I’m in a charitable mood this morning.

That’s right. What I’m going to do right now, right here and now, is NOT wankle around. Wankling - that would be a word that’s a literary bastardization of my own creation. No, nothing to do with a Wankel engine, whatever that is.

Here is my definition. “To wankle” is to veer off topic while writing in a manner that causes surrounding readers to stutter-step and bleed resulting boogers out of their noses. The text created by such a wankler has been the downfall of many an innocent office wanker. Sorry, I mean worker.

That’s how I normally start a review - by wankling around. Wankling, while humorous at times, is not very conducive to the creation of a robust and helpful product review. The review wankler is often so caught up in his own wankling (no, not wanking, you pervs) that he doesn’t realize that he’s not talking about the product in question until it’s almost time to catch the latest episode of Days of Our Lives.

Companies hate reviews that wankle around, because they never quite get to the point of praising their product. To be sure, if the wankler has wankled in a truly artful way, it’s possible to keep readers around until the wankler finally gets bored of wankling and starts talking about the product.

Now, I’m happy we live in a glorious modern age where wanklers are free to wankle (or even winkle, by God) without the fear of persecution. In the old days, if you dabbled in wankling too frequently, you were liable to be strung up with all the other wanklers on a telephone pole line. Or at least fired from your editorial job. Still, the crafty wankler will always keep his wankling somewhat on the down-low. You know, people start to talk: “Did you read the latest product review on Cheap Eats? Man, that wankler is really off his wonker this time. I think we should turn him in to the feds.”

That’s right, I’m just going to talk about the product. No messy wankling around. See these are Pizza Bites. See, I could’ve come up with endless funny insults about how “These Pizzas Bite”. And so on. That would definitely become the bulk of the review. But no, homie don’t play that today. It’s just me, you and Pizza Bites. Yep, that’s all there is. Straight as an arrow. Clean as a whistle. It won’t make you sad, like other things.

Why, just the other day, I was thinking about how sad it is that most people never get to visit Alaska. Alaska is a great place to visit, a great wild country full of fun things. Lots of polar bears. Haha, made you wikipedia. Yeah, I KNOW there’s no polar bears in Alaska. Polar bears grow on islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

What I like about Alaska, should I choose to visit one day before I die (I’m assured this is NOT their official slogan, but hey, why not?), is that the soil is composed of teeny tiny toasters. Quite handy to just reach down and grab a miniaturized toaster when you need it. These toasters, while obviously handy in case you have miniaturized your muffins a la Fantastic Voyage, will also cook up miniaturized Pizza Bites. Except, you don’t really need to miniaturize your pizza bites, since they’re so small already.

That was lame. What I really need are some miniature polar bears. I would put them in a shoebox, call up Conan O’Brien, and tell him “God damn do I have a hot ticket to the top for you, brotha.”

But seriously, Sarah Palin ain’t all she’s cracked up to be. For instance, I bet she wouldn’t know how to cook these Pizza Bites, bears or no bears. I tried making them in my Alaskan toaster, and I didn’t have much luck. I made two separate batches of them, and both exploded all over the foil I’d thoughtfully placed on the rack. I baked up the first batch at 425F for about 10 minutes. The second batch, I did at the same temperature but for only 8 mintues. I still had 2 out of the bunch explode on me. Maybe my old school toaster is too powerful. Or maybe it’s only meant for Baked Alaska.

I’m wondering if, instead of baking them in the oven, I should’ve instead hired a polar bear chef to deep fry them for me. You just can’t have enough deep-fried-ness. Plus, it’d be nice to have a hairy paw in the kitchen.

The crust on these bites was surprisingly good. A bit crispy and chewy at the same time. I don’t even want to guess the types of things they put in there to make it taste like that.

In general, the filling was paste city. Tomato based, a bit on the salty side, but not the worst I’ve had. There were all sorts of unidentifiable objects in the filling. After reading the ingredient list, it became apparent these were miniscule chunks of pepperoni and both real and fake mozzarella cheese. There’s also parmesan cheese in there. But don’t get too excited. My polar bear friend tells me there’s more Beet Powder than Parmesan Cheese in these.

