Healthy Frozen Meals: Smart Ones Dragon Shrimp Lo Mein

Lynnafred here. Going back to school has made me miss a few things. One of those things is the ability to eat on a somewhat regualr schedule. Nowadays, I get up in the morning, chug a Mountain Dew, and that's about the extent to my food intake until I come home at about 2:00. I refuse to eat cafeteria food that has God-Knows-What in it, and the cafe's sandwiches run at something like $5 a pop, making them a bit pricier than I'd like for some turkey and cheese slapped between some bread. So when I get home, I pop some kind of frozen dinner in the microwave and it does a good job of holding me over until 5:30 or 6:00 when we eat dinner. And, I've got to admit, it's better than gorging myself on potato chips.

Foraging for a tasty frozen meal this afternoon, I found this Smart Ones Dragon Shrimp Lo Mein tucked in the freezer, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's supposed to be "tender shrimp in a mild soy-ginger sauce paired with Asian noodles tossed with sugar snap peas and carrots." And, it is mostly that. Mostly.

I'm once again delighted by how tender the shrimp were. Flavorful, sweet little shrimp were dotted throughout the meal, and were nestled in a little bed of noodles that looked, tasted, and had a mouthfeel more similar to spaghetti than to any "Asian noodle" I've ever eaten. A small handful of peas and shredded carrot were sprinkled in there, and apart coming out a tad soft (in spite of my reducing the cooking time by about two minutes) weren't too bad. What threw me, though, was the sheer amount of diced water chestnuts in here. They completely dominated the tiny amount of peas and carrot.

The sauce wasn't really much to rave about, either. While it had a spicy ginger kick and a sweet soy sauce note, I thought it odd that it tasted very much like gingery, garlicy chicken stock. And a look at the ingredients told me why. Chicken flavor is in the ingredient list, as well as chicken fat (twice, even!) and hydrolyzed chicken. Oh. So that's why it tasted like there was chicken broth in my shrimp meal. Because there was.

This probably isn't going to be something I ever get again. Not until they change the label to reflect what's really in there: "tender shrimp in a garlicy-gingery chicken broth paired with some spaghetti with diced water chestnuts."

Nutrition Facts:

Calories: 240 (35 from fat)
Total Fat: 4g
Sodium: 690mg
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