This does not qualify as food porn.

Oct 18, 2015 Posted in Ketolishus 0 Comments

This does not qualify as food porn. No siree. But it is a review on something I ate, so I guess this is as good a place to post it, as any…

I rarely buy convenience food these days (I mean, I still will eat some tater chips and ice cream now and then–but I purchase eat/whole when it comes to much everything else) but since they were on sale, I decided to get one of these heat & eat dinners from Perfect Fit Meals company, who creates healthy, portion-controlled, dietitian-designed, fully cooked, ready to heat meals. The other options I could choose from didn’t really appeal to me, so I got the Feta Cream Chicken, “a roasted chicken breast marinated in Italian spices and lemon juice – with quinoa & vegetables.” The nutrition label looked pretty good to me (sodium being a tad high, but not harmful), so I was ready to dig in and try something new that looked healthy and see how it tasted. I took the paper label off the packaging and put the tray in the micro with the film still on as instructed (it said it would steam the food) and put 2:00 on the timer and set about prepping my salad to go with it. While I did putz around with the salad more than I thought (about six minutes–all the while, microwave beeper was screaming at me every 1 minute to come tend to it), I figured since the food was “steamed” it would stay moist in its shrink-wrapped tray while it sat there an extra four minutes. Nope. The chicken slices were very dry and the scoop shape of the quinoa with vegetables, tomatoes, artichokes, onions, and cream sauce (made from feta and Greek yogurt) was like a pile of sand, with an occasional green-ish fiber of what I could only guess was artichoke, and a couple of red dots of tomato flesh about the size of my pinky finger tip. The flavor was great (really), but if I wanted to finish eating this, it could probably only be improved with a drizzle of olive oil. But I already devoted 60 fat calories from this dish to my dinner 🙁 I thought it would be juicy, zesty, and creamy. Good thing I putzed around longer on that spinach salad—with sunburst tomatoes, red onions, and yogurt ranch dressing (also pictured, hi). It was waaaay more juicy, zesty, and creamy than the heat-N-eat dinner. To be fair, I did let it sit and did overcook it, but not technically, since the package said 1:30-2:00 minutes on FULL POWER and I know my microwave…it usually needs the higher time when cooking anything that’s come from my fridge.

Rating: One pretty stern thumb down.

On the bright side, I did save a few bucks ($4.99 vs $7–still cheaper than dining out) to try this dish, and now that I know about it, I can probably recreate it at home for triple the portion and much less dough, AND probably make it taste better. Maybe even use leg quarters or thighs instead of breast meat, which was almost like jerky. Lesson learned.

http://perfectfitmeals.com/meals-menu/feta-cream-chicken/#sthash.0ttlYP1K.dpuf