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Box of Handy's frozen Maryland Style Crab Cakes
Handy Maryland Style Crab Cake on a plate

My boyfriend and I saw a box of these frozen Handy Maryland Style Crab Cakes at Costco.

The box comes with three sets of two crab cakes, packaged individually (a total of six crab cakes):

Handy Maryland Style Crab Cakes Inside Packaging
Inside packaging for Handy's frozen Maryland Style Crab Cakes

For the two of us, we cooked four cooked crab cakes, following the oven / baking instructions on the box. However, the instructions state to cook it for 22 minutes in the oven at 350F from frozen, flipping it once. We cooked it for 22 minutes at 350F, and they looked very pale, so we continued cooking it longer. We cooked it for 30 minutes, and it still didn't look done… eventually, we cooked it for a total of 47 minutes, and it was a little browned by then.

Despite cooking it in the oven for more than twice as long as the stated directions, it still wasn't very crisp on the outside. The crab cakes were small-ish, and the main taste was crab and mayonnaise... with a little breadcrumb and black pepper.

Although it was mushy on the inside, I liked that I could taste the crab and see it, and there seemed to be a decent amount of it. However, the mayonnaise taste was very prominent - a little too prominent for me.

My boyfriend and I shared three of the four crab cakes we made - we didn't feel like finishing a fourth one, so we saved that one for later in the refrigerator (even though we were still a little hungry after eating three crab cakes.)

Overall Rating:
OK
Food: Handy: Handmade & Gluten Free Maryland Style Crab Cakes
Source: Costco, Tucson, AZ
Rating: OK

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Bag of Trader Joe's Frozen Low Fat Chicken Chow Mein
Trader Joe's Frozen Chicken Chow Mein packets
Bowl of cooked Trader Joe's Frozen Chicken Chow Mein packets

We tried Trader Joe's Chicken Chow Mein as a side to Trader Joe's Spicy Beef & Broccoli. For cooking the chicken chow mein, we followed the microwave instructions on the back of the bag. The instructions state that it's optional to add 1-2 tablespoons of water for moister chow mein so we added 1 tablespoon of water to it. We also used only half of the chicken chow mein sauce.

The diced chicken was OK, but it was a little dry on the inside. The noodles were a little on the chewy side, but both the chicken and noodles went well with the sauce. The sauce tasted like a sweet garlic-y soy sauce, and as usual, I think it would have been too sweet (and garlic-y) if we had used the entire sauce packet. The vegetables were pretty good and had a nice crunch, given that they were frozen and microwaved. Overall, it was a pretty decent frozen chow mein.

Overall Rating:
Good
Food: Trader Joe's Frozen Low Fat Chicken Chow Mein
Source: Trader Joe's, Tucson, AZ
Rating: Good
from Trader Joes

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Bag of frozen Perdue Popcorn Chicken purchased at Costco
Perdue Popcorn Chicken cooked

My boyfriend and I bought some of the frozen Perdue Popcorn Chicken from Costco to have as a snack every now and then. The instructions on the bag state the preferred cooking method is using a conventional oven or toaster oven, but we just used the microwave instructions. The microwave instructions don't state how many pieces to microwave for 3 - 3.5 minutes, so we just tried microwaving 8 pieces.

Although the breading was thick, it didn't turn out very crispy. It was kind of doughy and a little too thick for me. The chicken underneath the breading was OK, but it was a little dry, and the overall taste of the chicken was a little peppery.

It was fine as a quick snack, but I don't know if I'd get these again.

Overall Rating:
OK
Food: Frozen Perdue Popcorn Chicken (chicken breast chunks with rib meat fritters)
Source: Costco, Tucson, AZ
Rating: OK

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