JBipNet

Today I made the decision to stop ordering take-out, and stock up on frozen/instant food to save some money instead of dropping it all on take-out food that ends up all tasting the same anyways. In this light, I've decided that I'll also review the frozen foods that I choose to consume so that other programmer types who have no time to deal with the hassle of cooking (yes, I know how to cook) can make educated decisions on what frozen foods to eat/avoid.

The first meal in this review is a Pasta and Chicken dish from Michelina's, from the "Budget Gourmet Classics" series.

First impressions, this meal is more budget than gourmet, even though Gourmet is in big bold letters on the package. It tasted good, however, I was under the impression that there was chicken in this meal. I checked the ingredients list, and Michelina says that there's chicken in here, but I failed to see any. There was a taste of chicken, but I think that was from chicken stock and not actual chicken. I guess I should've realized that this would be the case since it didn't say Chicken & Pasta, but rather Pasta & Chicken.

There's only 290 calories in this meal, so even for a stick-boy like me, I was left still hungry after shoveling the pasta into my gullet. If you buy these, I'd suggest making two of them, and boiling up a chicken breast from the freezer and cutting it up to throw in with the pasta. Michelina's site suggests serving with apple slices as a side, or throwing bread crumbs on top. I'm not so sure about the bread crumbs, but they should really suggest two apples to be able to count this as a meal and not a 3 minute snack. I was more filled up by the frozen burrito I had earlier in the day (which actually had LOTS of chicken in it) than by this.

In closing, i'll avoid the Budget Gourmet line in the future. Unless they're marked down to like a buck each. Then I'll buy them and some chicken breasts.

This one gets 2 sad pandas, which is my Frozen Food rating system. 5 sad pandas is a fantastic meal, 1 sad panda is edible, dead sad pandas approach disgusting.