When I am not cooking elsewhere; which means I might just be feeding myself, and I don’t feel like going out for a drive through meal, I might settle on the next worst option. And that means I will turn to the freezer and see what I have that is a single portion, quick to cook and easy to clean up.

There are selections all over the map, from sparse and lean to sumptuous and fat laden. I have sampled from across the spectrum so that on nights like last night I have the option to dig to the back of the freezer for a quick meal.

Last night I gave the Stouffer’s Brand Toasted Sub a try. Toasted Sub – Microwave? Yep – it is described as “shaved slices of roast beef topped with sauteed onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese on Italian bread”.

How do you take a toasted sub and cook it in the microwave without it becoming a doughy rock? I don’t know what type of sorcery is involved in this magic but to some small degree it seems to work. The clever folks at the mega-corp frozen food conglomerates have found a way to use a gray colored film like material attached to the packaging of some products to; in an origami type fashion; form a crisping tray to crisp/toast dough based products like chicken pot pies, sandwiches, flat bread melts, pizzas and subs – right in the microwave oven.

I bought this toasted sub thing several weeks back and dug it out last night.

Instructions are easy to follow and it is ready in less that ten minutes. Like most every frozen meal it will get the job done but home made is so much better. I will try this again when I just do not have the time or ingredients to make it from scratch.

I need to come up with a rating scale for stuff like this that reflects the category. Let’s see, on a scale of 1 – 10 for something from the freezer this is a 6. Do not confuse that with how it would rate against the same thing home made – it would be a 2 at best.

Anyways here is what it looked like after I nuked it and added a couple strips of precooked microwave (off the shelf at the store) bacon* to it.

Again, it was okay. The bread as you can see was actually crisped on the outside but still a bit doughy inside.

Curiously enough, I don’t recall any sauteed onions or mushrooms. Perhaps they were there in spirit

*precooked microwave (off the shelf at the store) bacon - yes, you can buy this stuff now in several forms and I will post on its virtues/downfalls in some other post.

lupo