Frozen Kosher, Part II

After having been disappointed with how the cherry blintzes came out when cooked in the oven, I decided to cook the apple blintzes (same brand, Golden) in the skillet to see how that would come out. I fried them in a few tablespoons of soft margarine, and they came out much, much better, golden brown on the outside. The only trouble I had was getting the filling uniformly hot, and some of the blintzes had cold spots. The skillet directions do not indicate how long to cook the blintzes; even an approximate figure would probably have helped.

We were pleased with the latkes from Kineret (U-in-a-circle Kosher parve), "Heimishe style" (roughly, "homestyle"), which were pretty much hash brown patties by another name. These are definitely not health food: more than half the calories come from fat. However, when I cooked them in the oven, these latkes crisped up nicely, and didn't seem soggy or greasy, because so much of the fat dripped out onto the pan.

We also tried a soup from the frozen Kosher section, Tabatchnick Chicken Broth with Noodles and Dumplings ( K} Meat Glatt kosher). What struck me, compared to other chicken noodle soups, was the lack of meat chunks. It was, exactly as it says, chicken broth with noodles and dumplings. Although the word "matzo" never appears on the box, the dumplings were matzo balls.
I cooked it in the microwave. The box didn't say what wattage microwave they used when determining the cook time of 4 1/2 minutes. My 950 watt microwave took 6 1/2 minutes to cook the soup, which is longer than it takes to cook most TV dinners.
Compared to other chicken noodle soups I have had, like Campbell's and Progresso, it had about the same amount of sodium, but there was less soup in the package than a can of Progresso. Since I don't keep kosher--I am, after all, a gentile--I probably wouldn't buy it again. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't impressive enough for me to get that instead of the canned brands. Also, on sale it was 2/$5, and I usually wouldn't spend that much on that size package of soup, which I usually spend no more than $1.50 on.