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” …

Hello, what’s this. I seem to have left our Frozen Dinner poll running on autopilot for a couple months without switching it out. That might be for the best, because it actually took this long to get a sufficient number of responses. I guess frozen dinners aren’t the must-have, technological wonder-food that they were in the 50s anymore…

Anyhow, color me surprised (mangled Heatherism). Dark horse candidate Healthy Choice Frozen Dinners ended up beating out the competition. I had thought for sure that either Michelina or Banquet would have taken the honors. Though, it was quite close between those top 3… they were all within 30 votes of each other. Swanson frozen dinners brought up the rear. I wonder if that has anything to do with my giving their potpies the cold shoulder.

As I’ve said many times before, the Cheap Eats site is about cheap food, not health food. Though, over the course of the year, I’ve managed to sneak in quite a few more healthy choices. That has something to do with the fact that I’ve been having stomach issues the past 2 months. (I can hear the peanut gallery saying “See, I told you all those boxes of macaroni and cheese and instant ramen meals would catch up with you.”)

Continue reading “Healthy Choice wins Poll” …

Wow, I was SO disappointed with these Swanson Pot Pies. I remember eating these as a snack when I was a kid and thinking that they were the best thing in the world. I think they were also only 33 cents or less at the market.

So twenty years later I decided to give them a try again. They couldn’t be THAT bad right? Plus, even with inflation the price of one of these cheapie frozen pot pie ranges from 49 cents to about a buck. Good cheap eats right? Not even close.

Oh, full disclosure: in my salad days at an unamed dot com (where we used to fold 100 dollar greenbacks into paper airplanes, light them on fire and throw them off the balcony), I used to buy the expensive Marie Calendar Chicken Pot Pies and those were pretty durned good. You put them in the microwave for like 5 minutes and the crust is actually nicely browned and crisp and there’s like big chunks of chicken, carrots and potatoes.

The Swanson Turkey Pot Pie, when put into the microwave, nicely exploded into a Simpson-esque radioactive pie disaster. I followed the directions correctly, scoring the top of the pie carefully to vent the steam but that didn’t help at all. Well before the recommended cooking time, I heard sputtering and popping in the microwave. I looked inside and the contents had started to come out all over the plate. I had to keep going though, because the inside was still cold.

Man, this was pretty nasty looking… and you know at Cheap Eats we aren’t that particular. It tasted even worse. The crust was pale and unappetizing. (Later, I over-nuked another one by a few minutes for good measure to try and get it brown. No luck.) Let me tell you what the crust tastes like: it tastes like library paste. Don’t ask me how I know what library paste tastes like.

Continue reading “Swanson Turkey Pot Pie” …

I completely goofed and forgot to post this yesterday. I wanted you to all get fair warning about picking up a FREE Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Cone. Yep, it’s that time of year already.

They’re celebrating 28 years of making their ice cream. The shops should all be open from 12-8pm. I actually have never partaken in this yearly ritual, though I know there are quite a few people who do. It hasn’t been hot enough here lately to get ice cream, but then again I guess who needs a heat wave to enjoy some?

Make sure to check which Ben & Jerry’s stores are actually participating in this giveaway. There are definitely more than a few, say in California where I live, which aren’t giving it away. I looked and for the most part, it’s mostly those which are in amusement parks or baseball stadiums. Yeah, if they honored the giveaway in a stadium full of people they’d go bankrupt.

Price: Free Ice Cream Cone
At: Ben & Jerry’s
Cheap Eats Score: 10/10

I spend a lot of time at the local CostCo, formerly known in my neighborhood as Price Club. Although it seems like there are these amazing bargains in bulk, the key for Cheap Eats is to buy things that you at least have a chance in hell of using up before they go bad. This means no 6 pound blocks of mozarella cheese (my mom bought this, and then proceeded to start handing out 1 pound blocks to me and my brother).

I’ve been getting these Rice Gourmet Chicken Bowls which is made by Delimex, the CostCo store brand. At a cost of nearly $10 for 6 bowls, it’s definitely not the cheapest thing around… it works out to over $1.50 per bowl. Not exactly Cheap Eats, so they get zinged as far as score goes right away. However, since it’s frozen food you can easily use them up before they go bad.

However, I have to say they’re pretty decent in terms of the quality. This is an all in one type of meal that you just pop into the microwave for about 6 minutes or so, and then take it out and stir it up.

The chicken, rice and sauce actually mix up together pretty well. You have to really get in there with a fork and mix it up so that your sauce gets distributed on the rice.

The chicken (breast meat only) actually seems to have been pre-grilled (you can see the marks in the picture). The teriyaki sauce is not overly powerful, which is usually my beef with these type of meals. I don’t know why manufacturers think teriyaki is some sort of super sweet, orange tasting glaze. This sauce has a good soy flavor and is actually a bit gingery which was nice.

The rice can get a bit clumped up depending on the power of your microwave, but it’s not too bad. The veggies (carrots and broccoli) are actually very decent… I’m surprised they don’t taste like mush.

So, if this were like $7 for 6 then it’d get a much higher score. Still, it beats the pants off a lot of frozen meals.

Price: $9-10 for 6 pack
Bought at: CostCo
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10