Holy crap, it's National Frozen Food Day again! Well, not really. Tomorrow is National Frozen Food Day. Today is just the day before that. But the thing is, you see, I'm not really interested in coming back tomorrow and posting this then. You people demand content now! So, here it is!
Back in 1984, National Frozen Food Day was established by the zombie president Ronald Reagan as a way to get people to ingest more monosodium glutamate. It's a well known fact that MSG makes the brains of people much more delicious, like putting vinegar on french fries. So, in an effort to get his victims to season themselves at least once more a year, zombie-Reagan gave us this holiday.
By us, I really mean, Americans. I'm Canadian, so I don't get frivolous holidays like that. Instead, my government decides to go on holidays for two or three months at a time. It's not quite the same. But frozen food has been good to me. Well, not really good to me really, but it makes this website a hell of a lot more interesting to read. So, I've adopted your food holiday.
Last year, as a special way to commemorate the holiday, I reviewed the Weight Watchers Double Fudge Cake, which actually didn't suck. This year, I've got my hands on more cake! No lie!
So, these are called Cravings Low-Fat Cheesecakes and I've been able to get my hands on three: Cherry, Keylime and Chocolate. They're in these little plastic cups that I'm just supposed to take out of the freezer and let thaw. Not exactly the fastest way to prepare food, but it's definitely the easiest.
These Cravings cheesecakes are actually pretty darn light. There's only about 1/2 a gram of fat per serving, and 8 grams of sugar. Compared to a lot of the 'light' foods that I've reviewed, these make them look like a double Big Mac.
I guess the rules don't really apply here, but I might as well put them out anyway:
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Rule #1:
I must follow cooking procedures exactly as they're shown on the container. I will not deviate from those instructions in any way, and I must prepare food in the fastest manner presented to me. -
Rule #2:
I must consume everything that comes with the meal. No hiding of disgusting parts will be tolerated. (In the unlikely event of bones or other inedibles, allowances will be made). -
Rule #3:
To make sure my palate is completely free of obstructions, I may only be allowed either water or alcohol. Alcohol does not include fancy-pants fruity girly drinks. -
Rule #4:
All food will be graded by smell, taste and mouthfeel, with less offensive qualities receiving higher marks. At the end, each part is receives an average score. The full meal is graded by the average score of each component. Appearance of the food is not graded because, let's face it, they all look pretty bad.
It's time to get started. Here's hoping I don't get diabetes!
Holy crap, this is pretty damned good. It's always amazed me how good these diet desserts taste. It's very much like keylime pie. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
The smell is just like keylime pie, but there's some kind of...I almost want to describe it as a non-scent to it. It's vaguely distracting, but quite good. The taste is also quite good, and just like pie. I could see having this quite frequently...until I hit the bottom.
For those of you who don't bake, cheesecake crusts are usually graham cracker crumbs and butter baked into a cookie-like consistency. This however, it's not the same. It's almost like graham cracker crumbs have just been clumped in the bottom. They don't taste good, they don't feel good to eat, and they get caught deeply in the teeth.
As long as we're talking about the mouthfeel, beyond the crumbs, it's not bad. It's not thick, New York style, it's more like a thick whipped cream. Not perfect, but pretty darned good all the same.
Smell: 9/10
Taste: 9/10
Mouthfeel: 8/10
Total Score: 
(8.6/10)
Just like the last one, the cherry cheesecake is surprisingly good. It smells like cherries, and tastes like cherries, there are even little cherry chunks inside, like little fruity nuggets of treasure waiting to be discovered.
The one problem, is the "crust", that small handful of dry, gritty crumbs. They stick to the inside of my teeth. As much as I love the rest of these cheesecakes, I hate the crumbs.
Smell: 9/10
Taste: 9/10
Mouthfeel: 8/10
Total Score: (8.6/10)
And now we come to the last: chocolate cheesecake. The smell is rich, more like hot chocolate than anything else. The taste however, it's not so good. It's like chocolate mousse, but it's got that chalky-kind of aftertaste that all diet cakes seem to get.
And the crumbs. Those horrid, tiny chunks of dryness. Combined with the looser, less than pleasant taste of the 'cake', it's almost unbearable. A bitter aftertaste climbs up the back of my throat.
I'm really disappointed. It's like being given a magic button. The first time you press the button, a beautiful woman appears, and makes out with you. The second time you press the button, an even more beautiful woman appears and has sex with you. The third time you press the button, a fat hairy guy named Jimmy the Thumb arrives and shoots you in the kneecaps before stealing your wallet and banging your mom.
Smell: 8/10
Taste: 4/10
Mouthfeel: 6/10
Total Score: (6.0/10)
Ugh, that last one left one hell of a bad taste in my mouth. What a way to cap off the day before National Frozen Food Day. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to stick to frozen dinners for at least another year. They might not be good, but at least I know what to expect.
