This is my first complaint. And I guess it is a layered complaint, so maybe that makes it multiple complaints.
First, there are no instructions. Now, normally, if you cook something yourself at home, then reheat it the next night, you know what to do. And for me, because of my gastric bypass surgery, I can’t really reheat things too long in a microwave, because the dryer they are, the harder they are to eat.
Dinner tonight is Filet of Tilapia with Traditional Red Mole Sauce with Curried Cauliflower Mash and Exotic Mushroom Ragout. So you know it has to be heated. But how long? My microwave has a button that reheats a dinner plate – one button push kind of thing – but it reheats for 1 minute and ten seconds. I thought that might be too long for the fish. It came in a container that I knew I could reheat in, but I was worried that because it was piled pretty thick in the container, it wouldn’t heat evenly.
And mole sauce – hot? Cold? Room temperature? I don’t know.
So I ended up transferring the meal onto a plate, and heated it for a minute. The fish smelled fishy to me, which I think was my other complaint – was that one, thawed ice pack enough to keep the meal cold? And the ice pack was on top, my fish on the bottom – was that safe?
Okay, so I heated it for a minute, but the cauliflower mash was still cool in the center. And now that my fish smells fishy and I’m worried about food poisoning, I don’t want to take any chances that bad bacteria isn’t killed off. So I put it back in the microwave on a regular plate, where I could spread it out a bit, and I heat it another 45 seconds.
This time, the cauliflower mash heated through, but it dried out the fish, which now smelled fishy and had the texture of cardboard. I ate a bite of the fish, but I knew as soon as I swallowed that it wasn’t going to sit well in my stomach. Food that is too dry just does. not. go. down. The cauliflower mash had a nice, light curry flavor, and meshed well with the mushroom ragout. I’m not sure why it was called exotic, as it seemed like sauteed white button mushrooms to me, but it tasted good and was my favorite part of the meal.
I think for the next two nights, I’m going to separate the denser items on the plate and heat them a bit ahead of time before adding the protein back onto the plate. This might help with my stomach issues.
Oh – the mole sauce? I heated it with the food the second time around, so it was warm. It didn’t add much to the fish, but again, the fish for me was inedible. Perhaps had the fish been moister, with the ability to soak up some of the sauce, it would be a different story.