MRE Week day 3: southwestern style chicken stew

It's day 3 and I'm switching back to chicken just to keep it a little more interesting.  Today's package contained the following:

Main dish: Southwest style chicken stew

Side dish: Apple sauce

Snack #1: Crackers

Snack #2: Cran-apple ranger bar

Apple jelly

Beverage powder for orange-flavored drink

Flame-less heater, spoon and seasoning are all included.

Apart from the main dish, all the side dish/snacks/drinks are the same as the last two days.  It looks like it will start getting boring...

Today's pouch was mostly liquid, so after heating I ended up grabbing my lovely green plastic salad bowl instead of the normal plate...

Southwest style chicken stew - actually this is just cajun chicken gumbo.  Consistency isn't very thick, and I was left to wonder if I'll be full for dinner.  The chunks of chicken were very dry, which wasn't surprising.  The corn had been "fire roasted" and it showed.  Onions, chili peppers and celery (not listed on the package but I swore I ate some) were the other solids in my bowl.  There was a good amount of chili powder to give that good ol' cajun flavor.  As I got to the bottom of the bowl where the sediment was, it started to get a little bitter...  Meh...

The wine pairing tonight?  An American classic.  Gallo Family White Zinfandel in quarter-bottle.  Reminds me of my days of drinking wine in college...  Sweet nose like Manuka or orange blossom honey, jammy, strawberry, almost like cough syrup.  Pretty sweet on palate, too!  Thankfully both the sweetness as well as the low alcohol (8%) helped sooth the burning tongue.  At HKD 12 for the quarter-bottle, I guess I haven't earned the right to complain too loudly...

Apple sauce - same as yesterday, but tonight I had the apple sauce with my main dish, so that the sugar would neutralize the spiciness of the chili powder.  Of course it worked, as it was meant to...

Crackers with apple jelly - pretty much the same as day 1.

Orange carbohydrate electrolyte beverage - same as day 1, with that slight hint of saltiness.

Cran-apple Ranger Bar - just as yummy as the one from day 1.  Now why is it that every time this shows up in the package, it ends up beating the pants off of every other item on the menu?!

My tummy was surprisingly full after this meal, but I suspect it has something to do with all the liquids... after all there's liquid from the 8-ounce gumbo, 4½ ounces of apple sauce, and 12 ounces of the orange drink!  Final tally?  840 calories, with 165 calories coming from fat.  Looks like I might get hungrier a little earlier...