Meal Subscription Boxes

Best feature: Huge portions, beautiful step-by-step recipe cards, .PDF copies of the recipes included in your Account details.

Worst feature: The recipes (...sadly!)

The first meal delivery box I chose to review was Plated. I chose it based on rave reviews and its high price tag. I figured it was a perfect place to start and a company that surely wouldn't disappoint.

While their customer service and commitment to recycling (carbon neutral packaging by 2016) is awesome, their recipes fell short for us. Unfortunately, it's all about the recipe when it comes to cooking. Three of the four recipes we made, I felt like they tried too hard to throw in a stand-out ingredient. The cheesecake didn't need Greek yogurt. The mint in the chicken salad was weird. There was too much going on with the quinoa salad. The gyros, however, were fantastic.

I took a look at next week's menu to see if that trend continued. There are some sure-fire recipes such as fried chicken, burgers, and breaded fish. Some of the other options sound completely foreign to me, such as:

• Cold peanut noodles with maple cayenne cashews and sambal-glazed eggplant and peppers
• Crispy tamarind-ginger chickpeas with mustard seed, tahini yogurt, and spinach
• Smoked salad with mache salad, bagel chips, and sesame-poppy seed vinaigrette

Maple cayenne cashews? What's sambal? Tamarind-ginger? Tahini yogurt? Mache? It's entirely possible that Plated is too advanced for my palate. I was a picky kid and have been very slow to try new things as an adult. I still don't each fish because "Ew, fish". I had never tried kale before this box.

If you are a picky eater, perhaps Plated is not for you. If you are an adventurous vegetarian, give Plated a shot. Unfortunately, I wasn't a Plated customer long enough to give out an official coupon code. If you give Plated a shot, do a quick Google search for one.

Here's a quick visual reminder of the recipes I reviewed:

Chinese-Style Chicken Salad with Napa Cabbage, Almonds, and Mustard Soy Vinaigrette:

Steak and Zucchini Gyros with Pesto:



And finally, Greek Yogurt Cheesecake:

Three items for one meal? Convenience! Let's get started.

The Contents:

Ingredients: quinoa, sunflower seeds, jalapeno, shallot, mango, lime, avocado, dinosaur kale, cilantro, and apple cider vinegar.

Dinosaur kale? Cool! We made our selection based on picture and title alone. We didn't look at the recipe specifics beforehand, so I was surprised to see that the leafy green in the picture was kale.

Look at all the healthy things! Let's be real, that much nutrition never makes it to my plate. I couldn't wait to get started.

Preparation:

 The reason for the smoking pan was to char the seeded jalapeno.


Ouch! Sorry buddy, the recipe made me do it! What? You don't talk to your food? :)


Now we wash and chop the produce:

Sorry buddy, this isn't kitty food. This isn't even meat, but thanks for the photo op!


Can we stop for a moment to talk about mangoes? First of all, I had never cut up a mango before. I wrestled it away from its pit (?) and started diligently chopping it into bite-sized pieces. Halfway through I asked myself, "Was I supposed to remove the skin?" I checked the recipe, no mention. I Googled and it seemed to be a split decision. I decided to try a piece and it was bitter and awful. Do you know how annoying it is to cut the skin off of lots of individual little mango pieces? Very! The more you know...

Once everything was chopped, it was time to make the vinaigrette. It consisted of the apple cider vinegar, a chopped shallot, and the chopped charred jalapeno. It tasted pretty good. I felt like I was making something I'd see at Chipotle. You can't go wrong with Chiptole, so I figured this recipe was going to be great.

Next up, mix the kale, avocado, mango, and half of the vinaigrette.



 Plate the quinoa first, then the salad, then top with the remaining vinaigrette and sunflower seeds. What a beautiful plate!


I have to hand it to Plated, they make some beautiful recipes.

The Verdict:

The Contents:

Preparation:

 Step one was to crush the graham crackers and reshape the tins that were likely bent during shipping.


 Combine the graham cracker with a pat of butter.


Press into tins to create the crust and refrigerate until ready to bake.


For the filling, combine the remaining ingredients with half of an egg.


The cream cheese was a little too cold and made the filling lumpy. Unfortunately, this was the point of no return. I couldn't throw it in the microwave without cooking the egg. Not having made a cheesecake before, I didn't really know if lumps were normal. The recipe said mix until "well combined". Oh well...

Bake:

30 minutes later, because it looked exactly the same at 20 and 25 minutes. Are you set? I don't know... Still lumpy, oops... Let's just throw it in the fridge and hope for the best, yeah? Want some cottage-cheese cheesecake? I'm the best chef ever... Haha.



 Hey, it DID set!

The Verdict:

The Contents:

Preparation:

The next step was to marinade the steak. I had some mixed feelings during this step. The recipe recommends letting it marinate for 10-15 minutes at room temperature. That seems so short to me. If I had had the time, I would've let this marinate overnight in the refrigerator. I wondered to myself if 10-15 minutes really does anything to the steak. I couldn't taste any difference.

Also, it was really sad to see all those freshly chopped herbs and garlic technically go to waste. Boo!

I realize I should've let the steak marinate in a large bag, but I was fresh out. I put it in a large bowl for the pictures and then transferred it to a smaller bowl. Since I didn't have the recommended plastic bag, I flipped the steak once and used a baster every so often to coat it with the juices. The marinade consisted of the herbs, garlic, lemon juice, oil, and vinegars.

 Cooking:

Cook steak for 3 minutes a side. For me, this wasn't nearly enough time. It looks beautiful though!


Yum, right?

Take a look at my steak chunk and take a look at the steak in the recipe. In the picture, it's a much flatter piece of meat. They sent me a fist-shaped ball of meat. The recipe calls for "round steak". I think whoever packaged this meal took it quite literally...


So, since my cut of meat didn't look anything like the recipe, the cook times were off. I'm no expert, but my first cut looked completely rare.

I decided to go ahead and slice up my half of the steak and recook the slices. Steak connoisseurs can go ahead and cringe that I let out all those wonderful juices.


Much better!

The last step was to warm the naan in the steak pan.

The Verdict:

The Contents:

Ingredients: Cilantro, mint, scallions, napa cabbage, edamame, shredded carrot, slivered almonds, chicken, dry mustard, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil. By the way, how cute are those soy sauces?

Preparation:

 Whisk together the liquid ingredients with the mustard:


Toast the almonds:

Finally, toss together all of the ingredients except the almonds. Divide the bowl in half and top with almonds:

The Verdict: