Canadian Bacon Stuffed French Bread - This was good, but not as delicious as they proclaimed it would be. It was basically just a hyped up sandwich. Also, I thought it could use more onion flavor in the spread, and when making the spread at dream dinners, I already added twice the recommended amount. Moreover, the calorie count on this is NUTS and that's for 1/3 of the sandwich, which is not enough for a full meal. I combined mine with a small salad of my own creation.
Tortilla Chicken Bake - I have to admit I was skeptical about the uncooked rice in the casserole, but it cooked up just fine. However, that's really where my pleasure ends on this. I thought it was REALLY bland. Also, a serving is 1/3 of a tray, which, again, isn't enough food. I made a small side salad with just baby spinach, tomatoes, and lime juice and seasonings. I squeeze a little lime on this dish as well and added a little roasted garlic salsa, which made it much more delicious. Still, not delicious enough to ever want it again. Ever.
Chicken Yakatori with Jasmine Rice - This was delicious. The portions were nearly enough, but it was lacking in greens so I added broccoli. With a half cup of broccoli per serving it was plenty filling. Interesting side note on this, I cooked the rice in a really small sauce pan. The recommended water didn't seem to be enough to I winged it and added a little more and I was doing other stuff so I turned it on low and forgot about it for a while. When I checked on it 30 mins or so later, the rice was cooked but the starch turned the all the rice at the bottom and on the edges of the pot into this perfect little edible bowl. Delicious and fun mistake.
Arroz con Pollo - This was pretty good. I left out the corn because I do not love corn (although it is not the devil like olives) and doubles up on the black beans. I also went heavy on the onions, because that's how I roll. That said, I know my Arroz con Pollo. I've had it Cuban Style, Spanish Style, Puerto Rican style, and this was more, 50's house wife style. It's as much Arroz con Pollo as "American Chop Suey" qualifies as being Italian food. Still, out of the two "bake and go" meals I got from dream dinner, this was the far superior choice.
Greek Chicken with Parsley and Penne Pasta - This was also very good but I, again, modified it. When "making" it in the store, I omitted the olives and doubled the chickpeas because, well, olives are the devil. I also went light on the cheese and heavy on the garlic (actually, every recipe that had garlic I, like, tripled the garlic). There was not enough pasta. If I were home, I'd have substituted wheat pasta and included a cup more, but I didn't add more pasta, instead, I once again added broccoli, because broccoli is delicious and good for you. That said, with about a cup or so of chopped broccoli added to the pasta, this made for three whole meals.
Mandarin Chicken with Citrus Vegetables - I could tell when prepping this that it wasn't going to be a enough veggies for three meals on it's own, so I decided to add a side of brown rice but then I found these delightful precooked beluga lentils in my pantry, so I tossed them in with the veggies. They were good, but the rice would have been more filling. The chicken portions here were also small. The Arroz con Pollo had full chicken breasts but these were half the size, cut along the wider part so they looked whole from the top (like a butterfly cut in half). The citrus sauce was tart in an unpleasant way. I added a tablespoon of honey, which rounded it out and made it better, but fresher sweeter citrus juices would have made a huge difference. It also could have used a lot more garlic. I could see it but I couldn't taste it at all over the citrus (and I tripled the suggested garlic at the store). I saved this for last because I thought it would be the most delicious, but it was medicore at best.
Anyway, so that's all the meals I got at Dream Dinners. I'd rate the food as 2 stars but the service there earned a third. read more
