So, I’ve just finished moving into my apartment…well, that’s an optimistic view. I’m living here, whether or not the place is truly livable is another story, but here I am. For the past two days, I haven’t had any cooking gas, which left me with…take out and a microwave and raw fruits and veggies. Now that I have cooking gas, I can hopefully tighten up my eating habits and eat good-for-me and delicious vegan food. I’m going grocery shopping tomorrow. But, before this morning I was going stir crazy (but not stir-fry crazy, alas) and relying on two of my “favorite” convenience foods: cereal and frozen meals. The cereal doesn’t really need to be elaborated on; it’s cereal. Woohoo.
I’ve been learning a lot about frozen meals, friends, and it’s quite a dangerous world out there in the world of microwavable nutrition. In this post, I’d like to give a few meals the old LPP review, starting with the ones I don’t like and make my way through to the ones I do!
Healthy Choice Café Steamers. Here’s the gimmick: these meals come in a fancy steamer bowl with sauce in the bowl beneath. You pop them in the microwave and your meat, veggies and pasta are steamed to perfection in a matter of minutes. Then, you dump the steamed treasures into the gourmet sauces below, stir and enjoy. That’s the gimmick, at least.
Healthy Choice Café Steamers Chicken Margherita: This was my first foray into Healthy Choice’s steamy foods. Unfortunately, there were more as I bought two. There were a few feeble chunks of tomato, some chicken, a rogue clove of garlic and some sickly looking pasta. The meal weighed in at 240 calories, with 6 grams of fat. 19 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. This meal tasted bland and required nearly double the cooking time in my very standard microwave. And where were the veggies?! Nowhere!
I give this one a: 
Healthy Choice Café Steamers Grilled Chicken Marinara : First off, Healthy Choice? You are not fooling a soul with those painted on “grill lines” so you might as well leave them off. I found this to be too cheesey for my tastes and the pasta dried out in the amount of time it took to get the chicken warmed through. Glad we had a revolutionary steamer bowl! Not! This one, at least, had some vegetables! Yeah, wilted, mushy broccoli. Yuck! This one weighed in at 250 calories, with 4 grams of fat. 5 grams of fiber and 20 grams of protein. Nutritious enough, but the simple starches of the pasta? Pass, please. I also found that these meals didn’t keep me full for long at all. Sad.
I give this one a:
SmartOnes Chicken Santa Fe: This one was love at first bite. Chicken, yes, but the rest of the dish was red peppers, beans, zucchini, onions…mmm! It all tasted quite delicious and the veggies weren’t too mushy at all. And all for 140 calories and 2.5 grams of fat! 4 grams of fiber and 20 grams of protein. And a FULL serving of vegetables. Clearly, this kicks some nutritional butt! And it kept me full MUCH longer than the Healthy Choice meals.
I give this one a: 
Kashi Southwest Style Chicken: Filling and delicious. I can’t rave enough about this one! Chicken with a hint of spice and lime juice, onions, peppers and corn and Kashi’s delicious 7 grain pilaf, topped with a yummy sauce. It’s an all around enjoyable eat and doesn’t taste like a typical frozen meal. It has: 240 calories and 5 grams of fat, 6 grams of fiber and 16 grams of protein. For the calories, it’s definitely a good amount of food, and tasty too. The stats aren’t as good for this meal as for the Healthy Choice ones, but this one actually tastes decent and kept me full all afternoon. And I can pronounce all of the ingredients.
I give this one a: 
