Golden Slurry

Having bought so many kinds of mac n' cheese I've been asking myself when should I eat some of these meals.  Should I have a 'healthy' one after a bad for me one?  Some of these look like snacks and some are full on meals so should that be a factor?  Little hungry, little meal?  Fortunately today I had a need for a snack (we'll ignore the fact that eating some mac n' cheese constitutes as a snack) and had a perfect sized mac n' cheese meal to try. 

The Review

Brand:
Chef Boyardee Mac & Cheese (Pasta in Cheese Sauce)

Price:
$1.55 at Target for small, $2.09 at Target for large (see bottom of review).


Packaging Description:
None

Preparation:
*First take off the yellow cover.
*See that pull ring? Pull it! Dispose of the lid in a manner that doesn't require you to go to the hospital for stitches.

*Now you may be saying to yourself, that cover is metal, microwaves can't have metal in them!  Well actually they can.  A few things can happen with metal in a microwave.  It can make a pretty light show or it can short out and kill the microwave.  Cooking this in the microwave does neither.  The only time you run a serious risk of damaging your microwave with metal is when you've got it in there and it's touching the walls, ceiling or floor of the microwave.  That contact with the box messes with the magnetron, eventually shorting it out killing the microwave oven.  The extra metal can actually crisp up your food a bit (like that wrapper on a cheeseburger or burrito).  **This info brought to you by The Mythbusters**

*Place the yellow cover back on the bowl and cook for 45 seconds.  You will notice a slight hiss as this is cooking, don't worry it's just the metal ring that was left after you peeled the top off.

 

What's funny is that I forgot to take a picture either before I microwaved it or afterwords and I can't tell by looking at the picture because it looked no different before or after cooking.  That's a first.  A sad scary first.

 *Let it sit for a minute.  (funny, that you should let it sit for longer than it cooks)

 *Commence with the nomming!

Taste:
Where to start.  This meal was a special one.  Cheese?  Uh, I couldn't taste it.  There was a slight taste when I put some in my mouth, but at no point did it ever really taste cheesy.  Noodles?  One does not need teeth to eat these noodles.  They were so over cooked that by mashing them on the roof of your mouth with your tongue more than did the job. 

Final Score:
Chef Boyardee.... More like Chef sad-made-me...  (I can not take credit for that lovely line, It was all my coworker Anthony) or maybe Chef boy-ur-yuckie.  This meal was horrible.  I don't care that it's fast to cook, which by the way wasn't long enough.  Cooking to the directions left this luke warm, even straight out of the microwave.  The fact that there was no taste and super scary squishy noodles made this not even worth the two forkfulls I ate.  Save your money, don't buy this or it's big brother. 

Hi, I'm the big brother!  I contain 40% MOAR and am here for your enjoyment torture America!

Walk past it in the grocery aisle and don't look back.  According to Amazon, they also have this in cans.  I've not seen the canned version at any of my local grocery stores, but I'll bet you a buck that it's the EXACT SAME THING and should also be avoided like the plague.  You are bad, Chef Boyardee and you should feel bad.

Nutritional Information:

Serving Size 1 Cup  Servings Per Container 1

Calories  190  Calories From Fat 60
Total Fat 7g (11% Daily Value)
Saturated Fat 3g (15% DV)
Trans Fat 0g (0% DV)
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5g
Monounsaturated Fat 2.5g
Cholesterol 10mg (3% DV)
Sodium 700mg (29% DV)
Potassium 140mg  4% DV
Total Carbohydrates 26g (9% DV)
Dietary Fiber 2g (8% DV)
Sugar 4g
Protein 6g (7% DV)