca/en/ - that stated “The votes are in. Canadians have-a spoken. This month' s favourite is: Penne Pollo. Pasta and chunks of chicken served in a creamy parmesan sauce.”

Now, I have always thought of our Canadian cousins as pretty much just that – our cousins; Americans with a funny accent and a slightly skewed way of viewing the world at large. But now I suspect that the differences between us may be vaster than I had thought, based upon these polling results. Why? Because I have myself recently tried this very dish, and it was…the nicest language I can find for it is: repulsive.

First, for those of you who have not tried a Michelina’s meal, be warned – the “packaging-as-serving-dish” idea is probably pretty clever from a cost-savings standpoint, but it’s a bit weird to use. Having to lift the now-hot container from the microwave to read the instructions on the box (they did at least think to put a second set of microwave instructions on the side of the box, so you don’t actually have to risk permanent scarring from burns by holding the steaming thing over your head to read the second set of nuking instructions) is annoying. Being only slightly careful, however, it is manageable, although I did not find eating from the box to be appealing in any aesthetic sense.

But, most importantly, the dish was just lousy. Not ordinarily lousy, but lousy in that special way that morphs into dreadful. The penne pasta was just penne; nothing noteworthy. The chicken – or, more accurately, the sole piece of chicken, approximately one inch square, was dark meat and contained something not meant to be eaten – either sinew or cartilage, so the remaining edible portion was even less than the original one inch cube. The sauce was insufficient to actually cover the pasta, so about 20% of the pasta was eaten without sauce…perhaps if there had been enough sauce, it would have had some flavor, but – to use a dreadfully overused phrase – it tasted like papiér maché. I salted; I added parmesan; heck, at that point, I would have added prayer if I thought it would have helped, but to no avail; the dish is just inedible.

So, imagine my amazement when I read this claim on Michelina’s Canadian website! I don’t actually believe that Canadians (despite the whole Curling thing) are a different species than Americans, but this has me scratching my head. Is it that the version of this product produced in Canada by Canadian manufacturers is better than its American counterpart? Do Canadians just have lowered expectations, and hence are less disappointed with the end product? Or is this some nefarious marketing ploy by rogue Michelina’s marketing people – a fake poll?

I have Canadian friends, and I don’t believe for one minute that they would vote for this particular dish, therefore I suspect the latter. Oh, Canada…..don’t be misled by fake pollsters!!

This specific dish gets the Icebox Diner’s Hazardous Waste award for inedibility above and beyond the usual.

For more Reviews from The Icebox Diner, click here.

No Kung Pao "WOW" - (Contessa Kung Pao Shrimp)

2006-02-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

I was running errands with the Hubster the other day and got desperately hungry, so we stopped off at an Arby’s. We moseyed inside, ordered at the counter and waited for our chow to arrive. While killing time waiting, I noticed a printed page – regular 8½x11” paper – up on the wall next to the ordering counter. I strolled over and read it. It was apparently a notification of the many services Arby’s offers to accommodate disabled folks. The page was divided into two columns; on the left-hand side was a list of types of disabilities (e.g., hearing-impaired, wheelchair-bound, etc.), and in the right hand column was a bulleted list of what services Arby (“Arby’s will:”) would provide to those particular individuals. The very last item, in about 12-pitch print, read as follows (I’m not making this up):

If you are: Visually Impaired Arby's Will: Read the menu out loud to you; Escort you to your seat.

I realize that whoever wrote this at Arby’s was trying to be considerate, but isn’t this a bit like having a recorded announcement for the hearing-impaired?

Now, back to work for the wicked:

I’ve had some decent success with the Contessa line of skillet meals (I’ve eaten both their Chicken Stir Fry and Chicken Alfredo), so on impulse I picked up their Kung Pao Shrimp skillet dinner the other day. Externally, this appeared to be a pretty appealing dish; shrimp, broccoli, carrots, onions, baby corn, and so forth in a spicy hoisin sauce, plus a serving bag of white rice, all for 200 calories per serving (See: What's In The Box for full nutritional information). According to the back of the bag, there are “about” three servings per bag, which for $7.49, is a pretty decent price.

There are definitely some pros and cons to this meal. First, the preparation is straightforward and simple, but I would caution against using the microwave method unless you drain the cooked entrée before adding the sauce. My entrée was very watery (the Contessa Asian-style meals all seem to have this problem if microwaved instead of sautéed), so I drained it prior to adding the hoisin sauce and peanuts, which seemed to work. The white rice comes in a separate bag, easily nuked for 2-3 minutes.

Now, on to the food itself. Contessa, I’m going to say something to you that I have previously said to Stouffer’s, although about a different ingredient (bell peppers) – onions are not an entrée. Onions are accent; onions are flavor, or nuance; onions are even a condiment…but not the main course. I removed innumerable onions from this dish, and they constituted nearly a cup of the contents. (I substituted a can of el cheapo chopped mushrooms, instead, FYI, and that was fine).

Even with the added mushrooms, however, and included rice, the serving size is impossibly small. The Hubster and I aren’t big eaters, and there was barely enough to feed the two of us. There is not enough entrée, and there isn’t remotely enough rice included for two people, never mind three, which I assume is a reflection of the low-carb craze, or maybe it is just to keep the calories down overall. Either way, the assertion that there are three servings included is laughable, as there are really only a very scant two.

Those are the “cons.” The pros are that the meal is actually pretty tasty, although I would have liked more salt or a heavier hoisin flavor. Hubster liked it, and was particularly fond of the red hot peppers, which surprisingly blow the top of your head off – unusual in any type of frozen entrée. If I was going to make it again (which truthfully I probably won’t – just doesn’t quite rise to the level of flavor I like), I would add some cooked chicken and a wallop of cooked broccoli, and a splash of hoisin sauce. I would also add more peanuts than provided, although I appreciate that they were a nice touch.

Overall…it’s just okay, not great. It doesn’t rise to the level of some of Contessa’s other products, like their Chicken Alfredo, which is really quite good. I applaud their bravery on the spiciness front (the peppers really will surprise you), but I am exasperated by the inclusion of the onions to provide volume, no caloric increase and – let’s face it – because they are cheap. There are any number of other vegetable alternatives that would have worked wonderfully well in this dish (and, by the way, the promised “baby corn” was apparently invisible baby corn) without adding a lot of calories or carbs. If you’re a big lover of onions, however, along with Kung Pao, you might want to give this particular dish a try. If not…give it a pass.

A Panini Genie? (UPDATED: 3/1/06 & 3/15/06)

2006-02-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

Well, recent events in the entertainment industry have actually had an impact on me for a change. My father-in-law, who lives in Western Wyoming, has always been a big fan of the mini-series Lonesome Dove. He liked it so much that I made a videotape set of the series for him and gave it to him some years back, and he still pops it in the VCR and watches it fairly often. However, he was reading the paper the other day and learned that Larry McMurtry (author of Lonesome Dove) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) along with Diana Ossana for “Brokeback Mountain.” I’m pretty sure that this means that Dad is just never going to be able to look at Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones and that cattle drive in the same way again.

On the Frozen Food Front:

Let’s face it – call it by whatever name you like: a grilled sandwich, a Panini, doesn’t matter – who can resist the allure of melted cheese, sumptuous meat and toasty, crisped bread, particularly for a lunch on the go? Nobody, it seems.

Stouffer’s, trying to capitalize on the enduring appeal of toasted sandwiches, has introduced two new product lines, containing 8 new dishes – Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Panini and Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Panini. Early print media reviews are highly favorable. (See March 1st "Update," below, however...early Diner regular reviews are not good).

