No, no – it’s Café Steamer, not Cleveland…

Given that I’ve crossed The Mendoza Line and I’ve got a wedding to appear in and wanna buy a coolass suit, I’ve started to explore the world of high-sodium, low-calorie frozen meals. The immediate options for food where I work blow, and I’m trying to find an evening balance between regular ol’ weekday dinner and fantabulous nights out on the town.

I suppose I’d do better actually cooking healthy meals for myself, but that ain’t gonna happen. I also suppose that I’m upping my salt intake rather dramatically, but whatev – I’ll start drinking more water. The larger concern is are these even edible?

We’ll see. Given that I’m loosening the reviewer’s shackles a bit with this blog, here’s the first installment of a (potentially) recurring segment...

Dining with Mr. Freeze
Vol. I: Healthy Choice Café Steamers: Cajun Chicken and Shrimp
Who knew they could make a double-boiler of sorts using microwaveable plastic? Why, the R&D guys at Healthy Choice, silly! It is pretty novel, tho – you microwave the whole bowl and then pour the top (food) into the bottom (sauce) to eat it.

Which is not as dirty as it sounds.

Anyway, the chicken didn’t turn to rubber and the shrimp actually cooked thru, so bonus points for both. To top it off (or bottom it, I guess) the sauce featured… flavor! So overall:

Recipe Realization: Good. Sometimes these things suffer from Airplane Food Syndrome (this was when they served food), where instead of just giving you a halfway decent sandwich, they try to microwave haute cuisine at 35,000 feet. But this tasted like the entrée’s title.

Filling Rating: Solid. Ate it while catching up on a bunch of friends’ blogs and didn’t feel like immediately running to the vending machine.

So Mr. Freeze says yes. What do you say? I'm conceivably eating a fairly large handful of these a week, so lemme know if you want to hear more about the aforementioned Cafe Steamers, Lean Cuisine's Paninis and Dinnertime Selects, Smart Ones and more.