Review: Veggie Cuisine: Enchilada rojo with Mexican-Style Rice

This whole trying to eat better and eat more meatless is not very easy for me at the moment since I work full-time, go to school part-time, and own a home with a yard that is suddenly in need of spring clean-up. Let me first say that I do try to avoid processed items when I can. However, having some good options to pull out of the freeze for a quick lunch/dinner or some snacks in the pantry for on the go can be a lifesaver. I am always on the look out for items that are a good compromise between convenience and health for those crazy days when I don't have any time to throw my own food together.

It is for this reason that I was so excited when I found these Lean Cuisine Veggie Cuisines at the grocery store. If you haven't seen them, they are located separately from the regular Lean Cuisine items. I think I found these at Meijer by some of the Amy's Kitchen frozen items.

My initial excitement was hampered when I realized that each of these Veggie Cuisines contain gardein chick'n. While I have fallen behind on my blogging, please let it be known that I have found some great recipes that are meatless and very satisfying, but other than the veggie burgers that are mainly made with actually food like black beans or mushrooms, I have avoided all forms of faux meat like the plague. If I am going to eat meatless, I'm really not interested in eating things masquerading as meat.

So needless to say, that first day I walked away without any Veggie Cuisine, but recently I saw them on sale and though "what the hell!" I grabbed them and gave the Enchilada Rojo a shot the other night. Despite the fake chicken, I was excited because it did seem to have a variety of some other good stuff. The rice is described as having black beans, roasted sweet corn, red peppers, and tomatillos. I will admit that the rice did live up to its promise and mixed with some of the sauce it was just the right side of spicy.

The enchilada itself had some promise. It started with a corn tortilla, which I personally prefer over flour tortillas. I was actually almost half-way through it (and started to assume that the fake chicken was shredded small in some way and not so bad) when I actually found my first piece of chick'n. I'll admit it had some texture and that texture was like a too dry piece of chicken breast, but it also had no flavor. Needless to say, I picked out all four pieces of chick'n from my enchilada.

So in review, if you do not like fake meat, at least there isn't an overabundance of it in this dish to pick out. If you are a fan of gardein chick'n, you may be disappointed because there are only like four chunks of it. If you are like me, you wish they would just make more quick vegetarian meals with actual food.

Nutritionally, the Enchilada Rojo has 310 calories, 8g of fat (4g sat fat), 13g protein, 670mg sodium, and 4g of fiber. According to Lean Cuisine's dietary information this item contains 2 serving of vegetables, but I have my doubts. Looking at the ingredient list, its amazing to see how many things are in such a small portion of food.

In closing, while I would not suggest anyone makes this a staple of their regular weekly meals, if your choice is between this and some fries and a coke at the drive-thru, this might still be your better choice.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, I did write a short review and posted it to this item on the Lean Cuisine website a couple days ago. I wasn't mean or sassy and I didn't use bad words, but my review has yet to show up with the rest of the reviews for this item. Actually, I should say the other review, because there is only one and it says "Yummy". Kinda feeling like their website reviews can't be trusted.