Review: Banquet Pepperoni Stuffed Breadsticks

Here we go again, with another cheap, microwave-ready frozen snack from ConAgra's Banquet brand. This time, it's Pepperoni Stuffed Breadsticks with Marinara Dipping Sauce.

Before cooking.

Right out of the package, the frozen breadsticks look almost like real pepperoni wrapped in dough. Pay close attention to the product, though, and you'll see that the "reduced fat pepperoni stick" is actually an extrusion of red paste. 

The ingredients panel on the box horrifyingly reveals that the "reduced fat pepperoni" is in fact made of dough, "meat blend" made of beef and pork, textured vegetable protein, "restricted melt cheese," "substitute mozzarella cheese," and a Monsanto inventory's worth of various chemicals.

After cooking.

It's quite a stretch for Banquet to call it a "stick" at all, since after cooking the pepperoni-dough core of the breadsticks melts and spreads and bonds with the plain bread dough exterior. The overall effect is soft, chewy and doughy, like a nicely-baked soft breadstick but without any real type of crust.

The marinara dipping sauce that comes with the breadsticks is fairly standard stuff, strongly flavored with oregano and seasoned with crushed garlic, onion, and other Italian-style herbs. While certainly not ground-breaking or very exciting, it is completely authentic-tasting.

Just like with the previously-reviewed Beef & Cheese Quesadillas from Banquet, the Pepperoni Stuffed Breadsticks are - despite their Frankensteinian origins - totally delicious.  I would absolutely buy them again.

Review: Banquet Beef & Cheese Quesadillas

So, there are a couple of cheap new additions to the Banquet section at the local Save-A-Lot, and both of them were looking pretty irresistible the other day. Today, we're taking a look at Banquet's Beef and Cheese Quesadillas.

The package shows two plump quesadillas bursting with beef and cheese, toasted all light and crispy with a cup of sauce for dipping.  The actual package contents aren't presented nearly so well:

The difference between carefully-styled package art and actual contents is an old story, and one on which I'm not going to dwell. As nice at would be to just once find the actual food match the box illustration, ain't never going to happen.

Anyway. The quesadillas are not at all light and crispy. They're thick, heavy, doughy, and chewy. The insides are thinly spread with a mixture that has little business even being called "food," let alone anything as specific as "beef" and "cheese." The ingredients include "substitute cheddar cheese," "cheddar cheese type flavor," "mozzarella type cheese powder," "substitute mozzarella cheese," and "hamburger [ground beef, salt, spice, hydrolyzed corn protein, natural grill flavor, flavorings]." This recipe is from the laboratory, not the kitchen.

The "zesty taco dipping sauce" is just boring and reminded me more of an unsweetened ketchup sauce than anything else.

And yet, for all the seemingly industrial-grade components used to put this horrible anti-food together, I  have to say....

...they're delicious.

I feel dirty and ashamed for saying that. But it's true, and they're only a buck.

Banquet Chicken Nugget Meal

Banquet's Chicken Nugget Meal is another one of those dollar-lunches-worth-a-dollar. You get five chicken nuggets, a scoop of whole-kernel corn, and a dollop of macaroni and cheese.  It almost seems designed with kids in mind, which is a little odd considering most school children don't have access to microwaves in school.  And while the build quality is definitely in the low-middle range here, it seems to be a pretty square deal: You actually do get a dollar's worth of food for your dollar.

Although only four nuggets are pictured here, you get five of them with this meal (whoops! I ate one before I remembered to take the picture!)  The corn is pretty standard ConAgra/Banquet fare: tasty but kind of tough and tooth-resistant yet still okay for all that. The macaroni and cheese was bland almost to the point of whybotherness. Luckily, I had a bunch of ketchup packets in my desk at work so I could drown them in Heinzy flavor.  Can't say they weren't moderately filling, though.

