Frozen Dinners - FEH!

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danemodsandy

danemodsandy

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Due to recent changes in my work schedule that make it very difficult to get time to cook, I recently went through a phase of trying frozen dinners and entrees to help with the time crunch. To say I am absolutely aghast is an understatement!

Most of what I've tried is absolutely unacceptable. There are several problems:

- Nutritional quality is dodgy, with lots of fat calories and stratospheric sodium levels.
- Portion sizes of expensive ingredients are dinky, with preference given to cheap fillers like desserts.
- Anything touted as "healthy" tastes like crap.

I'm especially offended by Swanson's Hungry Man TV dinner line, which they insist on putting a dessert into, usually a brownie. First, the brownie's cooking fills the kitchen with the smell of scorched chocolate, which is not my favorite scent, not by a long shot. Second, it displaces needed nutrition - I'd like to have more than seven green beans and three tablespoons of mashed potato, and the dessert portion is too small anyway, about two tablespoons. Swanson's over-reliance on corn as a veggie is also problematic; it's essentially another starch in addition to the mashed potato.

One of the worst lines I've tried is Marie Callender. The major problem is that Marie is a stingy, stingy woman - portion sizes are small, and pricier ingredients are in damn short supply. I would estimate that the entire company goes through one chicken a year for its pot pies, for instance. A recently-sampled "chicken and broccoli" pot pie had four pieces of chicken, and only one piece of broccoli that wasn't a chunk of broccoli stem. This was a premium-priced, 16-ounce pie, not a little one. Marie Callender's stuff is made by the same company that makes the taste and enjoyment-free Healthy Choice line, ConAgra.

I also don't see how anyone older manages to prepare these things. Instructions are in four-point or smaller type for the most part, and often they require you to cut part of the covering, take stuff out, stir other stuff, and then put everything back. The covering is some sort of weird-science clear plastic that shreds as soon as you touch it; getting all the shreds off the tray and out of the food is tricky. I could definitely see a old person failing to spot a piece of this stuff and choking on it.

There has been one - count 'em, one - winner in all this: Boston Market's pot roast, which is tasty, filling, decently loaded with veggies and has a very fair amount of beef in it, even if the salt level is a bit high. But even this silver lining had a cloud attached; this success inspired me to try Boston Market's cheesy rice with chicken, which was skimpy to a point that moved me to observe that they got the "cheesy" part right.

I am back to cooking; the cost, dubious nutritive value and abysmal taste of these little offerings is not what I remember from TV dinners as a kid. Of course, that was when they came in foil trays with a foil cover, which should confirm everyone's suspicion that I was born in the Jurassic era and rode a dinosaur to school.
 
Don't blame Swanson..... they sold their TV dinner company to Pinnacle Foods about 7 years ago. I know the package looks exactly the same, the only difference is that the name "Swanson" is gone from it. And the quality is NOT the same.

You are so right about sodium levels. I found Boston Market to be the worst of all. I think their Pot Roast or Turkey dinner has 3,000gms of salt in it! That's way more than a total daily allotment for most people. Stouffer's isn't that bad, but it is still not what you would want.

Down here Marie Callender had some restuarants. For some reason they didn't last too long. I wonder if they used the TV dinners in those places? They were kind of like a restaurant in a coffee shop sized building.

There is a guy out there somewhere on the net who has a website where he personally tests TV dinners for such things as taste, nutritional quality, etc. The website did receive some national news when he went online with it. He personally tested each TV dinner himself.
 
TV Dinners

@whirlcool - I think you may be mistaken in the amount of salt LOLOLOLOL - that is nearly 7lbs! I do agree though that many of these products are loaded with salt and also fat and sugar.

I make my own, although I seldom have them in front of the TV as I take them to work so I may eat my main meal in the middle of the day rather than at night. And I am not keen on cooking just for myself, even less after a 70-90 minute car journey home.

So I have a big cook up and make various dishes which can all be frozen and microwaved later - these tend to revolve around stews, pasta dishes, shepherds pies things like that. With appropriate foil or ceramic containers you could even make your own chicken pot pies. With some thought and preparation two or three hours work can set you up with meals for days or even weeks. And I can control what goes into them

I usually save containers from what we call "ready meals" which mostly can be washed in the dishwasher for such purposes - I find I can use them again and again.

Sounds like an idea for a recipe thread

Al
 
There's a LOT of things to think about here.

I am just going to very briefly mention a few, and then go back to bed (nightmares).

Do I eat frozen meals?

Yes.

Are there any in my freezer now?

Yes.

Do I think they are to be relied upon?

NO.

Is there a frightening cooking illiteracy in the 21st Century?

Most definitely.

Do you have a favorite line?

Yes, Stouffer's Red Box.

Do I think that they have a place in certain situations?

Oh, my yes!

This whole thing is one of the pieces I am writing up for my blog, and I am deeply grateful for your thoughts. They will inform my piece, and if (if) I want to quote you, I will email and ask for your permission. I am writing some posts in advance, to have something for others to think about and comment upon. I hope that my blog will eventually be interactive in the way this blog, Vacuumland, and Friends and Husbands are; although probably not with "Dirty Laundry" and so on.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I always have a few on hand.

It's not a matter of cooking literacy, it's time. I cook often and usually make large quantities so there are sufficient left-overs for future meals, but sometimes I just don't have the time during the week for hours of food prep in the kitchen.

I keep frozen dinners on hand, and usually supplement with an additional vegetable course. I figure if I'm in a hurry and don't have time to cook, these are usually not as bad as buying fast food, and gentler on the budget as well since I only buy them on sale or with coupons.
 
Beats Fast-Food

They certainly beat fast food in most every instance.

I have a few in the freezer as we speak. Although, I do prefer the Saute-4-2 meals in the baggie as opposed to something in a mystery tray. And the Stouffer's meals do seem to be the best in my opinion.

Malcolm
 
I had never really tried these meals until my mother died and I was staying at her house to make funeral arrangements etc. She had been too ill to cook proper meals for her last month or so and had a freezer full of these meals, mostly Marks & Spencer. I don't like to throw food away so I was eating them sometimes but could not face them every day and would cook my usual stuff some days. The portion sizes were usually too small but possibly about right for an elderly infirm person who is not very active. I'm surprised about the high salt comments as the ones I tried were lacking in salt for my taste. This is quite normal in UK as salt seems to be regarded as deadly poison these days. The problem is, they tend to add extra pepper to make up for the blandness of the reduced salt content and I don't like pepper! I found the microwave times were usually wrong, sometimes they were still part frozen after the specified time. To be fair, I was usually cooking them from frozen but they did give cooking times for both chilled and frozen. It is possible that the times are more accurate for the chilled product.
None of the UK ready meals I've seen include a desert and it does seem a bit pointless, as there are plenty of suitable things like yoghurt, cakes, fruit pies, fruit etc. that come in individual portions to accompany the main meal. You generally don't see these meals on sale here in Hungary and people mostly do proper cooking.
 
I must say I have to disagree about the comments of not having time to cook.I trained as a chef but kinda lost the will to cook and I went through a phase of relying on ready meals through the week as me and hubby often work long hours. The downside was I couldn't get into my jeans after a couple of months and felt very sluggish, we still ate lots of fruit and I cooked at the weekend or nights that we were in at a reasonable time. Hubby was ok as he cycles to and from work every day, a round trip of 10 miles through hilly Edinburgh but I spend a lot of my time on buses throughout the day doing my home visits, or am in the office in front of a computer.

A couple of months ago we were visiting my mum for the weekend. Mum has always ate healthy, all meals are cooked from scratch. She has hundreds of cookery books and gave me lots of quick and easy recipes for inspiration.

Now through the week we eat a lot of pasta, rice, noodles and cous cous. I can have a health meal on the table in 15 mins. I always have fresh chili, herbs, ginger and garlic to hand as well as soy sauce, fish sauce and pasata.

A big fave with Hubby at the moment is fusili with broccoli spears, fresh chili, walnuts, lemon juice, panchetta,lemon juice and parmesan. This takes 15 mins from start to finish.

Don't get me wrong, we are not total health nuts and still enjoy a take away at the weekend and the odd meal out but our new diet through the week is a complete sucess, I lost 5lb in the first week and feel so much better. I did have a couple of ready meals left in the freezer and we had them last Thursday night, neither of us enjoyed them. I am so pleased I have found my passion for cooking again.
 
Marie Callenders got its start with pies.  They were among the first to offer the ridiculously sized mile-high likes of glazed fresh strawberry pie, etc.

 

Their restaurants had been around for decades, perhaps dating as far back as the 70's, and then a couple of years ago they all abruptly closed -- as in employees showing up to work and finding out from a sign on the door.  Only the frozen foods portion of MC's remains today.
 
I buy the Hungry Man Salisbury Steak only when they're on sale for $1.99. I eat them as a between meal snack though. They're ok for what they are however "one" doesn't really satisfy.. I need to eat two because I go to the gym almost everyday working out and I need the calories just to maintain my current weight level. The other half still can't figure out how I can stuff so much food in me  so soon after I've just eaten one or two plates of spaghetti or such  LOL 
 
Again---------

IT DEPENDS.

Frozen meals are certainly not ideal for every day consumption. I think almost everyone can agree on that.

However, in the 1970s, Home Economics/Family and Consumer Studies/Domestic Science classes were ridiculed as being nothing more than "stirring and stitching," and were viewed as sexist dead ends by many cultural critics who did not explore the topic in the manner it deserved. This just made the post World War II trend of convenience cooking and premade ingredients or dishes accelerate. By the acceleration in convenience cooking, true cooking literacy started to plummet faster than the proverbial rock. Many school districts discontinued Home Economics classes entirely. In a properly designed curriculum, technique and the planning of sensibly balanced meals were emphasized, and as anyone who is serious about learning to cook, knows that technique is more important than recipes.

Family food traditions were not passed on in many (not all!) families. It was just easier to warm up something. Or go out. Or add a can of This to a box of That, add water, stir and bake. Sandra Lee did not invent it.

Culturally speaking, food, cooking, and sharing meals have been increasingly devalued as shinier, faster, louder lives have been encouraged by merchants of all sorts, new (if not necessarily New) media, and the geographic distance in families........not just career moves, but also by the individual retreat.....such as Sally and Junior having their own televisions in their own bedrooms.

Yes, there are times when Mom has to be at one place, and Dad or Other Mom, or Other Dad has to be someplace else, not to mention Sally and Junior's activities/classes/practices, and a meal with a frozen entree, bag of salad, maybe some precut vegetables for a raw vegetable plate, and an Entemann's dessert is the best/most that can happen and have everyone sit down at the same time, and everyone be able to leave at the same time.

There are no easy answers. Furthermore, not everyone has access to clean, safe full line supermarkets, especially inner city dwellers, who often have little choice in stores--or to go to a better store, take a murderous sacrifice of money or time, or both, to go to suburban stores, and if one has ever tried (as I have done for years) to do a week's grocery shopping without a car, and only with public transportation--which is not fully available everywhere, at times that work for the working poor.

We (as a country, a culture) need to start thinking about access, about safety, about what is important, and where does food, real food factor into life.

Many of us here are very lucky in that a high percentage of us can cook, usually like to cook, do not always have to cook for a less-than-usually grateful family, and have the ability to have a wide range food choices. Cooking as an option is very different from cooking at (figurative) gunpoint.

I certainly do not mean to sound like a scold or inflict any guilt (or more guilt.) My goal is to get some reconsidering, some shared strategies, and perhaps cause some thinking in new ways.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I don't think that most commercially prepared foods are

When I make a pot roast in the pressure cooker or country fried steak, I freeze portions for almost instant meals. I usually don't have enough potatoes and carrots to freeze with the roast because I eat all of them fast, so I freeze enough broth with each serving of roast so that I can cook more potatoes & carrots in the pressure cooker to get the good flavor I love. A fresh pot of saffron rice and some frozen veggies & a salad with the country fried steak make it a new meal. I like meatloaf and what is leftover can be served again in so many ways when I change the starch and vegetable. I always keep hardboiled eggs on hand for fast egg salad, likewise canned tuna for tuna salad or tuna with tomatoes, olive oil & herbs. Either throw some cold pasta like rotelli in or serve it with good crusty bread and you have a great meal. I agree that it is hard to come home after a full day of work and start a whole meal from scratch, but if you can pace it so that you only have to cook a side or two and nuke the leftover entree, it is much easier.
 
To give you some ideas, here are some things I have made when in need of a fast meal. Not as healthy as a properly prepared meal, but better than a frozen pizza or fast food.

- Hamburger helper (or another similar boxed meal) and throw in vegetables (a bag of frozen vegetables, bag of fresh spinach, chopped mushrooms, fresh vegetables, etc.) half way through the cooking time.

- Whole Wheat cous cous, frozen vegetables, protein (can of beans, tuna, salmon, sardines, chicken, etc.)

- Mix a lean cuisine type meal which has some sort of sauce, and make additional vegetables (like half a bag of frozen vegetables). Mix together.

- Prepared stuffed chicken breasts, rice or cous cous, lowfat frozen creamed spinach.

If you can't tell, I like to keep frozen vegetables on hand since they cook quickly in the microwave, great for when I am pressed for time. They add nutrition and increase the portion size w/o increasing fat or calories significantly.

Quinoa is another great grain, although it takes a little more time and cous cous. I prepare big batches of rice (white with barley, brown, or quicker cooking Haiga is good) in the rice cooker, and then freeze it in individual serving sizes. My partner will microwave them when he wants some rice quickly. The trick to keep rice the right consistency is to seal the containers immediately upon filling, and letting them cool on the counter before freezing. Then, when you microwave them, the rice has the proper amount of moisture in it.
 
I like frozeys. But then I liked airline food back when they had it. Can make some scratch stuff but don't want it again in the 5 days leftovers last and most damages stored frozen. Spaghetti sauce doesn't, and I've even managed calzone.

Besides more salt that I want, frozeys need a pharmacist to read the ingredients. Ever notice how many of them are detergents? Sodium hexametaphosphate isn't exactly in my spice rack.
 
I've been guilty of using frozen dinners, as well as other various prepared convenience products. At one point, I had serious kitchen limitations. And, for years, I have only cooked for myself on a day to day basis, which has seriously limited my enthusiasm for cooking. I can't say the taste was horrible, but then the convenience stuff I buy is usually different from what I actually cook, so a comparison becomes a little harder. Plus the times I've gone convenience the convenience factor is the main thing I care about.

Recently, I've been trying to get away from heavy use of convenience products. I have real concerns about the how healthy they are. They have salt. They have chemicals even a chemistry major may not have heard of. And, probably, GMO ingredients. I can tell a real difference how I feel when I am eating well (or at least reasonably well.

Others have said this, but I'll echo this: a real key to success in cooking from scratch even when life is busy is having recipes that can be whipped together fast.

Also: cooking in quantity helps. I knew someone who did that: he'd cook up a several day's worth of a main course. I, personally, would get tired of the same meal every day. Years back, I made an intriguing borscht recipe. But didn't pay enough attention to the details, and made a lot more than could be easily used up. Even with two people eating it, it lasted and lasted. Finally, it was used up, and all interested parties agreed: it would be a fine idea if borscht did NOT make a repeat appearance for a very long time. I am now considering cooking and freezing the excess, at least enough for really busy nights. If my schedule changes to a more hectic one, freezing my own meals might be essential.

Finally, there are healthier commercial meals of some sort. Fred Meyer has a selection in the "Nutrition Department." They may be organic, and generally healthier than the regular freezer aisle. I find the taste can be acceptable, at least by frozen dinner standards. But the price is higher, although sometimes there are really good sales.
 
Forgot to Mention.....

....One of the biggest travails I encountered while sampling frozen dinners.

I have come to call it "Brown Glop Number Five." It is the alleged "gravy" you find in almost any frozen dinner containing beef, whether Salisbury steak, meat loaf, or what-have-you.

It is an unnaturally dark brown, nearly the color of Hershey's syrup, and it is full of something absolutely evil-tasting. I detect hydrolyzed yeast, as well as some mega-soy product that is so salty it would be too much in a pickle factory. It tastes nothing like good beef gravy. Hell, it tastes nothing like bad beef gravy, and as a 1970's graduate of Atlanta's secondary schools, I have quite a lot of basis for comparison.

I find it hard to believe that anyone willingly buys a dinner containing Brown Glop Number Five a second time. If they do, it goes to prove something Frank Lloyd Wright once said: "Be sure to get what you like, or you will end up liking what you get."
 
None compare!

With the old Swanson dinners avalible when I was a kid, they might not have been healthy, but as a kid I thought they were wonderful!
 

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