Category Archives: Meal Kits

Update on Home Chef meal kits

After a couple of months of not doing almost any cooking, I’ve decided to transition into cooking by going back to meal kits. I started with Home Chef, not only because I had a good “come back” promo, but because they now offer a wider variety of meals, including some that require very little work. None are particular good deals – you can definitely save a lot by buying your own ingredients – and none are particular exciting. But if you want something tasty, familiar and easy to make, they work quite well.

These are the meals I got:

Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli Bolognese with Parmesan

As far as value goes, this may be one of the most overpriced mealkits out there. it included a package of fresh (they say par-cooked) spinach and cheese ravioli (I think the brand was Rana), sauce, cream and Parmesan cheeses, fresh spinach and the tray. You mix them together and put them in a 375F oven for 15 minutes. BUT the great revelation for me here is that you can cook fresh ravioli in the oven in the sauce. I imagine the same would be true of frozen ravioli, albeit for some time longer. I am definitely going to try this some winter night.

BBQ Cheddar Meatballs with Bacon Potatoes

These meatballs were very easy to make and should be easily replicated at home – when I get the craving for something with BBQ sauce. Basically, they involved mixing the raw ground beef with shredded cheddar, seasoned salt and BBQ sauce (the one provided was Sweet Baby Rays, which I like well enough, but I used Everett and Jones’ BBQ sauce instead, as I had some open already that I wanted to use up. Then, I put the meatballs in one side of the prepared tray, and the potatoes and bacon bits on the other. Easy peachy and a tasty enough meal. Then again, this should be super easy and cheap to make with your own ingredients.

Note, Home Chef allows you to substitute impossible meat or ground pork for the ground beef in this meal.

Chicken Thigh Shawarma Wild Rice Bowl with Tzatziki Sauce

This recipe was easy and quick to make, and combined both pre-cooked, pre-made and fresh ingredients:

All I had to do was combine the raw, cubed chicken with the pre-sliced onions and the seasoning and bake – and later add the pre-cooked rice and fresh spinach leaves and bake some more. It came with tzlaki sauce to pour over. I made this for my husband and non-vegan daughter and they both liked it.

Creamy Truffle Steak Penne with Cheese and Garlic Croutons

This was another quick and easy meal that combined fresh and cooked ingredients. It involved sauteing the raw steak, adding peas and seasoning, then adding cream, Parmesan and pre-cooked pasta, and finishing it with truffle butter and crushed croutons. It wasn’t my favorite meal – the flavors sort of melded together – but it was tasty enough and very quick and easy to make.

Steak and Goat Cheese-Pecan Sweet Potatoes with roasted asparagus

While Home Chef seems to be concentrating on very quick meals right now, they do have some more traditional meal kits. For this one, I had to actually peel and cut the sweet potatoes, trim the asparagus and slice the shallot. Then I seared the steak on the stove and finished them, with the asparagus, in the oven. I boiled the sweet potatoes, mashed them and mixed them with the goat cheese and pecans, and made a sauce for the steak by mixing the pan drippings with demi-glace and shallot.

It was a pretty good meal, though I’m not a fan of sweet potatoes. The goat cheese certainly helped them. Note that at $26 per kit, this was a more expensive meal than the other ones (usually $20). This is usually the case for meals that include steak.

Steak Frites and Marsala Sauce with smoked almond and Parmesan salad

I got this meal but didn’t make it, as I ran out of time before the meat had to be used or frozen.


Note, you can use my referral link to save $35 off your first box. If I happen to be subscribed at the time (unlikely), I’ll also get a $35 credit for my next box.

Been Banh Mi – EveryPlate recipe

I got EveryPlate last week and I was pretty impressed by the food I got. The recipes were simple, they had few ingredients, but they were very tasty. I was particularly blown away by their spicing of ground beef for “been banh mi”. It was so simple, yet delicious! So here is the recipe:

  • 1 Tbsp oil
  • 1 small yellow onion, chopped
  • 10 oz ground beef
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 4 tsp soy sauce
  • salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until soft, 4-5 minutes, stirring. Add the ground beef, garlic and sugar and cook, breaking up the clumps of beef, until it’s browned, 4-5 minutes. Stir in the soy sauce. Turn off heat. Taste and season as needed.

Update on Dinnerly Meal Kits

I go through periods of not cooking and I’ve noticed that doing meal kits is a good way to get myself started again. But of course, I only do meal kits when I have a discount code and this time, I got one for Dinnerly ($15 off per week for 2 weeks), which brought the price of each meal kit to $8 – probably close to the actual cost of the ingredients. BTW, I have 3 FREE Dinnerly boxes to give away, so if you want one, e-mail me.