Each frozen box contains one sandwich. You open the box, place the open-faced sandwich on the top of the box and microwave it for about 3 minutes. Amazingly, Stouffer’s has created what they call a “revolutionary grill tray,” and it works, turning the bread crispy and melting the filling.

Each sandwich costs about $3.00 US. The Lean Cuisine versions have about 300 calories each with less than 10 grams of fat. The flavors are:

Corner Bistro: Grilled Chicken; Smoked Turkey Club; Philly-Style Steak and Cheese and Southwestern Chicken.

Lean Cuisine: Southwest Style Chicken; Chicken Spinach and Mushroom; Chicken Club and Steak and Mushroom.

I’m still trying to find these locally; in the meantime, if you’ve tried these and have any comments, you can comment here or post your own review at the Icebox Diner. C’mon, all you Panini Wahines….what do YOU think?

March 1: UPDATE: A Diner Regular recently contacted me and said she had "wasted" 320 calories on the Lean Cuisine Southwest Style Chicken Panini, which she ranked as "dreadful." She stated she wouldn't try one of these again. I currently have one of the Corner Bistro versions in my freezer; as soon as I've tried it, I'll update here again. Stay tuned!!

March 15: UPDATE: We've definitely had mixed reviews at the Diner about these sandwiches. I tried the Corner Bistro Smoked Turkey Club and hated it. Two other reviewers, however, tried the Southwest-Style Chicken Panini and each rated it Five Forks. I don't know if our taste buds are that different, or if I had heightened expectations from the Corner Bistro line, from which I have previously had great frozen dinners. Yes, the bread is crispy on the outside, but to me, the filling was seriously lacking in quality and taste. They are definitely not my cup of tea. For the calorie count, I think Stouffer's can do a lot better.

Portion Contortion

2006-01-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

I’m sorry about the recent scarcity of Auntie’s Blog; unfortunately, I was struck down with the creeping crud that’s sweeping the southwestern states here in the US, and it nailed me for almost two weeks, which is pretty unusual. Needless to say, I look like I’ve been fighting typhoid…I glanced in the mirror yesterday and realized that in order to achieve truth in advertising, I was going to have to change my face cream from “Crème de La Mer™” to “Crème de La Cur.”

And away we go....

According to research by Mintel International, (See “Weighing Obesity” by William A. Roberts, Jr., in this month’s articles at Preparedfoods.com), portion control research continues to indicate that we are ever-increasingly influenced to make poor eating decisions by distorted food portions in packaged goods and restaurants.

A 2001 report in Food Quality and Preference reported that movie-goers with a one-pound bag of M&Ms™ would eat 112 candies versus 156 for movie watchers with a two pound bag. Curiously enough, an additional factor appeared to be color variety; if the study subjects were offered more colors, they ate more than if provided with only one or two colors of M&Ms™.

Another experiment indicated that when provided with a continuously refilled soup bowl (unknown to the customers), women would eat 30% more soup than they did if the bowl emptied normally, while men would overeat an additional 40 percent.

This also holds true for children. When served approximately double the proper portions, children would eat 25% more food; when they served themselves, they would eat about 25% less than those served a large portion. According to this study, repeated exposure to larger portions could have a long-term effect on children, creating “satiety deficits.” The study author recommended allowing children to self-serve, arguing that this may allow the child to more successfully regulate intake.

I know that at the Diner, we’ve highlighted several articles that recommend using various frozen meals for portion control (See The Diner’s Dim Sum section), in particular, Uncle Ben’s Rice Bowls. I also know that many busy moms buy Family Style frozen meals for the nights that they are too busy to cook. Me, I’m partial to the Banquet Crock Pot meals, particularly the Creamy Chicken With Pasta (Yum!!). The bag claims that it feeds a family of five, but I would suggest a salad or other veggie to go along with the meal for more balance. For $5.99, though, it’s a great and easy dinner, and if you are feeding five, it should do so without allowing anyone to overeat.

At the Diner, you can do a search for family-size meals and even sort them by the amount of calories per portion to assist you in regulating portion control for your family.

(note: Hot dog & gherkins photo, reproduced with permission, courtesy of: gallery.hd.org)

Pizza Performance

2006-01-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

I thought I would invent a device that will save half of all American marriages from ending in divorce: it's going to be a sort of hat for women. It will be made up of a flashing red light (think the Fire Chief's car) that can be turned on and off by the wearer while in the presence of her husband, and a small sign in front that says "When the light is flashing, what I am saying is actually important!!"

Now, back to business:

In keeping with last week’s theme about the vast numbers of frozen meals consumed daily by Americans, I thought we should take a moment to honor the lowly frozen pizza, which has obviously taken us by storm. Interestingly, (to me), my personal favorite is nowhere to be seen within the list of the top seven best-selling pizzas. I’m a big California Pizza Kitchen fan, but obviously I’m in something of a minority. According to Information Resources, Inc., the top selling frozen pizzas from third-quarter 2005 were:

In seventh place, with sales of 12,088,134 pizzas for a total of $30,530,504 in sales, was “Tony’s," which is owned by Schwan's;

In sixth, with sales of 30,661,748 pizzas for a total of $34,615,968, is a name well known to everyone, Totino’s Party Pizza.

Fifth place was captured by none other than Freschetta, with $33,366,022 in sales for 6,684,022 pizzas, while Private Label pizzas (frozen pizzas made and sold by individual supermarket chains) came in fourth, nationwide, with a total of 22,944,764 pizzas sold for $41,062,192.

In third was none other than Red Baron, selling 16,738,261 pizzas for a breathtaking $57,310,508. Second place was scooped by Kraft’s Tombstone line, which 14,733,218 pizzas sold at a price of $51,303,688.

But it was Tombstone’s sibling, Kraft’s DiGiorno Pizza, that kicked butt and took names, and not by a small amount. Compared to the others, DiGiorno basically sold as much as Red Baron and Tombstone combined, with a whopping $100,823,000 in sales for 20,614,400 pizzas.

So, how many pizzas a day is that, you ask?

That equals 1,382,935 pizzas per day, seven days a week, at a cost of $3,877,910 per day.

That’s a lot of frozen pizzas.

Squirrel Photograph courtesy of scarysquirrelworld at scarysquirrel.org

Close Accounters of the Frozen Kind

2006-01-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

My sister recently commented that if we outfitted vacuum cleaners with remote controls and flashing lights, no woman would ever push one again. (Wait for it….)

And now, back to business...

Information Resources Inc. recently released its third quarter 2005 sales figures for the food industry. Interestingly enough, frozen prepared foods are again making huge strides, continuing the march on domestic digestion.

Stouffer’s, of course, led the way, selling not only 7,692,472 family-style dinners (in other words, feeds more than one person), but a walloping 89,436,903 single-serve dinners and entrees. These figures include their normally successful Lean Cuisine branded lines, which have been huge favorites amongst people watching their weight, but it’s worthwhile to note that Healthy Choice (Con-Agra’s reduced-calorie/fat/carb brand) and Weight Watcher’s Smart Ones lines are both increasing in sales, while Lean Cuisine seems to be taking a hit, with sales declining between 20-30%, on average, over the same period last year.

And Swansons HungryMan dinners? The line that no one admits eating? Swansons not only sold more than ten million of these dinners in third-quarter 2005, but sales increased more than 20% over last year. These figures nearly match that of Marie Callendar’s, which sold slightly over 12 million dinners for $32 million-plus in sales.

Bertolli’s new Dinners for Two ingredient packages are making huge strides, selling more than 3 million units for the quarter for an 899% increase in sales over this period last year. As these dinners have been getting good reviews at the Icebox Diner, I can’t say I’m surprised. Another big mover is Contessa, with an increase in sales of more than 25% over last year, selling nearly 1.4 million ingredient packages to hungry families - which is pretty impressive for a line with only 18 different meals.

In total, just counting the top 5 brands in each category, American households purchased 26,762,460 “multi-serve” entrees or dinners, for a little over $151 million dollars in sales to feed their families. In the single-serve category, more than 211,492,605 entrees/dinners were purchased, with sales in excess of $400 million.

In other words – Americans buy and consume over 2.3 million “TV Dinners,” along with nearly 300,000 “family-style” frozen meals every single day.

Enjoy!!

What DO we want?

2005-12-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

I was recently interested by an article published in Refrigerated and Frozen Foods Retailer magazine (www.rffretailer.com) about consumer research done this November (2005) by Insight Express, the Stamford, Connecticut based online market research firm. Insight surveyed 503 shoppers (supermarket and Wal-Mart shoppers). Two specific areas of inquiry particularly caught my attention.

The first item was that 29% of the respondents stated that they would be willing to pay 15% more (than existing prices) for “higher quality” products, particularly when it came to frozen seafood. 20-23% said the same thing about frozen pizza and frozen dinners, respectively.

On a second question, though, supermarket shoppers rated “taste” as the overwhelmingly most important reason to buy a product by a whopping margin over “quality” (49% ranked “taste” as the most important reason to buy, while 29.9% chose “quality” as their most important reason to buy), and the spread was even larger with Wal-Mart shoppers with 54.4% choosing “taste” and 26% choosing “quality.”

My question is this: how do we make the distinction between “taste” and “quality?” Is it by taste, ironically? Is it by the ingredients list? Is it by price, or brand name? Or is there any distinction? Perhaps the simplest equation is that to many consumers, good taste equals quality, nothing more and nothing less. And, despite the numerous food tortures we all put ourselves through in limiting fats, counting carbs, cutting back on calories, etc., at the end of the day, don’t we all want food that just tastes good?

I know that at the Diner people write reviews of their frozen food experiences based upon taste. They’ll deduct a fork or make a negative comment about pricing, or ingredient lists, or the amount of fat/carbs, but they still rate the entrees and meals by how much they like them.

So…I’m curious…what is quality if it isn’t taste?

Everybody Does It! (Part 2)

2005-12-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the feeling that not cooking is “bad” is subconsciously tied to the inherent belief that cooking is an act of love, an act of sharing, a way of demonstrating that you care for someone else. Is the inverse that if you just nuke and serve, you love your family less than a “real” cook? Was Julia Child the new archetype for love, or perhaps Martha Stewart? Somehow, regardless of the success achieved by both, it’s hard to picture Julia or Martha as usurping Aphrodite.

That home cooking is inextricably bound to concepts of love is demonstrated through our most precious rituals – the holidays. It is true that we equate homecooked meals with love. Why else is food so bound up with our holiday rituals? We have laboriously prepared dinners on the holidays that we eat at no other time of the year – stuffed roasted turkeys at Thanksgiving, Roast Prime Ribs of Beef and Smoked Hams at Christmas, (or even a goose!), and fresh hams at Easter. We swoon over family favorites, dishes that Moms have served for generations. We gush and coo over new dishes provided by our family members, while at the same time surreptitiously reaching under the table to slip Rover the items we can’t stand.

Nonetheless, whether homecooked meals equal love or not, the truth is that North Americans are consuming vastly ever-increasing amounts of prepared meals, arriving at a love-hate relationship with the TV Dinner.

Given our zeitgeist about the stuff, it’s amazing that frozen dinners aren’t sold in plain brown wrappers.

It's All Macademic, Anyway....

2005-12-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

I’m interrupting the regularly-scheduled Blog program – the recent discussion of frozen meals as analogous to dirty secrets – to relate to you the sorry saga of my most recent holiday cookie test-bake.

My husband’s family doesn’t cook at all, which makes me the Julia Child of my particular clan of hairless apes. More particularly, it makes me the Pillsbury Dough Girl of the group, as the idea of baking cookies or anything trickier than Poppin’ Fresh dough leaves them prostrate. A series of events over the years – starting with me being too poor to buy Christmas gifts for anyone, coupled with my disbelief that my in-laws could celebrate Christmas sans Christmas Cookies – have conspired to make me the official Baker of Christmas Cookies for all of my husband’s family (and in recent years a few of my own, too). The net result is that we make 120-130 dozen cookies each December, which despite my moaning here, I actually enjoy.

This year, about a month ago, I was chatting with my good friend Barbara Grace the Canadian. I’ve always liked her, but now I suspect that there is evil in her heart, which I’ll get to shortly. I told her I’d been less-than-thrilled with two of the cookies I’d made for Christmas, 2004. Barbara Grace told me that White Chocolate Chip Cookies With Macadamia Nuts have become very big in Canada. Ohhhh, I breathed when she told me – that sounds luscious. So, happy idiot that I am, I decided to do a test bake for these cookies, to see if they would be good enough to be included in the Annual Sacrifice of butter, sugars and flour to the Food holiday gods.

I won’t bore you with the brain-damage of actually trying to find and purchase real white chocolate chips – or white chocolate of any kind. This delectable treat has apparently been replaced in large part by something called “white confection,” which not only doesn’t taste the same, it doesn’t look the same and it doesn’t cook the same. Nonetheless, for the purposes of just testing the cookie, I scored some Hershey’s White Whatever chips. And, lo and behold, a bag of Mauna Loa dry roasted macadamia baking pieces (bless their hearts) had – what else? – a recipe for “Macadamia White Chocolate Chip Cookies.” Cool! I was set, all good to go.

I fluffed the butter and sugars. I beat the eggs and vanilla. I blended in the flour, baking soda and salt. I noticed that the dough was stiff-ish, but I ignored that; I have a standby holiday cookie with a very stiff dough that is a fabulous finished product, so I wasn’t worried. I added and stirred the nuts and the white-whatever pieces. I spooned out the teaspoonfuls and baked for 10-12 minutes. I checked the cookies at 10 minutes, and they were doughy, whitish and the bottoms were barely browned. I checked at 12 minutes, and decided I’d best defer to the destructions, and took them out.

The second sheet, I cooked longer, trying to get at least a semblance of browning to the tops of the cookies. This rather amateurish production continued through 5 separate baking sheets of cookies, trying to find the right balance of crunch on the outside coupled with gooey, soft interior. Finally convinced I had it (a 16-minute-no-peekie cookie), I triumphantly slid the last of the cooling cookies onto a plate and announced the results to my husband (the Trusted Annual Baker’s Apprentice and Dough-Stirrer). I mean, just take a look at those babies – don’t they look like perfectly yummy, tempting cookies to you?

Looks are deceiving!! Those delightfully tawny things aren’t what they appear to be – they are WMD - Weapons of Macadamia Destruction. A mere hour after the last of the test bake cookies had cooled, I sauntered by and popped one into my mouth. Imagine my horror when I realized I couldn’t bite down! Those *&^% cookies hadn’t cooled…they had hardened with cement-like consistency. Even the scary-looking ones from the first sheet – the whitish, non-browned ones – had turned into hockey pucks that you could substitute for the interlocking pavers in your driveway. To eat them, you either have to dunk them into a liquid or nuke them until they soften. Of course, if you allow them to cool at all post-nuking, they regain that enviable consistency of tempered steel.

Obviously, that recipe is off of my Christmas cookie list. But that’s not the worst of it.

When I told Barbara Grace about the dreadful hockey puck cookies, she laughed. For some reason, she thinks the idea that the cookies should not be pasty white is hysterical, and that they turn into Moon Rocks is even funnier. Why is it not surprising – in hindsight – that a Canadian would think that a pasty white cookie is perfectly normal? She claims she buys and eats one of these along with her coffee from her local General Store every morning, and I believe her. Why do I believe her?