By now, you’re bored. And I’ve run out of wankling juice. So we’ll just cut to the chase. These pizza bites don’t necessarily bite. They do taste pretty accurately like really cheap frozen pizza. Frozen, like the frozen tundra of Alaska. However, with low grade frozen pizzas being so inexpensive, I’d probably spring for that instead. But the Bites were 99 cents for about 15 of them, so it didn’t break the bank. The novelty factor was also there, and if you were in a hurry, it might be faster than throwing a frozen pie in the oven.

I was going to say portability may be a consideration - it’s difficult to put a full size pizza under your arm and gallop off with the polar bears. But you know what, if the leakage on these things wasn’t just from my overpowered monstro-Alaskan toaster, portability ain’t going to be a possibility. Unless you like tomato paste ‘n cheese glue all over your clean white shirts.

[Editor’s Note: I apologize to Alaska and Alaskans. The allusions and references to Alaska in this review are no doubt far-fetched and untrue. I haven’t even been there yet, sadly. However, you must give me at least some props for not making more Palin jokes. That would be too easy. Like shooting polar bears in a barrel.]

Price: $0.99 for 7.5 oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 3/10

Greetings from the Land of Macaronia.

I bring you good tidings in December. Nutmeg cheese dip parties and Santa Claws Hats.

Fa la la la la, la la la Not.

Well, OK, I’ve just been a little slow on the uptake. Again. It began with getting some sort of wacky stomach ailment the day after Thanksgiving. Monty Python Turkey’s Revenge or something. That put me out for a few days and dampened my holiday cheer. The gastro-problematicos also knocked me off drinking coffee which does not a happy camper make me.

It has also affected my vocabulary skills. (Laughing in the background are readers who insist that nothing has changed: run-on sentences have always run wild, spelling eeror saarienens are everywhere, I make up words and grammatical trees. And snow on.)

Thusly and thus, I will keep this short. I’ve reviewed a few Macaroni and Cheese products on Cheap Eats previously, but they’ve all been of the dry variety. The kind you just add hot water to and pray that all the artificial cake-like preservatives and elbow joints will congeal in an approximation of noodles and sauce.

This is actually the second variety of Fresh & Easy Macaroni and Cheese products I’ve tried. This particular one is called “Classic” Macaroni and Cheese and comes in a box in the frozen food section. The other one was of the “fresh” variety that they produce every day in the prepared foods section. The latter is “decent” as far as sauce goes, but the noodles suffer, like most F&E fresh pasta creations. It is also, surprisingly, more expensive (pound for pound) than this “Classic” boxed variety that I decided to try the other day.

I wasn’t expecting too much with this macaroni and cheese, so I was surprised it actually seemed to have real grated cheese on the top. The enormous two pound serving comes in a large plastic tub that has plastic wrap film over the top. You pop holes in that and nuke it from frozen for like 10 minutes or something.

One of the other things that surprised me is that the noodles were of the larger variety. I’m actually an equal opportunity pasta shape eater when it comes down to it, but I kinda prefer the larger ones for Macaroni and Cheese. So that was nice. After nuking, the whole chittybangbang came out pretty decent looking.

I was pleasantly surprised that the noodes did not suffer the same issues that haunt most Fresh and Easy “daily” pasta items. The macaroni wasn’t mushy and had a tiny bit of bite to them, but it wasn’t raw on the insides. The sauce is light years better, and I mean LIGHT YEARS better, than the orange cheese crud in dry macaroni box packets. I have to admit that there are some days that I like the radioactive orange powder, but I’ll take this kind of macaroni and cheese almost every other time.

The cheese sauce isn’t completely silky. I think part of it has to do with the sauce thickening a bit when cooking, and the external cheese melting down into it. It’s not so much the “custardy” version of macaroni and cheese that you get at restaurants, but it’s not smooth either. I actually like this better than some of the more solid varieties I’ve had. The flavor is pretty good, extra cheesy, but not too overpowering.

The best news was that this was a TON of food. Two pounds of noodles. I know there are big eaters out there, but if you weren’t eating this as the main entree as I was, you could easily get two or more meals out of it. I only managed to finish about 1/2 of it.

I’ve made many a homemade macaroni and cheese simulacrum in my day, and you can probably make it cheaper - but not by a whole lot. Assuming you like this stuff and don’t have a problem with dairy, this is pretty much a home run bargain at under $3. I usually buy one as a backup in the freezer for those late nights (or early mornings, or afternoons) when I’m trying to write up a lame review like this one…

Price: $2.87 for 24oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 8/10

[Editor’s Note: This stomach issue is bugging me because now I feel like eating Macaroni and Cheese. I also feel like drinking eggnog. With a side order of beer. P.S. note to self: I wonder if anyone got the spelling eeror reference. P.P.S. note to self: stop writing notes to self, it does not bode well.]

Hullo. I don’t usually wax (on and off, Karate Kid style) poetically about frozen food. Especially high end stuff like these Bertolli Frozen Entrees.

But holy rigatoni, these are probably the best frozen meals I’ve had in a while. And we try a lot of frozen food.

Granted, when you’re eating Banquet Meals on a regular basis, you’re probably going to be blown away just a little bit by such luxurious things as whole cherry tomatoes and grilled steak.

I was sent a few of these Bertolli Entrees and decided to try the Steak, Rigatoni & Portabello Mushrooms Skillet Meal. They come in a bag, weigh 2 pounds, and cost oodles more than a CJ’s Six Dollar Burger.

Incidentally, hey Carl’s Junior: I have a big, fat, enormous bone to pick with you that’s probably going to be the subject of an upcoming rant. I’ve been thinking of writing it for over 3 years now. But you can start with firing all your marketing people, the ones that tell you what your “image” should be and also produce those loathesome commercials. No I’m not Adam Carolla, I agree that guy is a dill-doh. But the bone I have to pick with you stretches magnificently over the course of 25 years. I’m thinking of writing a book about it. I will call it: The Illustrated History of How Carl’s Junior Broke My Heart. More on it later.

Now where was I? Oh yes, the wonderful Mediterranean style Bertolli frozen meals. OK, I know these are expensive. Even though it says “2 Servings of Vegetables & Grilled Steak” on the bag, I was easily able to scarf the whole thing myself. At between $6-8 dollars a pop, that ain’t Cheap Eats. But man, I was getting so tired of reviewing dollar store food. This was a nice change. I felt like I was at the Hamptons picking eggs with Martha Stewart. So upper crust…

So, this is a skillet preparation meal - you dump the whole thing frozen into a skillet, cover it, and cook for 10 minutes. Pretty easy - the only thing is I don’t have a skillet cover. So whenever I need to make one of these things, I need to get my second skillet and balance it precariously on top. It’s fun. Wait, no it’s not. But it works.

The ingredients in this thing are pretty damn amazing. I mean, I don’t even buy cherry tomatoes normally. It had WHOLE cherry tomatoes and they didn’t skimp. There were large chunks of yellow bell pepper - not the dehydrated flakes you usually see. There were sliced mushrooms that were actually creminis instead of portobellos - but since the former are baby versions of portobellos, I guess they’re not really lying. There was spinach in it. There was large strips of steak. And there was rigatoni in it that didn’t taste like Campbell’s soup noodles. (Yeah, I know - I actually like the jello noodles in Campbell’s soup too.)

I think what impressed me was that the sauce and the overall pasta wasn’t extremely salty like most frozen meals I eat. I mean, I always figured that the cheaper meals jacked up the salt content so that you wouldn’t taste how much the food sucked. But I’ve eaten a lot of high-end meals that tasted like a deer-lick. This had an excellent taste, the noodles were perfect al dente, the salt content seemed about right, and the ingredients were generous. The tang of the tomatoes balanced nicely with the steak strips.

A few things I noticed: the steak in the picture on the bag had grill marks, but the actual steak strips I got didn’t have any. The steak also had a little bit of that “processed” taste - but hey, it wasn’t like salisbury steak or anything. It was real meat. The sauce was a little heavy on the garlic side. But I think I’m really just trying to find something to nitpick on now.

In a perfect world - all frozen meals would taste like this… and they would all cost the same as a Banquet Meal. It’s really an apples to oranges (or a Carl’s Junior to In-N-Out) type of comparison. This isn’t a perfect world, and this is Cheap Eats. But I’m human - so sue me if I liked this high end meal even though two of them cost as much as it does to fill up the gas tank of our Prius. I had to take the score down a notch because it costs so much, but if you happen to win the lottery and you can’t cook, you should fill up your freezer with some of these.

