Recipe Fridays: Reinventing the TV Dinner, Pt. 10

Every Thursday (and sometimes other days as well, I admit), I park myself in front of the TV for a few hours.  Dinner is a necessity, and I have these adorable trays… so I Reinvent the TV Dinner and make myself something yummy to eat in a tray that I can place on my lap (or on a pillow on my lap, because sometimes dinner is HOT).  Here’s the latest in my Reinventing the TV Dinner series. 

This was way before final projects and finals (I’m pretty far behind in pictures), so I’m not entirely sure but I think this was a non-Thursday night.  I just wanted something fast and interesting, so I threw this all on a tray and ate. 

I actually like salads, especially when they’re colorful.  The more colorful the salad, the happier I am.  I really love colorful food.  This is purple cabbage (which may just be my latest love in the vegetable world), raw button mushrooms, chopped red and yellow bell peppers, cucumbers, and Romaine lettuce.  There might even be some chopped up peppadews, which I was using to jazz up my salads for a little while.  Tossed together with a bit of dressing, one of the best salads ever.  Refreshing and light. 

The last potato cake, topped with some curry.  I mentioned these last TV dinner – with a recipe – check it out if you want to make these.  Tell me if you figure out how to make them better 🙂 

Chicken.  From a bag.  Yeah, I got a coupon for a free bag of Tyson Grilled & Ready chicken, so I picked it up.  They smell sooo good.  Do yourself a favor: if you have money to burn and want to keep a bag of these in the freezer, you could do much worse.  But one big caveat: DO NOT FOLLOW THE REHEATING DIRECTIONS.  If you do, your chicken will come out totally dry and disgusting.  Put it in for just 30 seconds or so at a time, until it’s hot as you like, and still juicy.  If you do that, it comes out super juicy – despite being white meat – and the flavor is actually pretty good.  I don’t tend towards white meat in general, but when I’m feeling lazy or in a rush, I haven’t minded having that bag in the freezer to just grab and make myself a quick meal. 

For dessert, I had a Magnum bar.  You’ve probably heard of them by now, as they’ve been making a huge advertising push into the US.  I received a coupon for a free box, so I picked up the caramel ones. (They were on sale at the time for $3.49/box of 3, and regularly priced at $4.49.  I think that’s a little pricey, but… I don’t really buy ice cream bars that often anyway.  Oh, and at a regular bodega/candy store type place, they were $1.50-$2.)

I thought it was going to be all hype honestly – but the ice cream was actually really good.  Well, the chocolate; the quality of the chocolate was super rich, and much better than the chocolate on your average chocolate-shell-coated-vanilla-ice-cream-bar.  I was really impressed because as good as a chocolate covered ice cream bar is, this was 10x better.  I definitely will be stocking these in my freezer from now on – when they’re on sale at the supermarket, that is. 

Please note that I received both the chicken and the ice cream free of charge courtesy of Foodbuzz’s Tastemakers program.  I was under no obligation to post about it, received no monetary compensation to that end, and do so freely.  My bottom line: I don’t think I’ll be buying more of the chicken, because, though it tasted good and was super convenient, it doesn’t suit my lifestyle at this time (just graduated from college, not a whole lot of extra money on my hands).  I could see it working for someone with a busier lifestyle and more money on their hands, though – maybe a busy mom who has a job and wants to feed the kids real chicken.  As for the Magnum ice cream bars, I managed to save one for my boyfriend, and he really enjoyed it.  We both noticed the quality of the chocolate, and we definitely intend to stock up whenever these are on sale.  The perfect treat!