Because by afternoon, no one could eat one.

Next Wednesday: Back to our discussion of frozen food!!

Everybody Does It!

2005-12-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

Part 1

Why is it that frozen meals – TV Dinners, if you will – are the 21st century equivalent of what we used to delicately call “self-abuse?” Yes, I’m talking about the M word, indeed.

Here’s what I find confusing: since 1998, the amount of money spent by Americans on frozen, prepared foods has skyrocketed, vaulting an amazing 58% in a mere 7 years. Based upon figures like that, you would think that everyone you know is eating TV dinners, right? Try to find one person who will tell you what frozen dinners he likes, or what prepared meals she feeds her kids. Everyone does it…and no one will admit it, just like M.

What’s the issue? Is it the psychological leftovers and detritus from the 1950’s, when TV dinners were truly dreadful? Or is it some type of urban mythology sprung full-grown from movie and television images of blowsy women (replete with unfiltered cigarettes hanging from their lips), plopping down the signature aluminum tray on a flyspecked table in front of a dirty loutish husband that gives us the shudders when we consider “TV Dinners?” We seem to be beset by a type of collective consciousness that believes that while frozen vegetables are good for you, frozen prepared foods are slatternly.

We don’t just consider TV dinners as “bad,” in a sense of merely taste or nutrition; we seem to consider them “bad” in a moral sense, as something reprehensible or evil. Heck, if you don’t believe that TV Dinners are socially stigmatized, just ask Carla Gugino. In her new TV series, Threshold, her character is shown in the first episode as an ingenious worst-case-scenario expert who dines alone on prepared dinners. They might as well have branded a gigantic “L” across her forehead to complete her identification as the unloved Loser. No wonder the show was canceled.

Next Wednesday: Part 2 of Everybody Does It!

The Pasta-farian Diet

2005-11-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

I think I’m going to propose a new diet called “The Pasta-farian.” I freely admit I’m borrowing the concept, in toto, from a research study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in which dieting subjects ate frozen Uncle Ben’s Rice Bowls and lost weight. Now, clearly, despite the frantic efforts of anti-carbohydrate apostles over the years, if you can eat rice and lose weight, it can work for spaghetti and its cousins, too.

The theory behind the rice-bowl diet was simple; that people had difficulty in portion control or in correctly judging just how many calories they were actually eating. By using prepared frozen foods, this uncertainty was eliminated, and the participants eating the frozen foods lost more weight than those who prepared their own meals within the caloric guidelines (not to mention, saved a lot of time!). These results were replicated both in male and female test subjects.

The great thing about my new Pasta-farian diet is that, unlike the somewhat limited rice bowl selection (during the study, 24 choices), dozens of manufacturers of frozen food produce hundreds of pasta choices, ranging from Healthy Choice Stuffed Pasta Shells Marinara (230 calories) to Marie Callender’s Fettuccine Alfredo with Garlic Bread, weighing in at a whopping 920 calories. There are dishes to suit all tastes and all caloric or carbohydrate requirements. For carnivores, from Swanson comes Hungry-Man Hearty Meatball Lasagna Bake, while over at Amy’s Organics you Vegans can get your lasagna with vegetables or tofu. For palates wanting a more café-style selection, Bertolli offers a terrific line of pasta dinners for two in a bag, while Stouffer’s new Corner Bistro selections are catching on fast.

So, don’t hesitate. There are lots of great lunches and dinners that can fit into the Pasta-farian diet plan for successful weight loss, not to mention the ease of preparation. Hey…if it works, why not?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Salisbury...

2005-11-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

When you start exploring the world of frozen foods, TV dinners – call them what you will – one of the first things that you notice is that some entrees seem to take on a life of their own.

