Chicken « Food In Real Life

Archive for the ‘Chicken’ Category

Lean Cuisine Chicken in Peanut Sauce

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

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

Posted in Carrots, Chicken, Edamame, Frozen, Lean Cuisine, Microwave, Pasta, Peanuts, Peas | 3 Comments »

Lean Cuisine Baja-Style Chicken Quesadilla

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Looks: I don’t know what kind of cutting and dividing they did for the box picture, but there’s only one quesadilla in the box. Its filling is pretty close to what you see on the package, but the cheese kind of overwhelms the other stuff as it melts, much like a volcano taking out Los Angeles with its lava. (Side note: the cheese filling is like lava in another way, in that it will melt your mouth if you eat it too soon after heating.) 4 out of 5

Taste: They should really call this a corn quesadilla, because all you taste is corn and cheese. It was still ok, but I wouldn’t have known there was chicken in it if I hadn’t seen it on the box. So if you like corn and you like cheese, you’ll love this meal. (If you don’t like corn or cheese, why did you buy a quesadilla that clearly contains both? Weirdo.) 3 out of 5

Posted in Black Beans, Cheese, Chicken, Corn, Frozen, Lean Cuisine, Microwave, Tomato, Tortilla | 4 Comments »

Healthy Choice Chicken Margherita Cafe Steamer

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Reader Sydney Hamilton has stepped up to ensure that you don’t have to go another day without a FoodIRL post:

Looks: It doesn’t look terrible, but it doesn’t look great. The chicken looks so dry in comparison to the pictured ones. The sauce is wayyy thicker than shown and the tomatoes in the picture are much more vibrant than the ones in the actual dish. It’s not too far off though. 3.5 out of 5

Taste: This is the worst thing I have ever eaten. The “angel hair” pasta is basically thicker than linguine, and they are so overcooked and mushy. The tomatoes are so hard and crispy, I thought they were peppers until I realized they weren’t. The chicken is dry and the sauce is way too thick and super bland. 1.5 out of 5

Personally, if something was the worst thing I had ever eaten, it would be lucky to get 0 out of 5, much less 1.5 out of 5.

If you want to see your food on the Internet, send it to food@foodirl.com.

Posted in Chicken, Frozen, Garlic, Hall of Shame (Taste), Healthy Choice, Microwave, Pasta, Reader Submission | 9 Comments »

DiGiorno 200 Calorie Portions

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Looks: They didn’t add enough cheese for it to melt all the way to the edges, the tomato sauce more closely resembles a thin sheet of red paint, and the green peppers by far outnumber the chicken bits. (It’s called “Chicken with Peppers”, not “Peppers with Chicken.”) 3.5 out of 5

Taste: The crust is chewy right out of the microwave, but it becomes crackery if you let it cool. The chicken, cheese, and sauce were all passable (on the high end for microwave pizza), but I definitely would have appreciated more of them. (Although then I suppose they’d have trouble calling it a “200 calorie portion.”

One word of warning: don’t take the “recommended cooking instructions” at face value. There are two 200-calorie portions in each box, and for the first one, I cooked it exactly how long the box recommended I cook it based on my microwave’s wattage (2 minutes). For the second portion, I left it in the microwave for only 1:20. Can you guess which is which?