So, for night 2 of the 2022 MRE reviews brings us a great entree and some lackluster sides. The entree, Beef Strips in a Savory Tomato Based Sauce comes with with some White Wheat Snack Bread, Peanut Butter, Blackberry Jam, a Tropical Fruit and Vegetable Smoothie, Chocolate Pudding with Protein and some Peppermint Candy Rings, along with the accessory pack that doesn't have coffee.
As the entree heated, I opened up the white wheat snack bread to enjoy with some peanut butter and jelly. The white wheat snack bread, I find, has a lighter flavor and nicer texture than the whole wheat snack bread; it's almost like Wonderbread smushed down. The docking holes make it very easy to split into two pieces to make a sandwich. As with all shelf-stable breads, though, the texture isn't great: almost sticky when chewing and slightly dry overall. The MRE peanut butter is fantastic as always, a great smoothness and rich peanut taste, not too sweet, not thirst provoking with all that oil. The blackberry jam is really a treat, it IS almost overly sweet, but I think you want that in a jelly. Even squeezing out from a tube, the texture holds up fairly well, but there is a runny-ness to the jam that will necessitate a napkin if used in a sandwich. The seeds in the jam aren't unpleasant, they sort of reinforce the idea of this being real food.
After a few minutes, the entree was hot enough and I tried it out. My immediate first impression was the rich smell of the sauce. A robust, tomato and beef scent practically forces it's way out of the bag, it really stood out in the whole house for a few minutes, in a good way. The beef in this dish is just perfectly cooked, it's tender and shreds apart well, there's just a tiniest amount of connective tissue so it's not mush in your mouth; it really is just perfectly done. The sauce really is savory, it almost reminds me of a pot roast done with tomato and wine, the beef flavor and the tomato make this a very rich meal. And it is filling, this is a good sized portion of a rich and flavorful dish, I almost regret not waiting until after a long hard day of canoeing or something to appreciate this.
But if the beef was the high point of the MRE, the chocolate pudding with protein was certainly the low point. The pudding smells good out of the package, but has such an odd flavor and texture that the enjoyment ends at the scent. They added literal beef stock to this recipe, and I cannot figure out why when they already added whey protein. The beef stock is granular, leading this whole "dessert" to have a gritty texture and taste a lot like if someone threw beef broth in your pudding: freaking weird. I've been eating MREs since the mid-90s and the chocolate pudding with freaking beef broth added is definitely the weirdest component I've tasted.
The peppermint ring candies are literally just Lifesavers, branded and all. But, after the beef pudding, definitely appreciated as a palette cleanser. Perhaps this particular MRE had a hole in the outer packaging, as these are the first stale Lifesavers I've eaten.
The fruit and vegetable smoothie was alright, it didn't dissolve as thoroughly as I wanted. The taste was much the same as one of those juice blends from V8 or some similar brand. Not bad at all, but certainly nothing spectacular.
No pictures of this one, I was sort of in a rush to get through dinner. Honestly, the entree is incredible, but the lackluster sides make me think I'll pass this one on to friends in the future.