Pasta « Food In Real Life

Archive for the ‘Pasta’ Category

Bertolli Shrimp Scampi and Linguine

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Looks: In my experience, Bertolli’s Skillet Meals are always represented quite accurately on the packaging, and the Shrimp Scampi is no exception. While the shrimp don’t quite have the color or heft of the shrimp on the package, and the peppers are overrepresented on the box by about 25%, the overall texture, color, and amount of the food is very close. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Every time I have one of Bertolli’s Skillet Meals, I am very impressed by the quality. It’s essentially a flash-frozen bag of all the ingredients that you just heat it up in a skillet until the sauce melts, so finding out that the pasta has the right amount of bite and the sauce actually tastes good was quite a surprise. In the Shrimp Scampi, the pasta was perfect, the shrimp weren’t rubbery like frozen shrimp can tend to be, but the peppers were a little bit soggy. 4.5 out of 5

Posted in Bertolli, Frozen, Linguine, Pasta, Scampi, Shrimp, Stovetop | 8 Comments »

Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Looks: Once you’ve shaken them out of the can and swirled them around a bit, the ravioli do have the same basic shape as depicted on the wrapper, and the sauce is almost the right color. However, the meat inside is not a healthy brown, but rather a sickly gray. (The pasta too is miscolored – more a pasty white than a golden yellow.) Additionally, the sauce doesn’t coat the ravioli like it’s supposed to, and the pasta pieces are more like flared-out boxes of meat than fluffy little beef pillows. 2.5 out of 5

Taste: There isn’t much. The sauce is really the only thing with a flavor, so it’s a good thing it’s decent for having come out of a can that may have been on the shelf for years. The “pasta” is so soft that you can chew the whole meal with just your tongue and the roof of your mouth, so add another point to the score if you’re suffering from lockjaw. 1 out of 5

Posted in Beef, Canned, Chef Boyardee, Hall of Shame (Taste), Microwave, Pasta, Ravioli | 31 Comments »

Lean Cuisine Grilled Chicken Primavera

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Pre-Stir:

Looks: Better luck next time. The vegetables are more of a cafeteria-green-bean green than a summer-meadow green, and the cherry tomatoes didn’t even survive being stirred into the noodles. The consistency of the entire dish is closer to a casserole than the light mixture of pasta and vegetables depicted on the box. 2 out of 5

Taste: While it didn’t make me cry, I wasn’t happy to be eating it either. The chicken was very dry, the noodles were cooked about 50% past al-dente, and the vegetables didn’t have a taste (or texture) at all. The painted-on grill marks on the chicken were convincing though. 2 out of 5

Posted in Asparagus, Broccoli, Chicken, Frozen, Lean Cuisine, Microwave, Pasta, Tomotoes, Vermicelli | 6 Comments »