[Editor’s Note: I saved the empty Bertolli bag so that every now and again I could huff in some of that wonderful garlicky mediterranean meal smell to remind myself of what a great break that was from reviewing cans of Beanee Weenee. Also, I don’t want people to think I dislike CJs because of an isolated incident. They WERE our favorite burger place. This was a decades-long crescendo of gradual disappointment involving our family giving so many CJs franchises across so many states so many chances. I’m no mealy mouthed, one-time customer troll looking to flame a CJ rep. This is something that keeps me up at nights when I should be sleeping. I have insomnia thinking of all the good times in high school hanging with the Happy Star. Sorry, I have a tear in my eye. *Sniff*]

Price: $6-8 for 24 oz.
Found At: Albertsons
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10

Hello there, from the trenches of budget frozen dinner meal warfare. I’ve sort of attempted to stay away from the Banquet frozen dinners for the past couple years.

One reason is that whenever I write a review on one of their meals, inevitably I get bombarded with 10 emails from disgruntled frozen dinner consumers who think that WE are the company. Me: “Sorry, I’ve no idea why you ended up with gristle in your Fried Chicken Meal.”

Actually, I love getting contacted by these whiners - it’s just fun to read. However, what the heck do you expect for a frozen dinner under a buck? It’s darn cheap. If it wasn’t for the fact that these Banquet meals aren’t exactly the best things to eat (an understatement, I believe), I would be stocking up my freezer with them.

But a few months back they were on sale for 88 cents. So I couldn’t pass getting one for old time’s sake. Because, you know we’ve been reviewing all these budget frozen meals here on Cheap Eats before it was “cool” to talk about. That is, before the Eeekconomy completely tanked. Now, it seems like everyone wants in on the action…

I’ve sorta lost count, but I think I’ve done SEVEN Banquet frozen dinner reviews in the past. So feel free to read Part I: Banquet Chicken Nugget Meal, Part II: Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal, Part III: Banquet Fried Chicken Meal Part IV: Banquet Pepperoni Pizza Meal Part V: Banquet Fish Stick Meal, Part VI: Banquet Enchilada Combo Meal and Part VII: Banquet Chicken Fried Steak Meal.

Whew. And I’m wondering why I finally started to gain weight…

Continue reading “Banquet Swedish Meatballs” …

Hello from Pseudo-Pizza land!

Let me tell you - I’m like very familiar with the Doughboy. I’m like, tight, with the guy. We’re old friends. I go “heehee” if you stick a finger into my lately increasing beer belly fat. Even though I don’t have a poofy hat. Yet.

But actually, I haven’t really had anything from Pillsbury in quite awhile. So I was happy when a whole load of rolled canisters came in for review the other day. I got several varieties of their instant frozen stuff, but I decided to start off with the Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Dough.

I haven’t cracked one of these suckers open in awhile, so I sort of botched opening it up. There’s a tab you pull and it’s supposed to break the seal, allowing you to extract the rolled up dough. For some reason, mine didn’t open so I had to really wrangle it. I would have included a photos of me trying to open it, but you don’t want to see a grown man struggling mightily with a frozen tin can full of dough. I think I need to work out more.

Anyhow, I got the durned thing open and pulled out the dough. I was sort of wondering if it would be very difficult to unroll, but it wasn’t too bad until I got to the end of the roll. It actually wouldn’t unroll at the end without tearing - so I just left it like that, figuring I could just cut it off.

Pillsbury is definitely going for convenience with this Thin Crust Pizza dough. No rolling pin necessary, just lay it out on a cookie sheet, add toppings, and bake at 400 degrees. I haven’t really had too much experience with frozen pizza crust, rollable or not. I’ve often bought Boboli or other pre-baked pseudo-pizza dough circles, but I didn’t really know what to expect with frozen dough.

I heated up the oven, sprayed a cookie sheet with some cooking spray, and laid out the dough. It started to get rather flimsy the moment I got it out flat. They actually say for a crispier crust, you want to pre-bake the dough and THEN put the toppings on. I think if I ever made this again, I’d probably do that. I slathered on about 3/4 cup of spaghetti sauce, some shredded mozzarella cheese and leftover sliced cremini mushrooms. They sent me literature with a whole ton of “suggested” fancy recipes. But I figured I’d make a really basic one to start with.