As for the nuggets...well...it would be so disingenuous to complain about nuggets being made of pulverized chickybits, so I just won't.  I don't expect handsome whole cuts of tender white breast meat in a cheap meal anyway, and neither should you.  You get a fairly typical handful of chicken meat patties, breaded with well-seasoned crumbs and fried. The texture is just a bit spongy, though still firmer than many of Banquet's other similar products, and the flavor is fairly decent - very much like Banquet's regular fried chicken.  If I had to bitch about anything, it would probably be that five nuggets is a pretty skimpy amount and it wouldn't kill ConAgra to put a few more in there.

Overall, though, you can do worse for a dollar lunch.  I'd buy them again, especially with the four dollars in coupons that are offered printed on the inside of the carton right now.

Banquet Turkey Meal

If there's one thing you learn from eating Banquet frozen meals, it's this:  Not all one-dollar meals are alike - you know you're not going to get an awesome gourmet meal, but at the same time you're rolling the dice to not feel cheated out of your buck.

Most of Banquet's "Mexican" meals, for example, are a stellar deal for a dollar.  The Boneless Rib meal is a decent lunch at a  laughably low price, too.

And then there's Banquet's turkey meal.  Congratulations, you just rolled snake eyes.

Here's the meal.  Two semi-circular slices of "meat" - one light and one dark - over a sparse sprinkling of bread cube "dressing" in a pool of turkey gravy, with sides of peas and instant mashed.  In keeping with Banquet tradition, the instant mashed potatoes are actually pretty good and the peas are just typical frozen peas.  No complaints with any of the veggie side of the tray.

And then, you go over to the meat portion and suddenly things take a turn for the worse.

The very idea that ConAgra would find it necessary to create separate "white meat" and "dark meat" turkey loaf seems so ridiculous given that there seems to be absolutely no difference between the two slices other than color.  Seriously.  The generic sort-of-turkey flavor along with the molar-resistant plastic-like texture is identical between them and reminds you with every bite that this is a factory-made industrial product. And really, Banquet, scattering a dozen little breadcubes in the bottom of the tray to get sodden with - and nearly indistiguishable from - the gravy? That's your idea of "dressing?" Your grandma must be so proud.

But for all my suspicions that I'm gettting suckered here, I can't deny that I only paid a dollar for this lunch.  I can't even get an egg-salad sandwich out of the automat at work for less than $2.75. I know that I'm just getting what I paid for.  But it sure seems like those dice were loaded.

Banquet Chicken Fried Beef Steak Meal

I must have this inner masochistic streak that manifests itself whenever I go into the frozen foods aisle at the supermarket.  I just can't resist the urge to buy cheap Banquet frozen meals. So what if they're not even Denny's-quality kibble?  It's a hot lunch for a buck or less and they're usually under 400 calories to boot.  

Today's culinary adventure is Banquet's Chicken Fried Beef Steak Meal.  This particular meal was irresistible to me because I simply had to find out what that big breaded patty was actually going to be - you just know that for 88 cents on sale (seriously) you're not going to get anything that remotely resembles a real "beef steak."

The centerpiece of the meal is a somewhat irregularly-shaped breaded patty which ConAgra lists in the ingredients as a "Beef Patty Fritter" made primarily of beef, water, breading, and textured soy protein.  It's hard to tell where the breading ends and the beef begins, and cutting into it offers no further clues; it's sort of like those strange "veal patties" you sometimes get when you order veal parmigiana at a low-rent Italian restaurant, except with a lot more bread.  The texture is somewhat loose and wet and would be disconcerting anywhere except in a Banquet meal, but the flavor is tasty - somewhat beefy, a little salty, but well-seasoned and even a bit spicy, just like you'd expect from a decent fried chicken.  The patty is accompanied by a bargain-bin "country gravy" which is flavorful enough to be tasty and bland enough to cut some of the salt in the patty.  It's roughly equivalent to any powdered country gravy mix you've tried, and I have to admit some fondness for it.

