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JANET K. KEELERIs the promise of new quick-heat ribs, pot roast and the like too good to be true? They make dinner happen fast and, surprisingly, sometimes taste good.
For what it's worth, the six-minute pot roast is not bad.
The meat is tender; the gravy silky and not overly salty. Serve the space-age pot roast with mashed potatoes and a vegetable or salad and you've created an old-fashioned home-cooked meal. Almost.
The nine-minute meatloaf with tomato sauce (caramel color added) is another story. The sauce - or is it ketchup? - can't overcome bland, mushy meat.
Quick-heat meats, some suitable for the oven but tailor-made for the microwave, are crowding freezer cases at grocery stores. In the past year, the offerings have at least tripled with vacuum-packed ribs, roasted chicken, taco meat and all manner of "roasts" challenging the notion that dinner time takes a lot of time.
The products from Hormel, Tyson, Jennie-O, Old El Paso and others respond to consumer demands for zap-fast convenience foods that might make the sit-down family meal possible again.
It's a tall order and, in attempting to meet it, taste and sometimes nutrition suffer. As with other processed foods, dietitians warn to watch sodium levels.
Consumers pay a premium to have factory workers make their dinners. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts cost up to $17 a pound compared with about $3.50 for cook-it-yourself pieces.
For the shopper, most quick-meat deals put a modest amount of meat on the table with 5 to 10 minutes in the microwave (up to 30 minutes in the oven) and without any pots or pans to wash. The cost, however, is at least $5 a pound - including gravy and sauce - and does not include potatoes, vegetables, salads or other sides.
We sampled 10 quick-heat meats and were not surprised that some were a pale imitation of the real thing. That's what we expected from all of them, truthfully. But a few, such as Tyson's whole roasted chicken, were delicious.
Since most of these packaged, cooked meats keep for at least six weeks in the refrigerator, longer in the freezer, it's tempting to stock some for nights when schedules cut the dinner hour to minutes. In addition to feeding busy families, quick-heat meats are good companions for single diners because serving sizes are generally small, despite what the packages claim.
There are 100-million households in America and in 76-million of them tonight, someone will be preparing dinner, says Harry Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, a Chicago-based market research company that tracks the way Americans eat.
How dinner is prepared, Balzer says, varies, though it's likely a woman will be the one in the kitchen. In some homes, the meal might consist of a frozen pizza heated in the oven or macaroni and cheese courtesy of a box. In others, a gourmet offering of sage-roasted chicken with Madeira cooked from scratch might hit the table at 6 p.m. Statistics show the former is outpacing the latter, Balzer says.
The real question of quick-heat meats, Balzer says, is not how they taste but which ones will succeed. He is dubious about pot roasts and meatloafs.
"These require side dishes," he says. "The trend in this country is away from side dishes because they take too much time. Never underestimate easy. People don't want to make something that's easier; they want it to be easy."
Andrea Conley of St. Petersburg solves the side dish issue by using ready-to-eat mashed potatoes, conveniently located next to the quick-heat meats in many stores, and canned green beans with microwavable pot roasts. She shreds the meat into the gravy and her children, ages 7 and 10, mix that with the potatoes.
Conley knows such convenience foods are not gourmet but she sees them as a more healthful alternative to the drive-through, especially when swimming and piano lessons crowd after-school hours.
"It beats the TV dinners that we grew up with," she says. "Especially when it's the middle of the day and you think, "I don't have anything for dinner.' "
With preconceived notions firmly in place, we set out to sample a variety of quick-heat meats. And as is typical with preconceived notions, we weren't right all the time. Here's what we found, with one caveat: Each of these dishes tastes better when prepared from scratch. Also, weights include gravy or sauce, and in some cases bones and vegetables, so what might sound like a lot of meat probably isn't.
What we tasted
Ever wonder what a "heat 'n eat" pot roast tastes like? Us, too. We sampled that and nine other quick-heat meats.
Old El Paso ground beef for tacos
Jennie-O turkey breast roast in homestyle gravy
Mosey's Time for Dinner beef pot roast
Olga's Home Style Foods shredded beef ropa vieja
Hormel meatloaf with tomato sauce
Lloyd's Barbeque babyback pork ribs
Tyson beef pot roast
Lloyd's Barbeque shredded pork
Tyson whole roasted chicken
Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts
OLD EL PASO GROUND BEEF FOR TACOS
PRICE: $5.49 for 20-ounce tub.
SERVINGS: About 10, 90 calories each.
HEATING TIME: Six minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: The spices were very pronounced, almost as if we were tasting them straight from the jar, when we sampled the meat alone. A taco shell, shredded cheese, tomatoes and lettuce cut the strength adequately and made this a decent taco fixing. Plus, it's perfect for a quick seven-layer Mexican dip. Another plus is that the tub is resealable so leftovers can be easily stored.
BUY AGAIN? Yes.
JENNIE-O TURKEY BREAST ROAST IN HOMESTYLE GRAVY
PRICE: $5.99 for 1 pound, 2 ounces.
SERVINGS: 31/2, 110 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Four to six minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: If you envision bringing a big turkey breast roast to the table to impress the family, forget it. A large chicken breast is more like it. The gravy tastes of flour and the meat is more akin to cheap, pressed turkey roll.
BUY AGAIN? No.
MOSEY'S TIME FOR DINNER BEEF POT ROAST
PRICE: $7.79 for 1 pound, 8 ounces.
SERVINGS: Four to five, 70 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Seven minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: We liked this piping hot but were less impressed once it cooled. It doesn't have much eye appeal, and you'll be lucky to get five servings from it unless some of your diners are children. A slice of this meat on white bread with mashed potatoes and gravy would be yummy, though.
BUY AGAIN? In a pinch.
OLGA'S HOME STYLE FOODS SHREDDED BEEF ROPA VIEJA
PRICE: $5.49 for 1 pound, 2 ounces.
SERVINGS: Two, 270 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Three to five minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: Ropa vieja means old clothes in Spanish and this classic dish should resemble shredded rags. Olga's version succeeds on this point. That said, there's more sauce and filler here than meat, even though the flavor is fine. Served over white or yellow rice it would be a decent entree for two people who don't want seconds.
BUY AGAIN? Probably not.
HORMEL MEATLOAF WITH TOMATO SAUCE
PRICE: $5.99 for 1 pound, 1 ounce.
SERVINGS: 31/2, 250 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Four minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: There are so many ways to make meatloaf that it would be difficult to develop a generic version with mass appeal. Hormel falls short here. The meat is mushy and the tomato sauce cloying.
BUY AGAIN: No.
LLOYD'S BARBEQUE BABYBACK PORK RIBS
PRICE: $14.99 for 1 pound, 3 ounces.
SERVINGS: Four (three ribs per serving), 350 calories each.
COOKING TIME: 15 minutes on grill or 30 to 35 in oven (wrapped in aluminum foil).
TASTING NOTES: The ribs ranked No. 1 of everything we tasted. Our guess is that three servings are more likely than four. Lloyd's is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., but the sauce has the sweet, tomato taste of Kansas City. The meat doesn't fall off the bones like some people prefer but it's tender and moist. To microwave, the ribs have to be fashioned into a crown and then positioned upright to heat. The microwave method was too much fuss for us; we prefer the grill or oven.
BUY AGAIN? Yes.
TYSON BEEF POT ROAST
PRICE: $7.99 for 1 pound.
SERVINGS: Five, 110 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Six minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: This is an okay substitute for the real thing when you're short on time. The meat is moist but a little bland. Just like Mosey's version, it would be great on an open-faced sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy.
BUY AGAIN? In a pinch.
LLOYD'S BARBEQUE SHREDDED PORK
PRICE: $5.49 for 18-ounce tub.
SERVINGS: 10 (1/4 cup), 100 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Six minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: This kid-friendly offering was gobbled up on hamburger buns. It's much less work than sloppy Joes and can be dressed up with store-bought coleslaw. Resealable tubs makes leftover storage easy. We like Lloyd's sweet barbecue sauce, and thank goodness, because there's a lot of it.
BUY AGAIN: Yes.
TYSON WHOLE ROASTED CHICKEN
PRICE: $5.99 for 1 pound, 13 ounces.
SERVINGS: About seven, 160 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Six to nine minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: It figures that Tyson would make better chicken than pot roast. This product is a winner because it tastes as good as a store-made rotisserie version and even some home-cooked attempts. Our only quibble is the servings. This is a petite chicken that can easily be finished off by two adults or one teenage boy. It may weigh close to 2 pounds, but remember that a lot of that is bone.
BUY AGAIN? Yes.
TYSON BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS
PRICE: $4.99 for 4.7 ounces.
SERVINGS: Two, 120 calories each.
COOKING TIME: Two to three minutes in microwave.
TASTING NOTES: For bland boneless, skinless chicken breasts, these are fine. But unless you've got some plain-food eaters in your house, you'll have to add a sauce to provide taste. We sliced the meat for sandwiches flavored with French's new spicy chipotle mayonnaise. For casseroles or salads, there are better products on the market, such as Purdue's Chicken Shortcuts, which comes in strips. This offering isn't worth the price: almost $17 a pound.
BUY AGAIN? No.
- Wilma Norton, Patty Yablonski, Pete Couture, Scott Keeler and Karen Pryslopski of the Times staff contributed to this report.