Hormel Compleats....a Review of My Lunch

So a couple of weeks ago I purchased a bunch of these Hormel Compleats at Rite-Aid, since with coupons and store sale and +Up Rewards I received back, they were basically free.
I had gotten them with the thought that Hubs could take them to work for lunch, since they do have access to a microwave in the cafeteria.  It would save us some $$ if he didn't have to buy lunch everyday and could eat these instead once in a while, right?

So I thought I would play the guinea pig and try one before I insisted he take them for lunch.  I chose the reduced-calorie Sesame Chicken meal.
Looks fairly good, doesn't it?

Now let's get a close-up of that dish, shall we?.....

Now let's take a gander at what this Sesame Chicken dish really looks like.....

Mmmmm.....
Makes you wonder how many Hormel would sell if they put THIS PICTURE on the outside of the package?

I'm gonna guess about.....zero packages! lol
If you can get past the dog food appearance(just shut your eyes and eat it!), it doesn't taste that bad.  Much better than it looks is what I'd say!

The 'sauce' is a tad sweet for my taste but acceptable.
The worst thing is the texture of the noodles.  They are waaaaay overcooked and almost at the "mush" stage.  This dish would be alot better if Hormel didn't boil the noodles to death before adding the veggies and sauce.  On a better note, there were much more hunks of chicken than I expected and the pieces were firm and meaty.  You could tell you were eating chicken.
I believe that if you dressed this Sesame Chicken meal up with rice, or chinese noodles or even more stir-fry type veggies(or all 3), it wouldn't be a half bad lunch meal.

In the end, I have mixed feelings about this Hormel product.  It's quick and easy to fix but lacking a bit in the flavor/presentation.  At free, the price was right but doesn't totally overcome the shortcomings.
I doubt if I'd pay money for this product unless the other varieties are better.

Have you ever tried these Hormel Compleats?  How was your experience with them?  Leave a comment and give us your feedback!

Sluggy

Ritz CRACKERFULS Taste Test Product Review

Disclaimer.....the opinion expressed below is unbiased and mine alone.  I did not receive any product or payment from the manufacturer of said product in exchange for a review. 


 I wanted to do the Keep the Jingle in Your Holidays Kraft Rebate a few weeks ago--the one that is valid from 12/1 through 1/31--under Brother-in-Law's name.  Buy 10 select Kraft/Nabisco/Planters item and get a check for $10 back.  Price Chopper had the appropriate crackers on sale for $2 and with the $1/1 Qs I had, the crackers were $1.  So the 10 boxes cost me $10 and I will get $10 back....free crackers!

One of the crackers valid for this rebate are those Ritz Crackerfuls that came out late last year.  I had yet to try them, so I picked up a few boxes among the 10 boxes of crackers I bought.  I like those little traditional cheese cracker sandwiches & I've heard other people locally rave over these Crackerful things, so I went into this thinking I'd like these.

First off, let's look at the box....

The contents weighs in at 6 ounces.
There are 6 crackers in the box.
That's 6 servings of 1 cracker sandwich each.
Each cracker sandwich is approximately 5" long.

I took a bite......sort of like the cheese crackers I remembered from my youth, but something was off or different.

So I tasted the cracker alone and found that the cracker component of these sandwiches was so SWEET!  Chock full of sugar-like substances according to the ingredient list on the box.
First I noticed the texture of the filling was very different from the traditional sandwiches filling.  This one had the consistency of a combination of marshmallow and the weight of floam--light and grainy with a pastel peach color.

Then I tasted the filling.
It was like having a salt lick in my mouth!
UGH!
Combining the overly sweet cracker with the salt lick filling gives you a classic sweet/salty flavor combination that is very popular and well liked.  But it was not an enjoyable mouth experience. I hardly got ANY cheese flavor, just the salt component.
Ok, maybe a little bit of a chemical cheese flavor like boxed Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

The box claims these Crackers contain 5g of Whole Grain and Real Cheese.

But I counted THIRTY ingredients on the side panel.  Besides what they tout as ingredients, there was also Sugar, Assorted Oils, Salt, Corn Syrup Solids, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Color Extracts, Artificial Colors, etc.
That's THREE KINDS of SUGARS.
Get out your magnifying glass to see all the ingredients!

And each cracker sandwich is wrapped individually in a coated mylar packaging.  Inside each wrapper the cracker is snuggled inside a white paperboard sleeve.

At least the outer box is 100% recycled paperboard.

And the calorie count is 130 PER Cracker Sandwich.
And 230mg of Salt per Sandwich(10% of your PDVs for sodium in one cracker).

Lastly, the regular suggested retail on a box of this Crackerfuls is $3.49.
6 Crackers.
$3.49.
That's .58¢ per 5" cracker.

I don't think I'll be buying these again.

Thumbs down Nabisco.....

Sluggy