Appetizing Muse

Tonight for dinner I prepared Banquet's "Dinner & Dessert" from a box – or should I say two boxes? The meal included dumplings and chicken, as well as an apple crisp dessert. I thought for sure the food would either be bland or ghastly, but neither was the case.

The "value pack" contained the essentials for the entrée: two cans of chicken stew and dumpling mix that only needs a bit of water, and another box containing the dessert ingredients (apple pie filling and a crumb topping mix which only needs a tablespoon of water for the desired result). Entire preparation time was about ten minutes.

Both dishes baked together in a 400-degree F oven for thirty minutes. It was as simple as that, and the food tasted rather good.

I think the product is rather new. I found the bundled boxes grocery shopping two weeks ago, displayed by the dairy case of all places. As of this writing, I see no mention of the meals on the Banquet web site.

POSTSCRIPT (December 2004): Banquet now advertises their Dessert Bakes and Homestyle Bakes.