FOOOOOOOD!!

[Eccs]

Mmmmm yum I like seaweed products, I really like crispy seaweed strips. They are basically just thin strips of dried seaweed, sometimes flavored (wasabi, spicy, octopus etc).

Generally store brought tofu and hand made tofu is really different in quality, taste and texture. One of my favorite restaurants has a signature dish hand made tofu. Its really nice and smooth and tasty
Anyway here are some other ways to try tofu, lightly battered fried tofu with a light soy sauce to dip in when you eat it.
Tofu in claypot is usually nice, basically stir fried items with tofu added in.
Stuffed tofu is also nice put any kind of mince mixture inside it and steam/fry it up
Tofu in soup as you tried (I usually have small blocks of this cooked in miso soup).

[chrisb]

Thanks for the suggestions! I think I'll try one more time with a better quality tofu.

[Kerreth]

A while back, one of my WoW friends sent me Minnesota Wild Rice as part of a Christmas package and said her favorite thing to make was "Wild Rice Hotdish." Which I've never heard of, and from the recipe card, sounded kinda gross. Apparently, it's this:





It actually wasn't that bad, but what the hell is up with you, mainlanders? Who comes up with mixing 3 cans of condensed soup with hamburger and wild rice and putting it in a casserole?

[Joseph Collins]

This seems like a good place to slap a review of a commonly-available product you folks may or may not have eaten. Today, I review a long-time "favorite" TV dinner of mine: their "new & improved" Boneless Pork Rib meal. I'll warn you, it's a bit of a post... so feel free to skip over it if you'd like!

Firstly, for those who aren't aware, this particular TV dinner comes with a main entrée and two side dishes. The box itself explains it best: "Pork patties (which are basically minced pork reformed into a vague "rib" patty shape) glazed (more like smothered or swimming) with barbecue sauce with home-style (whose home?) mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables (which is basically carrots, corn, peas, and cut string beans) - includes a chocolate brownie". If this doesn't sound appealing to you, then clearly you have no taste in food. But wait, there's more! As of earlier this year, this particular TV dinner is "new & improved!", according to the box. How could they possibly improve upon the perfection that is reconstituted pork by-products and canned-and-frozen vegetables?!

Let's start with the entrée. To be perfectly frank, the majority of the taste of the boneless pork rib comes from the sauce. If you remove the sauce (in my case, lick it off), you're left with something that tastes more like cheap hamburger than pork. It doesn't taste bad, mind you... but it just doesn't have much of a flavor by itself, despite being seasoned with what the back of the box calls "barbecue seasoning" ("tomato powder, brown sugar, vinegar powder", among other things) and Worcestershire sauce powder (they couldn't opt for the real thing?). Pinnacle Foods (by what standard is this a pinnacle, exactly?) apparently knew this, which is why they felt compelled to complete submerge the two pork patties in twice their own weight in the sweetest, "tangiest" barbecue sauce I've ever tasted. I'll give them some credit in that the barbecue sauce has more of a barbecue flavor than the patties, but that flavor is mostly overpowered by the sweetness of the sauce (which, how did it even get this sweet? An overdose of high fructose corn syrup? Or maybe too much molasses...) The sauce really isn't all that appealing to me, but that's mostly because it's so overpoweringly sweet with absolutely nothing for it to blend with.
After munching down on the boring pork and twelve gallons of sweet-and-sweeter sauce (as well as cleaning my fork up a bit), I moved along to the vegetables. Well... I have to admit, the vegetables taste like vegetables. Canned vegetables, but vegetables nonetheless. The vegetables have all the right colors, but the flavor is subdued. Maybe that's a side-effect of being frozen? I wish I knew. The back of the box lists the vegetables as just vegetables, so there's no additives in them apparently, so the only explanation I can think of is that they must be canned, then frozen. I know when I make frozen vegetables up, they don't taste this weak. Even unseasoned, as these are. (Now seems like a good time to mention I actually added salt and pepper to these vegetables. It doesn't help.)
Following the directions of "heat for 4 minutes, then 3 minutes, then let stand for 1 minute" gave me a stuck-together, semi-amorphous blob of off-white they call "mashed potatoes". I'll admit, they taste vaguely like something you'd prepare from a pouch... except that they really have no flavor to speak of. Considering these potatoes supposedly have heavy cream, butter, and margarine, that's a real surprise. (Or would be had I not eaten this meal before.) They're also a little on the dry side, but maybe that's because I followed the heating instructions on the box. All is not lost, however, for I found that mixing the not-quite-mashed potatoes in with the bland vegetables -- particularly the juice of the vegetables, really seems to help the flavor of both. They actually taste pretty darn good together, in fact! Now, on to the most exciting part of the meal... the dessert!
Let me describe for you the challenging process of microwaving the brownie. Remove plastic film, heat meal on high for 4 minutes, remove brownie. I really have no idea why they made it so you had to do this, since most people are lazy and just nuke the whole thing for like 6 minutes on high anyway, but to my surprise, it turns a pile of semi-gelatinous brown goop into a fluffy, chocolatey brownie! And to be perfectly honest? Unless you somehow overcook the brownie and it gets hard (like say... by not following the asinine directions on the box), the brownie is by-far the best part of the meal. It has a rich chocolate taste without being overpowering, the texture is smooth and somewhat fluffy, and all and all, it's a darn delicious little square of cocoa and soybean something-or-other. (The brownie has the most complex list of ingredients on the back of the box.)

