T.G.I. Friday’s Onion Rings

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T.G.I. Friday's Onion Rings

Looks: The image on the packaging conveniently omits all of the hat-shaped onion end-pieces which seemed to comprise my entire box, but the color and texture are appropriately represented. 4 out of 5

Taste: The onion is sweet, the breading is crunchy, and they taste great dipped in ketchup, catsup, or Generic Tomato-Based Dipping Sauce. To more adequately describe these rings, allow me to draw upon personal experience: in my life, I have encountered three types of onion rings:

  1. “Onion” rings, which are essentially deep-fried breading with the faintest bit of onion inside – these are what Burger King sells.
  2. Onion “rings”, which are more onion than anything else, with not enough breading to adequately cover and give structure to the onion. These are found at 2nd-tier concession stands and poorly-run restaurants.
  3. “Onion rings” – healthy slices of white onion with healthy amounts of breading. Both components have their own flavors, and both textures are detectable in your mouth.

These rings are definitely a variant of #3. They have enough breading to make you feel bad about yourself for eating the entire box, but enough onion to make you feel good about yourself for eating an entire vegetable. 4 out of 5

Culinary Circle Five Cheese Lasagna

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Culinary Circle Five Cheese Lasagna

Looks: The sauce doesn’t have the texture that’s depicted on the box – it’s closer to Ragu than Prego, if you know what I mean – and the lasagna didn’t quite keep its structure after being cut, even though I let it stand for the recommended 10 minutes after removing it from the oven. 4 out of 5

Taste: This lasagna tasted amazing for being boxed and covered with a thin plastic sheet, and it took literally no culinary ability to prepare, so even my wife could make it! I love my wife. The only change I would make to it would be to remove one of the five cheeses. Four is plenty, and by the end of my seventh piece, I was starting to feel a little logy. 4.5 out of 5

Michelina’s Budget Gourmet Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese

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Michelina's Budget Gourmet Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese

Soft noodles and (literally) tasteless sauce. It claims to be “homestyle,” but if my mom was making this “style” of macaroni at “home,” I’d be ordering in every night. Michelina’s is now 0 for 2 on this blog; do I dare institute a “three strikes and you’re out” rule?

Looks: 3.5 out of 5 Taste: 1 out of 5

T.G.I. Friday’s Potato Skins

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T.G.I. Friday's Potato Skins

Looks: Apart from the cheese not spreading as judiciously as it does across the potato skins on the box, these frozen recreations could be straight out of a TGI Friday’s kitchen. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: I’ll be honest with you – I didn’t eat these. My wife was making them for a snack and I grabbed them to photograph after they came out of the oven but before she realized they were done. Sort of a potato-napping, if you will. Based on her level of displeasure at finding that her skins were missing, I’d peg their potential taste at about a 3.5. 3.5 out of 5