Stouffer's Anytime Gourmet-Chicken & Asparagus Carbonara

One of my previous positions was the category manager of frozen food for the local division of a national supermarket chain.  One of my responsibilities was to decide what products the stores in my area would carry.  Over the years I got to see a lot of cool products, no pun intended.  Even though I have not been involved in frozen food professionally for some time, I still like to see the wide variety of new items available.  Frozen foods have come a long way.

When both my wife and I worked full time jobs, we had an agreement that I would cook on the weekends.  For some reason that I can not understand, that tradition continues on Sundays in my house, even though I work two jobs and my wife doesn't work.  No matter.

Today was my day to cook.  At first I was going to do something fairly simple like soup and salad, but I had a coupon for $2.50 off of any variety of Stouffer's new Anytime Gourmet kits.  I decided on the Chicken & Asparagus Carbonara.  The box describes the dish as "Chicken breasts seasoned with Italian-style spices and served in a smoky bacon cream sauce with linguine, peas, and asparagus."  As you can see in the picture, it comes as a kit with each part of the meal in individual pouches.

When I opened the pouch containing the two boneless chicken breasts, I could really smell the seasoning.  The first step is to saute the chicken until it is done.  You then remove the chicken and set it aside under aluminum foil to keep it warm.  Next you heat up the sauce briefly and add the pasta and vegetable pouch.  Pretty simple really.  All in all, the total cooking time was about 15 minutes.

I have to say that the flavor was fantastic.  The pieces of asparagus were a pretty nice size and very tender.  The seasoning on the chicken and the flavor of the sauce were spot on, not too mild and not too overpowering.  That was the good.  Now for the not so good.  I did not feel that the kit came with enough sauce.  There was no additional sauce to pour on the chicken breasts or pasta.  The only other complaint that I might have is that there really wasn't enough food for a stand alone meal.  Next time, I will have to add a salad or something.

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Reynolds Handi-Vac

I have a lot of pet peaves. For instance, the grocery store is often a source of aggravation for me. Nothing major mind you, just a few petty annoyances. One of my aggravations is not having enough check stands open for checking out. I don't mind using the self checkout, after all I earned my college tuition working in grocery stores, but it annoys me when I go to the self checkout and can not complete my transaction because of some previously unknown store policy. Some examples of transactions I was unable to do at self checkout are; purchase a gift card, purchase cough medicine, and use an in-store instant coupon on a package of meat.

Another thing that bothers me is when the stores put only larger packages of product on sale. My son eats a separate diet from Mrs. Dickster and myself, so when I buy meat products I only buy for the two of us. I do not need a 4-pound package of 10 pork chops when a 1-pound package of 3 or 4 will do. I don't expect the smaller package to be promoted at the same price as the larger packages, but some reduction in price would be nice. I have a large freezer in the basement, and I could freeze the extra pieces. However, sometimes we forget what we have down there and with conventional freezer bags you can ruin a good piece of meat from freezer burn.

Lately though, I have been thinking more and more about saving cash whenever possible. Sometimes those large deals are too good to pass up. My father in law has one of those expensive vacuum sealers for when he goes fishing, but those are a bit too big and too expensive for my budget. Several months ago, I saw the Reynolds Handi-Vac vacuum sealer. Today, when doing my weekly grocery shopping, my local grocer had it on sale for nearly half off. Normally a $10 purchase but today it was only $6 so I took the plunge. The timing was perfect because they also had a few really good big buy meat deals.

When I got home, I decided to see how well the Handi-Vac worked. I probably should have bought some gallon sized bags in addition to the quart sized bags I bought, but I was able to separate the meat into separate bags to test the product. The Handi-Vac has a small suction tip that you place over an air valve in the bag. It takes a few seconds for you to notice the air leaving the bag, but after about 30 seconds I had a nice vacuum sealed package to put down in the freezer. The best part is, this device is small enough to fit in a kitchen drawer and not take up a lot of counter space.

When I go out to do my grocery shopping, I try to keep my center of the plate purchases at about $5 per meal or less. You won't normally see me buying NY Strip Steaks at $8 or $9 per pound. Usually it is more like top round steak. Today, I was fortunate enough to take advantage of a big buys on sirloin steak, center cut pork chops, and boneless chicken breasts. All told, I purchase enough meat for 8 meals for a total of $27, or $3.38 per meal. All in all, a successful trip. Thanks to the Handi-Vac, I hope to take advantage of these big deals more often. These days, you gotta save where you can.

Glad Force Flex vs Hefty Ultra Flex

Several months ago, my wife came home with our first box of Glad Force Flex Kitchen trash bags.  We have been using them ever since.  I was very impressed with the way you could put a lot more garbage into the bag without the bag breaking.  We have been through about 10 or 12 boxes of them.  In that time, we have had maybe two bags get a tear in them, and at most it was a small puncture.

About 2-3 weeks ago I was doing my grocery shopping and knew we needed trash bags.  I was going to get my usual Glad Force Flex, but noticed that the store had Hefty Ultraflex bags on sale.  I figured with Hefty being a well established national brand, and the picture on the box looking like the Glad bags, I would be safe in buying the Hefty and saving a couple bucks.  Big mistake.

We are still going through that box of Hefty Ultraflex bags.  I have had as many bags rip in that one box as I had in 10 boxes of Glad Force Flex bags.  One of the tears was a hole about 4 inches across and led to old coffee grounds spilling on the kitchen floor.  I had to put that bag in a second bag to keep the garbage from spilling all over the place.

Needless to say, when doing my shopping today, when I saw that the Hefty bags were reduced 33%, I picked up the Glad.

Mr. Rebates Update

Last month, I recommended signing up at the Mr. Rebates website if you were planning on doing any of your Christmas Shopping online.  I used them to order several of the presents I bought for my son.  Once you make a purchase through a Mr. Rebates site, it usually takes a few weeks for the rebate to be put into your account.  I had some funds in my account but had never requested a payout.  So about a week or so ago, I requested the available funds to be added to my PayPal account.  According to their website, once you request a payout, they process the payment in the first week of the following month.  Sure enough, on January 1st, Mr. Rebates had deposited $13 into my PayPal account, so it really does work.

Google Chrome

So on Christmas day while I was getting tired of waiting for pages (including this blog) to load in Internet Explorer, I decided to investigate Google's new browser, Google Chrome.  I had seen banner ads for Chrome on several websites, and thought I would look for some reviews and found a few favorable ones on CNET. 

Google says it's new browser is a simpler, faster, and safer browser.  The download and installation were quick and easy, and I was surfing in no time at all.  I have to say, that the webpages loaded much quicker using Chrome than in Internet Explorer.  I was also able to import all of my stored passwords and bookmarks that I had in Explorer.  Another feature that I like about Chrome is that when you launch the browser, you see thumnails of your most frequently visited websites for quick access.

I have to say that I am very pleased thus far with the performance of Chrome.  So much so that I have made it my default browser.  About the only problem that I have encountered has been some errors when first attempting to visit some websites or blogs for the first time.  For instance, I tried to go to Yahoo Mail and it could not find the website on the first try.  If I refreshed the page or started over attempting to visit the site, it would load with no problem.  It happened with a few other sites as well.  I am not sure if it was a problem with the browser or if I was just having some problems with my connection, so I will keep using it to see how things go.

Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale

After treating myself to the Sam Adams Winter collection 12 pack a couple weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try some other winter style brews instead of just going back to Busch and Bud Lights of the world. So Christmas Eve I found myself in the liquor store looking for a fresh 6 pack.  The package that caught my eye was Michelob Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale.  A winter ale aged in Bourbon casks with whole Madagascar Vanilla Bean.  

The beer itself was OK.  It did not have as full a flavor as I would normally expect from a winter brew, however, it was definitely fuller than a typical Budweiser or Michelob.  You could definitely taste and smell the vanilla bean in the brew which gave it a bit of a creamy taste.  All in all, it was an acceptable beer.  I definitely will finish the 6-pack, and if I was offered from a friend or colleague, I would drink it.  However, I do not think it would be a beer that I would purchase on a regular basis.  All of the Sam Adams beers in the winter collection (with the possible exception of the Cranberry Lambic) were superior to the Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale.