I don’t usually review snacks and ice cream but seeing how its summer and my brain is about to melt, the other day we picked up some Jello Pudding Pops. Yes, they make them again… though I didn’t even know they went away actually. But apparently there was even online campaigns to bring them back.

I have some good memories of eating Jello Pudding Pops and its also a bit hard to disassociate them with Bill Cosby slurring face. I would try and imitate him here, but… well, let’s not!

So I had actually forgotten that Pudding Pops actually come in 3 “flavors” in the same box and that you don’t get a choice whether or not to have those three flavors. The flavors are Chocolate, Vanilla, and Chocolate Vanilla Swirl. It’s a bit interesting that they don’t make it so you can buy them separately… I’m not sure what the idea is there. Because I certainly dig the Chocolate kind much more than the Vanilla. The “Swirl” flavor is just OK, I suspect because there’s some chocolatey goodness there which is counterbalanced by the vanilla which I don’t like as much. I dunno the vanilla just seems to have too much artificial vanilla taste to it.

So, we all know that Ice Cream ain’t cheap any more. Those days of getting Drumsticks for a quarter from the ice cream man and a Thrifty’s 15 cent ice cream scoop (a triple scoop for 45 cents!) are over. So I wasn’t too surprised that a box of 12 cost over $4.00. Definitely not your Cheapest Eats, but in the realm of ice cream it’s OK. About 35 cents a pop.

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Well, after the disaster with the Michelina Lasagna Meal I’d almost given up hope on a decent frozen dinner from that company. Several readers noted, however, that I might have bought the wrong TYPE of Michelina meal, as in the Lean Gourmet line. And indeed that seemed to be the case. Like I said I could care less about the calories.

Luckily, I’d only bought 3 of these meals (for the magnificent total of 3 dollars) as a test so I wouldn’t need to slog through all of them if they were really bad. The 2nd one I ate involved some Shrimp Scampi pasta which was actually quite good. Unfortunately, I was so hungry that day that I didn’t get to take pictures of that one before scarfing it down.

So this third frozen dinner is the Michelina Swedish Meatball meal. I really like meatballs in general, however they’re done. A lot of people actually get so called Swedish Meatballs at Ikea, funnily enough. I’ve had good experiences with the kind you buy from CostCo. A friend of mine makes this pretty good recipe with those CostCo meatballs along with ketchup, grape jelly, onions, and bell peppers in a crock pot. Not half bad.

You can also make your own meatballs, much cheaper. I like spaghetti with homemade meatballs quite a bit. I should probably just make my own, right? But in any case here’s what I thought of the frozen Swedish Meatball dinner.

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A quick post just to let you know that today is in fact July 11, which is otherwise known as a day of celebration for that quickee mart we all love 7-11! I believe they do this every year, where they offer a Free Slurpee to anyone who comes in. I’m not sure what size that it is, but they do say “specially marked cups” so I’m assuming it’s a smaller size than the normal.

I have good memories of 7-11 Slurpees from when I was a kid. I’d always get cherry or coke slurpees, and actually I don’t exactly remember but I think those might have been the only flavors before 1980? The brain-freeze that goes along with them? Well, you learn to live with it. I also used to really like the “Icee” drinks that had the polar bear on them. These were sold at stores like Gemco…

Anyhow, here is the text of the above graphic blown up a bit in case you can’t see it:

One slight catch: NOWHERE could I find a list of the so-called “participating stores”. This isn’t being offered at all the 7-11s. Interestingly, enough I went to a 7-11 just a little while ago on an unrelated errand not knowing there was a Slurpee special going on. They didn’t have it at the one near my house, so I didn’t even know about it until later today.

Anyhow, so if there is one close to you, go check it out and see if they are having the celebration at your 7-11. Because even if they’re not, you can pick up some of their yummy nachos with super fake cheese sauce, cheapo hot dogs and microwaved hamburgers…

Cheap Eats Score: 8/10

A reader of the Cheap Eats Banquet Frozen Meals series of reviews had suggested taking a look at Michelina’s line of “Budget Gourmet” frozen dinners. Supposedly, these tend to taste a little more refined than the slammed in a box mentality dinners that Banquet.

Surprisngly, I also found these for the same low price at the supermarket – 10 for ten dollars. I mean, you can’t be crazy enough to eat these things every day, so 10 frozen dinners will certainly last a long time. The trick here is also that you don’t need to buy TEN to get the dollar-per-meal price. This is that tricky supermarket psychology at work here again. For instance, I just bought three of them but still got them at a dollar each. But the price says 10 for $10, no mention of the INDIVIDUAL price. Pretty sneaky, sis.

Anyhow, first on tap is Michelina’s Lasagna With Meat Sauce Frozen Dinner. Please note that they seem to feel the need to say “Premium” on it. Little warning bells – there goes my Cheap Eats spidey senses.

One thing I liked about Banquet is they don’t mess around with trying to be “health” conscious at all. I mean, if I’m going to care about that stuff, I’ll just buy the Weight Watchers or Lo Carb brands. At Cheap Eats we’d rather get full than eat healthy! At least within reason.

So I don’t really care that this Michelina’s meal only has 9 grams of fat. Strike one. I also didn’t care for the overall look of the cooked meal… I mean take a look at it! This is clearly one of the most unappetizing frozen dinners I’ve seen. A definite Strike two. This sort of reminds me of the dirt bike riding trails in the California desert after a hard rain. I think the lunches that I remember from primary school cafeterias looked better.

So, I was hoping that this would avoid Strike 3, which is taste. Let’s just say it foul tipped, but the catcher almost caught it. It was actually halfway decent in taste. Better than Chef Boyardee for sure. The problem is in the layers of noodle and sauce. There is only ONE real “layer”, sandwiched between two noodles. To their credit, they didn’t show more than one layer of stuff on the box… so I can’t exactly accuse them of false advertising.

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Part 7 : Banquet Chicken Fried Beef Steak Meal

Wow, that picture sure looks delicious. Too bad the real thing didn’t live up to what they showed on the box. Not that I expected it to. I had saved up this Banquet Frozen Dinner until now because I’m a huge Chicken Fried Steak fan. I especially like getting it at old school diners where the “steak” has a really crunchy fried chicken coating and is slathered with country gravy. My mouth was watering as I put this guy in the oven even if the actual dinner looked a little skimpy.

I had sort of figured it might be a disappointment considering the mediocre Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal that I reviewed earlier. I mean, it’s basically then same thing except with different gravy, right?

I think it’s pretty funny that they need to say “Chicken Fried BEEF Steak” because they think people will get confused and think it’s actually chicken. Instead of chopped formed “beef”.

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Part 6 : Banquet Mexican Style Enchilada Combo Meal
Whew, you must be wondering if I’m ever going to run out of Banquet Frozen Dinners to review. There’s at least 3 more to go before I have to repeat eating them. That is if I decide to eat them again.

This one has by far the longest full name: the Banquet Mexican Style Enchilada Combo Meal. I find it sort of funny that they had to say “Mexican Style” enchilada… as if people wouldn’t know? Well, I guess you can’t assume anything with America. But it’s sort of like saying, “Hey, want to go eat Japanese Sushi?”

Well, this one went in the oven on the usual cookie sheet at 350 F. One interesting thing about all these Banquet meals is that the temperature to cook it never changes. I guess they just set the temperature and then reverse engineer how long to cook it and what amount the ingredients need to be precooked?

I have had mediocre Banquet Dinners before (see the Banquet Pepperoni Pizza Meall and Banquet Fish Stick Meal) so I wasn’t really expecting anything spectacular here. At least this one was interesting because it didn’t feature that old standby CORN and had fairly decent (if soupy) mexican style rice instead. The rice grains were surprisingly cooked through; I was predicting they’d be a bit crunchy inside. Little slivers of green and red bell pepper and decent spiciness made it actually the better part of the meal.

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So at my local supermarket there are two frozen food aisles. One contains all the usual stuff, the frozen dinners, stir-frys, vegetables… all the usual stuff. The other is a sort of hidden “half frozen half not” aisle that contains mostly bulk items, hamburger meats, and if I remember correctly, frozen pizzas. Into this hidden aisle I strolled and immediately came across these Albertson’s Frozen Fish Fillets.

After a halfway decent experience with the Banquet Fish Stick Meal, I thought I might try to bypass the whole frozen dinner and go straight for the gusto. Fish Fillets for everyone! 12 Golden Crunchy Fish Fillets, and note how large the words “golden crunchy” are on the packaging. They don’t want anyone to forget that outer breading which of course can make or break a fish fillet like this.

The major reason I picked up this package is because of the price… as an Albertson’s store brand, it is significantly cheaper. Generic store brands are a tossup though. Certain items seem to be a better buy than others. At $2.99 for 12 fillets it was definitely worth a shot.

Taking these fillets out the cardboard box, I was sort of surprised to see that they aren’t wrapped in the interior in any sort of extra packaging, like plastic wrap or a plastic bag even. The fillets are just shoved into the box as they are, they sort of rattle around in there. I guess they are just trying to save money and they are rock solid frozen after all so they’re not going to break.

Another thing is that the fillets are SQUARE. Interestingly, they remind me a bit of McDonald’s Filet ‘o Fish except smaller. Well, I went ahead and put 5 of them on a cookie sheet in the oven for the required time. It’s required to flip them about three quarters of the way through which is a bit tricky, but I think it’s necessary for crunch. Here’s a picture, the greens on the bottom are just some shredded cabbage to help soak up the copious grease.

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