Product Review: Steamfresh Rigatoni with vegetables

I love making my food from scratch. I love homecooked breads, fresh vegetables and soft homemade cookies. But sometimes scratch cooking just doesn't work out into my schedule. Or maybe I'm only cooking for myself and balancing a fussy infant on my hip and therefore scratch cooking doesn't really fit in the cards. For nights like those, I try to keep a variety of healthy, quick alternatives available.

Last week I tried Birds Eye Steamfresh Rigatoni with vegetables with tomato Parmesan sauce. It's one of those high-tech steam bags that you pop in the microwave for 4 minutes and voila - it's done. It was so easy!

The bag says that it makes 2 servings which actually would be very generous size servings as a side dish accompanied by a grilled chicken breast or salmon fillet. I, however, was making a whole meal out of this and ate the whole bag. (But even still was only about 440 calories - not bad for a whole meal!).

The pasta was surprisingly flavorful and the vegetables were generous and tasty. It was packed with tomatoes, peppers, onion and spinach. I topped mine off with a little part skim mozzarella and enjoyed my dinner. I would highly recommend!

Each bag provides 2 servings - here's the facts for 1 serving (1/2 bag):

220 calories 5 g fat 35 g carbohydrate 2 g fiber 7 g protein.

Thoughts of my product review are solely my own and
I was not compensated in any way to provide this review.

Product Review - Good Earth Herb Crusted Chicken with Wild Mushroom Risotto

I don't normally buy packaged meals. I usually feel that they are pretty salty and full of preservatives. Plus, after making them, I usually feel like I could have made it homemade, just as easily.

I am a coupon fanatic. I clip coupons, I organize them in my coupon binder, I match up my deals of the week with coupons and stock up my pantry. A few weeks ago there was a good bargain on General Mill's new Good Earth packaged dinner kits. I think they are usually $4 a box and were on sale for 2/$4 and I had $1 off coupon. I think I got it for around a dollar. Even though this isn't my usual thing, I thought I'd give it a try.

I planned on making this on one of the nights that I get home from work late and try to whip up a dinner in 30 minutes or less. I had the chicken thawed and ready to go.

The risotto was easy to put together. I didn't tell Paul that the brown bits were mushrooms and he didn't comment on them either. So that's a plus!

The chicken was to be breaded and sauteed. I don't remember how much oil the recipe called for but I only used about 2 Tbsp olive oil, just enough to coat the pan.

Overall, paired with some steamed broccoli - the Good Earth Herb Crusted Chicken and Wild Mushroom Risotto was a pretty good meal. It took about 30 minutes to prepare and all I had to do was add a vegetable to round out the meal.

The box did say it would prepare about 5 servings. I'm pretty sure 4 would be more accurate. It was also a little saltier than I prefer my food. Overall, if it was on sale and I had a coupon again - I'd buy it. Would I pay full price for it? No. But then again, I wouldn't pay full price for many things :)

As I prepared it, each serving (4 servings) provides:
334 calories
9.4 g fat
30 g carbohydrate
0 g fiber
29.9 g protein

This review was completed on my own and without input or compensation from General Mills.