DAY 7

Should this message reach anyone, I want them to know that it was my fault. All the others are dead - Carlson, Velasquez, Snoop, Hsung - and it's my fault. If I hadn't eaten that Signature Range macaroni they'd still be alive. We were right in macaroni territory... I should have known... I should have...

What more can I do to atone than to eat another variant of macaroni? By eating as many of those macaroni bastards as possible perhaps I can offer their souls some small recompense for my cutting short their sojourn on earth. 

I approached a small village on the outskirts of the macaroni capital. A sign on the village gate read "Macaroni with creamy cheese sauce & a light sprinkling of paprika". This place went by the name of Wattie's, and it would be here that I would finally show the macaroni people their place in the world. 

Heartless sons of bitches

Suspecting nothing, the chief of the village led me inside. In true hospitable macaroni style, they informed me that it would take 5 minutes for the village to prepare for the welcoming celebration. I waited eagerly with fork in hand...

The time has come. The villagers are rounded up in the village center, about to begin their welcoming festivities. I descend upon them like an avenging angel, impaling them upon my fork and shovelling them into my gaping maw. The streets of the once peaceful village run yellow with cheese sauce and the wails of the macaroni people are quickly smothered by the loud slurps as I pile them down my gullet. 

Shirtless, rent with wounds from weeks of combat, and smeared in my own blood mixed with cheese sauce I roar my defiance to the Gods above!

Final Verdict:

 As a microwave meal: 7.5/10

As an actual meal: 6/10

Day 2:

The worst of the snack attack is over. Another faction of macaroni approached our camp under the banner of "Signature Range". They came bearing a larger portion size for around the same price. "What is this?" one of our pluckier recruits asked.

"Macaroni cheese finished with a seasoned, cheese crumb".

 With that, I removed the package from the box. Inside the plastic tray dish was a frozen puddle of beige matter, topped with crumbs, grated cheese and sprinkles of some unknown condiment. After thanking our new macaroni benefactors I hastened to the microwave to cook our new bounty. 

5 minutes cooking, 1 minute standing then another 2 minutes cooking. Our boys grumbled a bit, as they were used to 5 minute cooking times, but we weren't in a position to be scrupulous. 

The wait was tense. We kept expecting another snack attack but it never came. Jules nearly cracked under the pressure - I had to put a bullet in his skull before his madness spread to the others. 

Finally, the long awaited klaxon signalled that the cooking was complete. The scent of ersatz cheese permeated the bunker. Nodding silently to our new-found macaroni friends I tucked into the meal they had generously constructed for us from their fallen brethren. 

The macaronis were not quite al dente, but not as soft as those we had faced in the snack attack the day before. So this is how the Signature Rangers overcame their foe. The cheese sauce tastied cheesier, and the cheesey crumb crust on the top only added to the delight my tastebuds were now experiencing. One of the men fainted seeing me dine on those who had until recently been our enemy. 

I finish this latest entry with hope in my heart. The Signature Rangers have shown me that for a similar price to the Snack Attack, I could have a larger amount of macaroni with a decidedly superior sauce and bite to it. We would repel the McCain's Snack Attack if it reared it's head again. With our newfound allies, it seemed anything was possible.

Final Verdict

As a microwave meal: 7/10

As an actual meal: 6/10

"Battlestations"

6 minutes and counting until the snack attack... Hold the line men... 5 minutes... Hold it, hold iiiit...

2 minutes... YOU WILL HOLD THE LINE...

*beep beep beep*

"Al dente macaroni covered ina creamy cheese sauce, topped with cheddar cheese and paprika".

Oh god... the horror... they're everywhere... there's nothing we can *GLCHHFFLFLKKK*

<END FEED>

6/10

 

Wattie's Big N' Hearty Soup - Vegetables, Pasta & Beef. 99% Fat free (or 1% fat, if you're a glass half empty kinda guy like me). Serving size 430g, price FREE because some FOOL left it in the work pantry.

I don't see any heart in the ingredients, but listed is beef so maybe heart is just included under that catch all term. I take the lid off the container to look at the meal before cooking - it's brown and that's about all I can make out. 2 serves of veges per pack, great. It comes in a convenient plastic bowl so I don't have to do any dishes (apart from the fork). Let's get this thing in the microwave.

Cooking time is a mere 2 minutes, bucking the trend of 5 minute cooking times!

Wattie's Big N Hearty Soup obviously doesn't conform to the 5 minute standard cooking time for microwave meals. "Screw the system!", it seems to say as it revolves on the microwave plate.

Ok, digression over. Time to eat. I'm writing this sentence in an empty store on a fairly quiet day. Let's see what happens when I put fork to lips.....

No customers! It's amazing, I can eat my meal in peace. However, I now know that eating soup with a fork is HARD. 

It's tasty and rich - very savoury. I'm not clued up enough on the language of cuisine so I don't really know how to describe it. "Beefy" comes to mind. It's fairly salty, savoury... I can taste onions, a hint of ginger. The vegetables and pasta are all of decent quality and consistency. A bit scarce on the meat. In fact, the picture on the container is slightly misleading - it presents a picture of generous chunks of beef floating amidst a sea of vegetables and pasta spiral. In reality it's more like a token portion of beef lost in a sea of gravy with an ok amount of vegetables. 

Alas, Wattie's, I fear that this meal is not living up to it's epithet as it is neither very big nor hearty. That aside, it is still enjoyable and delicious. The flavours complement each other well and it almost does taste like a homemade soup (albeit on the stingey side).

