Whole Kitchen Pad Thai with Tofu Frozen Dinner

Many moons ago, back in my ovo-lacto days I used to live and die for a good ole fashioned Whole Foods Whole Kitchen brand frozen meal or soups. Their french onion soup was stacked in my freezer 4 x 4 deep. For the longest time the Whole Kitchen brand hasn't really had much to offer in the world of vegan dishes. However lately, slowly but surely, I'm starting to see more vegan products creeping into the line. Even though these days I feel like I'm in the kitchen 24 hours a day (writing cookbooks, cooking for my new blog and making treats for friends and family), inevitably once or twice a week I'll open the fridge, starved and tired, only to realize that I started a component to a dish but didn't finish the rest and I can either spend an hour conceptualizing and cooking the rest of it or I can rummage around in the freezer for something quick, easy and thoughtless. Needless to say I'm always in the market for a new frozen dinner.

Whole Kitchen's Pad Thai with Tofu looked pretty appetizing out the box but once I heated it up I became a wee bit skeptical. I gave it a good stir and my first bite was not a pleasant one. It was bland and tasteless. But on this particular day I was too starving and tired  to find an alternative meal so I was determined to power through it. I gave this dish another good stir to get all the sauce over every inch of noodle and voila! The perfect Pad Thai. They key to making sure this dish tastes amazing is really making sure you get sauce on every square centimeter of rice noodle real estate. The Pad Thai was sweet, peanuty and perfect. I also like that the picture on the package was true to form of what the dish really is. The tofu wasn't minuscule in comparison to the big plump pieces on the package and the peppers were as big green and bright as the food stylist, who no doubt meticulously positioned them in the photo, made it. All in all it takes about 4 minutes to heat this dish up and about $4 to buy. With 9 grams of protein, 340 calories and 490mg of sodium ( a bit high, but it is a frozen meal after all) the Whole Kitchen brand has now found a new place of prominence in my freezer.