Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Eating Right: Chicken with creamy mushroom sauce

Eating Right is Safeway's house brand of healthier food. This microwave meal has white meat chicken and pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce and bits of red bell pepper mixed in. There wasn't enough chicken in the dish, and although it had a good flavor, I found it every so slightly tough. The noodles game out good, not overcooked or stuck together. The sauce was a bit thin and didn't have much flavor and the mushrooms tasted like standard canned mushrooms. Mix all this together and you get a bland and forgettable entree, though not one with any glaring problems. Not a tv dinner I would get again. (290 calories; 7g fat; 36g carbs; 21g protein; 18% sodium; 6 weight watchers points)

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Smart Ones: Angel Hair marinara

One of Weight Watcher's Smart Ones "classic favorites" microwave meals. Lots of thin angel hair pasta with tomato sauce (or as they call it delicious marinara sauce, emphasis theirs) with spinach and yellow and green zucchini. Cooking went smoothly, you have to stir it part way through. The chunks of squash are good-sized and athough more would be nice, there was a minimally sufficient number of them. As is often the case with tv dinners, the squash was overcooked. Not totally mushy, but nowhere near crisp. There is lots of pasta, it is nice and thin, and didn't come out overcooked or hopelessly stuck together. The tomato sauce was good, it had good tomato flavor and wasn't acidic tasting like you sometimes find. Overall the separate elements went well together and the dish was better than just the sum of its parts. It only has 4 weight watchers points which is suprising given the amount of pasta it has in it. (230 calories; 4g fat; 40g carbs; 9g protein; 27% sodium; 4 weight watchers points)