It’s the only way to explain why certain meals appear in virtually every brand of frozen food.
Take fried chicken. In one form or another, it’s carried by Swanson, Banquet, Marie Callender’s, Healthy Choice (as “breaded” chicken) and Swanson Hungry-Man product lines. Obviously America is fanatical about its fried chicken. Ditto lasagna. Lasagna, with or without meat sauce or with veggies instead of meat, is served by Amy’s Organics (seven different ways!), Marie Callender’s, Swanson and even Weight Watchers, among others.
But the big winner has got to be the ever-popular Salisbury Steak. With mashed potatoes or roasted potatoes or even grilled onions, Salisbury steak outflanks the competition (yes, that’s a pun). Served by no less than ten different food manufacturers in various combinations, America must have a love affair with the homely hamburger in its Prom dress: gravy.
What is it about Salisbury steak that moves us to eat it in droves? Does it really taste better than other beef dishes? This hardly seems likely. It’s not as if you stumble across a lot of foodie blogs waxing rhapsodic about the lowly Salisbury Steak.

Perhaps it is nothing more than an acquired habit… it would be hard to find an adult in the USA that hasn’t eaten a Salisbury Steak TV dinner as a kid, and for most people, choosing food tends to be “go with what you know.” It’s predictable, is old Salisbury steak. We may not like the potatoes it comes with or we may have a different preference for gravy but when we pick one up at the market, we know what we’re getting.

It’s a known quantity. It may not be fabulous, but it’s not dreadful, either.
Maybe our fascination with Salisbury steak is a “comfort food” decision: a burger with pot roast’s accessories of gravy and mashed potatoes without the hours it takes to produce an actual pot roast.

Of course, there’s the alternate theory… it’s just a good excuse for an adult to eat a burger for dinner.

Enjoy

2005-11-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I was ill. It was difficult to shop but nearly impossible to cook. So I hesitantly ventured into the frozen food aisles of my local grocery store, seeking ready-made meals that I could have handy in my freezer.

I had no idea what to choose or how to choose it. Thousands of entrees and meals confronted me and I had absolutely no clue what to buy. Having heard good things about Boston Market™ restaurants, I grabbed two items from that line: a chicken-and-noodle dinner and a side dish of macaroni and cheese.

I thought the chicken-and-noodle dinner would be safe - how bad could it be? And of course, the picture on the box looked great! After all, isn't that how we all basically choose these foods? We've either had it before and it was "okay" or we buy the image on the outside of the box. (More thoughts on food photography as a form of hypnosis or Black Magic some other time).

How bad could it be? The answer is: oh, really, really bad.

What I thought would be somewhat bland comfort food was so tasteless, it was inedible. I literally threw it out after a few bites. (By the way...for the chicken-y comfort food my mouth was wanting, see Banquet Crock Pot Classics Creamy Chicken with Pasta Dinner).
A few nights later I prepared the mac and cheese as a side dish - and it was also ghastly. If there had ever been cheese in that dish, it had long since disappeared into the Witness Protection Program.

And so the idea for the Icebox Diner was born: a place where everyone could share their experiences with frozen meals, telling each other what we like and what we don't like; what is great low-carb food and what's dreadful; what really is low-fat and what isn't. A place to warn other folks not to try that Brand X Yak-Meat Dinner or to share with other Diners that the Bertolli dinners-in-a-bag are actually great. Tell us how much you paid, so we can see what company gives you the most bang for your buck.

Again, welcome. We are really happy to have you join us. Take a counter seat or a booth. Contribute your reviews of frozen snacks, entrees and dinners - even desserts. Add products that we don't have yet.

Enjoy.

It's all about me

2005-11-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

Auntie, as she prefers to be called, may be the black sheep of the Gore-May family but she knows what she likes. As she wipes tables and pours coffee at the Diner she occasionally reflects on her youth: golden summers at her grandparents' home on Long Island, yachting and playing tennis, where an entree was an entrée... snowy winters at her other grandparents' home in rural Canada, collecting pinecones in the snowy woods and spooning up home-nurtured soup beside the fire... Here she shares her thoughts...