Looks: If you took the cake pictured on the box and squashed it down with your hand before freezing it, you’d have a better representation of the food inside – it’s the same ingredients, but the appearance is nowhere near as fresh. Also, the picture I took was after the recommended 30 seconds in the microwave, but my wife decided to stick it in for another 15 seconds, and it lost its ice crystals and loosened up a bit. Nevertheless, I was disappointed when I saw it the first time. 3 out of 5

Taste: Much better than I expected. I was expecting frozen tasteless yellow cake with sickly-sweet strawberry syrup, but the cake was surprisingly warm and moist, and the topping had a nice even strawberry taste. The whipped cream peaks picture on the box still tasted more like frozen fat-free lite ice cream, but two out of three ain’t bad. 4 out of 5

Looks: A little soupier than pictured, and without the fresh grillmarks on the chicken. Besides that, most of the colors were right on (especially the vegetables, which is usually a crapshoot), and the ratio of food amounts is as pictured. 3.5 out of 5

Taste: I did not expect to like this dish, given my experience with the last chicken and rice dish I tried, but much to my surprise, I loved it! The chicken wasn’t dry, and the vegetables still had some crispiness to them. The sauce was especially good, with a strong chicken flavor but with light lemony aftertones. I’ll definitely be buying this again. (As with its looks, the soupiness was the main drawback.) 4 out of 5

Looks: The pizza on the box holds much more pepperoni, herbs, and cheese. That’s 0-for-3 on the main components of the dish; it gets one point for having a crust, and one point for being the right size: 2 out of 5

Taste: Given the average taste of the regular SmartOnes Pepperoni pizza, I expected the same from this pizza. And given the fact that I wrote the previous sentence, you can assume that is not what happened. This pizza reminded me of the pizza rectangles they used to serve at my grade school, but not as good. (I had no idea my school was serving “artisan creation”-grade pizza.) The sauce is gummy and close to ketchup; the cheese and crust are tasteless. Blech. 1 out of 5

Looks: Pretty close. The only point I’d take away is that the cheese isn’t as thick and doesn’t melt quite as evenly as the box portrays. 4 out of 5

Taste: It’s something of a misnomer to call this “pizza.” Good pizza comprises crust, sauce, and cheese that fuse together to make a single food where all of the flavors meld and complement each other. The food pictured above, which I will call breadsaucecheese, has all of the components of pizza, but the tastes stand out separately in your mouth. Don’t get me wrong – it tastes good, but it’s akin to happening to eat a piece of bread at the same time as some tomato sauce and some melted cheese. 3.5 out of 5

Looks: The sauce is a bit thicker than pictured (you can’t make out the individual noodles as well), and it’s a little lumpier too. 3.5 out of 5

Taste: SmartOnes is definitely the top of the heap when it comes to microwave meals. This dish avoids all of the traps that microwave macaroni usually falls into: the noodles are properly cooked; the cheese sauce isn’t gummy, but it isn’t watery either; and while it isn’t “bursting with cheese flavor” as the box claims, it does have a cheese flavor. 4 out of 5

Looks: You see how on the box, there’s one ravioli that’s cut open to show off the filling? You see how the one that I cut open fluffs up too to show the substantial filling? No? Yeah, that’s because there’s not nearly enough filling to get it to stay open like that. Other failings: the herbs look nothing like the fresh sprigs on the box, and the sauce is… lacking in texture, to say the least. 1.5 out of 5

Taste: Better than it looks. (SmartOnes meals are usually decent, so this isn’t surprising.) The filling is a dry ricotta mix, and the ravioli noodles have a decent bite to them. 3.5 out of 5

Looks: Much like the Healthy Choice Tomato Basil Penne, there is no way to cook this meal in a way that results in a dish like the one picture on the box without adding extra cheese (and some mint, I think). The picture on the box is also enlarged quite a bit, making the noodles appear larger than they actually are. 3 out of 5

Taste: SmartOnes frozen meals are generally a level above the competitors, but this one isn’t such a clear-cut winner. The ziti comes out a little over-cooked, and there’s no discernible cheese on the pasta since by the end of cooking, it has melted and been stirred into the sauce. It’s still a semi-filling meal, but not as tasty as the box would indicate. 3 out of 5

Looks: Not too far off – 4 out of 5

Taste: Not bad either – tastes like the box would have you believe it tastes. 4 out of 5