Adventures With Instant Dinner.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I buy these boxes of Healthy Choice TV-type dinners for nights like these; nights when my husband is over at his father’s, watching the fight, and I don’t need to get up to any trouble to make a regular meal. Less mess.

So I get out the box, pop the dinner out, then flip the box to read the simple directions. Only three steps! Easy peasy.

The first direction reads (and I quote):

1. Remove film cover from dessert and chicken.

Okay! No problem! A couple of quick snips and the film is removed. I leave the film over the vegetables.

Now, step two had me fooled. There are two parts to step two, you see. I take things slow. One thing at a time:

2. Microwave on HIGH 3 minutes; stir potatoes.

Aha. Yep. Easy. I wait my three minutes. Or should I say, my 3 minutes? Anyway, I then remove the tray from the microwave. I must stir the potatoes.

Where the heck are the potatoes? After much searching, I eventually found them. They were hiding in the shape of a small, frozen, white block underneath the chicken. Sneaky little bastard! But I got 'em. I stirred them good, too.

Now, onto part two of step two:

Replace film cover; continue microwaving for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes.

Waitaminute. Replace film cover? I removed it like you told me to earlier!

The box is mocking me, now. “Ahh, but I simply said remove film cover; I did not instruct you to throw the film cover away.”

And I growl at it, “Oh, yeah, Mr. Fancy Bold and Italics Guy? Who saves film cover? Who thinks, upon removing film cover, caked with ice and bits of apple crumble, ‘hmmm, perhaps I will save this for later? Maybe it will come in handy?’ Who does that?!”

The box chuckles. “Obviously, someone who has read the instructions all the way through before preparing their meal.”

“Oh, shite,” I say. “It’s a TV Dinner. The work is supposed to be done for me. All I should have to do is heat it up.”

“Fool.” It says.

“Commie.” I retort, if a little senselessly.

Finally, I wrap the whole thing in Saran Wrap and throw it back in there. Sighing, I read step three:

3.*** Let stand * ** 2 minutes. CAREFULLY remove as** PRODUCT WILL BE HOT**; stir potatoes.

Well, all right, then.

So, finally, I detangle the mess from the Saran Wrap mess I’ve got it wrapped in, find those potatoes foolishly hiding where I left them, and gave them a damn good stir.

Then the damn thing had to go and be delicious. Or, no, wait. It was delicious.

2

Just wait till you try one of those brands that you microwave in, and eat out of, the box it comes in. The box that always has the instructions printed on the bottom. Somewhere out there is certainly someone who dumped out the food while checking to be sure they’d followed all the instructions. That someone isn’t me…but I did dribble it a bit.

3

My grandmother must be rolling in her grave.

4

Heh. When I went hiking in the Sierras about a month ago, I picked up one of those “Mountain Home” freeze-dried dinners. I normally eschew that sort of stuff for rice or quinoa or somesuch, but since they’ve started making them in single size and because all you have to do is boil water and wait five minutes, I figured it might come in handy. :rolleyes: I had actually thought about Pitting these things but never got around to it. Anyway, the result was both messy and dreadful. First you had to cut open the bag o’ stuff (I won’t call it food); then you dump in some seasoning. After that, using two hands you hold the edges of the bag, and then using your third hand, dump the boiling water in without scalding yourself or spilling the contents of the bag. Then you take this steaming hot bag, twist the top, put this cardboard ring to hold it closed, somehow cram (or as the instructions put it, “slide”) this bulging blob of skin-removing stew back in the insulated cover, and let it absorb for five minutes. I think I got the “Beef Stroganoff” meal, but you couldn’t tell it by the result; it was just this slightly milky hot water concoction with little blobs floating around that were repulsively slimy on the outside and tooth-crackingly hard on the inside.

So, between the burns, the spilled soup, and the uncooked noodles, it wasn’t much of a meal, which is good because it tasted pretty awful, too. Next time I want to get fancy I think I’ll bring some rice seasoning and a flask of whiskey.

