Lean Cuisine Recap

So I've been trying these Lean Cuisine entrees as replacements for a carbohydrate serving and a Nutrisystem entree, and I've enjoyed the results.  Unfortunately, I don't have a stable weightloss benchmark for the time eating them, because there's been a lot of cheating in this house, recently.  I think that they're fine for those purposes, but I can't say for certain, what I can say is that they're pretty damned delicious for "diet" food.

For dinner Sunday, I enjoyed the Steak, Cheddar & Mushroom Panini.

The paninis have a similar packaging/cooking setup to that of the pizzas.

The box is ripped open along perforated lines, and turned over to provide a cooking platform.

The main difference in the packaging is that the plastic that wraps the sandwich also contains the actual crisping plate.

Placing the halves of the sandwich together, I noticed that it seemed disturbingly greasy for diet food, although it's probably some Pam-esque frankenfood product, rather than actual oil, it still set off alarm bells in my head, especially given the fact that the sandwich tasted freaking great.  The bread seemed fairly well toasted on the outside, and didn't have much of that gummy quality I usually associate with microwaved bread products.

For dinner Monday, I had the Wood Fire Style Margherita Pizza.

It was a pretty good meal.  Like several of the pizza varieties from Lean Cuisine, this is one that I don't typically order, but one that I'll gladly eat if it's from a decent parlor.  This was pretty good for a microwavable meal, but my personal preference will be, in the future, to go with one of the other varieties.

 Tuesday, I had the Southewst-Style Chicken Panini.

It was quite good, and I'll probably get it again.  I like any sandwich with grilled peppers and onions on it, and this fits the bill.  The bread was, once again, lacking in gumminess and fairly crisp on the outside.  I do still have a kneejerk reaction of revulsion to calling a sandwich that's not going to seek a press a "panini", but I can live with it.

Wednesday, I had my final unique Lean Cuisine Meal, the Roasted Garlic Chicken Pizza.

This was my favorite of the chicken pizzas.  I love me some garlicy pizza, and this was the only one of them that had much to offer on that front.

I'd call these a certain success if I hadn't been such a dipshit with going off my diet in other ways and not working out this week.  I've been very busy with an all-consuming project that I'm still not prepared to reveal, but am getting much closer to bringing into the glorious light of day.  Well, half of you know about it already, because I'm either consulting with you on portions of it or someone couldn't follow the simple request to "not tell anyone about it until it's more certain", but I think all will be a little surprised when the plan is revealed in its glorious fullness.