Peas « Food In Real Life

Archive for the ‘Peas’ Category

Lean Cuisine Linguine Carbonara

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

“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

Posted in Bacon, Basil, Cheese, Frozen, Lean Cuisine, Linguine, Microwave, Pasta, Peas, Red Peppers | 4 Comments »

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 »

Marie Callender’s Rigatoni con Pesce Pasta Al Dente

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

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

Posted in Frozen, Lobster, Marie Callender's, Microwave, Pasta, Peas, Rigatoni, Shrimp, Tomato | 5 Comments »

Banquet Beef Pot Pie

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

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

Posted in Banquet, Beef, Carrots, Frozen, Gravy, Hall of Shame (Looks), Hall of Shame (Taste), Microwave, Peas, Potatoes | 22 Comments »