Continue reading “Pillsbury Frozen Pizza Crust” …

Hello crazies. Since everyone’s gone back to skool[sic, not out sick], I guess I should get back into the normal Cheap Eats swing of things. We’ll start by going the usual route - Frozen Dinners.

Glurgh, my artery just whimpered again.

I got the chance to try out a whole lot of these Claim Jumper Frozen Dinners. Whew - first off, if you didn’t know about the Claim Jumper restaurant chain then you probably have no idea why they’re called that. The dinners are similar to the Marie Callender’s frozen dinners, where they’re inspired by the restaurant.

I used to visit the Claim Jumper near the Puente Hills Mall in Southern California occasionally. What I remember is enormous “cowboy” sized portions, and lots and lots of butter, cream sauce and salt. Like Appleby’s - well, not THAT bad. I just remember they had this fried zucchini appetizer thing that came out and it was as big as baseball bat. Or a canoe. I think I got the lasagna entree. It was as big as the dang LADWP building.

Mutant zucchini’s aside - I was a little hesitant about eating these. The first one I’ve tried, the Chicken Marsala, lived up to the restaurant in question. Gigantic buttery and salty flavors. I wish I hadn’t started with this one because it was by far the worst of the five different varieties.

First off - I just could NOT get past the saltiness. I admit I like things less salty than most, but for food reviews I, er, take saltiness with a grain of salt. It’s like going into combat. I mentally prepare my tongue. Or something like that.

I couldn’t figure out how the % Daily Value could only be 53%, which is already quite gi-normous. Then I realized - this 14 ounce meal is meant for TWO people. Yes, right - you are going to SHARE a frozen meal with someone. Sneaky.

But, because I like to play fair - I’ll try and report on the meal as if the salt content wasn’t overpowering.

The full meal description is “Roasted white meat chicken in a Marsala Sauce over Rigatoni with Baby Bella Mushrooms.” I probably shouldn’t have tried making this particular meal in the microwave. I have had very poor luck with microwaving frozen meals that have any sort of sauce in it, especially those that say to “open and stir” halfway through the cooking time.

It is very difficult to stir a block of chicken and noodle ice. Try it sometime.

Anyhow, I sort of broke it apart and then continued the cooking. I got the result above. The meal actually had a very good smell, although I thought it was very “winey”. The sauce itself was the consistency of salisbury steak gravy but was actually delicious. It was extra buttery and creamy, much to the shagrin of the aforementioned artery.

Continue reading “Claim Jumper Chicken Marsala” …

Here is a confession: I did NOT use this Celeste Frozen Pizza as a frisbee or discus as I was completely intending to. No, I actually ended up eating all of it and enjoying it instead of “going the distance” off of the roof.

I have to admit I’m no pizza expert. Still, after having a surprisingly good experience with the Tony’s Deep Dish Frozen Individual Pizza that was reviewed earlier, I couldn’t resist picking up a little of “Mama” Celeste’s Pizza for One. Mama in quotes, of course. But hey, it does say “Authentic Italian Since 1930″ so there must be a real Mama, right? OK, I don’t know the history of Celeste so I shouldn’t assume that it isn’t a time honored tradition and not a sham.

Anyhow, this review is about the pizza. So I picked up two of them for a dollar each. The one I’m reviewing is the “Deluxe” and they also have plain cheese, pepperoni, and some 3 or 4 cheese blend - I can’t remember exactly. The key is that they’re normally $2 so I previously passed them over. But these were a buck so I figured I’d give it a try.

And first let me say that true Cheap Eaters are going to cringe at actually buying frozen pizza - preferring to make their own pizza at home in various ways. What can I say - I’m not a truly desperate cheap eater. Just an average joe cheap eater who’s sucked in by commercials, bargain bins, and product placement. Boo on me.

This is a 7 inch pizza that weighs about 6.5 ounces. It’s not enormous, but I felt it was decent if it’s a dollar. It comes frozen and you can microwave it or pop it in the oven. I chose the latter, but thinking about it, I should have tried the microwave method since that’s how most people would cook it. Interestingly, they include a weird gray “microwave” disc that you put the pizza on in order to have it brown better. I didn’t use it because I used the conventional oven - but I would assume it works like the gray disc grids that are on the top inside portion of the boxes of some frozen pot pies.

Continue reading “Celeste Pizza For One” …