Frozen lunch food reviews

It has been a busy few weeks, thus the lack of recent posts. I thought I would share my opinions on a few great frozen lunches I've tried recently. While I prefer fresh food or leftovers for lunch, I keep a stock of a few entrees in the freezer in case there is nothing else on hand. Often times I will incorporate a previous night's dinner into a lunch- roasted veggies mixed with goat cheese or brie and put in a wrap, cheese, cucumber and sun dried tomato sandwich, etc. Other times I pair a pack of frozen vegetables (Green Giant Simply Steam boxes are amazing!) with an Amy's frozen burrito (the best brand I've tried) or a small wrap.

As a die-hard Kashi fan I picked up a few entrees to try. My absolute favorite is the Mayan Harvest Bake. It is an incredibly sweet and spicy mix of unusual ingredients, and a nice diversion from the usual burrito/pizza lunch fare. This dish is made up of plantains and roasted sweet potato, black beans and kale, and its covered with a spicy ancho sauce and pumpkin seed garnish, all served over seven whole grain polenta and amaranth. Some seriously fancy stuff for a frozen lunch that I can buy for less than $4 (oftentimes these are on sale at the King Soopers here). This amazing concoction clocks in at 340 calories, 9 g fat, 8 g fiber and 9 g protein. Also low in sodium for frozen food at 380 mg (16% DV).

I also tried the Ranchero beans, Black Bean Mango and Tuscan Vegetable Bake. The bean dishes are decent, especially the Mango. The Tuscan bake is a little bland. I added some spice to all of these but they still are far superior and healthier than most other meals on the market.

Lean cuisine meals are slightly cheaper than Kashi and often on sale, so I tried a few of these as well. My old standby is the macaroni and cheese. I mix in frozen veggies (peas or broccoli usually) and it is fairly filling and healthy, though high in sodium. (290 calories, 7 g fat, 15 g protein).
The butternut squash ravioli is tasty but a pretty skimpy portion for an entire lunch, though higher in fiber and lower in sodium than the mac and cheese.
Lean cuisine pizzas are surprisingly good for cooking in about 4 minutes. They come with a crisping tray, an ingenious way to get a microwave pizza fairly crispy. I've tried the roasted vegetable and spinach and mushroom "deep dish" varieties. The roasted veggie was pretty tasty and had a decent amount of veggies on it. The spinach was a little soggy and there weren't man mushrooms on the other kind. I put crushed red pepper and garlic powder on these to spice them up a bit, but they were pretty filling and healthy for pizzas, with less than 400 calories and 10 grams of fat.

Tasty Cereals!

I was at Target the other day and had to make a mid-week grocery run, so I picked up a few things there. They have decent prices on a lot of my staples, like kashi cereals and morningstar farms products. I also enjoy their generic store brand, Archer Farms. I picked up a new kashi cereal called "Honey Sunshine," and an Archer Farms cereal called "Cinnamon start with protein." Generally we only buy kashi Golean, as it is chock full of protein and fiber and keeps you full until lunch, but I was getting fairly sick of this twiggy cereal though so I thought I'd branch out.

Both of these cereals are very tasty and make a great breakfast or snack. The Honey Sunshine has an appreciable nutrition content: 100 cal/1.5 g. fat/6 g. fiber/2 g. protein. I've been looking for an easy pre-workout snack and I think this would be great, with or without milk. It's best to avoid slow-digesting whole grain before a workout, but it's low enough in protein and fiber that I think it would be alright about an hour before the gym. The Cinnamon start cereal tastes exactly like cinnamon toast crunch, a beloved childhood favorite of mine. But unlike the sugar-loaded kids' cereal, this packs a nutritional punch with 190 cal/2 g. fat/4 g. fiber and an astounding 15 g. protein (not really sure where that is coming from).

The best thing about these cereals is the dessert I just concocted- sprinkling a little of each over a half cup of Dreyer's (Breyer's on the east coast) yogurt blends vanilla frozen yogurt. It tasted like a cinnamon filled fried ice cream and was a very filling evening snack for about 150 calories. MMMmmmm!

The quest for the perfect snack bar...

This is very much a detour from the regular content of my posts, but it does have to do with food so I will continue. I am always reading reviews of new snack products online and in magazines, searching for the perfect balance of nutrition, taste and satiating factor. I tend to eat one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon, and appreciate something convenient and fast. Here are reviews of a few snack bars I've tried recently-

Kashi- I love pretty much everything this company makes, and I feel safe buying it because it never contains much of the crap you find in everything else: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring and flavor etc. Their products taste like they are good for you because they are made with high quality ingredients (hence the slightly higher price than the average General Mills/Kraft products. I tried the TLC fruit and grain pumpkin pie bar and the TLC baked apple spice cereal bar. The pumpkin bar has a good crunch and a nice mixture of flavors and textures. I am a pumpkin fan so I enjoyed it, and it has 4 g. of protein and fiber, not bad for 120 calories.

The apple bar was softer and had a nice flavor but is a bit too sweet for my taste. Not bad at 3 g. fiber, 2 g. protein and 110 calories. However sweet this bar is it's got nothing on Fiber One's oats and apple streusel bar.

Fiber One- I should have known by looking at the ingredients, being that sugar appears 3 times in the list, in addition to HFCS and high maltose corn syrup (?). I would eat this as more of a candy bar than a healthy mid-morning snack. However, it somehow has 9 g. of fiber so it is filling. It could use about half the sugar and more protein (it has 2 g.). This bar has 130 calories.

I still enjoy my old standby, Nature Valley crunchy granola bars in oats and honey, cinnamon and peanut butter, but these have more calories, fat and sugar, and less fiber. They are pretty filling and good for a crunchy snack on a hike.

I am probably going to try the Kashi Golean bars next and I will report back.