Seven Whole Grains on a Mission

I am not a big proponent of frozen dinners. I used to eat them for lunch when I worked in an office that didn't have a cafeteria, but that was many years ago. Now that I am looking for something quick and easy to eat at lunch time so that I can feed myself and my child in a briefly short amount of time, I have delved back into the world of frozen dinners.

Lean Cuisine has been "old reliable" for me, particularly their fettucine alfredo. You know what you're getting and it's relatively good. When it comes to their dishes that include chicken and other vegetables, it's kind of hit or miss. Mostly, they tend to come out of the microwave somewhat mushy. And the chicken is not the best - sometimes it has ligaments in it - you know - like chicken McNuggets could be before McDonald's started using all white meat. Speaking of which, when Mickey D's came out with the big announcement that their McNuggets were now made of white meat, I felt like saying, why weren't they made of white meat all along?

Anyway, back to my story. I bought a couple of Lean Cuisines and found that only a certain few were worth eating on a regular basis: macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs and fettucine alfredo - it's noteworthy that they're all pasta - I guess that's kind of hard to mess up.

But as I was perusing the frozen foods aisle, I saw the frozen food selections from Kashi. You know Kashi - the people with the commercials showing some guy going into the deep wilds of the Amazon forest to get your food - the same commercials where everyone looks like they're outdoorsy people from Oregon who subsist only on fruits and nuts.

Well I was skeptical, but I decided to give one of their dinners a try. Let me just say that this was a frozen dinner experience unlike any I have had. I had the Lemon Rosemary Chicken and it was delicious! It had chicken (WHITE meat, mind you, no ligaments here!) with mushrooms and sugar snap peas over rice...but it didn't stop there. There were little grainy things (I'm not sure what they were, but they were good!) that made the dish crunchy. There was nothing mushy about this meal. It was lemony and fabulous!

Now Kashi frozen dinners are slightly more expensive than Lean Cuisine, but well worth it. Oh and one more thing...the heating directions are totally off - they say about 4 minutes total and it took my microwave about 6 - but I was totally willing to overlook this.

I guess I am a bit of a Kashi-convert. I can't wait to try the next Kashi concoction! I'm looking forward to enjoying that Kashi crunch! Ok, I'll stop now.