Cheesy Beef Patty with Sautéed Peppers and Onions!

OK for my first night of TV dinners I started with the Banquet Cheesy Smothered Charbroiled Patty and Mashed Potatoes meal. I had never had this one myself so I was kind of worried if I would like it. When I first seen it at the store I instantly thought oh I could do something like TGIF's sizzling chicken and cheese!(which I have made recently and need to get posted :D). So this will probably be the most "enhanced" meal that I do, I will probably just add veggies and such to the others. OK to start just get the cheesy smothered charbroiled patty meal like below.

So the back of the box says to remove film from the potatoes and place on baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. So do this first. While your meal is cooking go ahead and get your cutting board, a knife, bell pepper (washed), and a peeled half of an onion ready.

 

Go ahead and slice your bell pepper into strips like so, you will want to do the same with your onion or I just cut my half into half (fourths) and then chopped each half up. Then put all into a small saute pan.

Next you want to add about 1 table spoon of butter or vegetable oil into your pan and saute on medium heat for maybe 5 minutes or so until they get a little brown or if you like them a lot brown like me you can leave them in a little longer like the picture below.

To me the dinner seemed kind of southwestern so I thought adding some ranch style beans would be a good touch plus with the spoonful of potatoes they give you, you need something else to go with it!

So I just used regular ranch style beans, simple to prepare, just open the can and heat until hot!

So this is what the meals look like straight from the oven! Not very tasty at all right? Well I read some where that if you eat TV Dinners to always put them on a plate instead of eating from the tray because the portions make you feel like you are eating less and you are are more likely to eat more later. So first I put my sauteed veggies on the plates then I topped them with the cheesy patty, and put the scoop of potatoes on the plate too.

I think the finished product looks much nicer, and a lot more tasty! As you can see I added just a pinch of  shredded cheddar cheese to the top because there really was not much cheese on them. I also added some sliced tomato which I think was a nice addition, it kind of gave it a sweeter flavor. And of course some "Texas Toast" which was actually wheat bread with "I can't believe it's not butter" sprayed on top!

For dessert tonight I mashed strawberries and mixed in about 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar!

Over all I believe this meal came out very well. It was actually really flavorful, and my husband and I were both full after eating. I also don't think it was too unhealthy either. The meal itself was 280 calories for the meat patty and potatoes, so then the calories from the butter, veggies, beans(which was probably around 65) and bread, I didn't add them up but surely it was not over 500 calories! So not too bad for a TV Dinner! As for the total cost of the meal, of course I already had bread and I only used 2 slices at that, the meal was 1.00, the beans were .69, tomatoes were .99 a pound I only used one so maybe .25 for that, .49 for the bell pepper, onions were 1.49 per pound and I used half of one so maybe .35 that comes to about 3.00 FOR 2 PEOPLE. This will for sure be added to our menu list to do again another time! I hope you enjoy it if you give it a try! 

Check back tomorrow for Chicken Fingers, Mac and Cheese and Homemade Onion Rings and a Brownie for dessert!!