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View Full Version : TV Dinners and other 2 step meals - trip report


Lazymeatball
09-12-2005, 06:17 PM
Since I am too lazy to think an hour ahead of when I'll be hungry and take out options in my town are limited to Pizza made by Greeks, Chineese food made for gringos (but made by Chineese people at least), and Burger King, I have recently turned to many out of the box heat and eat meals.

I'll start with breakfast,

Eggo Waffles - They have different varieties like homestyle, or buttermilk, but they all taste the same once you drown them in syrup. For toppings I like to use peanut butter and real maple syrup. Takes about 5 minutes in the toaster oven, flip halfway through. It's always delicious, but not quite satisfying as a full meal.

Campbell's Chunky Soup Clam Chowder - This stuff is great, pour from can into pot, leave on stove on high for 5 minutes and go watch tv. Stir it up and pour, add toast or crackers if desired. While it's certainly not fresh home made New England Clam Chowder quality, it's pretty good from the can. Always filling as it's a pretty big can and I always feel compelled to eat the whole thing so as not to leave any lying around for later. Only downside is that I keep burning the inside of my mouth on hot soup.

Boston Market Turkey and Mashed Potatoes frozen dinner - Now I really didn't have high expectations as it seems to be the stereotypical tv dinner that Swanson's came out with 50 years ago minus the corn and biscuit. Now whenever I have the time and am not completely starving I prefer to use the conventional oven directions instead of the microwave. This meal required 40 minutes at 350 F, but I feel the wait was worth it as I can't imagine mashed potatoes being heated evenly in the microwave. So after the gravy was bubbling and the mashed potatoes magically expanded by about a half inch in every direction I was ready to eat. The gravy does a very good job of keeping the meat very moist and is a very nice compliment to the spuds. I'm pretty sure the meal would not be logistically possible without the gravy, too dry and bland without it. Overall very good, I will definitely be looking into Boston Market dinners in future, specifically their meatloaf.

T.G.I. Friday's Beef Taquitos - TGIF has a variety of frozen appetizers available such as chicken wings and mozzarella sticks and the like. Now the beef taquitoes had instructions for both oven and microwave so i decided to pass on the microwave again for the oven. However, the instruction were for 8 minutes at 450 F and I'm not waiting 15 minutes to preheat just throw it in their for 10. So i went to the next best thing, my toaster oven. I layed down a layer of foil to stop the cheese from melting onto the heating elements, turned half way through, anf they were a nice golden brown, but not burnt, perfect! These came out very well as the tortilla shell was nice and crisp, it kind of tasted like the shell from crab rangoons. The filling was pretty good too, chunks of beef, peppers and two cheese that were all melty inside. The only drawback would be the size of the box, they come in a pack of 6. I would prefer a meal of 4 but I'm not gonna leave 2 behind so I split it into two snacks of 3. Ideally it would come in a 20 packs at a more affordable price, but presently I can't justify spending the extra money on the small packaging.

Stoffer's Lasagna - Another tv dinner staple. Lasagna is great because it's essentially unfuckupable. Even I'm willing to use the microwave on this as the sauce will allow for adequate heat distribution and moisturization. Four minutes and I'm ready to go. One recomendation for this meal and all of the above is to take the time to scoop the food out the plastic conatiner you heat it in and onto a real plate, it's easier to pretend you made real food that way. So yeah, you can never go wrong with lasagna.


That's it for now, I'll probably have more meal reports later this week after I hit the frozen food aisle at Stop and Shop. This kind of reminds me of a guy I knew who used to do his grocery shopping for the week at Wendy's just buying 12 hamburgers or chicken sandwhiches and throwing them in the freezer.

peachy
09-12-2005, 06:19 PM
get a girl that cooks for u every night...or cook enough one day to carry over onto the next (like one day cook a roast and it should last u more than a few days and do some mashed potatoes u can eat those for a few days as well)

or u can make different kinds of salads (those dont take too long) and fruits are great too - fast and easy.

thats just me though...i have a hard time with fast food/prepackaged meals/frozen stuff

YourFoxyGrandma
09-12-2005, 06:22 PM
Nicely done.

benfranklin
09-12-2005, 06:34 PM
Stouffer's just came out with a new line of up-scale frozen dinners that are pretty good: here. (http://www.cornerbistro.com/Index/Index.aspx) With some good French bread and a glass of wine, it's almost civilized dining.

Some good Stouffer's stuff in the regular red boxes includes Chicken Parmigiana and Rigatoni Pasta w/Roasted White Meat Chicken.

Lazymeatball
09-12-2005, 08:11 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Stouffer's just came out with a new line of up-scale frozen dinners that are pretty good: here. (http://www.cornerbistro.com/Index/Index.aspx) With some good French bread and a glass of wine, it's almost civilized dining.

Some good Stouffer's stuff in the regular red boxes includes Chicken Parmigiana and Rigatoni Pasta w/Roasted White Meat Chicken.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those look really good, especially the sesame chicken.

megantw
09-12-2005, 09:45 PM
I like peanut butter on waffles.

About a month ago, I had BACON waffles. There was BACON IN THE BATTER. I got a cup of peanut butter on the side and slathered in on.