My First Food Blog Post. (Everybody's Doin' It!)

Okay, but this is a little different from a typical blog entry by a sophisticated foodie, which I am not: It's a review of a pre-prepared frozen food item.

Okay, now that all the pretentious foodies have gotten the vapors and left in horror, it's just us regular folks who enjoy the occasional -- or more than occasional -- TV dinner or frozen pizza. (If you're at work and you only pretend to be more sophisticated than that, just be ready to close the screen quickly if anyone looks over your shoulder, and claim you were looking at porn.) What we've got here today is a main-course item which serves 7: a Boneless Stuffed Chicken from Big Easy Foods, Stuffed with Broccoli, Cheese & Rice. They took all of the bones out of a chicken, and all of the organ meat too, but left the skin on. Then they stuffed it and put it in a bag that looks like waxed paper.

Whatever it is, waxed paper or something else, it's not very flammable, because you leave the chicken in the bag, cut a 1-inch slit in the bag, put the bag in a pan and put the pan in a 400-degree oven. You can either let it thaw in the fridge for 24 hours first and then bake it for 45 minutes (recommended), or put it in the oven while it's still frozen and bake it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. I put it in the oven frozen, because by my calculations this allowed me to eat it 23 hours and 25 minutes sooner.

The picture on the box shows a chicken with appetizingly brown skin. I may try the thaw-first method next time to see whether it yields crisp brown skin. The way I did it the chicken came out all pretty greyish, and the skin was pretty much the same color as the meat, and not crispy. Which no doubt is a problem for some people. But for gross unsophisticated people like me, the limp grey skin is just fine.

Apart from the uninspiring greyish appearance, you gotta love the meat. (Unless you're really, really sophisticated. But maybe even then.) Generally speaking, I dislike chicken white meat, unless some combination of breading, sauce and/or processing completely hides what it is. White meat by itself, even if it's well cooked, is too dry for me. But not on this chicken. The white meat is as moist as dark meat usually is, and the dark meat? Fuggetaboutit. This is outstanding chicken. And the stuffing is great, too. I mean, more delicious than you might think something which is mostly rice and broccoli could be. The package says "Stuffed with Broccoli, Cheese & Rice." What I got was less cheesy and more buttery than the package led me to expect.

Laissez les bons temps rouler! (That's French for "Yummy!") I will definitely be checking out some other products from Big Easy Foods, because if this one is any indication, they do your stomach-belly up right, Ah guar-own-tee!