First off, I should probably admit that I'm a huge fan of Trader Joe's. Like many people, I go there every week or two; unlike many people, my pilgrimages involve two 45-minute subway rides and about a mile of walking with armloads of groceries. Even these struggles, however, are worth it, as the great TJs can usually be counted upon to serve up first-rate food at prices that are often half of what I pay in my neighborhood. Better yet, their heavy tendency toward organic (or at least HFCS-free) food has gained them my unending loyalty.

Every time I go to the store, I try to pick up one or two things that I haven't tried before. Recently, I tried out a few of their foil-packed Indian dishes, including their palak paneer. While the food was fresh, the seasoning seemed to be inspired by Campbell's, not Calcutta. They were bland, mainstream, and borderline unpalatable.

This was particularly disappointing, given the fairly high bar that I've set for Indian convenience foods. Years ago, when my wife and I were trying to cut back on our meal expenditures, we started bringing home Gits foil-packed convenience foods from our local international grocery store. The dishes weren't quite as good as the fresh-made food we could get at our local Indian restaurant or the dishes that we made from scratch, but they also retailed for under $2 per pack, which meant that we could eat three dishes and have leftovers for about $6. Moreover, they blew away pretty much any American convience food maker, both in terms of price and quality.

Since we've moved to the Bronx, we've discovered Ashoka, a brand that our local Indian market endorses. Like Gits, Ashoka makes a wide variety of well-spiced, reasonably-priced Indian dishes. Moreover, while they tend to be high in salt, the ingredient lists rarely contain unpronounceable chemical compounds, and the flavors are great. To combat the salt issue, we generally serve our Indian food with considerable quantities of Jasmine rice.

Most of the time, convenience food is a careful balance between price and quality. At one end of the scale, mac and cheese offers a cheap dish that, depending on the manufacturer, may contain more chemicals than Love Canal and more salt that the Dead Sea. At the other end of the scale, defrost-and-eat Stauffer's dishes offer tastier dishes at a much higher price. If you're getting tired of the same old additive-laden choices, try taking a drive to the nearest international grocery store!