Meal Subscription Boxes: recipes

Final Thoughts: Home Chef

1:55 PM

$9.95/plate

$4.95/serving for some breakfast items

Best Feature: By far, my favorite thing about Home Chef is their recipe selection. They have the biggest (13+ choices) and best-looking menu of the meal delivery world. Their recipes are familiar, don't appear too complicated, and contain ingredients that are recognizable. I also LOVE that they offer breakfast items as well. I have not seen this from any other companies (so far).

Their recipe cards are also my favorite. They fill up the front and back of a full-size piece of cardstock. They fit nicely in a page protector without any additional trimming needed.

They have

Worst Feature: The only tiny thing I could complain about would be that they sent one huge mozzarella ball instead of several tiny balls. I wouldn't even bring this up, except something similar happened in my second Home Chef box (stay tuned!). I had another recipe that called for one bouillon cube and they sent two. Had I not been paying attention to the recipe itself as closely, I may have used both cubes. That being said, maybe those two were considered half cubes? I'm not sure.

Finally, my second box had a step that said to boil the potatoes until soft. Usually, this would be followed by a time suggestion. Not a huge deal, but I did have a "Uh... Home Chef? You think I have any experience with how long potatoes are supposed to boil?" moment.

Coupon Code: If you are interested in trying out Home Chef, click here to receive $30 off of your first box!

Home Chef's menu is so appealing that I chose to forgo a new company's box and chose a second week of Home Chef meals. Unless somebody can really step up, I think this will be the company we stick with.

Here's a visual reminder of what I made from Home Chef:

Truffled mushroom risotto with truffle oil, chives, and white wine:

Parisian bistro steak with potatoes dauphinoise and green beans:

French-cut chicken breast with mozzarella, pesto, and balsamic reduction caprese salad:

And if you're still not sure, check out some upcoming recipe options from Home Chef:

#homechef

Home Chef: French-Cut Chicken Breast

8:00 AM

The first Home Chef dinner I made was french-cut chicken breast with mozzarella, pesto, and balsamic reduction caprese salad:

The Contents:

Ingredients: Mozzarella balls, sicilian spice blend, pesto, spinach, balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, cherry tomatoes, french-cut chicken breasts

Preparation:

Step one was to chop the basil and halve the tomatoes:

Next, coat the chicken with the herb blend and cook in skillet. Transfer to oven to finish cooking.

Saute the spinach:

Make balsamic reduction:

Unexpected step: cut mozzarella ball into balls. The cup says ballS, but there was definitely only one large ball of cheese:

Plate and enjoy!

Final Product:

The Verdict:

This dish tasted as good as it looks. I loved everything about the dish, except maybe the cut of the chicken. The pesto caprese salad was quite tasty!

This is the second recipe from Home Chef that I saved to my personal cookbook. So far, this company is worth the price.

Next up, truffled mushroom risotto...

#homechef

Home Chef: Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Smoothies

1:14 PM

I want to start out by saying that I love this company. We experienced this box last week and loved it so much that we purchased another for next week. The recipes are quite good, better than Hello Fresh and Plated for sure.

One of my favorite things about Home Chef is that it offers breakfast choices including smoothies, egg scrambles, and fruit baskets. I chose the pineapple upside-down cake smoothies with almond extract and frozen cherries.

The Contents:

Ingredients: Almond extract, frozen cherries, maple syrup, greek yogurt, frozen pineapple

Why is Greek yogurt so popular in recipes? Is it because it's healthier? I was a little weary of the recipe because I really dislike the Greek yogurt taste.

Preparation:

Blend all ingredients. Easiest recipe yet.

I usually start my day with coffee or a V8 Energy. Since my smoothie was really thick and powdery-tasting (thanks a lot, Greek yogurt), I added V8. It thinned out the smoothie and added a boost of caffeine.

I loved this smoothie! My husband hates pineapple, so I saved the second smoothie for the next day. It "smoothied" right up after a few minutes and a few stirs in my slush mug. Yum!

cooking

Final thoughts: Plated

6:21 PM

$12/plate

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: