Here's the MRE itself
Notice how it's an Ameriqual MRE but it's using the standard bag design. I think Ameriqual must have a stockpile of the older repeating designs and that's why they use the older design on some of the older MREs and the new design on the newer MREs.
Here's the datestamp on the edge of the bag - 5154
This is the bag, the inner baggie and the Clam Chowder side. I have yet to figure out why some sides and entrees are included in the baggie and some aren't.
Here are the contents of the inner baggie. As MREs go, this one isn't too bad - cheese spread, side dish, two wheat snack breads, and a dessert. Check out the ginormous beverage powder pouch. I didn't mix this one up, but it looks like they made it bigger so you could just pour the water in the pouch and mix and drink it right there.
Wheat snack bread in its various stages
For me, getting the cheese spread to squirt out on the bread is a fine art. And as you can tell from these pictures, I didn't do such a good job. The trick is in tearing off just the right sized corner from the cheese spread pouch. Too big and you get what you see here. But when it's smaller and just right, you can squirt the cheese on in such a manner that you don't have to use a spoon or knife to spread the cheese out by hand (as I did for the last pic).
Clam Chowder
I had to heat up the Clam Chowder and Pork Rib using the same FRH. I left them in there about 12 minutes and that did the trick. The chowder wasn't boiling hot but it was hot enough. I threw in some tobasco sauce and dug in. Like others have commented here, the clams were a bit chewy but not being a clam chowder aficionado, I didn't really mind. It tasted about like canned clam chowder would taste. And yes, I had trouble taking a good picture of this stuff. Believe it or not, these are the two best out of about 10 pictures that I took. One dark, one light - just stare at them both and squint your eyes until they merge into one perfectly lit picture.
Pork Rib
Here's the Pork Rib at home in its entree bag. The thing I noticed when I opened up the pouch was that it smelled kind of similar to the beefsteak (chunked and formed) entree. It has that same sort of runny juice in it, too.
Pork rib on wheat snack bread
I had originally planned on eating one wheat snack bread with cheese and then using the other for the pork rib. But after the clam chowder, I was getting full so I decided to abort my wheat bread eating and just put the pork rib on it. As you can see from the picture, the pork rib is just a little too big for a single piece of wheat bread. I suppose you could cut the pork rib in half and put each half on its own wheat bread.
Here are a couple of views of the inside of a pork rib
Dessert was a Molasses Cookie. I didn't think it tasted much like molasses - more like ginger.
Overall, I thought the MRE was just ok. I was much more impressed with the Veggie Burger MRE - that had a very tasty BBQ sauce that the Pork Rib needed. As it was, with enough wheat snack bread and cheese spread, the Pork Rib didn't taste bad - but it also didn't taste much different from the regular beefsteak/MRE mystery meat.
