2009 Nr. 23 : Chicken Pesto Pasta + others

Reviews and taste-tests of any MREs from 1981-present
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Maku
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 9:59 am
Location: Poland

2009 Nr. 23 : Chicken Pesto Pasta + others

Post by Maku » Tue Apr 19, 2011 7:15 am

Hello , my first post in here and it's gonna' be review of Menu 23 , assembled in 2009 , eaten 2011 :)

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Here's what we see after unpacking the MRE.
From left to right we have:
-Main course (Chicken Pesto Pasta)
-Pudding dessert powder (I had vanilla one)
-Mango peach applesauce (That's interesting naming to me. I mean , how can APPLEsauce be other taste than apple? :P )
-Wheat snack bread
-Accessory pocket A (Coffee , creamer , salt , sugar , moist towelette , toilet paper , matches and in mine there was red bell ground pepper)
Matches are interesting case as well , on the package they say that they are especially designed for damp climates , however they won't light when exposed to very damp air :P ( I know , I know , it says several weeks xP )
-Lemon-lime beverage base powder
-Cheese spread with bacon
-Instant beverage bag (very useful for me personally. Here in Poland , we're used to other measure scales. We use milliliters and liters instead of ounces and gallons).
-Mre bag :)

First thing I tried was side dish , mango-peach applesauce. Sadly , I don't have a photo of how it looked like , got the idea of photographing it too late :P
Here's how the box looks like:
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Take a closer look , and notice vitamin C amount:
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I say , it's better than flu shot :D From now on , I'm gonna' eat one of those every week or two during winter and I should be safe , what You think? :P
Another interesting thing is what I found out after turning the box:
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Done eating? Cut out this postcard from the box and share taste notes with family :D
As for taste/look notes:
The sauce was very good. It had nice , orange-yellow color with noticeable tiny pieces of fruits. It also tasted good - sauce was pretty sweet in taste with light hint of sour. Although it was appealing by look and taste , it's smell wasn't so good - it smelled noticeably of chemical add-ons.

And now... For the main course:
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This one MRE I had at home , so instead of using heater , I just put it in the water and boiled for a moment.
The dish was very tasty , my personal second best so far. It's a pasta in Italian sauce alright , with pieces of chicken and beef strips. Spices of the sauce are pretty noticeable , but it's not hot itself , more like a... Herbal taste I guess. Adding red pepper helps and the whole thing gets a little hot then ;)

After main course , it's time for dessert :)
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Interesting story with beverage. It's "Lemon-lime flavored , no fruit juice". Oxymoron?
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Pudding :) Somewhere in the other thread someone had chocolate one and was wondering about vanilla one. So here it goes , review of vanilla pudding :D
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I decided to make it the way other user did it. So instead of stirring it in the bag , I put everything in the bowl , added water and stirred with the spoon.
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The pudding is fairly thick and very , very sweet. Vanilla flavor is noticeable , but You won't avoid chemical hint. However I think soldiers won't complain... After all , it have to give energy , taste is secondary thing :P

Don't have photos of wheat snack bread being eaten with cheese spread , but that one probably everyone knows how tastes like. :)

Overall it's a good and tasty menu and I'd for sure take it one more time.


As for bonus for the thread - I've also had Menu 16 (Chicken Fajita) , Menu 22 (Chicken and dumplings) and Menu 5 (Chicken Breast) all assembled in 2009 , eaten 2011.

Chicken Fajita was my first and I liked it very much. It's my personal best so far. Chicken pieces in spicy sauce is a yes to me. Tortillas were wearing strong smell and taste of chemical add-ons. Rice wasn't bad , but a bit dry for my liking.

Chicken breast is something I won't ever get again. There was a lot of 'water' in it after heating , the meat wasn't tasty , it tasted chemically and had a sponge structure. Cornbread stuffing - some say it's great. I guess it's a matter of taste , for me it was awful.

Chicken and dumplings was not so good , but not all that bad either. Whole thing was in some white sauce. Adding Tabasco was a must. Choclettos candy was great. It's like toffee rolls in chocolate or something like that. I didn't had French toast cookie like it's listed on the site , there was oatmeal cookie instead. Grape jelly was great add-on for wheat snack bread.


What's yet waiting to be tried is Menu 20 - Spaghetti in meat sauce :) I've heard it's one of the better ones so I'm hopeful for it :P

Along with the reviews , I have an information of sorts. It seems to me I might have allergy for some ingredient that is in every MRE (maybe some chemical add-on). First I thought that it might be cinnamon , but then I watched to not eat anything that have cinnamon in it and yet still I get symptoms. Basically , my tongue gets... Weird structure on the sides. I don't know what that might be , but it happened every time after I ate MRE.

Alright :) So here it is. My first post and a review at once. Feedback will be appreciated , I hope that my review was useful to other users :D

Greets from Poland! :mrgreen:

Cracker
Posts: 849
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Re: 2009 Nr. 23 : Chicken Pesto Pasta + others

Post by Cracker » Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:39 pm

Nice review :) and welcome to the forums.

PS. are you able to get a polish ration? And are you willing to trade one for MREs, Dutch or German ration(s)?
Sure, someone may one day kill me with my own gun.
But they'll have to beat me to death with it because it's empty.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

Maku
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 9:59 am
Location: Poland

Re: 2009 Nr. 23 : Chicken Pesto Pasta + others

Post by Maku » Sat Apr 23, 2011 10:47 am

Hey there :)

Yeah , I think I could get Polish rations. Just the thing is , that in here we have two kinds of those. There are so called "S'es" - those are "dry" rations (crackers , instants , canned food and such) and "W" - those are like main courses and so on. And as it's not big problem getting S ration. With "W's" there's some luck needed :P

Cracker
Posts: 849
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:56 pm
eBay name: tedtielemans
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Re: 2009 Nr. 23 : Chicken Pesto Pasta + others

Post by Cracker » Sat Apr 23, 2011 11:19 am

It would be really nice if you could get some :) I think other members are interested aswell, you might even be able to make some money over them, or get some US MREs or european rations in return :)
Sure, someone may one day kill me with my own gun.
But they'll have to beat me to death with it because it's empty.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

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