Stranger

5

On the other hand, this summer I discovered some wonderous instant dehydrated food, I think at REI or somesuch camping store. It was one of those quasi-metallic/plastic pouches, that would stand up on it’s own. Rip the top off, pour boiling water in, stir, zip and let sit for a few minutes, then open and enjoy a gloriously calorie-packing serving of cheesy broccolli potato stuff. If they weren’t so expensive, I’d eat them all the time at school.

However, seeing how I could by something like fifty packs of ramen for the cost of one of those, ramen wins.

6

I’ve always found it better to cook in the oven instead.

7

Yeah, I hate those boxed meals that wind up being 14 step productions. Dammit, if I wanted to cook I wouldn’t be eating out of a box!

I read labels before I buy stuff - if it involves anything more than “vent film cover, insert in microwave, nuke 5 minutes, let cool” I don’t buy it. Vote with your dollars.

8

Sad thing is, I did read it, albeit briefly. I saw it had three steps. Simple, right? What could it possibly be besides slit, nuke, cool?

Me no time for read. Eat now!

9

Tisk, tisk.

I remember one of the FIRST assingments we had in home ec’.

The teacher hands us a three page worksheet with about 150 or so questions on them.

The first question or “direction” I should say, read:

“Read all questions carefully before starting this worksheet.”

Well, me being the genius I am, said to myself “I can’t be bothered with such things!”

So I continue to prattle on through the entire worksheet. Which took a VERY long time to do because the worksheet had me looking up all kinds of rediculous crap that had NOTHING to do with Home Ec’.

I finally get to the end of the worksheet only to discover that the LAST direction read:

Read only question 1 , sign and date question 150 (the last question) and skip ALL questions in between.

:mad: :mad: :mad: Grrr! I was mad!

I sure learned my lesson though.

10

SHAKES - that’s the *exact * assignment I had on my mind all evening after it happened.

Worst thing is, I managed to get the thing right when I was 11 years old. You see, the key phrase was missing from my TV dinner directions: it did not say “Read all directions all the way through before cooking”. It just said “Cooking directions”.

It’s a sad day, indeed, when the talking commie TV dinner box was right. I should have read the directions all the way through first. :smack:

11

Potheads are especially familiar with this phenomenon.

“Ooo, we have chimichangas in the freezer. Mmm, I like chimichangas. They’re tasty. They’re all cheesy. I like cheese, too. … Um… oh yeah, chimichangas. Okay. Here we go. Let’s see. Oh, I think I need a beverage too. Let’s see, ice, glass, water… good. Okay. Wait, wasn’t I hungry? Oh yeah, chimichangas! I like chimichangas. Mmm, cheese. Okay. Okay. Plate, good. One chimichanga. No, I want two. Okay. Directions… man, that’s some tiny writing. Okay. Unwrap package. Good. Toss the wrapper. … Wait, the directions were on the wrapper. Okay, here we go. Okay. Paper towel. Moisten paper towel. Man, these paper towels are ugly. I hate these little patterns. Next time I’m at Costco I need to get the plain white ones. Right. Hey, I’m thirsty. I could use some ice water. Glass, ice… this is familiar somehow. Oh yeah, I already did it, there’s a glass in the other room. I can wait two minutes. Right? Right. I’m hungry. Hey, look, a chimichanga. Okay. Wet paper towel. And… instructions? Wait, what did I do with the wrapper? Dammit… Okay. Wrap the chimichanga, microwave one minute, unwrap, microwave another minute… Man, I can’t remember all this! TOO MANY INSTRUCTIONS!”

12

Hey I know that guy! :smiley:

13

I like the frozen pie selection at my local Safeway, mostly 'cause they’re ~$1.20/pie, and I don’t have to think about lunch when I grab one out of the freezer on the way to work.

They box always cracks me up though. I buy both the generic and brand-name types, and on both types, in bolded capital letters, they all say “OVERCOOKING MAY RESULT IN LOSS OF GRAVY”. My favourite product warning evar. :slight_smile:

14

I think this is the only product warning I would take seriously and take pains to follow carefully. :smiley: