Category: Food

I love carbs. There is no doubt about that. So I thought I would give some mac a cheese a try.

I must preface this by saying that I am not incredibly picky about my pasta. I love Easy Mac, Velveeta shells and cheese, basically fake cheese. I don't go ga-ga over real cheese and can't bring myself to eat a piece of it alone. So I was hopeful for this dish because I assumed it would taste like fake cheese.

(This was another picture I found online because I was in a hurry and forgot to take a picture of my own meal. And those are clearly not my initials.)

The link with details for this meal is HERE.

The pasta itself was good. The flavor was not too bad, but I thought the cheese was more “real” cheese flavor. And I am more for the “fake” cheese flavor. It was not the best tasting to me. It was pretty creamy and by the end of it, I had forgotten that it tasted funny to me at first.

I looked at some reviews online about it as I was looking for this picture and it sounds like people have liked the Weight Watchers Smart Ones version of this better.

And that's my $0.02.

If you know me, you know how utterly true this cartoon is.

Honestly, it's 8:30 AM and I have been thinking about lunch since I woke up at 5:30. I am not even kidding.

Then, in true Andi form, as soon as lunch is over (I'm talking the instance I get back to my desk), i send Chuck a message telling him what I had for lunch and asking what he wants for dinner.

I have issues.

The other day I posted about the same meal by Weight Watchers. This time I decided to give the Lean Cuisine equivalent a try.

(This is not my picture…I found it online when I was looking for a larger picture, but I thought seeing it outside the box was useful. I may have to do this in the future. I'll come back to that.)

So, as you can see, the enchilada and the rice come in separate compartments. Which I love, since I am all weird about mixing my food. But this meal was a little more detrimental with the partitions. Mostly because the rice didn't have a lot of flavor and when I was done with the enchilada, I put the rest of the rice into the sauce. It was much better with a little more flavor.

Now, the enchilada was much different than the previous one I had. That one had just a few chicken chunks. This one was more of a mushed up chicken-out-of-a-can-dog-food texture. There wasn't much of a texture at all. It was kind of like mush. But it actually tasted pretty good. So I will let that slide. I mean, I don't mind if I don't have to chew my food. I can eat faster that way!

This dish wasn't as spicy as the other one…or at all really. But I would eat it again.

I am starting to think that if I like what is in the meal, I will like these. I guess I am not as picky as I thought. Or maybe I just have the most unsophisticated palate ever. Or possibly, these meals are just pretty well done!

So back to my earlier question. Since I have been posting so many of these meals, would you like me to take a picture of the box and the cooked (or frozen) meal? If you might like to see this let me know. Otherwise, I will stick to finding pictures online if no one cares!

And one added bonus, if you use the “Lose It” app for the iPhone, this meal (and it looked like lots of other Lean Cuisine meals) were built in to the app.

*Updated to add:* I took a picture of the Vegetable Pizza Minis I wrote about recently when I ate them last night. In case you are curious what they look like.

I tried the Chicken Enchiladas Suiza meal today for lunch.

It was actually quite good. When I first opened it, I was sad because it didn't look like there was very much food there and I was sure I was still going to be starving and disappointed with the quantity. Turns out, I was not. I am sure I will want a snack soon (since I always want a snack), but I am going to try to fight off the urge.

It has a spicy, creamy sauce and rice. There was kind of a gravy of sorts inside the enchilada, but I have no idea what it was. Maybe that is “suiza”, which incidentally, I don't know what that is either. But it was good. I slathered on the spicy cream sauce and came close to licking the bowl…I did refrain, though.

The chicken inside doesn't look like it does in the picture. It's more of chicken chunks than pulled chicken. But I didn't mind. It still tasted good.

So, yet another hit from Weight Watchers Smart Ones.

On the never failing recommendation of my dear friend, Lauren, I gave this meal a try. Wow. It was yummy!. You have to like tacos/burritos because this is basically the stuffing for one without the tortilla. And it's cheesy, a little creamy, a little spicy…Yum!

It's called Santa Fe Style Rice & Beans and is another Weight Watcher's Smart Ones.

Lauren had actually recommended the Lean Cuisine one, but this one was on sale. I will be trying the Lean Cuisine one now to compare. (I'll let you know how that goes!)

If you're looking for something new to try…pick up one of these!

