Marie Callender’s: Dinner for One #under500

This week I spent mostly at work and these overnights had me eating a Marie Callender’s meal for my dinner to get me through the 10 hour shifts.

I decided that I wanted to try out a different meal every night, on my own dime and see what I thought of a variety of meals. Little did I know I was going to have to hide my food from my coworkers! Kid you not, every night I had a couple people hovering over me to see what I was eating each night.

The first night I had the Three Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni & Chicken. I absolutely adore pasta of any sort. I enjoyed the flavor, but wish the stuffing had been more “thick”. I felt the noodles were a bit flat. The chicken was cut thick and I liked that aspect of my meal. Altogether, it was filling enough to keep me going for the next 4 hours! This meal was under 500 calories!

Night two I decided to try a Steamer with the Chicken Teriyaki. This was SO good! I really liked how it cooked, also. You stick the whole basket into the microwave, no water needed! The food is cooked separately from the sauce. Once it cools off, you mix it and voila, there’s your meal! It was really satisfying and delicious! Sure enough, this meal was under 500 calories at only 280!!

The third night I had an awesome meal of Honey Roasted Turkey! This was part of the Complete Meals. It had mashed potatoes, and broccoli with carrots! What a filling meal! I think I loved the mashed potatoes the best even though I didn’t really notice the cheddar-bacon. Depending on the veggies, they can tend to taste like they’ve been frozen. At least for this meal I didn’t find that to be true. I liked mixing my chicken, gravy and potatoes together! Just…yum! On the back of this package, I found that there were only 320 calories for the entire meal! Marie Callender’s is also joining Feeding America & ConAgra Foods. On the front it says, “This purchase can help provide one meal* to Feeding America (see back for details). I’m going to the site to enter my 8 digit code a monetary donation is made to Feeding America. Make sure you read the fine print to learn all of the information. This continues through 8/31/11The last night I had another Steamer with Beef Pepper Steak! This one was a bit spicy, which was ok. Nice to have a microwave meal with flavor! It wasn’t so spicy that it took over the flavor of the meal and that I appreciate! I really liked the onion strips really stuck out to me because I liked the flavor. The meat was a bit hard to chew, but I think that can be expected from a frozen meal.

  What I like most about the Marie Callender’s meals, is that I get to eat food that I normally don’t at home. See, I have two little boys who are mighty picky eaters. That means if I want a meal that’s flavorful, full of veggies, and healthy, I have to make something for one person. Doing a 4 course meal isn’t practical around my house. And this meal tops off at 290 calories!!That’s the truth of the matter. My food would go to waste, even with me being a big fan of leftovers. I can only eat so much. On top of that, I’m mostly a grazer. I can’t eat huge meals at once, unless I’ve worked a 12 hour shift and have a huge meal placed in front of me, as my co-workers will attest.

So, when it came to what I would eat for these overnight shifts without wasting food, which in turn would be wasting money, I went for the Marie Callender’s meals. Each night as I headed to work I tried to think of what I was hungry for that night. When I’d get to the grocery store, it was still hard to choose from all the options!

As you can see, the photos aren’t the best because I didn’t want to leave my camera in the van overnight in an empty parking lot. So, I took the pictures with my phone camera. That’s why they aren’t the greatest quality! Sorry.

*I will be compensated for my posts from TheMotherhood.com. The opinions expressed are my own and never influenced by the company.. The meals for this post were purchased by me.