"FrozenFood" news and stories

Frozen Food Lies

by the Editors at TheStir, Posted Sep 28th 2010 @ 1:00PM

Photo: Rachel Been, AOL

We all know that fast food never looks the same as it does in advertisements. But what do TV dinners look like compared to the photo on the box? Adriana Velez from The Stir took five popular brand-name frozen dinners and put them to the test. Do Smart Ones lasagna varieties really stack up to be three inches high? Is your frozen dinner as shiny as it looks in the photos?

Head over to The Stir for before and after photos of frozen entrees.

Filed under: On the Blogs

Frozen Food Reviews

COMMENTS 0

by Slashfood Editor, Posted Sep 1st 2009 @ 4:38PM

Slashfood stalwarts road-tested a month's worth of lunches so you won't waste another cent on sub-par frozen fare.

http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=694070&pid=694069&uts=1250800712

http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf

Frozen Food Reviews

by Kat Kinsman
A recent AOL Food survey revealed that 85% of respondents are toting their lunch to work these days. We've certainly noticed an uptick in waiting time at our break room's microwaves -- as well as co-workers scrounging for snacks after their lunch failed to fill them up. Our editors road-tested a month's' worth of lunches so you won't waste another cent on sub-par frozen fare.

Rachel Been

Getty Images North America

Frozen Food Reviews

Rachel Been

Monday
Amy's Organic Ravioli Bowl

Buy it again: Without a doubt
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: Perfectly cooked pasta
Taste: If we got it in a restaurant, we'd be happy. The sauce was gorgeously seasoned, the generously, fluffily filled ravioli neither limp nor leaden and heck -- it's even organic.
Calories: 380
Total Fat: 12 g
Sodium: 680 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Tuesday
Banquet Selects Classic Fried Chicken

Buy it again: No way
Fills you up: No
Texture: Like deep-fried particle board
Taste: The batter's seasoning wasn't so bad, but gnawing through it nearly undid years of orthodontia -- and for very little reward. The few shreds of meat within were stringy, gamey and overcooked, and the pool of grease in which the whole mess swam hardly added to the meal's appeal. The potatoes and corn are best left unmentioned -- and uneaten.
Calories: 440
Total Fat: 26 g
Sodium: 1140 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Wednesday
Lean Pocket Applewood Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Pocket

Buy it again: No
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: Gummy
Taste: We bit into what we thought was a potato cube, then checked the ingredient list. No potatoes. It would seem that the chewy, white blob was in fact the much-touted applewood bacon. It just got worse from there, with a creepy, over-processed filling.
Calories: 290
Total Fat: 8 g
Sodium: 480 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Thursday
Southwest Style Grilled Chicken

Buy it again: Just the potatoes
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: Misleadingly good
Taste: If they'd just stuck with the taters, we'd be telling a different tale. Those spuds are fluffy, creamy and memorably savory. The chicken, however, was slathered in an inexplicably sweet and fruity goo that somehow lost direction on the way to the Southwest.
Calories: 430
Total Fat: 15 g
Sodium: 1510 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Friday
Lean Pockets Whole Grain Turkey, Broccoli & Cheese Pocket

Buy it again: Only on sale
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: A bit doughy
Taste: It would hardly be our first choice, but in a serious pinch, we wouldn't turn up our noses at it. Let's get one thing clear, though -- while the whole-grain wrapper is a cute little stab at nutrition, you're still chomping down processed cheese and nuked broccoli. Health food, this is not.
Calories: 260
Total Fat: 7 g
Sodium: 390 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Monday
Claim Jumper Chicken & Penne a la Vodka

Buy it again: Maybe
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: A bit soggy
Taste: We weren't immediately convinced and kept grabbing just one more forkful to figure out why. Wouldn't you know, we polished off the whole darned thing. It's not the most assertive sauce straight out of the box, but woke up with a dash of black pepper. Note -- while the prep notes call for a tablespoon of water on the broccoli, half that might have been a better idea to to avoid veggie sog.
Calories: 500
Total Fat: 20 g
Sodium: 1350 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Tuesday
Kashi Lemon Rosemary Chicken

Buy it again: Happily
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: Fresh
Taste: If someone tried to pass this off as take-out from the health food place down the street, we'd take their word for it. Flavors popped, veggies crunched, chicken stayed moist, and our tastebuds rejoiced.
Calories: 330
Total Fat: 9 g
Sodium: 640 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Wednesday
Stouffer's Pepperoni & Provolone Stromboli

Buy it again: Sure
Fills you up: Yes
Texture: Better that we'd expected
Taste: Holy stromboli! This is slightly dumbed-down pizza shop fare, but it's still a really solid surprise. While we'll nitpick that the bread could be a little better, the fillings proved hearty, meaty and overall pleasing. Keep a couple of 'em stashed in the freezer for lazy weeknight meals.
Calories: 430
Total Fat: 17 g
Sodium: 1110 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Thursday
Lean Cuisine Cheddar Potatoes with Broccoli

Buy it again: No
Fills you up: We can't imagine trying to eat the whole thing
Texture: Mushy
Taste: It doesn't bode well for a dish when the tasters are having a hard time distinguishing potatoes from broccoli florets. The whole bowl was gummed together by a soggy, flavor-free mess that was advertised as cheddar sauce, but could just as easily have been wheat paste. Sure, this cuisine is lean, but it's 'cause no one can bear to eat more than a few bites.
Calories: 230
Total Fat: 5 g
Sodium: 640 mg

Casey Kelbaugh

Filed under: Taste Test

Taste Test: Kashi Bakes

COMMENTS 6

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Mar 11th 2009 @ 3:03PM

When I was in college, I lived on toast and frozen food. I wasn't particularly interested in food or writing back then (my two primary passions these days) and I so I paid as little mind to breakfast, lunch and dinner as was possible while getting through school. My roommates and I would often trek over to Walla Walla's Grocery Outlet and stock up on whatever cheap, frozen meals were available.

As I got older and became more concerned about the foods I ate, I've trended to the opposite end of the spectrum, filling my freezer with local, grass fed beef, free range chickens and home frozen summer fruit. Currently, I'm searching for a more happy medium (life is busy and having a few frozen meals that someone else prepared saves me sometimes) and so I've fallen in love with these new meals from Kashi.

They come in two flavors, Tuscan Veggie Bake and Mayan Harvest Bake. The Tuscan variety is a lasagna, made from Kashi's whole grain noodles, yellow squash, roasted eggplant, red onion, sweet potato and tomato sauce. It's quite delicious, although I'm not a fan of yellow squash (I find the skin to be bitter). The Mayan themed bake starts with a layer of amaranth polenta (seriously delicious, it makes me want to play with amaranth more) and then has plantains, black beans, roasted sweet potatoes, kale and some Kashi whole grain pilaf. I really loved this variety. The amaranth and plantains are wonderful together and the sauce they've concocted for this dish, which reminds me of really good enchilada sauce, sets the whole thing off perfectly.

The other wonderful thing about these Kashi Bakes is that they are vegan. While I'm no meat-hater, I've been trying to reduce my meat intake and grabbing one of these for a quick lunch makes that goal a whole lot easier on busy days.

Bottom line: These are tasty, easy and fast meals that you can grab, microwave and feel good about. The only problem with them is that they are a bit pricy, retailing around $4. I'd recommend keeping an eye out for coupons or sales, and stocking up when the price is low.

Filed under: Raves & Reviews, New Products

The second best frozen dinner I've ever had

COMMENTS 5

by Bob Sassone, Posted Jan 12th 2007 @ 11:10AM

Boston Market Grilled BBQ Chicken Or it might be the very best, I don't know. #1 is probably still the Smart Ones Fire Grilled Chicken & Vegetables I reviewed last year, but this other one is coming on strong.

It's the new Boston Market Grilled Chicken with Mesquite BBQ Sauce and Ranch Mashed Potatoes. This, in a word, is fantastic. The BBQ sauce actually tastes like real BBQ sauce. The mashed potatoes, which are usually one of the worst parts of any frozen entree or dinner, are the best frozen mashed potatoes I've ever tasted. They may even be better than the powdered stuff you buy in a box (if you are prone to do that). They're not all mushy and bland tasting (or worse, crusty and styrofoam tasting). The ranch flavor adds a nice kick too.

I'm not saying you should buy this in place of any BBQ chicken and mashed potatoes you might make at home. But hey, we all eat frozen foods at one time or another during the week, so I'd have a few boxes of this in the freezer for those times.

Filed under: Raves & Reviews, Stores & Shopping, Ingredients, New Products, Methods

Frozen food recalls

COMMENTS 1

by Nick Vagnoni, Posted Jan 26th 2006 @ 11:10AM

Roughly 54,000 pounds of Lean Cuisine Asian-Style Pot Stickers were recently recalled by Nestle Prepared Foods company for fear that the chicken and vegetable dumplings may contain pieces of plastic. The package code 5262595512, the words "Best before Oct. 2006" and the establishment number P-7991 are printed on the right side of the boxes. A Food Safety and Inspection service release is available here.

Also, approximately 1,500 pounds of Weight Watchers Smart Ones Sirloin Beef and Asian Style Vegetables frozen dinners have been recalled by Heinz Frozen Foods due to an undeclared milk protein that may be an allergen to some. The meals were sold in Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C. More info here.

[Via FoodIssues.org]

Filed under: Business, Methods