2008 Menu: Pork Rib

Review By Badtux the Culinary Penguin

This consisted of:
1 chocolate mint cookie
2 packets MRE "bread" (actually a sort of soft wheat cookie)
1 packet clam chowder
1 packet pork loaf
1 packet MRE cheese If you don't have a spare MRE heater around, I recommend heating up the chowder, it's pretty dismal cold. Luckily I had a pot of boiling water to dunk my pork loaf and chowder packets into. While the pork loaf and chowder were heating up, I tried the cookie. Yum!
I took out a plate and a small bowl, and put the MRE bread and small bowl on the plate. Then when the chowder and pork loaf were warm, I opened the chowder packet and put the chowder in the bowl, and opened the pork loaf packet and extracted the pork loaf and put it on the bread. Then I topped the pork loaf with the MRE cheese, slapped the other slice of "bread" on top, and there we are. Do *NOT* just turn the pork loaf packet upside down and dump out the pork loaf, there's a lot of grease in there that'll turn your bread into a soggy mess if you do. Carefully tear / cut the packet and extract just the pork loaf, not the grease. Optionally, dump some of the grease into the clam chowder for some more flavor.
Verdict:
Clam chowder: Kind of bland, but then, most clam chowder is. A little of the pork loaf grease and a little black pepper gets it perked right up and it tastes like, well, clam chowder. Nice.
Pork loaf sandwich: This sandwich was *good*. The pork loaf had a nicely smoked and meaty flavor that was well accented by the taste of the cheese and the flatbread taste of the "bread" (soft wheat crackers).
Cookie: That was good too.
So give this one a four-stars (out of four) rating -- definitely a keeper if this one gets issued to you as disaster rations. Just remember, the clam chowder gets the heater pouch, otherwise it's like eating chalk!
-- Badtux the Culinary Penguin

2008 Menu: Beef Enchiladas

Review By Todd Farino

When I pulled this MRE from the bunch I have to say I wasn't excited. For the most part, Mexican meals don't come out the best in MREs. Beef Enchiladas was an alright MRE. The Entree consists of two spicy Beef Enchiladas. Here is the rest of the MRE.

Refried Beans

Oatmeal Cookie

Vegetable Crackers/ Jalapeno Cheese Spread

Cheyenne Pepper

Red Punch

Entree: Beef Enchiladas

The Beef Enchiladas are in fact two Beef Enchiladas just like you'd get in a restaurant. Normally I don't like entrees you don't have to kneed before you eat them, but I did kneed the Beef Enchiladas. It made it much easier to season and eat later. It is key that you eat the Beef Enchiladas hot. Do not eat them cold. Alone, they are quite spicy. Salt made them much more edible, but if you like your food very spicy add the pepper and you will be very happy and your eyes may even water. The Beef Enchiladas were a bit mushy, but I don't know what else you can get when you store tortillas with juices in a airtight MRE package.

Side Dish: Refried Beans

I do not like refried beans, but I have to admit that the refried beans in this MRE were actually good and worth eating, though I could not finish them. I tried them three different ways. I did heat them up in the heater, by putting them in after the Enchiladas. If you have an extra MRE heater, use it. Refried beans are much better if they are heated up. Plain, they were OK. I then added salt and they were very good, and probably the best. Again, if you need a little spice in your life go for the pepper with salt. It was very good and make the overall meal worth eating.

Snack: Vegetable Crackers/ Jalapeno Cheese Spread

Always good crackers and extra spicy cheese spread added to the overall taste of the Mexican meal.

Dessert: Oatmeal Cookie

The cookies are one of the best part of the MREs. The Oatmeal cookie was moist and messy, but very good and made the meal worth eating.

The rest of the MRE was normal. I do like the fruit punch drink and that is always great to mix with the sugar in a water bottle. It also came with coffee, but I did not drink any coffee.

Entree: 3.5 Stars
Side Dish: 3 Stars
Dessert: 5 stars
Snacks: 4 Stars
Rest Of MRE: 4 Stars
OVERALL:

2007 Menu: Beef Patty

We are changing up our MRE reviews a little. We are going to add 1-5 star ratings on the entree, the side dish, snacks, desserts, and the rest of the MRE contents. The final rating will be an overall rating.

I had the joy of trying the MRE Beef Patty from the 2007 menu. It is one of the more different MREs. Here is the MRE's contents:

Beef Patty, Grilled

Mexican Macaroni

Cheese Spread /w Bacon

2 Wheat Snack Breads

BBQ Sauce

Nacho Cheese Pretzels

Ice Tea

Tropical Punch

Tabasco

Entree: Beef Patty Grilled

To start the Grilled patty was outstanding. First off, I cooked it in the MRE heater for about 22 minutes. When it was done it was steaming hot and heated all the way through. Now, it was more like a hamburger patty, but it was grilled like it was a steak and it maintained a steak flavor. I first tried it without anything, and it was very good. It tasted like chopped steak. The patty was very moist and had a good steak taste, and not the normal MRE taste.

I then added salt and that was so good that I felt it would be a waste of Tabasco sauce, so I never used it. The salt was a little hard to mix in, but I got it done. I also added the BBQ sauce and it really didn't help much. While the BBQ sauce tastes good, it just wasn't the best mix. I do recommend you try it, maybe you'll like the flavor.

The final way to enjoy this MRE is to use the two breads as buns. Spread the cheese onto one of them. Put the patty in the middle and spread the BBQ Sauce. Walla! A cheeseburger. The bread was a bit dry. I didn't like it that way. Enjoy this entree.

Side Dish: Macaroni and Cheese Mexican Style

This is normally one of the more favorite meals of the kids. They like their macaroni and cheese. This one was a bit unimpressive. The flavoring is additional hot sauce over the macaroni and cheese. So it gave it an enchilada taste, and I feel the kids like it normal. The macaroni was a bit chewy, but it was very tolerable. Adding salt really helped the overall taste. If you like it really spicy, pour the Tabasco into the macaroni and cheese and throw it into the heater for 10-15 minutes. You should always cook the macaroni and cheese.

Desserts: None

Isn't that sad? This is a rare no dessert MRE.

Snacks: 2 Wheat Snack Breads, cheese spread with bacon, and Nacho Cheese Pretzels

Lots of snacks in this MRE. First you get 2 Wheat Snack Breads. There are two breads if you choose to make the cheeseburger and us them for buns. The wheat bread is always good, but a little dry. The cheese spread is alright, but the other flavors are better. One of my favorite snacks is the nacho cheese pretzels. They are little round pretzels with cheese in the middle. Very good and very tasty.

The rest of the MRE was good as well. there was Tabasco sauce if you needed it or just save it. It also came with two drinks; ice tea and tropical punch power. If you have water bottles, I'd use both and share the sugar between them.

Overall the MRE was very good. It was disappointing because it had no desserts and if you are like me you like your cakes, cookies, candy, and other desserts. The entree to my surprise was excellent, but the side dish was only alright. I think they should remove the side dish and add some dessert.

Entree: 4.5 Stars

Side Dish: 3.5 Stars

Dessert: N/A

Snacks: 4.5 Stars

Rest Of MRE: 5 Stars

OVERALL: