What are the best and worst T.V. Dinners you have had?

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largosan
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11 Aug 2012, 3:02 am

Not quite a TV dinner, in the sense that TV dinners are usually frozen, but Maruchan Yakisoba is pretty good, especially the spicy chicken flavor. I also really like generic frozen corn dogs. The name brand one's have nasty batter, but the local store brand is really good.



IdahoRose
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11 Aug 2012, 3:05 am

largosan wrote:
Not quite a TV dinner, in the sense that TV dinners are usually frozen, but Maruchan Yakisoba is pretty good, especially the spicy chicken flavor. I also really like generic frozen corn dogs. The name brand one's have nasty batter, but the local store brand is really good.

Yes. Yes it is. I really love the teriyaki beef flavor. :)



Jory
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25 Jun 2015, 8:10 pm

Frozen dinners? You're speaking my language. I'm serially lazy when it comes to cooking, and I've built up a mental list over the years of what's good and bad.

Pizza: Freschetta, hands down. It beats DiGiorno easily, though the latter is acceptable. The generic Walmart DiGiorno knock-off is about the same quality. Tombstone is alright, but I prefer the cheaper Jack's, even though it's smaller. Red Baron is good, particularly their breakfast pizzas (which have egg, bacon, cheese, and white gravy) that I recently discovered. The cheap Tony's crap is to be avoided. As for pizza rolls, Totino's are good, but I actually prefer the cheaper Kroger generic version.

Burritos: El Monterey is the best I've had, whether the smaller ones or the huge "XXL" kind. The "beef & bean" and "bean & cheese" are my favorites. The "Psst..." brand is awful, which is odd since Psst... is Kroger, and Kroger is usually one of the better generic food brands.

Misc TV dinners: Hungry Man is my gold standard. It's still cheap TV dinner food and no substitute for something that's good and homemade, but it's a cut above the typical crap. I've also lately been trying the Boston Market stuff, and found it to be about on the same level. ($2.50 at my local Walmart. Not bad at all. Some chicken nuggets and french fries at the nearby McDonald's costs me $7.) Stouffer's is generally good but I had to stop buying them because they kept disagreeing strongly with my stomach. (Too much grease, maybe? I dunno.) Banquet is cheap as hell but better than you'd expect based on the price. Marie Callender is one of the higher-up brands and they're good, but they ruined pot pies for me by putting big chunks of celery in them. One brand to avoid is On-Cor, which I found comparable to jail food, which is no compliment at all.

Other: You've got Hot Pockets, which Jim Gaffigan calls Diarrhea Pockets for good reason. Some of them can be acceptable, but not much more. They're generally just a big lump of grease; leave it to Hot Pockets to make pizza seem gross. Corn dogs: take your pick. Pretty much any brand will be the same: decent but nothing special. (They're corn dogs, not gourmet dinners.) As for Asian food, I'm limited here in experience since I'm so picky with this type of food, but the Tai Pei stuff has good rice and vegetables but the chicken is lame. I always douse them with Kikkoman soy sauce to compensate.

By the way, there's this website called Freezer Burns that reviews this kind of food. Worth checking out.

Oh, and always cook in the oven. The microwave usually ruins TV dinners.



lostonearth35
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25 Jun 2015, 11:58 pm

I've bought a few frozen "diet" dinners, and I found Weight Watchers to be the best, but mostly it's all like hospital food to me. When I make something from frozen or from a can it's more because I hate doing a pile of dirty dishes afterwards and not because I don't feel like cooking, because I actually like cooking.



Jory
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26 Jun 2015, 1:50 pm

Can't believe I forgot this one: Zatarain's blackened chicken alfredo. I haven't tried any other meals from this brand, but I love this one. Can't remember how many times I've bought it. It's on the upper end of frozen dinners, both in quality and price, but I rarely see them for more than $2.75.



lostonearth35
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05 Jul 2015, 8:33 pm

I had non-diet frozen dinners, too (I don't normally call them TV dinners although that's what they were originally created for), but they're not much better than the diet ones even with the extra calories, fat, and, by some stretch of imagination, a dessert. But my dad really likes them. He'll often buy them if my mother makes him go grocery shopping. Strange.



Marky9
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05 Jul 2015, 8:50 pm

My go-to is Marie Callender Chicken Pot Pies. Sadly, I don't care much for their beef ones.

In general I love savory meat pies. My fantasy is to visit the UK someday just to travel about sampling meat pies. Plus Sunday roasts and full English breakfasts.



redrobin62
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06 Jul 2015, 12:10 am

I used to buy the Hungry Ma Spicy Chicken dinners when I used to eat meat. Typical of the way I shopped, I'd buy every Spicy Chicken dinner in the supermarket, usually about 15 or 20, and the clerk would look at me like I was a nut or something.

Same thing for when I bought frozen pizza. I'd buy 20 or 30 boxes of Digiorno's at a time.



cathylynn
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06 Jul 2015, 12:22 am

my favorite is linda mccartney's butternut squash ravioli.



nick007
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06 Jul 2015, 1:16 pm

I don't eat TV dinners


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auntblabby
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07 Jul 2015, 1:31 am

the best tv dinner I ever had, was back in the "old" days when they still used metal trays- it was a thanksgiving tv dinner [turkey/gravy/dressing with dessert] - and the worst tv dinner I ever had, was the same tv dinner but nowadays in the cardboard tray- the gravy was watery and the turkey barely more than spam, no dessert, barely a tablespoon of gravy and dressing, maybe 2 tablespoons of watery powdery mashed potatoes. a typical army MRE was more filling and better overall eatin' IMHO. :|



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07 Jul 2015, 1:59 am

nick007 wrote:
I don't eat TV dinners


Thank God there's at least one more of us on here!

I think I had a TV dinner a few times as a kid just for the convenience novelty of it, but thankfully both of my parents are great cooks. Present day I cook almost 100% of my own meals. TV dinners are full of preservatives and fillers and GMO frankenfood garbage.. no thanks!


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JitakuKeibiinB
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07 Jul 2015, 3:00 am

If I eat frozen meals it's generally "Amy's", but you might as well go to a restaurant, considering the price.



WitchsCat
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07 Jul 2015, 5:12 pm

I like anything that is Lean Cuisine. My favorites include chicken fettuccine, Swedish meatballs, pepperoni and four-cheese pizzas, and four-cheese cannelloni. I also like Lean Pockets, as well as Stouffer's macaroni and cheese.


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justkillingtime
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09 Jul 2015, 10:18 pm

Stouffer's meatloaf
Stouffer's macaroni and cheese


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