Pros:
Easy
Cheap
Tasty
Low fat/low cal per serving size
Easy
Cheap
Tasty
Low fat/low cal per serving size
Cons:
For it being a frozen item costing $1.99, None.
On a recent food adventure, I decided to re-visit Aldi's. Aldi's is a chain that focuses on being budget friendly. The structure doesn't follow your typical name brand/store brand that you see in many grocery stores. Aldi's purchases products by partnering with different select brands. This helps them build relationships and purchasing power to keep retail prices lower. Also, they sell grocery bags for 10 cents a apiece. If you don't want to buy one, you have to bring your own bags. I personally find this beneficial, since I accumulate a lot of bags from shopping at other places that end up sitting around my house, eventually becoming cat toys. Aldi's also does not employ cart personnel. Carts are chained together, offering a quarter-slot mechanism that releases the end cart when the quarter is inserted. Some people get wound up about having to use a quarter to get a cart, but you get your quarter back when you return it. Pretty clever, and very telling on how fiercely people feel about twenty five cents..!
As a person who has a pretty limited budget for spending overall, one thing I almost never do is buy myself packaged, frozen foods. The only freezer items I buy are the occasional frozen pizza, some frozen veggies (peas!), and some frozen dinners for work. So when I saw these for only $1.99, I snatched them up immediately!
They come 8 to the bag, with a whopping 170 calories and 4.5 grams of fat for 2 shells. I had a friend come over to test them out on an icy cold MN evening.
I
decided to keep the preparation simple with these in order to focus on the shells themselves. There are 2 methods of cooking these,
either baking or in the microwave. My guest provided a jar
of tomato sauce, and a tomato. So we decided to simply place some tomato
on top, layer the bottom of the baking dish wiith sauce, and sprinkle a boatload of shredded
parmesan cheese on top (also courtesy of my lovely guest, who loves
cheese and salt more than me.) The only extra addition
was some basil sprinkled on top.
The instructions say to bake for 40-50 min, covered loosely in foil. I had no foil, so I just decided to cook it for 40 min with the dish cover on, then uncover and cook for 10 min. I did all that, and this happened.
RIGHT?!
We each grabbed a few shells and went to town. I was pleasantly surprised at the abundancy of the cheese,and the toothiness to the pasta. The baking process cooked them nicely, and even one shell was satisfying. The jarred pasta sauce added an average tomato sauce flavor to them, as pasta sauces tend to do when not doctored up with something or another. The tomatoes on top were the pleasant surprise. Tangy, soft tomatoes that melt in your mouth along with all the creamy ricotta cheese. Pretty good.
The
only thing I would do different next time (because there will be a next
time where I buy like 3 bags of these) would be to pair them with a
more
flavorful sauce. Traditionally, shells are served with tomato sauce. But I
could see a light pesto, or even an olive oil/garlic/mushroom sauce
being added to these towards the end of the baking process.
I would also eat them off a plate, with a fork and knife, rather than a bowl with just a fork. Like a civilized person.
The only possible drawback about these vs. making them on your own is that you could make many different variations of cheese stuffing. I think Ricotta + goat cheese, blended with garlic and basil would be awesome. So while the creativity aspect is absent, as with many frozen items, the quality is there regardless.
Buy some!
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