Final Verdict:

As a microwave meal: 7/10

As an actual meal: 5/10

Let's cut to the chase here.

"Crisp Asian-inspired vegetables, long grain rice and marinated chicken pieces in a deliciously rich honey soy sauce"

Bla bla ... something about how can vegetables be inspired... bla bla... asia is a big place... bla bla bla bla... like saying "white man food"... bla bla bla... 

Cooking time 5 minutes. Detecting a pattern yet? I can't describe what it looks like because the meal is cooked inside the opaque bag. Probably for the best, then.

 

Ah Wattie's. The king of frozen meals (in New Zealand at least) ... unless I'm missing out on something. I happily admit that they are the yardstick against which I measure all other microwave meals. Truly masters of their craft - especially compared to Dakshin's. Speaking of which, my flatmate ate my microwave Dakshin's Thai Green Curry with Chicken the other day.. He said it was one of the worst things he had ever eaten, but that surprisingly the peas and the rice were ok. The chicken was like shredded jellymeat, and it smelt like someone had drank a litre of coconut milk and then thrown it up again. I won't be reviewing that one, ever.

Anyways, where was I. Oh, wait a second. The law has come into force - no customers for 45 minutes until the very moment I sit down to enjoy my meal. You know what, I don't care I'm going to continue eating and reviewing. 

The rice is delicious, cooking in the bag steamed it to perfection and the honey soy sauce has permeated each grain so that it bursts with flavour every bite. The carrots, baby corn and broccoli taste fairly fresh and again are cooked to my liking and infused with flavour. The sauce itself is bombastic and rich, fairly generic flavours but it does the job well. This is the first microwave meal I've had where the chicken was actually tender, but Wattie's are humble enough to not proclaim such on the packaging. My only gripe is that some of the chicken pieces have a little fat on them, or veins. 

As far as microwave foods go, this is the cream of the crop. The cooking process results in a nicely steamed dish with the tasty sauce permeating the rest of the ingredients. Well done Wattie's, you have the approval of an anonymous unpopular food-blogger who knows next to nothing of food critiquing or fine cuisine.

Final Verdict:

As a microwave meal : 9/10

As an actual meal: 6/10

 

Adding further confusion to the snack/meal distinction, we have today "SuperSnack Beef Lasagne". Supersnack... so, a meal? I don't know.

"Is it a bird? Is it a plane? .. .etc"

"A tasty combination of minced beef and pasta topped with a delicious cheese sauce". 250gm, standard price - nothing special so far to distinguish it from the previous 2 micro-lasagnes I've had the pleasure of reviewing. Cooking time is 4 minutes, 1 minute stand, 1 minute more cooking. Uncooked, I can already see that the lasagne has been divided into bite sized pieces instead of the usual sloppy sheet. Nothing irregular stands out, it looks not different from the others I have tried. Into the microwave it goes:

 

 It's orange and it looks like barf. The lasagne has the texture of canned spaghetti - a little too soft and soggy. Not too bad so far... The tomato sauce is quite tasty - sweet, slight acidity, not overwhelming. The cheese sauce tastes a little bland, and doesn't really offset the rest of the meal too well - it seems more like it was put there because lasagne "must have cheese". The beef mince is almost non-existent, so what you are left with is soft lasagne pieces, bland cheese sauce and tomato gravy with a small amount of mince and reconstituted onion pieces. As a whole, it's certainly not the worst I've had. Not quite measuring up to Wattie's, I'd say it was maybe only slightly below the signature range offering due to the lack of mince and the wangary texture of the pasta.

I don't have much to say, hell no one's reading this anyway. I don't even think I'll bother with the final verdict today, so here is a picture.

 

 

I'm either extremely brave or extraordinarily stupid ... Or perhaps I do this for the good of the blogosphere, and microwave gourmands the world over! Lady and gentleman, and whomever else may chance to read my brief attempt to alleviate workplace boredom, I present to you:

Dakshin's Lamb Rogan Josh (w/ Rice)

There is scant time for pleasantries or introductions, the beep I just heard alerts me that I  have 1-2 minutes of cooling time before I can eat. Quickly then, "Snack-sized meal of tender lamb in a tangy medium-spiced tomato and onion gravy, served with rice." Is it a snack, or a meal? I don't think it can be both. I shall call it: A sneal!

Uncooked, the meal looked like... at this point I'm sure you can guess. It looked like frozen shit with rice. Ok, let me retrieve my flavoursome bounty from it's nuclear tabernacle. As I anticipated, the meal now resembles liquefied shit. Mmmmmmm...

The aroma is surprisingly pleasant, I can pick out cardamom and the lamb. Is that jasmine? No nevermind it's not on the ingredients list. The rice is slightly better than in the Butter Chicken (see last entry) - the individual grains actually have some texture to them rather than commingling into a gelatinous puddle. The meat seems to have survived the packaging, freezing and reheating process fairly intact - that's two points over the last effort already. I don't know if it's a property of lamb vs chicken but it is much more pleasing to eat. The gravy of the meal is nothing to write home about - a mild tang scintillates the tongue, and the flavours are savoury and salty, fragrant, but still a little bland - not terrible, however. Gone is the overbearing sweetness of the Butter Chicken, and while this is far removed even from a mall curry I find myself enjoying it (relatively speaking).

What more can I say? Dakshin's, you have redeemed yourself (or maybe, time has dulled the aching memory of the last meal I ate from Dakshin's).

Final Verdict

As a microwave meal: 6.5/10

As an actual meal: 3/10