I was contacted about sampling some products made by Helen’s Kitchen.  I had never heard of the brand before, but I often don’t buy many convenience meals beyond the Amy’s brand.  Of course, I’m always game to try new things, so I eagerly took my two coupons to Whole Foods to pick out two of their products.  From their website:

We are the producer of a variety of convenient frozen products including Tofu Steaks (GardenSteak™ and Vegetarian Chicken) and a line of Frozen Meals featuring Helen’s Tofu Steaks: Mexican Cheese Enchiladas, Indian Curry, Thai Yellow Curry and an Italian Farfalle with Basil Pesto. A complete meal experience that is delicious, organic & gourmet.

My Whole Foods has the Helen’s Kitchen products scattered around the freezer section– some are with the faux meat products, while others are located within the section for their respective cuisines.  I was slightly disappointed at the lack of selection at Whole Foods (which is likely the fault of Whole Foods and not Helen’s Kitchen).  The only products available at my Whole Foods were: Thai Yellow Curry, Farfalle & Basil Pesto with Tofu Steaks, Mac & Cheese, and Cheese Enchiladas.  Whole Foods also had two varieties of the Tofu Steaks as well as the Vegetarian Ground Beef.  Of the prepared meals, only one of the selections was vegan (the Thai Yellow Curry), so I settled on that and on the GardenSteak Tofu Steaks.  It should be noted that Helen’s Kitchen makes several vegan meals, but WF only had the ones mentioned above.

The Thai Yellow Curry meal is a mix of the Helen’s Kitchen signature Tofu Steak and vegetables (broccoli and red bell pepper) in a sweet and spicy yellow curry over rice.  I liked that the curry and rice come side by side in the container and not curry on top of the rice because I sometimes like bites of plain rice when I eat Thai or Indian food.   The curry sauce is really thick and deliciously coats each vegetable or piece of tofu and is the perfect blend of sweet and spice.  It does have a little bite to it, but isn’t overly spicy.  The tofu steaks are also the perfect texture– sort of meaty, in fact.  I often find when I purchase these types of meals that have frozen tofu in them that the tofu turns sort of soggy and watery once the meal has been heated, but that’s not the case with the tofu steaks in these.

My final verdict is that this one is AWESOME and I would totally buy it to have in my freezer for those times when I can’t/don’t want to cook anything.  It is ready to be eaten in 3-5 minutes, so it’s perfect for people to keep on hand at work to heat up for lunch too.  I also really like that the food comes in a cardboard dish for microwaving, instead of plastic like some of these meals tend to be packaged in.

For dinner last night, I prepared the Tofu Steaks to go with our steamed artichokes and baked potatoes.  I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them because, as you can see on the box, it looks like they should be made into a sandwich and I didn’t have any sandwich fixin’s on hand.  I decided to give them a go plain and served from organic BBQ sauce on the side.

These are simple to prepare– just take ‘em out of the freezer and throw them into a hot skillet that has a little bit of oil in it.  These steaks seem to have been marinated in some yummy seasonings and have some sort of a crispy coating on them.  Just like the tofu in the curry dish, this tofu had a really pleasant, meaty texture.  They come 4 to a box and within the box, the steaks are wrapped in packages of two (which is great if you are only cooking two because then you aren’t left with an open pack that is going to get freezer burn).

Both my hubby and I really enjoyed these.  I have to say first that we are a tofu-loving household, so any kind of tofu usually goes over well with us.  Since these are marinated, though, there’s isn’t much of a tofu-taste to them and I would highly recommend these to people who are (1) just trying tofu for the first time or (2) find something about tofu to be unpleasant (the taste or texture).  If you are transitioning to a vegetarian or vegan diet, or if you just want to eat more plant-based proteins, I would highly recommend these.  For us, we really like tofu on it’s own, and I’m not sure I personally would spend $4.25 on a box of 4 when I could get a big pack of plain tofu for the same price.  Having said that, these are really tasty and I would recommend that you all try them.  I am curious to try the other flavor of these steaks now.