Chicken and Vegetable Wonton Soup

First off, if you lived off ramen noodles cooked in a hot pot in your college dorm for 4 years, this soup is the adult version of that meal.  It is just as fast, cheap (but not as cheap as ramen), and hearty, but a little less “college-y”.

Now for the review.

Autumn is here - SOUP SEASON!

The package says this soup is one serving, but I would call it 1.5.  There were 7 or 8 hearty wontons, so that is quite a few to eat in one sitting.  I really like this soup!  The broth is tasty, the wontons are good and meaty.  This warm soup would be good on a cold fall or winter day. 

I wish it had more veggies – there were only 2.5 snow peas and kind of a lot of carrots.  Would it kill them to throw in a couple more snow peas??  The photo on the package seems to show more veggies than our bowl had.  The photo also makes it look like the veggies and won tons float – I think that was artful use of chopsticks to push things to the top and make them look jazzy in the picture!

Here is our bowl.  Served with San Pellegrino, which Trader Joe's was OUT of last night.
Oh I hope they have not stopped carrying it...

My favorite part of this soup is the CILANTRO – if you get a bit of cilantro in your bite it really jazzes things up.  That being said, I realize that cilantro is one weird a** herb!!!  Have you read the articles that explain that, to some people’s taste buds, cilantro tastes just like SOAP???  Isn’t that freaky??  I love cilantro, so I feel sorry for the people who think it tastes like getting your mouth washed out with soap.  Here is a link to a good article about cilantro:  Cilantro Haters

This is easy to prepare – I microwaved it for 4.5 minutes, let it rest for one minute, then dove in.  this would be a good “bring to work” lunch.  It wouldn’t stink up the break room when you microwaved it like some other frozen lunches do. 

Find this one in the frozen food section

Here is what David thought of it, “This is a nice idea.  It is lovely and warm for the winter time.  For me the soup was a bit “Campbell’s Soup-y” and a bit sweet rather than them more vinegar-y and flavorful hing that I would expect from a Chinese wonton soup.  And the dumplings – though I love dumplings, these are a little bit, ummm, I could do with them being more, ummm, GRANULAR I guess.  That is, BITS of meat and BIT of vegetables in there, rather than just like a chunk of a chicken hotdog in there.  I do agree with Susan that the cilantro is a great idea.  I would give this a 3.25.”

And I would give this soup a 4.  So those 2 scores will be averaged together for the final rating. 

Price:  $2.29

Rating:  3.75

Day 103 - Chicken Shu Mai

This was our first time getting these at Trader Joe’s and we were happy with the purchase.  They are little frozen chicken and veggie dumplings that you heat and eat.  I cooked them using the “steam” method listed on the box, though you can also just bung them in the microwave. 

They come with a very nice sauce – mostly soy but a bit of rice vinegar taste to it, too.  It’s a wee bit tricky if you do not eat them all in one sitting, because the sauce all comes in one packet.  There are 18 pieces per box I think, so for two people that was a bit too many for one meal.  When we cooked the rest of them another day David had to whip up a bit of sauce (not to worry, he enjoys making 

sauce!). 

Find this box in the frozen food section

They remind me of going out on a Sunday for dim sum – tasty little morsels.  Only, they are much more reasonably priced than any dim sum restaurant you could ever go to. 

Seriously good price

Note:  I have not mentioned this in previous reviews, but Trader Joe’s does a fun little thing with naming products – this one is made by “Trader Ming’s”.  Often “Joe” will be replaced by a name that matches the culture the food comes from.  Keep your eye open for that if you haven’t noticed it before – some of them are quite sweet.

Price – $2.99

Rating – 4