Thursday Giveaway: Whole Foods Organic Meals & $25 Gift Card
Today I am thrilled to be offering up a Whole Foods Market Gift Card as a giveaway. The reason? I recently had the pleasure of enjoying their new Whole Foods Organic Frozen meals and I think you all need to go out and try some yourself. I usually don’t buy tons of frozen foods, but I am not opposed to a shortcut here and there. I love the general Whole Foods philosophy of cooking with real ingredients so if I do take shortcuts it is usually from that store. Of course, there is no better time for a shortcut then with a new baby in the house. It made perfect sense to give some of their easy to prepare frozen meals a try this month. Here is what we tried and liked:
Classic Margherita Pizza: Pizza is one of our favorites! The nice thing about the Whole Foods pizza is that there were real tomatoes on top. The cheese was also true shredded mozzarella. I know this because it melted and bubbled up in the oven. I find so many cheeses on frozen pizzas don’t really melt (fake!), but this cheese did. It is the perfect size for one adult or two children. I even baked it on the same sheet as the spanikopita – a bonus since it is so convenient to prepare two things at once. This pizza crisped up beautifully in our oven. I would highly recommend it for an easy lunch or light dinner. It is also great for kids.
Gnocchi Sorrentino: This awesome gnocchi dish came in a freezer bag. To cook it I simply heated it the skillet for ten minutes. The gnocchi was chewy and light. The marinara tasted incredibly fresh and it made the perfect lunch for two.
Chicken & Vegetable Potstickers: I find potstickers tricky since I try to stay away from heavily fried foods. A lot of frozen potstickers require reheating in vats of oil, or being steamed through which causes them to fall apart. However, the whole package of frozen potstickers only required two teaspoons of oil for cooking on the stovetop. I let them warm over low heat so that the skins crisped up and the filling heated through. We were thrilled that they didn’t come apart one bit and were hot all the way to the very center. I served them with a simple dish of warm low-sodium soy sauce for dipping. I can envision serving these as appetizers at small gatherings or to accompany a dinner of Asian-inspired foods.
Chicken Fried Rice: Once again – I so rarely eat fried rice because the take-out version is so oily and fatty. I was even hesitant to pick-up the Whole Foods version since I was fairly certain it would not be the best food to help me toward my pregnancy weight-loss goal. However, the directions said it only required one tablespoon or less of light cooking oil to prepare so I decided to give it a shot. Luckily, as the package stated, it really was a cinch to prepare in the skillet and it was not at all oily or fatty. The rice cooked through beautifully and it was filled with fresh carrots, peas, chicken, and scrambled egg. Next time I need to itch my fried rice craving I am reaching for this – not dialing take-out!
Spanakopita: I almost didn’t select these to try since, well, aren’t they the quintessential frozen appetizer that are never as good as you want them to be? However, since my husband loves them I bought them anyway and am so glad I did. They are stuffed full of fresh spinach and the blend of cheese inside are rich and creamy. The filo stayed nice and crisp in the oven – there was not a oily sheet in sight! We also found them to be a nice size for an appetizer. All too often I find Spanakopita to be enormous or way too small with only a single measly leaf of spinach inside. These were just the right two-bite size. I can honestly say these are the only frozen Spanakopita I will ever buy again.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Lava Cakes: What kind of person would I be if I didn’t test out the desserts?! Given to that I am a bit of a lava cake feign I decided to try these first. They were fully baked to begin with, I just needed to reheat them in the oven for 10 minutes to warm them up. We loved how the cookie truly tasted fresh baked and there was not a hint of anything artificial. The molten chocolate in the center was perfectly melted and spilled out onto our plates when the cake was cut in half. We served ours with vanilla ice cream to cut the richness of the cake. It made a wonderfully decadent dessert. I can see serving these at casual dinner parties or to kids for a special treat!
To enter to win a $25 gift card to Whole Foods so you can try these foods yourself!:
1) Leave a comment telling me which one of their new frozen foods you would like to try.
2) Contest runs from February 21st at 7:00am ET through February 28th at 7:00am ET. Winner will be announced in the March 1st newsletter! (be sure to subscribe!)
I wanna try their strawberries!
Can I choose more than one? I’d love to try the gnocchi, the potstickers and lava cakes…yum!!
I would like to try the Spanakopita
kellywcu8888ATgmailDOTcom
I would like to try the Classic Margherita Pizza.
I would love to try the Chicken Fried Rice! It’s been ages since I’ve ordered it at a restaurant. I too am trying to lose baby weight. It would make a really nice treat! I think my adventurous eater would love it too!!!
Classic Margherita Pizza
elena150980 at yahoo dot com
At first I really wanted to try the Chicken Fried Rice, but then I scrolled down and saw the chocolate lava cookie and that is a no brainer. I would love to serve it for dessert.