You didn't read that wrong. The title DID say “vegetable” in it! I am growing up! I tried these Vegetable Pizza Minis the other day when I was having a late lunch. They were more of a snack food than a meal.

These are in the same snack family as the Fiesta Quesadillas, meaning there are two in the pack. There are four mini pizzas per serving. And I am talking MINI! But they take a couple bits to get through…mostly because they are hot! You take them out of the wrapper and they are sitting in a tray. You take them off the tray, turn the tray upside down and place the pizzas on the silver coating of the tray. This apparently helps them cook or something.

They weren't real crunchy and maybe bordered on the line of chewy once they were cooked, but I still enjoyed them. I tend to like more things than I think I do when I actually try them!

So I will probably get these again for a snack, but I would pick the Fiesta Quesadillas over these given the choice.

About a month ago I posted about a little treat I was going to make. Well, I made them for a Windows 7 party (I'll post about that soon) Chuck was having. Well, I sort of made them. I'll start with the positives first…..

First bake a cake from a box. Check. No problem there.

Then you let it cool and crumble it into a bowl and add cream cheese frosting. Check.

Then mix it together. Check.

Then roll mixture into balls. Check. (They look like meatballs, but I promise they contain no meat.)

Put them into the freezer to get hard so they are easier to work with. Check….minus the small task of finding room in the fridge to fit this many chocolate balls.

After they have frozen for a while, start melting some white chocolate to coat the balls in. I wanted to make 4 different colors (red, blue, yellow and green) since these were for the Windows 7 Party we were having.

This is where it goes down hill.

WARNING
You cannot add water based food coloring to chocolate. It will seize up on you and turn into a sad, nasty clump of grainy, hard chocolate.

So we melted some more white chocolate thinking, we'll just coat them and decorate them with colored squeezable frosting. No problem, right? Sure. If you are a master baker maybe. To get the balls to be completely coated in chocolate you need massive amounts of chocolate. So we had a couple that were heavily coated in white chocolate. The rest….we kind of made white chocolate hats with them by only dipping part of the balls in the white chocolate.

It was messy. They are not pretty like I pictured.

But on the plus side, (because I am working on being more positive) Chuck said they tasted really good! So I guess that is a bonus.

He got some squeezable frosting and we decorated them for the party. So I decorated them with the Windows logo.

They weren't what I expected, but it's the thought that counts, right? And I did something I don't normally do…Try something new. So yay! And It wasn't the end of the world when they didn't work out. We just laughed about it and have learned a valuable lesson….”Don't try”. HAHA! Just kidding! 🙂

I actually got this idea originally from a blog I read. Here is her first post about them. And here is her second post about them. 🙂 I should have learned after reading these. But nope…I was determined to make this work. I sent her a Twitter message telling her I was going to try them.

Then sent her a message after my failed attempt.

Her reply was this.

Ha! So I think we would both agree that you should let the pros make the cake balls and cake pops. And we'll stick to simpler things…like boxed cake.

I had a little snack last night before class. I tried these:

Well, actually, I only tried one of them. They were surprisingly good. They are Weight Watchers Smart Ones Fiesta Quesadillas. And the reason I have been getting so many WW ones is because they have been on sale. So it's not that I don't like other brands, I am just cheap. 🙂

I was a bit skeptical when I read that they would have a crunchy shell. I thought to myself, “Yeah, right!” But sure enough, the shell was crunchy. You put it in a little sleeve like a hot pocket would have and heat it up. It was very tasty. I was impressed.

There are two quesadillas in the package and two sleeves. So you can make them one at a time and put the other back in the freezer. They make for a very tasty little snack.

For an early Anniversary gift, Chuck did oodles of research and comparing and shopping and found a new set of pots and pans that suited our needs.

There was a bonus pot that also came with it, but that isn't shown.

I required two things from this new set…dishwasher safe (because I HATE handwashing things. I think it's dumb) and non-stick (because….well, just because I needed it). I am not skilled enough to use stainless steel pans even though they are better and blah blah blah. I need non-stick surfaces! 🙂

So far I am very happy with them. They boil water like I have never seen! I haven't been home much to cook in them, but I hope to use them more soon.

Also, Chuck's sister and her new husband have moved in with us while they are in between houses. So I am sure we'll be cooking more with them around and I know they will be using them, too.

May your cooking be as happy as my cooking has now become!