Sides are typical of Banquet meals - standard-issue yellow corn, tender but still manly enough to fight back a little when you try to chew it; and a small plop of reconstituted dehydrated potatoes, which are - as always - delicious.  I love it when I get a Banquet meal with mashed potatoes as the side dish because I freely admit that I love the flavor of instant mashed potatoes.

When all is said and done, I can accept this meal and the "Beef Steak Patty" it's built around on its own terms and enjoy it for the cheap, tasty, and relatively fast lunch it provides.  I'd buy it again.

But you know what I'd really like?  A frozen Banquet meal with nothing but a big-ass pile of those mashed potatoes and a sea of that white gravy.  ConAgra, if you're reading this:  How about it? 'Cos I'd buy that for a dollar!

Banquet Select Recipes Herb Grilled Chicken Breast

Although there are a few shortcomings, it's surprising just how "okay" the Banquet Select Recipes Herb Grilled Chicken Breast meal is.

The chicken patty - a careful amalgam of chicken meat, textured vegetable protein, and spices - is not bad if a bit unreal and spongy in texture. The "serving suggestion" box art showed it with those painted grill lines ConAgra is so fond of, but my actual patty showed no such decoration. Even though I wonder how they can legally get away with calling this a grilled chicken breast (since it's so obviously not an actual breast of chicken) the flavor acceptable and the texture isn't really any worse than anyone else's processed chicken patty or nugget.

The patty sits on a bed of rice, and as always, the rice is almost perfect: individual, properly-cooked grains without any overcooked explody grains. ConAgra has really perfected the ability to reheat previously-frozen rice. Too bad they had to drown the whole thing in cheapish gravy, though. Although bland, there are hints of chicken flavoring along with a helping of bitterness, probably side tastes of things sage and thyme that are also present. I'd suggest cutting back on a few of the herbs and adding a bit more salt, but these things are already loaded with sodium and I'm sure ConAgra doesn't want to attract any more negative attention than they already do, what with being a huge soulless corporation and all.

The carrot-and-green-bean medly was fairly forgettable: tough beans and leathery carrots, though at least this is no fault of the manufacturer - I've never had very good luck with microwaving either of those veggies from "cooked and frozen" to "ready to eat" so I have a little sympathy for the kitchen staff that developed this meal for Banquet.

Overall, though, this is yet another acceptable cheap lunch from Banquet - it will fill you up and still be cheaper than a sandwich.
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Banquet Boneless Pork Rib Meal

Although a little strange to look at, the Banquet Boneless Pork Rib Meal is pretty inoffensive as Banquet meals go. In fact, if you've ever had a McDonald's McRib sandwhich, I'd say you already know exactly what to expect from that vaguely rib-shaped chunk of chopped, compressed, and formed pigmeat in the little black tray.

Slightly spongy with added textured vegetable protein and rather bland, the rib patty is greatly improved by the barbecue sauce in which it swims (which is pretty tasty if somewhat oversweet and gooey.) You'll never mistake it for the real thing - not even with your eyes closed - but it won't make you shudder with horror like the Cheesy Smothered Meat Patty.

The sides are pretty standard Banquet meal accompaniments: very corny-tasting masculine corn kernels that give you what-for when you try to chew them, and tasty but made-from-dehydrated mashed potatoes. A decent lunch and good value, especially because they're commonly on sale for $1.00
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Banquet Homestyle Grilled Meat Patty Meal

Our old friend, the Banquet Meat Patty, is back - this time without the smothering cheese sauce - in Banquet's NEW! Homestyle Grilled Meat Patty Meal.

Aside from the way in which seemingly off-the-shelf ingredients have been combined, there doesn't seem to be many "new" things about this meal. The "meat patty," now freed of the gluey vomitous cheese sauce, tastes pretty much like the standard Banquet "mystery meat" fare - a vaguely oniony-seasoned, oversalted combination of beef, perhaps some pork, and certainly some textured vegetable protein - is practically identical to their "salisbury steak" patty. The sporty grill lines are new, though. I wonder how ConAgra gets them there? Screen printing? Minimum-wage factory worker with a paintbrush and a bucket of Caramel Coloring? The thick, tough, chew-resistant noodles are definitely familiar: I'll never forget them from the Swedish Meatball challenge from several weeks ago. And, of course, there's the Beef Bouillon-flavored gravy in which all of it swims. That's so standard that Banquet probably converges a dozen different manufacturing lines under a huge gravy nozzle for a big splurt before sealing. All of which is to say that although the meal is a triumphant symphony of mediocrity, it's not entirely bad.

At any rate, the absence of the cheese sauce actuallly makes this particular meal a few notches better than its smothered cousin, and for a dollar or so, the Homestyle Grilled Meat Patty Meal will certainly satisfy your lunchtime hunger without grossing you out.

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Banquet Select Recipes Slow Cooked Beef

This Banquet meal was on clearance at my local Big Y supermarket, which kind of struck me as odd - how bad does an already-somewhat-mediocre frozen meal have to be to get marked down? - so, naturally, I gambled a dollar to find out. As it turns out, Banquet's Slow Cooked Beef really isn't all that heinous.

The meal consists of chunks of beef in gravy served on egg noodles, with a side of cut green beans. The noodles are pretty standard and not all that bad - they didn't turn out tough or leathery, and they were a huge improvement from the somewhat lesser-quality noodles I found in Banquet's Swedish Meatballs. Plopped in the middle of the noodle pile was a serving of beef cubes with gravy.

The beef was obviously slow-cooked; it was tender and flavorful (aided by various seasonings and whatever industrial culinary magic ConAgra could come up with) and quite obviously beef - not some kind of "mystery meat." The meat itself was actually somewhat enjoyable. Too bad it was combined with the gravy, which tasted absolutely loveless and artificial; I swear it was cheap bouillon (fake beef + salt) thickened up to mimic gravy.

The green beans were pretty much what I expected, which is to say a little overcooked, a little "grassy" tasting, but otherwise okay. (I never buy frozen green beans because I hate the way they cook up - green beans are one of the very few veggies that I actually buy in cans.)

I have to say that overall, though, this particular meal is one of the better Banquet offerings, and well worth picking up on sale.
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Banquet Enchilada Combo Meal

Because I actually kind of liked the Banquet Smothered Burrito meal I reviewed back in June, I didn't even think twice about picking up the Banquet Enchilada Combo Meal for lunch. Even though Banquet's quality runs hot and cold, I figured the worst I could get was an edible lunch for under $2.00.

Turns out that's exactly what I got.

The refried beans (a soupy pool of earth-flavored sludge) and the "Mexican-style rice" (firm medium grain rice studded with bits of red and green bell pepper but drooly with a slightly-spicy runny red sauce) were both pretty much identical to the sides offered with the Smothered Burrito. But the main course was far inferior.

I know that pictures on box labels are carefully staged and styled "Serving Suggestions" which usually have little in common with the actual food in the container, but in this case the reality is so far removed from the photographic fantasy that it's hard for me to believe that the food stylist was working for the same company as the packaging plant.

Those round, plump "Authentic Hand-Rolled Tortillas" bursting with meaty filling, topped with chili sauce and a sprinkling of cheese are nowhere to be found in the box. There are a couple of flattened folded corn tortillas, each with a bare smear of filling inside, plopped sadly into a thin brownish chili sauce. The "beef" enchilada was pretty awful; there didn't seem to be much beef in it. It was more like some sort of greasy red film studded with unidentified tiny chunks. Although the "chicken" one wasn't much better, there were recognizable thready-looking fibers of chicken meeat in amongst the "structured vegetable protein" filler. And it seems to me that corn tortillas are particularly unsuited to precooked reheatable meals: these had turned thick, wet, and soggy. As the meal heated up in the microwave, it smelled incredibly awesome - mouthwatering, even - but the reality just couldn't match it. The Enchilada Combo Meal is truly a horrid experience.

