Frozen Friday: Stouffer's - Farmer's Harvest Garlic Chicken

Stouffer's Farmer's Harvest Garlic Chicken features grilled white meat chicken, cavatappi pasta, asparagus, broccoli, and carrots in a creamy garlic sauce.

A single-serving, 12-ounce bag retails for $4.49 at my local supermarket (sale price usually about $2.50 to $3).

I'm not a huge fan of the steam bag; it can drip out sometimes and you have to pour it into a dish or bowl to eat it, which means another thing to clean. Both Marie Callender's and Healthy Choice brand frozen foods opt for the steam tray instead, which works just as well with less chance of mess and less clean up. Not sure why Stouffer's chooses the steam bag.

With the steam bag, it's similar to microwave popcorn except difficult to eat out of the bag; there's a "this end up" when cooking and you have to hold it carefully by the corners when it's done so you don't burn yourself. Also, the bag warns not to squeeze it because steam and liquid can escape out of the vent.

I'm not sure there's much of a difference between steaming pasta and the old way. I guess maybe you don't risk getting the odd dried out pasta from cooking, but it turns out much the same.

Stouffer's Farmer's Harvest Garlic Chicken turned out pretty well. The pasta was tender, but not overly so. It picked up the sauce nicely.

The sauce wasn't as garlicky as one would think. Mostly I just tasted a fairly standard cream sauce with a good even consistency. No clumping. I would have liked a more discernible garlic flavor.

The vegetables retained a good amount of flavor, vibrancy, and texture and came in a decent ratio to the pasta. The chicken was lightly seasoned and sported grill marks to tell you that it was grilled at some point in time. The chicken did exhibit that regular loss of texture of pre-cooked and then frozen chicken.

Overall, a good effort from Stouffer's. While fairly standard for the segment, the Garlic Chicken was mostly well-executed, if not terribly exciting. The lack of garlic flavor is probably the most glaring oversight; the dish could just as easily be called "chicken with pasta in cream sauce."

Nutritional Info - Stouffer's Farmer's Harvest Garlic Chicken (340g)
Calories - 500 (from Fat - 250)
Fat - 28g (Saturated Fat - 6g)
Sodium - 760mg
Carbs - 40g (Sugar - 6g)
Protein - 24g