Day 3: Baked Chicken

Hello My Calorie Counting Comrades,


Here's my "to-do list" for the day:

1. Topple the Patriarchy
2. Eat Mashed Potatoes

Luckily Lean Cuisine can help me with at least one of those things. Today I'm venturing into the "comfort food" category. The packaging is different, trying to invoke a warm, hometown vibe. I'm here for it. The only thing that would make this feel more nostalgic is if I had a Miller Lite and my Labrador Retriever, Cassie, was still alive.

A couple minutes into cooking my coworker, and ardent supporter of this project, exclaimed "It smells like Thanksgiving!" She was right, this may have been the most appetizing smell yet. I'm starting to come to terms with the fact everything will involve a "stirring" prep step. I don't like it but just have to suck it up and accept my fate. This time the gravy mixture was still kind of frozen and gave me the heebie-jeebies but I pushed onward.

I really wish the mash potato side included some of the gravy but i'll tell you what these mashed potatoes were delectable! Herb stuffing is my favorite food so I tried not to get my hopes up with this meal. The stuffing was "good" but completely soaked in gravy making it soggy. If only there was a way around that - like putting some of the gravy with the potatoes, damnit. The chicken was tough but edible. Honestly, I could eat an entire gallon ice cream jug of these mashed potatoes. I would have preferred that actually. A microwaveable tray of pre-prepared mashed potatoes would get a 5 on this blog.

So it's not quite Sunday dinner but it put in a good effort. The sides are well on their way to being the real deal. The chicken is the straight to home video of chicken, though. I'd buy this again to see if maybe this was a one time fluke with the chicken. The flavors were pleasant and memory invoking.

Baked Chicken : 3.5 stars

- Colleen