A week of MREs

[deanopilot]

Kman, I noticed that we both seem to open our mre pouches the same way, along the long-side rather than the short side that has the easy tear cut-outs. At my office I keep a pair of scissors specifically for cutting along the long side. Whenever I try to open the short side, I find that you can't rip off the floppy remains of the top, and then you have to try and extricate all that MRE goodness through a very narrow opening -- a messy and difficult chore. Seems to me that the folks at Natick should consider altering the technology to facilitate long-side opening "zip string" or other easier method of opening. Whatchathink?

[kman]

That's a pretty good idea, Deanopilot. I recall reading something somewhere where Natick was looking into recloseable retort pouches - so if you didn't eat all of whatever's in there, you could seal it up and eat it later. I think that'd be a great idea.

Like you, I usually cut the side of the pouch open with a knife or scissors. But just for kicks, one time I decided to see if you could actually open a pouch along the long side using one of the notches from the short side. Sure enough, it works. It's not as neat as a clean cut, but it would work fine if you're scissor-less.

Here's how: hold the pouch on its side, grab the top-most notch and tear down about 1/2 inch. Then instead of continuing to tear along the short side, make a 90 degree turn and tear it along the long side. I got it to work the first try and with a little practice I can probably make it a lot neater.

I'll try to do this for lunch/dinner and I'll take some pictures.

[thechip1]

I, for one, would like to thank Kman for clearly taking his life in his own hands, just for our enjoyment. I am looking forward to each mornings installment, and usually end up regretting the fact that I brought 'real food' for lunch, instead of having one of the MRE's I keep here at work or in my car. If I didn't have a cold which has destroyed my sense of taste, I'd would have the MRE anyway, but who wants to waste the experience and not be able to taste all the thermostabilized goodness?

Thanks again Kman!

[kman]

Day 5: Thursday lunch: #16 - Chicken with Noodles

I would call today's lunch the best lunch MRE yet. I'm not saying this particular entree is one of my favorites, but the entree and everything that goes along with it is just the right amount of food for a lunch. Some of the other MREs (like Meatloaf or Beef Teriyaki) seem like they have more food - maybe not more food per se (seeing as all MREs have approximately the same amount of calories) but more bulky food that stuffs you full.

In this MRE, I had the chicken and noodles entree, pretzel sticks, raspberry applesauce, crackers, peanut butter, cocoa beverage powder, and peanut butter m&ms. The pretzel sticks seemed kind of a waste...I already had crackers to snack on and the applesauce as a side. I suppose you could always save the pretzels for a snack for later.

The entree was good - especially with the tobasco and salt thrown in. This was chicken and noodles but it could also have been tuna and noodles - it had that kind of consistency - and if you threw in even more tobasco, I don't think you could tell if it really was chicken or tuna. If I had to sum this MRE up, I'd say it's not one that I'd be excited about getting, but I also wouldn't feel sad (like I would if I got that vegetable manicotti again).

Chicken with Noodles


Raspberry Applesauce (love that color!)


For deanopilot...I opened this MRE the way I talked about in my last post - longways without using any scissors or a knife. Here are the pics:

[kman]

Day 5: Thursday dinner: #13 - Cheese Tortellini

Ah...lucky me...another veggie MRE dinner. But in this case, I wasn't worried because of all the veggie MREs, this one is my favorite. And sure enough, once I had it heated it up and had dumped in the requisite salt and "seasoning blend, salt free" packets, I found the taste to be as good as I remembered. Heck...I couldn't even tell from chewing on it if it was MRE mystery meat (beef) tortellini or cheese tortellini. It definitely left me feeling full...more so than that vegetable manicotti.

While I was disappointed to find the tobasco sauce missing, I gave the seasoning blend a try and it wasn't bad - it wasn't spicy - it was more like an italian seasoning spice.

Cheese Tortellini


The pre-entree snack was peanut butter and crackers. After two straight days of cheese spread only, I was looking forward to some peanut butter. But after two straight meals of peanut butter, I'm looking forward to some more cheese spread. Oh well...I guess that's how the luck of the draw goes with MREs.

The good news is that I wasn't gypped out my side of fruit this meal. There was a package of Spiced Apples in there and let me tell you...that was some good stuff! It tasted just like the filling in a McDonald's Apple Pie. I only wish I had stuck it in the heater after I removed my entree...this stuff would have been even better hot.

Spiced Apples


Finally, for dessert was another damn poppyseed pound cake. Normally I'd be happy to get a pound cake because that's my favorite dessert. But among pound cakes, the poppyseed versions are the ones I like least and this was the third one this week. Arrgh. I wouldn't have minded a regular pound cake or a pumpkin spice pound cake or just about any other pound cake...but after two lemon poppyseed pound cakes, an almond poppyseed pound cake was not what I wanted to see. But far be it from me to turn down a pound cake...

I decided this would be a great opportunity to work on my pound cake frosting mix. I had a spare cocoa beverage powder leftover from lunch so I dumped in the packets of creamer and sugar from lunch, added just the right amount of water and stirred it all up.

This is no easy task, let me tell you. You see, you have this pouch full of dry powder and you put a little water in and stir...but that's a lot of powder and just a little water. Before you know it, you think your water is all soaked up and you decide to add more...and then more...and just when you think you're finally getting a good mix, you realize you've overdone it and all of a sudden you don't have frosting, you have a very runny cocoa mix. It's still good to eat with a spoon but it won't work as frosting.

So I found the trick is to just add a little water and stick with it. Eventually it'll either work out to the right consistency or else you'll just have a dry, dusty block of cocoa powder and you'll be forced to concede defeat and and a little more water. It's an art and just takes practice.

You can see my results below. My frosting was just a touch over the line of runniness - you can see it start to slide over the edge of the pound cake - but it was slow moving and I managed to scarf the whole thing down before too much frosting escaped. And yes, that is a bite I took out of the corner - I wanted to try the almond poppyseed pound cake in its natural form.

Almond Poppyseed Pound Cake with Cocoa Beverage Powder Frosting

[Twobravo]

Keep up the good work. Although I don't have any comments I enjoy reading your posts and reviews.

[kman]

Day 6: Friday lunch: #23 - Chicken with Cavatelli

Here's something funny I've noticed about a couple of different MREs - sometimes there's a different name on the MRE bag than there is on the entree box. I usually write this off to Natick trying to make certain MREs more appetizing by dressing up the name. And that looks to be just the case with this MRE. The MRE bag says "Chicken Cavatelli" but the entree box says "Breaded Chicken Breast Pattie with Rib Meat in Tomato Sauce with Pasta". Personally, I think the box version is better since it's way more accurate.

I've had this entree a lot before and it definitely ranks in the upper half of my favorite MREs. While it was heating up, I snacked on wheat snack bread and "cheese spread with bacon". This was my first exposure to the new cheese spread and it was pretty good! I only used half of it on the bread and decided to save the rest for the main entree. Along with the tobasco sauce and salt, the cheese spread was a great addition to the entree after it was ready.

You can see the picture of the entree below. If it looks all mashed up, that's because it is. You see, I have this habit of mashing up the entree real good before I stick it in the heater. That's because if it's something like a chicken breast or meatloaf or anything that required cutting to eat, I prefer to mash it up while it's still in the unheated pouch. I do this for two reasons: #1 - mashing it up after it's heated can be painful and #2 - trying to cut up the entree with that spoon sucks.

Chicken with Cavatelli (a.k.a. Breaded Chicken Breast Pattie with Rib Meat in Tomato Sauce with Pasta)


Outside of the crackers and entree, I also had a fig bar (that's a side?) and another damn lemon poppyseed pound cake. This is how much I wasn't looking forward to that pound cake...as I've mentioned before, it's usually only a matter of seconds between the time I finish the main course and the time I dig into dessert. But in this case, it took two full hours before I finally succumbed to the temptation.

There's just one thing I don't get about this MRE - why did they include a fig bar *and* a pound cake. To me, that's like two desserts. Far be it from me to complain about two desserts...I'm just curious as to why they did that.

[aquarius]

Well, it is pretty interesting what Kman is writing about these MRES, but I now understand why the Japanese make pictures of the contents while neatly arranged on a plate...
Holy Cow, the "cozy retort pouches" look very much the same as my nabour's wife after delivering her first baby! What a mess she made of her birth canal, looked just like the tomatosauced chicken breast chunks or-what-so-ever.

My other nabour has a dog. Somehow I start to think about the animal when I look at the picture of the chocolate ice cake covered cake...

Let us hope the food smells better than it looks. )

[DIRTYDAVE]

Man, Kman, I told you, you need to put up a tips and tricks forum. You taught me how to properly use an MRE heater and now again you are teaching me how to open those confounded MRE pouches. I never thought of opening it down the side like that. DAMN, IF I WOULD JUST BE ABLE TO USE MY BRAIN FOR ONCE....

[Laxcat9]

It is unfortunate that the lemon poppy seed pound cake does not pass muster. From everything I have read about the Vietnam War, the C Ration pound cake cans were a highly sought-after item and were worth their weight in gold. I have 3 cans of C Ration pound cake, and I am hesitant to open any of them as they cannot be replaced.

My personal opinion: the photos of the MRE entrees actually look pretty good! Furthermore, I can't wait to try the cheese spread with bacon. Sounds delicious...

Tom