Sargento Finishers a quick potato option

Sargento Potato Finishers. All American, Au Gratin, and Cheddar Broccoli. $2.99 per 5.54-ounce to 5.5-ounce bag containing packets of sauce, shredded cheese and topping.

Bonnie: I've often enjoyed a crispy baked potato as a light dinner. All I usually add is salt. Sargento Potato Finishers are for those who need a bit more.

These are like a salad bar for your potato. Like a salad bar, these pouches offer a number of ways to add calories, fat and sodium to an otherwise nutritious vegetable. Each Potato Finisher includes pouches of sauce, grated cheese (sharp cheddar or Monterey jack) and a topping (bacon crumbles or seasoned bread crumbs) that can add up to 140 calories, 10 grams of fat and 600 milligrams of sodium to a potato.

The sauce packets remind me of the pump containers of orange goo used at snack bars to top nachos. Only the grated cheeses are relatively healthy and unadorned (as one might expect from cheese-maker Sargento). Used together with these other pouches, and this is my idea of how to ruin a perfectly good baked potato.

Carolyn: Sargento is a leader in new ways to help people put cheese-based meals on the table, and surely not coincidentally, figuring out new ways to sell its cheese. These new Potato Finisher potato kits are a good example. Even if they are five years behind the restaurant stuffed-potato trend, they make what is already a pretty quick and easy meal even quicker and easier — at least, it'll be quick if you prepare your potatoes in the microwave. The packages give only the 60-minute conventional oven potato-baking directions for some odd reason that will certainly not appeal to the busy families to whom these would otherwise appeal.

I especially liked the crunch the seasoned toasted breadcrumbs give to the Au Gratin variety, although I probably liked the All American with its sour cream-like white cheddar with chives sauce the best. I could hardly taste the broccoli in the Cheddar Broccoli. Sargento would have done better suggesting broccoli as an optional add-on instead.

Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh Shaved Singles. Honey Oven Roasted Turkey, Smoked Turkey, Home-Style Roasted Ham, Honey Smoked Ham and Oven Roasted Chicken. $1.99 to $2.49 per two 2.3-ounce portions.

Bonnie: I generally like these new prepackaged, individual portions of shaved deli meats. This double package of meat can be detached and placed in a lunch box or be used to limit the meat you use to make one sandwich. Each luncheon meat is 98 percent fat-free, providing only 60 to 70 calories per ample 2.3-ounce portion.