Banquet Chicken Fried Chicken

Congratulations, ConAgra. You've managed to give one of your Banquet meals perhaps the stupidest names I've ever seen. "Chicken Fried Chicken." Nice going.

The Chicken Fried Chicken Meal consists of a boneless fried chicken patty with country-style gravy, mashed potatoes, and corn. It's a fairly standard lunch plate and should be easy for Banquet to get right. And yet, the far weirder Banquet Smothered Burrito was actually better in many ways.

The boneless chicken patty in this meal is a strange thing. It's nicely breaded, and flavorful in it's way, but it's got a strange texture. Very artificial; it reminded me of the really cheap chicken "cutlet" thingies they used to serve in the school cafeteria when I was a kid. It's not really recognizable as "chicken" when cut open. There's ground meat in there, and blobby-looking stuff, and the inside sort of fades into seasoned crumbs as you get closer to the surface. The patty sits in a pool of "country-style gravy" which isn't too bad, there just isn't enough of it (not enough to cover the patty, not enough to have some on your mashed potatoes, and especially not enough to keep the microwave from cooking it until it turns into some strange sort of gelatinous resin in the tray.)

The corn was fairly decent. Don't look for meltingly tender kernels or candycorn sweetness here: Banquet chooses a manly corn indeed, dense and chewy with deep corn flavor. It's actually pretty good, despite needing a sprinkle of salt. The mashed potatoes were also up to par though, like I mentioned earlier, it would have been nice to have enough gravy to dress them up a bit.

Overall, worth every penny of the $1.25 I paid (damning with faint praise, as they say.) Too bad that the weak point in this frozen meal is the main course.

Banquet Smothered Burrito

You don't have to shop dollar stores to find some strange and unusual foods - thanks to ConAgra's Banquet brand, there's always something interesting in the freezer section of the grocery store. Like this lunch: Smothered Burrito. Doesn't the Serving Suggestion Enlarged To Show Quality look delicious? There's a plump "bean, beef and textured soy protein burrito" ladled with delicious "queso sauce" and a helping of "Mexican style rice" and refried beans. If it weren't for the queso sauce looking a little like that fake rubber vomit you can buy in novelty stores, the stuff would look pretty good. You can bet the food stylist in ConAgra's art department spent a few long hours carefully assembling that plate of grub for the photographer.

Of course, real life is never really the same as a painstakingly crafted food model.

Clockwise from left: Burrito smothered in queso sauce, refried beans, Mexican style rice.

Okay, so it's not much to look at. How does it taste?

Surprisingly, not as bad as I thought it would when I laughingly plucked it out of the freezer case at the local Shaw's. The refried beans were pretty awful. There were virtually no pieces or chunks of bean in the serving; it was a thoroughly pureed, drooly brown paste with very little flavor. The rice was similarly underseasoned, but somewhat better. I had expected overcooked mushy rice, but got surprisingly firm medium-grain rice with small bits of mild red and green bell pepper. There was too much sauce for the rice, of course - a gluey concoction of modified food starch, cumin, and turmeric - but at least there was a hint of spicy heat that kept my taste buds from falling asleep.

The burrito was kind of strange. Tortillas don't really microwave well, and heating the meal turned the tortilla into a tough and chewy membrane filled with a reddish-brown...filling. It tasted goodish, I guess, and vaguely south-of-the-border in kind of the same way that Taco Bell reminds you of Mexican food without ever really being actual Mexican food. And the queso sauce was not nearly as laughably nasty as it looked - it was actually cheesy and somewhat flavorful and contained ingredients such as real heavy cream, Monterey Jack cheese, and diced jalapeno peppers (along with other, more standard industrial food ingredients like locust bean gum, pasteurized process cheese spread, and dry nonfat milk.) I find myself almost surprised to say that I kind of liked it.

Not a gourmet meal by any means, but at $1.25 ($1 on sale if you time it right) it's an acceptable lunch on days you just can't get away from your desk for longer than it takes to work the microwave.

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