So - my husband and I went out today for lunch and a few drinks, and on the way home we stopped at the grocery store. I ran in - we needed milk, Hershey’s Syrup, Saltines, and he told me to pick up something for dinner for myself if I wanted (he has chili - I hate chili) so I grabbed a Hungry Man Classic Fried Chicken TV Dinner. With the two pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, and the little brownie thingy. He looked somewhat askance at me but I loves me some TV Dinners!
What kind of TV Dinners (yeah - I’m old school - that’s what we called them when I was growing up in the late 60’s/70’s/very early 80’s) do you guys like? And am I alone in having a small feeling of nostalgia over them? I used to love peeling off that foil top…
I found the Mexican ones better, in general, than the others.
Although I still have a secret jones for the salisbury steaks in gravy… I used to make sandwiches from the patties and two lightly toasted slices of sourdough.
I’ve pretty much stopped. Besides the health hazards, and the fact that you can’t get sourdough on this end of the country, the product here is much sweeter and not at all to my taste. (*Everything *in New England, including national processed foods, has an extra helping of sugar here. Bleah.)
I recall digging them as a kid. A little corner of the tray with pudding that is unique to say the least, or a brownie with displaced corn on it. But today, I don’t know. The last one I tried was fried chicken, and I was astounded at the crappy quality of the pieces of chicken. But as a comfort food, especially an inebriated comfort food, hell, I’m no snob!
I used to eat TV dinners, back when we watched TV. Then I discovered what fun it is to cook, and how easy it is to prepare a great meal with little effort if you know what you’re doing, and I haven’t watched TV for years. So TV dinners are nostalgia food only.
I usually have at least one stashed in the freezer for those days that I can’t get it together to make a lunch for work, but need to take something. My favourite is the Hungry Man Rib dinner. Vaguely rib-shaped pork patty with oversweet barbecue sauce, mashed potatoes, corn (I think) and a small square of brownie. I bring an extra slice of bread to soak up the sauce. i wouldn’t want to eat them every day, but when I know I have one for lunch, I look forward to it all morning.
Echoing Amateur Barbarian on the Mexican TV dinner love. If I know the wife is going to be off on a business trip, I’ll head down the frozen entrée aisle at the grocery and pick up more than a few for dinners.
The one I really loved as a kid was the ham with raisin sauce. That one was great!
I remember how we had no issue with waiting 45 minutes for them to cook in the pre-microwave era. Now if I look at a box and see “Heat for four minutes, remove wrapper, flip and cook for three more minutes” I feel as though there’s a 50% chance I’ll starve to death before I get my food.
I’ve noticed though that even with today’s meals, they taste better if you cook them in the oven. Not that they become taste sensations but the crispy stuff comes out crispy, the baked stuff comes out less gluey, etc.
Ooooh - I just opened it and got it ready to go in the oven - there are 3 - count 'em - 3 pieces of chicken! I’m so excited!!
Musicat, I love to cook too - and do so, often - but something about a TV Dinner - it’s a strange kind of comfort food.
bobot - how’d you guess there’d be a piece of corn on my brownie?
And Amateur Barbarian, I know what you mean - I jones for the Pepper Steak ones that Budget Gourmet used to make. My kid always goes for the On-Core Riblet ones. He doesn’t even bother with bread to put them on to make a sandwich - he eats them out of the darn tray - and the husband is the same with their stuffed green peppers.
I loves me some frozen comfort food. My meal should be ready in about an hour - 15 minutes for the oven to preheat, and 45 minutes to cook. YAY!!
Hungry Man dinners with Salisbury steak or fried chicken will always have a special place in my heart. These days, I rarely eat frozen dinners and, when I do, it’s usually Amy’s organics. But every five years or so, nothing will do except Hungry Man. In fact, it may be time for a Salisbury steak dinner soon. I tried making it by scratch recently, but it just wasn’t the same.
I didn’t know they still made them like that. Is the tray plastic these days, but still with the little partitions? Paper? Is the brownie wrapped separately so it doesn’t do something weird in the microwave, and then warm it up later in the cycle? Or are they still in metal trays to heat up in the oven??
I buy microwave stuff, to be sure, just not the classic TV dinner style ones so I never stopped to look. I tend toward the Amy’s and Kashi and vegetarian dinners.
Plastic Tray - what you do is take the cellophane off of the chicken and brownie, then you cut a slit in the cellophane over the corn section, and somehow leave the mashed potato section cellophane intact. And then you put it on a cookie sheet and cook it in the oven - that’s the only way to do Hungry Man fried chicken or it turns out icky. And make sure to take the stray corn kernels off of the brownie before you cook it.
I think the Bertolli frozen dinners were a giant leap forward in typical “TV dinner” fare. Everything, including the sauce, is frozen separately before being packaged. The result is about the closest to a freshly-cooked dinner as you can find. A little pricey, though.
For a special treat, sometimes my daughter will let her kids pick out their own dinner from the Banquet TV dinner section. It’s cheap, it keeps them busy while she grocery shops, and there’s no arguing over who wants what for dinner. Plus she doesn’t have to cook that night. Win win win win…
I had a Hungry Man Salisbury Steak just a few days ago. Definitely better in the oven.
I don’t have to justify it but I will. My husband’s overweight and diabetic and I need calories. So while he’s eating a lean steak or a piece of fish and a steamed vegetable, I can have fatty meat, gravy, potatoes, a starchy veg, and dessert. I don’t do it often but dammit, sometimes I get hungry.
It’s a bitch, not just cooking for two but cooking for two who have different dietary needs.
I like the Hungry Man chicken dinners, too, but I get the ones with the spicy chicken. And instead of corn and a brownie, it comes with mixed veggies and some kind of apple dessert. But the chicken portions are generous, with two or three good sized pieces with plenty of meat and very few bones.
I’m not patient enough to put them in the oven and wait. It’s strictly microwave for me, for six minutes.
I tried making it by scratch recently, but it just wasn’t the same.