“Hey boss – I’m packing up these Carbonaras, but we’re low on peas and bacon. Should I order more?” “Nah, just give ‘em four peas and two little bacon scraps. They’ll never notice.”

I’ve made carbonara myself from scratch; I’ve had it in Italian restaurants; I’ve even eaten it in Italy, where they tend to make pretty decent Italian food. While this (unsurprisingly) doesn’t come close to any of those three experiences, it’s a passable approximation for a frozen box that cooks in three minutes. The sauce has the trademark eggy/cheesy taste of a carbonara sauce, but it’s way too loose. The noodles are too soft too, making this more of a carbonara soup than the thick pile of cheesy pasta that it’s supposed to be.

Looks: 2.5 out of 5 Taste: 3 out of 5

Looks: The only difference from box to bowl is that the sauce is thicker in real life, and this gives the entire dish less of a “shiny” appearance and more of a “mucky” appearance, to use a technical term. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Have you ever made a bowl of chicken, noodles, and vegetables, and then just for the heck of it, mixed in a few tablespoons of peanut butter? No? Because that would taste weird? Yeah, it would taste weird, wouldn’t it. If this meal came without the peanut sauce, it would probably rate a 3.5, but the thick peanut sauce was just too much like peanut butter. 2 out of 5

Looks: See those shrimp? Yeah, neither do I – they’re, at best, 50% of the size of the shrimp on the box. The noodles and peas though (which are in there; they just sunk to the bottom) match up pretty closely with the packaging. 4 out of 5

Taste: Respectable. The shrimp were a little rubbery, and for being a “lobster cream,” I didn’t taste anything special in the sauce. The noodles were fine, but the peas, as all peas are, were inedible. 3 out of 5

Looks: I struggled mightily to free this pot pie from its cardboard baking pan so as to have it resemble the boxpie as much as possible, but I was not successful. Then, I tried to cut out a wedge from the top of the crust like on the package, but the roof caved in, and I was not successful. Finally, I tried to show the contents spilling out as on the box, but I couldn’t find any pieces big enough, and thus, I was not successful. The majority of the filling was gravy, as contrasted with the meaty chunks shown on the packaging. The color of the crust is about the only thing they got right. 1 out of 5

Taste: This pot pie was really more of a gravy sandwich, and that’s what it tasted like – crust, gravy, crust, with a few bits of meat and vegetable that got in the way. I shouldn’t have been surprised – according to the box, the main ingredient in the filling is gravy, while containing “2% or less” beef, carrots, and potatoes. Can you really call it a “Beef Pot Pie” when “beef” is an also-ran in the ingredients list? 1.5 out of 5

Looks: It was hard to get a good picture of this due to the reflectiveness of the sauce (any photographers out there have tips for me?), but besides the prominence of the shrimp, it looked very much the same in real life as it did on the package. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Anyone who has visited this site for a while knows how much I love meals from Bertolli like the Chicken Florentine or Fettucini Alfredo. They’re great frozen pasta meals that you just toss in a skillet for 10 minutes. This meal is like the poor man’s Bertolli. You don’t have to use a skillet (just microwave the entire bag), and the quality is about 75% of that of a comparable Bertolli meal – the noodles are a little softer, the sauce isn’t as rich, and the peas just get in the way, but it’s still a very good meal for how easy it is to prepare. 4 out of 5

This one is pretty much on target. The pie is browned and flaky. The only deviance from the package cooking directions was a little cooking spray in the pan before microwaving. Otherwise you pretty much have to serve the pie upside-down. Very tasty with crisp peas and carrots, all-white-meat chicken, and rib-sticking gravy. 5 out of 5

Wait a minute… “crisp peas and carrots, all-white-meat chicken, and rib-sticking gravy”? Clerkerist, are you an undercover Marie Callender’s rep sent here to counter the effects of my post on your disgusting cheesy chicken and rice? For shame, Marie Callender, for shame.

Looks: Once you account for plating the meal the way they have it on the box, the food looks pretty close to the packaging. The cherry dessert isn’t as thick as its representation, and the carrots are underrepresented in the vegetable triangle, but the rest stacks up pretty well. 4 out of 5

Taste: Disappointing. The potatoes were gluey, and the chicken tasteless (and soggy where it touched the potatoes). The cherry dessert was sickly sweet, and I certainly didn’t find any “vanilla crisp.” The vegetables sure did taste like vegetables though! (Note that scores of 1 out of 5 or lower are mainly reserved for meals I couldn’t finish or wouldn’t finish. I finished this, but wasn’t very happy about wasting an eating opportunity on it.) 2 out of 5

Looks: I’ll say this: the vegetable mix looks *exactly* like it does on the box. The cherry crisp isn’t far off either (some of the oats migrated to the corner during the freezing process), and while it’s a little jumbled (and hard to see in the picture), the turkey + stuffing + gravy looks very much like the box. Not bad, Healthy Choice! 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Hands down, the best frozen turkey I’ve ever had. The first bite was moist and flavorful, the second bite (and third and fourth…) was downright juicy. The gravy had a meaty, peppery taste, and the stuffing wasn’t soggy. It even had raisins in it, which I love. The cherry crisp could have used some more crisp – it was mostly cherries, but the taste was fine – and in accordance with the FDA’s new “Respect the Veg” program, I am obligated to mention that the vegetable mix was “delicious” and “mouth-watering” and not at all “bland” or “lame.” 4 out of 5