Gnocchi Sorrentino. I’m a sucker for gnocchi
I’d like to try the lava cookie, spanakopita and pizza.
Mmmmmmmm, how about them all!
I would like to try the Chicken Fried Rice. I love fried rice, but I agree with you that it can be very greasy.
Potstickers!
Um, is it bad that I want those lava cookies more than anything? 😉
The chocolate chip lava cookie!
I’m a huge spanikopita fan so that would be my pick. And I like that you say they are just the right size.
Would love to try the chicken fried rice!
I would love to try the lava cookie!!
I just took a look through some of their frozen foods but ended up passing. Your reviews are helpful…makes me want to try the fried rice & lava cookies!
chocolate lava chip cookies for sure!
I’d like to try Chicken Fried Rice
My first thought was to go for the gnocchi but then the potstickers started screaming my name 🙂
I would love to try the gnocchi or spanakopita! 🙂
I would love to try the gnoochi, I recently froze some of my own but it wasn’t good when I cooked it the second time.
My husband would vote for the chicken and vegetable dumplings, but I’d want the lava cakes!
I would love to try the gnocchi!
Chicken and Vegetable potstickers… I love the TJ’s version and would love to try Whole Food’s version… I LOVE whole foods and I love your recipes and reviews!
I would love to try the pot stickers. My son loves these in his lunch box. Yummy.
I want to try all of them! 🙂 Potstickers & gnocchi top the list.
I’d like to try the chicken friend rice!
The chicken and vegetable potstickers for me! The reason – my husband will cook them and I just have to wait until they are ready to eat!
The gnocchi looks delicious!
I would love to try the fried rice and the lava cakes.
I love gnocchi, so I’d choose that.
The lava cakes for sure! I have a terrible sweet tooth.
I would love to try the Chicken Fried Rice.
Lava cakes! That sounds delicious!
Definitely the potstickers!
I would like to try the vegan lasagna.
It’s a tough choice between the Spanakopita and Chocolate Chip Cookie Lava Cakes, both sound so good!! I guess I’d go with the lava cakes since I have a major sweet tooth 🙂
I would love to try their potstickers!
Oh, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Lava cakes for sure!
I would love to try the potstickers!
The Chocolate Chip Lava Cookies for me!
Spanikopita
Gnocchi Sorrentino
The chicken fried rice sounds like something my very picky kids would eat! As a new mom myself (our 4th), I’m so glad to hear that there are new frozen meals at whole foods. I can’t wait to try them all!!
gnocchi has been on my radar lately so it has to be the gnocchi! 🙂
Chicken & Vegetable Potstickers
margueritecore [at] gmail [dot] com
I just made my own gnocchi for the first time last night, so I’d love to try theirs and see how it compares.
The Chicken Fried Rice sounds good to me.
Chicken and veg potstickers
The lava cakes sound delish
I like the chicken fried rice
I seem to be one of the few – Spanakopita!
Classic Margherita Pizza
The chicken friend rice sounds yummy!
Chicken and vegetable potstickers.
The “Lava Cookies!”
Many thanks, Cindi
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com
Would definitely want to try the Lava cookies!
Yum! Potstickers take a lot of work to make and the frozen ones usually aren’t great, so I’d love to try those!
I would especially love to try the Gnocchi Sorrentino!!
I would LOVE to try that chicken fried rice!
lava cookies! yum!
I look forward to trying the Chicken & Vegetable Potstickers.
The gnocchi. Always had a soft spot for this pasta dish, but never make it at home.
Oh gosh, I’d love to try the gnocchi!
What a wonderful giveaway! Oh, I would like to try chocolate chip cookie lava cake for sure 🙂
The gnocci sounds good,but so do the pot stickers!
Oh, those gnocchi look heavenly!
Those Chocolate Chip Cookie Lava Cakes look amazing. Do you think anyone would notice if I bought a box and had them for breakfast this morning? 🙂
spanakopita! definitely! thanks!
The chicken and vegetable potstickers look great.
I would pick the chocolate chip cookie lava cake
I would have to pick the chocolate chip lava cake! Looks so good!
i’d like that too
The Vegetable Pot Stickers sound delicious 🙂
I think the chicken fried rice sounds amazing as an alternative to restaurant style!
Chicken Fried Rice!
I love gnocchi so I would love to try Gnocchi Sorrentino. Yum 🙂
The chicken fried rice sounds sooo yummy!
The Chicken & Vegetable Potstickers sound delicious! Thanks for the opportunity. elleb at inbox dot com
I’d like to try the chicken fried rice.
Spanakopita. For those of you who do not know what it is, I looked it up. It’s a Greek savory pastry, similar to spinach pie. Here’s the link I read up on it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanakopita
of course lava cake!!
Chicken Fried Rice!