Wow. I have to admit that its a great time to be a pseudo product review blogger if you really know what you’re doing (but I don’t, so the point is super-moot), because you can get scads of free things in the mail. In the past couple months, I’ve had to turn down several offers, just because there’s no way I could keep up with it - especially with my revised limited posting schedule of one measly review every one or two weeks. I guess I could just write super short reviews (which is what the majority of blogs do), but I’m just not into that. Yet.

But man, is it hard to turn down free food! Especially because this is the Cheap Eats blog where Free Is King. Well, I just couldn’t turn down the new Hibachi House fire-grilled style frozen meals. And I’m glad I didn’t, because they went all out with the package. See below.

This arrived on the doorstep… there were seven meals in all packed into this duffel bag along with dry ice. I’ll probably combine them into 2 or 3 reviews, because although they were all different varieties, they can be grouped together into similar types. It’s basically grilled chicken with rice, shrimp with rice, chicken fried rice or shrimp fried rice. The sauces are really what change.

So what’s the whole idea behind these Hibachi House meals? Well, first let me back up and say that just 2 days after I received the offer to review them, I was watching TV and saw some new Healthy Choice Frozen Dinners in a commercial. They were called “Cafe Steamers“. Pretty weird because the idea seems similar to the fire-grilled food in a steam pouch that is what Hibachi is all about. I guess the competition is so fierce or something in the frozen food biz that everyone’s chomping at the bit to get market share on these fads. The Cafe Steamers even had a similar “strangely shaped” box like Hibachi’s - see below.

Since the chicken, rice and sauce packets are in pouches, there’s no need to make it this weird trapezoidal shape - other than as a marketing thingy. I guess it’s supposed to be a hibachi stove? One other (nerdy designers) thing we noticed about the graphics on the box is that they did some multi layer processing where the pieces of chicken and shrimp are masked out and a highly reflective coating is placed only on them to make it stand out. Yup, nothing escapes our well-trained eyes!

Hm.. my shoulder is fading fast so we’re going to have to speed things up. Lucky, I took so many pictures. Above is how the inside package appears. The main dish is mixed together in the steam pack, while there is a separate package for the sauce. Basic instructions are to make a slit in the main dish pack and microwave it for 6 minutes. Meanwhile defrost the sauce package in hot water. Then you can either mix the sauce in or use it as a dipping sauce.

Continue reading “Hibachi House Teriyaki Chicken” …

Hey there folks. Would you trust a chef with a tomato for a hat?

Apparently, I would. Up for review are these frozen mini Tony’s Deep Dish Pizzas which feature a chubby mustachioed dude wearing a chef’s hat that’s actually an enormous tomato. Uhrg. I’m trying to think of some more tomato chef hat jokes but nothing’s forthcoming, so I’ll skip to the review. (10 Magic Bonus Points if you can make up an interesting joke with tomatoes and chef hats. And please, keep it clean…)

I’ll be the first to admit I’m no expert in pizza. In fact, I’ve almost always followed the Cheap Eats path and avoided the pre-made frozen stuff in lieu of alternatives like the popular Ghetto Pizza. As for authentic restaurant pizza - ah, c’mon… Los Angelenos like me are more apt to put BBQ chicken, goat cheese and arugula on our pies. (I’m sure I’ll get tons of pizza peeps hotly writing in about the tons of places you can get authentic, non-gourmet pizza around L.A.)

But I have to admit that I’ve eyed these small frozen pies everytime I’ve been to Albertson’s in the past several months. They almost always have their own special display outside the frozen aisle, often near the Banquet Frozen Dinners. At a buck each, I really had to use some will power to avoid them. But I caved the other day, after not eating lunch before going to the supermarket (I believe that’s Cheap Eats Manifesto Rule No. 23, NEVER go food shopping on an empty stomach).

So, lucky readers you’re going to get more pics of junk food instead of fiber cereal or boiled vegetables. Hooray!

I actually didn’t even check if they have larger version’s of Tony’s pizza, nor did I check and see what other comparable other brands there are. (I’m sure someone will let me know). There are several different varieties of these smaller Deep Dish Pizzas, including plain cheese, pepperoni and supreme - all the same price. I never understood this Quirk of Frozen Pizza - plain cheese is just as expensive as a combo or supreme. I think it’s like that for many varieties… you just seemed to be getting jacked if you get the plain cheese. I got the Supreme.

Continue reading “Tony’s Deep Dish Pizza” …

Back to frozen food again. I’ve been shunning Banquet meals lately in favor of both Marie Callender’s (finally spelled it right that time!) and Healthy Choice frozen meals. Just for variety of course. Although, lately my “picky” food side has been rearing it’s mid-life crisis head just a little too frequently.

Also, while Banquet is pretty much $1 each every day of the year, you kind of have to wait it out for Marie Callender’s and Healthy Choice to go on sale. On sale where I am is $2 per meal, although I’ve seen them as cheap as $1.50 on occasion.

I have lots of good memories eating the Marie Callender’s Turkey Pot Pie at both the restaurant location and straight outta the microwave at work. But I haven’t picked up one up in a few years, partly because I’d been so turned off from buying the “lesser” pies. But I saw these on sale the other day so I decided to pick one up to relive the good times.

One of the most interesting things about their pot pies is that the microwave instructiosn say NOT to remove the outer cardboard packaging. You basically just open it up but leave the pie inside. I have a feeling this is to get the crust nice and brown… the top of the cardboard container has a “reflective surface grid” as shown in the pic to right (I cut the box open). It faces downward onto the crust.

Whatever it is - it works pretty beautifully. The microwave time is actually one of the longest I’ve ever seen for a frozen dinner - something like 12 minutes on High! I’m always a bit nervous putting anything into the microwave for that long. I have had one instance in the past where the box got slightly “charred”, but this particular time there were no such scary moments. It does tend to smell a bit burnt, sort of like the smell you get when you microwave popcorn. But the pie itself looks quite nice.

Continue reading “Marie Callender Pot Pie” …

I have to admit that I only recently made a batch of Fried Okra because I had seen a snippet of Paula Deen making some on TV. By the way, I can’t stand Paula Deen… I’ve no idea why she got her own live show recently. But I do like some of the Southern recipes she talks about. And she’s somewhat more tolerable that Wolfgang Shmuck…

Sometimes people who read Cheap Eats think that I’m some sort of food or cooking expert. My god, nothing could be farther from the truth. This is the first time I’ve ever tried making Fried Okra, or for that matter anything with okra in it. It came out pretty decent, but I’m not sure how often I would make it.

I know that okra is often used to thicken stews and gumbo, and my mom used to make some sort of goulash type of dish that had okra in it. I have to say that I was never very fond of the mega-glutinous qualities that okra posesses. It’s like they have built in corn starch factories inside of them. Ok, I’m trying not to turn people off them by saying that the inside has the consistency of Slimy Boogers - but it can be extremely off-putting if you haven’t had it before. Although, if you’ve had Natto before, okra slime is a walk in the park…

Continue reading “Fried Okra” …

I know we’re only supposed to talk about frozen dinners on the “low” end of the food chain on Cheap Eats. What can I say, once in awhile we like to splurge. Rule number 1 of the upcoming Cheap Eats Manifesto (which has been on the back burner for 6 months now) is to Break All The Rules. Buying Marie Callender’s Frozen Dinners probably falls into that category since they’re not known for being that cheap.

Or are they? A few times, I’ve seen the full dinners on sale for $2 or less. That’s as cheap as the Healthy Choice meals when they’re on sale. I actually quite enjoy Marie Callender’s frozen meals quite a bit, and have even been known to frequent their restaurant. In the dot-com days, many a frozen Marie Callender’s Pot Pie found its way into the microwave where I worked.

Quick side note: I have been trying to teach my fingers to type “Marie Callendar” instead of “Marie Calendar”. Tough sleddin’ there … [edit: it seems I doubly cannot type/spell: Marie CallendEr’s]

Back to the merits of her frozen dinners. So far, the quality of most of the meals has been pretty top notch. I don’t believe it’ll win any healthy choice awards, but for me I’m not so concerned with that. In fact, I’m concerned with Price, Quantity and then Quality, in that order. And if you can get it cheap enough, the quality is definitely there and surprisingly the quantity as well.

One thing I notice about Marie Callender dinners is that they’re actually heavy. They’ve got some heft to them. The actual meal trays have compartments that are rather deep. This particular meal is their Country Fried Chicken (not Country Fried STEAK, mind you) and consists of a good piece of battered chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. That’s right corn on the COB.

Continue reading “Marie Callendar’s Country Fried Chicken” …

Lately, I’ve been suckered in by one too many “frozen aisle” specials at my local supermarket. You know the ones I’m talking about. They have a floor-type freezer in the middle of the area near the milk, meat and/or seafood that’s filled with frozen food impulsive buys that are on sale. These are usually things like frozen dinners, frozen pizzas and of course Frozen Burritos.

I almost caved in and tried out some “mini-pizzas” for a buck each, but instead was waylaid by boxes and boxes of Tina’s brand frozen burritos. Actually, I would have passed but they were going for only twenty cents a piece which was difficult to resist. I picked up 3 “Red Hot Beef”, 1 “Bean and Cheese” and 1 “Spicy Bean and Cheese” for an even dollar for 5 burritos. Come on, tell me that’s not cheap eats.

But as always, you get what you pay for. I remember coming home from high school and microwaving one of these beauties. Part of the fun was trying to get the timing on the microwave correct so they didn’t explode, spilling out their bean contents like nuclear waste. Equally difficult was avoiding the “lukewarm center” phenomenon. I tried poking holes to no avail. But that was before I learned the “30-second and flip” method.

Basically, you just microwave it on high for 30 seconds and then let it rest for about 15 seconds. Then turn it over and repeat. (These instructions were actually on a package of CostCo shredded beef frozen burritos that I meant to write about but haven’t gotten around to.) After about 4-6 iterations (2 to 3 minutes) you get a pretty well done burrito that’s cooked on the inside and hasn’t leaked at all. This had the disadvantage of making you do a lot more work for a 20 cent frozen burrito. But come on - we could all use the exercise.

Continue reading “Tina’s Red Hot Beef Burrito” …

After Healthy Choice won our frozen dinner poll, I resolved to check out the brand since I haven’t had much experience with it. I’ve always pretty much passed it over since I could give a flying bowl of ramen about health food. Supposedly, anyway. Lately, I’ve noticed the disturbing (or perhaps much needed) trend toward healthier foods appearing in my posts. We shall see…

But really, the real reason that Healthy Choice is sorta off limits for Cheap Eats is because of the price. But actually, at $10 for 4 (supermarket hint: no need to buy FOUR unless you really need them all), these aren’t the worst.

And the verdict for the Healthy Choice Salisbury Steak is very good. Pretty darn amazing actually, but that’s because I’ve mostly used Banquet as a comparison. At two and a half times the price of a Banquet Fried Chicken Dinner, you’d expect this had better be good. And it is.

The front of the package shows a thick salisbury steak lovingly glazed with mushroom gravy along with seasoned red skin potatoes and mixed veggies. A crumb-topped apple dessert hides out in the back. I never expect actual frozen dinners to look like their pictures - false advertising is a must in this industry. But this actually looked appetizing.

Continue reading “Healthy Choice Salisbury Steak” …