2014 Menu 12 Penne w/veggie sausage crumbles

[Failsafe77]

This was my 3rd MRE, my first vegetarian meal, and my first formal review. From Case B (4039). It should be noted that the "exact" title for the meal is Wheat penne with vegetable sausage crumbles. To start with nothing was missing which was an improvement over my last MRE which was missing the bev. powder mix.

The toaster pastry was the brown sugar variety. While It didn't survive the carbon freezing, it tasted fine, delicious.

The instant choc pudding was new for me. 4 oz of water, a min to shake and another min to stir and viola! While it looks rough and lumpy it was absolutely perfect. Real chocolate flavor and just as good as anything out of a cup! I might have been able to get it smoother if I stirred it longer. So I'm partially to blame for the lumps.

The Chocolate peanut butter spread does not look appetizing. There's no real way around that. And for as chocolaty as it looks, make no mistake this is peanut butter first, chocolate second. Another tip: work/knead this packet well! It has serious separation issues which is why in the pic some of it looks thick and some looks like water. The taste however was great! Peanut butter with a light hint of cocoa!

Other notes before the entrée; This MRE did NOT include filled pretzels, i.e. combos. I instead got mini pretzel sticks. Also the Carb. elect. beverage powder was fruit punch. Eh, tastes like watered down Gatorade, not a huge fan.

So I was a little worried as I've never been a real fan of veggie dishes so I kept my expectations low. Before i get to how it looked/tasted/smelled let me address another issue I've been having. How to effectively heat two items, entrée/side or entrée/coffee. With my last 2 MREs i put two items in the FRH, one on each side, put the water down the middle, mixed it around, and basically had the same result each time; one warm item one cold, or both cold. The problem is the elements aren't getting water exposure. Even with this meal. I pulled out a bag of warm coffee and cold pasta. How I fixed it? Only put one item in, then tip the FRH so you can SEE the water running over the elements, then put your second item on the other side of it. Also, tossed the cardboard heating sleeve, made no difference either way.

The result was hot coffee and piping hot entrée bag.

Now as for the entrée itself? AMAZING! This is one of the best pasta dishes I have ever tried. The sauce was super thick, rich and tasty. It smelled like chef Boyardee but tasted way more incredible. The pasta was firm and I couldn't tell it was wheat pasta. I used about 1/3 of the salt packet to give it that extra flavor push but as im not a heat guy, didn't use the pepper sauce. if your a heat junkie, you might want to add it. (my MRE included 2 packets of it)

The veggie sausage crumbles were great and did their job of making you forget there was no meat in this. If you are a certified vegetarian you might have issues with the fact that there aren't really any "pieces" of vegetables. The veggies are minced so its really hard to tell which ones are in here without decoding the ingredients list.

All in all I would say this MRE would satisfy 3 different groups, pasta lovers, vegetarians, and sweet tooth people (the inclusion of the pop tart, pudding, choc. peanut butter) This is now an instant fav of mine and if i have the chance to buy it on its own at my local army/navy surplus store. i will!!

Oh and of course i finished up with a cup of MRE coffee....mmmmmmm

[elandil]

Great review. Pics are good, and love the description on the peanut butter.

[Failsafe77]

Thank you so much! I really do enjoy opening, eating and talking about MREs!

[Norton]

Great review failsafe

I have this meal in my stock and have been afraid of the 'veggie sausage crumbles' part.
But if another American tells me ' It smelled like chef Boyardee but tasted way more incredible".
Then I know it is going to taste good. Chef Boyardee is the yardstick we American judge canned 'American/Italian' food. I have to try iton a camping trip.
Also it was interesting to hear the heater worked correctly. Did I understand you heated water for coffee with a FRH?

[Failsafe77]

Thank you so much! Yeah anytime I'm about to eat a packaged pasta product (canned or bagged) I use the "will it be better or worse than Chef Boyardee" rating system. The sauce was the best part of this entrée for me, SO thick it was more like tomato paste than sauce. I also had my wife taste it, while she thought it didn't even need salt, I felt that a good sprinkle of it helped pushed the flavor quotient a bit.

Yeah I'm a coffee addict so I tend to pick MREs that have accessory packet A or C. Or civilian MREs like Sure-Pak that all come with coffee. I plan on doing a separate post on MRE coffee but basically pour in the coffee granules then 7-8 oz of water in your hot beverage bag, DONT SHAKE IT and don't add the sugar or cream yet. This adds mass and air bubbles which take up more room in the bag. So coffee, then water, squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible, zip it tight, slide it in on the other side of the FRH. When its done, shake it up real good, add your sugar and cream and stir with MRE spoon.

[parafireboy]

Nice review failsafe!

I share your passion for MRE's, and look forward to reading more reviews, and posting more reviews as well. I haven't tried this menu yet, but I know I've got one or two in my stock, so I'll have to pull it out for my next sack (or tan bag) lunch!

[RockyRaab]

You will soon learn that the veggie meals are significantly tastier than the ones with meat. Really. First chance you get, try a Ratatouille - great veggie stew.

I keep preaching this, but the best way to get HOT food with an FRH is to not put the packages inside the heater. Sandwich the items around the heater and then wrap the whole thing with a towel or some such. There are many advantages: the heater element gets uniformly wet; the FRH gets MUCH hotter; there's no chemical sludge on your food packet; that one layer of plastic doesn't affect heat transfer; the towel keeps all the heat in; there's no problem trying to wedge things into the FRH; and you can actually warm two full-size items plus a cheese packet.

Great review, good sir. Keep it up.

[rattattoo]

I will signal boost RockyRaab on his system of putting the FRH separately against the food, rather than the food inside of the FRH bag. I too, have had much better results that way.
I may or may not have shown on some other post the heater pouch I made out of a Tyvek mailing envelope and some reflectix insulation. Two MRE pouches and a couple of FRHs will slip in easily, and the reflectix does an excellent job of containing and preserving the warmth. Best of all, it weighs next to nothing in my pack.

And I'll give a second signal boost to the idea that the "vegetarian" penne is one of the very best MRE meals that's out there.

[parafireboy]

I'm going to have to try the FRH method you've described here on my next camping outing. I'm hearing very consistently that this method is far superior. I'm also going to have to tear into my ratatouille MRE. I've been passing it by because it didn't sound too appealing, but it sounds like it's pretty good.

Thanks for all the great tips and info everyone!