Not 5 minutes after I finished the final bite of the meal, my stomach was growling again. It may be 1 lb. of food, but like thin-crust pizza, this particular kind of food apparently only stretches so far before you're hungry again. Or still hungry, in my case.

So, what is my final verdict on the New & Improved Hungry-Man Boneless Pork Rib meal? 3 out of 7. The meal was, as usual, disappointing. Barely delivers what it promises on the box, brownie aside. (Have I mentioned that that's a darn good brownie?) It will by no means sicken you (unless you're really opposed to sweet sauce on your meat), but there are definitely better-tasting TV dinners out there. However, I should mention that I will continue to buy them. "Why?," you ask? Simple. Because despite the meal being pretty poor and boring, it's honestly the best Hungry-Man meal out there, in my opinion. And I've tried many. And much to my surprise (and honestly, relief), it seems that the "New & Improved" label on the box was a lie, because this meal tastes pretty much exactly like the last Boneless Pork Rib meal I had.

[Kerreth]

That's what the conventional oven directions are there for (assuming they have them). So you can have better tasting meal after you sit and mull over why you're powering a large oven for 30+ minutes for a tiny plate of "food."

[Joseph Collins]

You bring up an interesting point. I did not actually try to cook it in the conventional oven. If I did, perhaps I would've had something a little more yummy. I'll have to try that next time. Thanks for your insight!

(Incidentally, I probably wouldn't use the oven, but my barbecue instead. It works just as well as an oven on most everything, I've found. Provided you have a tinfoil shield for slightly more flammable things. X3)

[chrisb]

Some of those dinner boxes have a bold print that says "do not cook in conventional oven." Not sure why though.

[Farore]

I think the ones that can't go in a conventional oven have plastic trays that will melt if you put them in there.

[Joseph Collins]

I know Banquet micro-TV dinners come in plastic trays. Then again, they also taste absolutely fantastic, especially when compared to Hungry-Man meals! The Hungry-Man meal I had came in a plastic tray, though, as well. And yet... the Hungry-Man dinners do indeed have conventional oven cooking directions! (Heat at 350°F for some-and-such minutes.) So like I said, I'll give that a try next time. Who knows. My review might end up being revised!

[Kerreth]

But... Hungry Man IS MADE BY BANQUET, isn't it?

Anyway, I should clarify that by "taste better" I mean that things will actually be of the right consistency and therefore, edible, as opposed to when you use the microwave and anything submerged in gravy/sauce is safe, and everything else is a dried out piece of dry. It probably won't change the taste of your barbesugar sauce, though the potatoes will probably actually look like potatoes and not white gritty water.