Banquet Homestyle Bakes Beef Stew and Biscuits: Not So Great

I'm not sure exactly when it started, but at some point in the last few months I have become addicted to meals in boxes. These easy-to-prepare dinners are great in a pinch. You don't have to plan ahead for dinner. Forty minutes before you are ready to eat you can preheat the oven and in less than five minutes a nice meal is on its way to being cooked. For someone who isn't a culinary genius these boxed meals have saved me from a disastrous dinner more than once.

Recently I decided to trade in some of my favorites boxed meals to try some different variations. Just last night I prepared the Banquet Homestyle Bakes Beef Stew and Biscuits. I have to admit that I probably won't be buying this particular boxed meal again anytime soon.

Preparation
Preparation of the Banquet Homesyle Bakes Beef Stew and Biscuits was not difficult. I needed a baking dish (I used a ceramic dish, though you could use glass as well), ½ cup water, a piece of foil large enough to cover the baking dish, a can opener, a mixing bowl, and a spoon.

I started off by opening the two cans of Hearty Vegetable and Beef Stew Mix contained in the box. They were then dumped into the baking dish. I noticed that this mix looked like Chunky Brand Vegetable Soup. It had potatoes, carrots and other vegetables mixed with small pieces of beef covered in thick gravy.

Part two of preparation involved mixing the biscuit mix that came in the package with ½ cup of water. This mix was to be spooned over the Hearty Vegetable and Beef Stew mix. This biscuit mix was similar to Bisquick.

After combining the ingredients the directions said to make 9 spoonfuls of the biscuit mix and place them over the beef stew mix. This was supposed to completely cover the stew mix. Of course it did not and in order to cover the mix completely I had to spread the biscuit mix rather than make actual biscuits. This was disappointing

Cooking:
After covering the concoction with foil and preheating the oven to 400 degrees it was time to wait and hope that it wasn't going to be a horrible dinner. According to the directions this Homestyle Bakes should cook in approximately 35 minutes. It took about 45 for the biscuits to be done enough to resemble anything but mushy dough.

Eating
I was not at all happy with how this meal in a box turned out. The taste of the meat and vegetables was great but the "biscuits" were horrible. They had no taste at all and I would rather have done without them. After eating this meal I found myself wishing I had skipped all the steps and had just put the Vegetable and Beef Mix in a pan and heated it up for dinner. At least then I would not have had to deal with mushy, barely edible "biscuits."