AFTERNOON SNACK: Nutrisystem "Twinkie"

Hallelujah! I have found my Nutrisystem baked good treat.  It is the golden pound cake. 

This name is a misnomer because it tastes nothing like a REAL pound cake.  However, it has REMARKABLE resemblence to a Twinkie: kinda/sorta vanilla-ish flavor, sponge-y texture.

Having grown up with the artifically enhanced Twinkie, I am all too familiar with its consistency and flavor.  I am a closet Twinkie fan.  I haven't eaten a Twinkie in decades, but one bite of this Golden Pound Cake, and I thought I was 10 again.

Lunch - Minestrone

I have been skipping Nutrisystem breakfasts-just can't stomach the fluffy PowerBar taste.  How bad is this revulsion...  well, this morning I opted to eat steamed eggplant instead... that's how much I did NOT want to eat another Apple Strudel Scone.

So for lunch, I took out a dehydrated container of Hearty Minestrone Soup.  It was basically, like a Cup-o-Noodle without the noodles; just dried beans, and a little whole wheat pasta.  After pouring in boiling water and letting it sit for 7 minutes or so, my lunch was ready.

meh...  It tasted like dehydrated vegetables with bouillion, beans and pasta.  It was all right, I am glad I only have 1 of them.

DINNER: Beef Teriyaki

For dinner last night, I selected a Beef Teriyaki with noodles.  This was a disappointment.  Like most Nutrisystem dinner entrees, the Teriyaki was VERY saucy.  It was nothing like the photo below.  In MY dinner, the few limp noodles swam among in the starchy, thick sauce.  It was not a stir-fry.  The dish had 5 pieces of cut up baby corn and surprisingly a lot of little bits of water chestnuts.

The sauce was far too sweet for my taste.  Again I could not finish this dish.  After eating all the solid food parts in the sauce, the plastic container was still more than 1/2 filled with thick, corn-starchy sauce.  There was no way I could even ingest that.

BREAKFAST: Chocolate Cake :)

The thought of eating another fluffy Apple Strudel PowerBar for breakfast was completely unappetizing (which I suppose is the purpose).  So I did my own substitution yesterday morning, by replacing the breakfast entree with a dessert; or more specifically, chocolate cake!

The cake does not look this good in real life - first it's far flatter and a little wider.  Plus, the photo doesn't include the wonderful plastic packaging and the silica dry packet.

As far as Nutrisystem baked goods go, the chocolate cake is far better than any of the other breakfast baked goods (apple strudel scone, chocolate chip scone).  Much more moist... but like the other baked goods, difficult to eat.  Not hard, but very fibrous and dense (but again not hard).  Again, I could not finish eating the whole thing; I think I just got bored chewing and eating. 

DINNER: Beef and Mashed Potatoes

This was pretty good.  I am finding that the hot food can be very palatable - much aking to how Chef Boyardee and Hormel's beef stew are appealing in a comfort food sort of way.  Not haute cuisine but satisfying nonetheless.

The actual beef and mashed potatoes looks NOTHING like the photo (prop still photographers are truly amazing) - it was more mashed potatoes with beef string sauce (i.e., the beef was cooked down to beyond a cube form).

The portion was surprisingly ample and I am still amazed that it was a mere 220 calories.  Unlike the baked morning goods, this was easy to finish off.

Lunch: Noodles with Chicken & Vegetables

For lunch, Noodles with Chicken & Vegetables.  This is not bad; probably the best meal so far.  It's more like a thick soup and doesn't have any funny textures or flavors.  Walking past my office, my husband poked his head in and ask "mmm, that smells good, what are you eating?" (I have failed as wife and chef :(

Breakfast: Apple Strudel

Back on Nutrisystem, I picked up my breakfast "entree" - an Apple Strudel Scone.  I could not finish it.  I could not finish the fluffy PowerBar-like breakfast pastry.  Where some foodies describe great food as "mouth-meltingly tender", Nutrisystem breakfast pastries are the completely opposite.  I think this is deliberate.

The breakfast foods are the antithesis of mouth-meltingly tender - it takes several chews just to get through the fibrous-filling-ish styrofoaming, fluffy dense consistency (very hard to describe).   It's not hard, but not soft like cotton-candy either. It takes a lot of effort to chew because the pastry itself is a little gummy and dense (but in a light way).

I think it is intentional as it forces the eater to take time to eat the product.  Unlike a nice flaky scone that breaks apart and dissolves with a gulp of coffee (and can be inhaled in less than 5 minutes), the Nutrisystem scone is more like styrofoam that needs effort to break apart and digest.  I think after 15 minutes, the eater gets so tired from chewing that any additional food appears unappetizing.

That's what happened this morning.  I brought a scone on my way to a business meeting.   The drive was 25 minutes, and I started eating the scone as I got in the car.  About half way down the commute, I just gave up eating the scone.  It didn't taste great and the effort and weird mouth texture just wasn't worth it.