All in all, I have been pleasantly surprised by the dinners we’ve gotten. They’ve been simple to prepare, with few ingredients, totally basic fare, but very tasty. They beat getting cheap takeout, both in matter of taste, quality of ingredients and value.

I still have one meal left to cook, but this is what I’ve made so far:

Greek Meatballs with Tomatoes & Orzo

This was such a simple dish, and yet so tasty! The meatballs were delicious and didn’t include any filling. And they went great with orzo. I might have to make this again on my own. I would use just diced tomato instead of cutting whole ones with scissors, though. And a little Parmesan cheese would be nice, but not needed.

Stuffed Cheeseburger with Tomatoes & Garlic Potato Wedges

To be honest, I didn’t actually make this. My daughter was in a hurry, so I took the ground beef and added a little garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor, and then made the stuffed patties with the Fontina cheese from the box. My daughter ate it with lots of ketchup and was very happy with the burger. She had another one later on.

Chinese Take-Out Pepper Steak with Steamed Jasmine Rice

This was another perfectly tasty dish. Nothing extra about it (here I am, speaking like one of my teens), but perfectly fine for a weekday dinner.

Vegetarian Pad Thai with Carrots & Snow Peas

A vegan dinner from Dinnerly! How cool is that? Well, it had eggs, but I just left them out. This wasn’t really pad thai, however. It came with teriyaki sauce, to which was added 1 Tbsp fresh lime juice, 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 Tbsp vinegar. My daughter who usually dislikes teriyaki sauce was quite happy with the end product. I’ll try this hack again for stir fries.

Onion & Feta Burger with Oven Fries & Garlic Ketchup

You might wonder why I even order burger from Dinnerly if I then cannibalize them into something else, and the truth is I don’t know – maybe because it’s convenient to simply have the buns and ground beef at the same time. In this case, I didn’t make the onions or garlic ketchup, and I skipped the feta and instead added a slice of whatever cheese I had at home. I also seasoned the potatoes with some oregano to give it some extra flavor.

Gobble Meal Kits Review: Flap Steak & a Mushroom Burger

Gobble is one of the most expensive meal kits out there, but it’s also the best one. The meals are positively delicious, with high quality ingredients and balanced main-side combinations. They also seem to serve the most modern dishes. And while other companies have moved to make their kit preparations quicker, Gobble is still the quickest of them all.

I subscribed to Gobble for a couple of weeks, and got a bunch of vegan meals for my daughter – which she didn’t appreciate nearly enough. The non-vegan ones I got for us, however, rocked.

Seared Flap Steak with Charred Shishito & Mini Sweet Peppers with Romesco Sauce

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Rating 8/10

What makes Gobble the best meal kit subscription out there is really their sauces, and this romesco sauce did not disappoint. It was delicious and did a great job of bringing together the steak (which I obviously undercooked) and the salad. This wasn’t a particularly original meal, but it was very solid.

Wagyu Beef Swiss Cheeseburger with Mushrooms & Truffle Aioli

Rating: 10/10

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I’ve never had wagyu beef before because, honestly, it’s too expensive. I’ve seen wagyu burgers before, but I always felt that there was no point in getting them as the special characteristics of the meat were likely to not be present when ground. Boy, was I wrong! This burger was absolutely delicious, it had the best beef taste I’ve ever had in a burger.

The mushrooms were also great, which surprised me as there wasn’t any trick to them. I wonder if Gobble could be using better quality mushrooms to the ones I get at the supermarket, and what exactly a better mushroom would be anyway. Of course, it may have been the truffle aioli which really made them shine. Whatever it was, they were great and the whole burger came together wonderfully.

The little salad on the side was also very tasty.

For this meal, I did not follow the actual instructions as they were needlessly complex. I simply cooked the ingredients in the logical sequence.

Reviews of several HelloFresh meals

After giving up on cooking for a while, I’ve gone back to making meal kit meals – they work particularly well when it’s just my husband and I for dinner.

HelloFresh has changed from last year, and their meals are now simpler and quicker to cook. They still range from pretty good to very good, though they are not nearly as tasty as the Gobble meals I’ve cooked lately. They’re far cheaper, however. Currently, if you use my referral link, you can save $40 off your first box, though there may be better deals out there.

These are the last six dishes I made from HelloFresh.

Sweet ‘N’ Smoky Pork Tenderloin
with Apple Carrot Slaw, Mashed Potatoes & Cherry Sauce

Rating: 7/10

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I forgot to skip this week and got HelloFresh’ default meals. I wouldn’t have selected this one, as I try to avoid pork as much as possible, but it was pretty good. The pork was tender and the cinnamon-smoked paprika spicing was very tasting. It really didn’t need the cherry sauce, but this one was very nice as well. In general, I’ve really enjoyed the jam-based sauces that I’ve gotten in meal kits. Still, the meat didn’t have as much flavor as I would have liked.

I enjoyed the mashed potatoes, which really go very well with green onions. I don’t like carrots, but my husband was very happy with the slaw – he had my portion as breakfast the next day.

All in all, this wasn’t my favorite meal but it was a nice alternative. As usual, it was a perfectly sized meal.

Cherry Sauce Recipe

For two people, multiply as necessary, substitute with another flavor jam if as per your liking.

  • 1/4 cup cherry jam
  • 1 tsp white vinegar
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon paprika spice*
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • salt & pepper to taste

In a small microwavable bowl, mix together the jam, vinegar and spice. Microwave for 40 seconds. Add the butter and mix until melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

* 1 part ground cloves, 8 parts onion powder, 8 parts ground cinnamon, 6 parts smoked paprika, 16 parts mustard powder, 24 parts sweet paprika, 24 parts white granulated sugar”.

Smothered Pepper Jack Burgers
with Spicy Ketchup & BBQ Potato Wedges

Rating 6/10

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I might have liked this burger more if I hadn’t overcooked it – and if I hadn’t recently had an amazing waygu burger from Gobble. As it was, I found it OK. The pepper was a bit too spicy for me, though I used plain ketchup. My husband had his with the spicy ketchup (which is really just ketchup mixed with hot sauce) and far more peppers, and he still didn’t think it was spicy at all, so YMMV.

The potatoes, mixed with a sweet & smokey BBQ spice, were very good, though. I’ll have to make them again for my vegan daughter. I found the recipe online

Sweet & Smokey BBQ spice

  • 8 parts smoked paprika
  • 6 parts granulated sugar
  • 2 parts garlic powder
  • 0.5 (half) parts black pepper
  • 1 part dry mustard
  • 1 part ground cumin
  • 1 part ground ginger

Middle Eastern Steak Bowls
with Spiced Basmati Rice, Roasted Veggies & Lemon Garlic Yogurt Sauce

Rating 5/10

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This dish was a big disappointment. It was relatively complex and I had great expectations, but they weren’t met. Basically the whole thing was bland, all the flavors blended into one another and didn’t excite the palate anywhere.

It’s a pity, because this could have been really good. Maybe some dried fruit in the rice would have helped or a harissa sauce instead of the lemon garlic sauce. Actually, having fresh garden instead of garlic powder might have made the sauce more exciting.

Balsamic Fig Chicken
with Roasted Potatoes & Mixed Greens

Rating 7/10

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This was another meal with a delicious jam sauce. It’s a simple enough recipe that it should be quite easy to make at home.

The greens came with a simple lemon juice dressing, so I decided to use my own instead. The potatoes were OK, but they were just plain. HelloFresh does much better when it adds spice to its potatoes.

Still, it was a pretty good meal.

Balsamic Fig Sauce

  • 2 tsp oil
  • 1 shallot, chopped
  • 1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
  • 5 tsp balsamic vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp jam
  • 1 tsp chicken stock concentrate
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • salt & pepper to taste.

    Heat oil in a small saute pan. Add shallot and rosemary leaves. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and the jam. Simmer for one minute, until syrupy. Add the stock concentrate and water. Cook until thick, about 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Creamy Chive Chicken

Rating: 8/10

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This is yet another simple dish of a plain chicken breast spruced up with a cream sauce. Fortunately, this chive sauce is very good so it does the job well.

I liked the side dishes quite a bit, but my husband didn’t like the texture of the lemon rice, probably because I had overcooked it. Still, I’d get this again.

Chive Cream Sauce

This is enough for two people. Serve over chicken or fish.

  • 2 tsp chicken stock concentrate
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 cup water
  • a squeeze of lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1/4 oz chopped chives
  • salt & pepper to taste

Heat small pan over medium-high heat. Add the stock concentrate, mustard, water and lemon juice. Stir and let simmer for 1-2 minutes. Turn off heat.

Stir in the sour cream and chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Cheesy Beef Tostadas
with Long Green Pepper, Tomato Salsa & Hot Sauce Crema

Rating 7/10

The filling for these tostadas was actually very good and both my husband and I really enjoyed them, but I overcooked the tortillas, thus making them too tough and difficult to handle it. It would have been better if the tortillas had been soft.

I neglected to take a photo.

Reviews of Several Home Chef Meals

Home Chef sent me a “come back” offer of $25 off per week for four weeks, so I’ve been back using it. The service has grown up a bit since the last time I used it. For one, meals have different prices now. While before they all used to be $10 per serving, they now have a weekly “slow cooker” meal for $7.50, and their more upscale meals (including the one that has steak) are $12/13 per portion). You can now further customize these with more expensive proteins – a meal kit that includes choice boneless ribeye steak will cost you $24 per portion, or the same you can expect to pay at a restaurant. Of course, the choices of these more expensive proteins, including antibiotic-free chicken, does send the message that their regular proteins are pretty crappy.

Home Chef seems to have a greater variety of dishes now, including some with an international flare, but most everything they offer is directed to very standard American tastes. And it’s sending more prepared ingredients, which means that it’s far quicker to put these meals together. They also have almost oven-ready meals, which require very little preparation.

My first week back on Home Chef I got:

Crispy Orange Chicken with jasmine rice and broccoli

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This was a pretty straightforward dish and quick to prepare. The chicken was pre-cubed and the orange sauce pre-made, so there wasn’t too much to do: make the race, roast the broccoli, mix the coating, coat the chicken, fry it and then mix it with the orange sauce. I like that they included the oil, as it took quite a bit to fry it.

It was a fairly tasty dish, not quite restaurant quality but good enough. Still, I wouldn’t eagerly order it again.

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Steak Pad Thai with peanuts and cilantro

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This was another fairly easy dish to put together and tasty enough. It did not, however, taste at all like Thai pad thai. That’s because it used oyster sauce, rather than the sauce used for pad thai. I appreciated that the carrots came pre-shredded, that saved me a lot of time. The steak also came pre-cut in paper thin slices, which I couldn’t have done myself manually and made cooking it very fast. While I liked the dish well enough, I wouldn’t order it again if I had better options.

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Sun-Dried Tomato Mozzarella Chicken with Garlic Butter Green Beans

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This was one of those almost oven ready meals. It still required washing and seasoning the green beans, cooking them and then adding the chicken, spreading it with tomato pesto and covering with cheese before baking, but it was all rather quick to put together. The pesto came already made. I didn’t actually taste this dish, but my daughter was pleased enough with it.

In all, these meals were fine – not as tasty as the ones I got from Hello Fresh the week before, but far quicker to put together. Though at the end, it seemed like I could do so just as easily with stuff I bought at the supermarket and, was I paying full price, probably for less.

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Review: HelloFresh’s Gouda Pork Burger

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Last time I renewed HelloFresh I forgot to choose my meals, so I ended up with three of HelloFresh’s choice. While I wasn’t thrilled at first, two of them ended up being a good choice – I cannibalized the ingredients of the last one for other stuff.

I was particularly worried about this recipe for pork burgers. I figured, if pork burgers were any good, you’d see them in restaurant menus. Ground pork doesn’t seem enticing at all, it’s so greasy for one. But I got the kit, so I made it, and I was quite surprised at how tasty the burgers were. They didn’t feel too greasy, and though I probably overcooked them (you can never be too sure with pork), they were still moist. Still, I wouldn’t make them on my own.

I particularly liked the bright mayo/sour cream based sauce that accompanied the burger.

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In the year+ since I’ve subscribed, on and off, to Hello Fresh, I’ve almost never had issues with the quality or freshness of their ingredients and this time it was not different. I live in the Bay Area in California, so YMMV elsewhere.

Review: HelloFresh’ Moroccan Pork Sausage Tagine

Rating: 7/10

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I selected this meal kit for Moroccan Pork Sausage Tagine with Dried Apricots and Chickpeas over Couscous because it seemed easy enough to veganize it for my vegan daughter, by simply substituting vegetable concentrate for the included chicken concentrate, and omitting both the sausage and the cream on her portion. It did mean having to cook the sausage in a different pan, but that wasn’t a big deal.

All in all both my husband and daughter enjoyed this dish, and it’s simple enough to put together. It was a good portion for both of them. If you make the original recipe, beware that the sausage is very salty, so be careful of how much salt you use in the other ingredients.

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All ingredients were good quality, though the carrots were a bit wobbly.

I should point out that calling this dish “Moroccan” is almost insulting. Yes, the dish includes couscous and dried apricots – but that’s as far as the Moroccan influence goes. The vast majority of Moroccans are Muslim, and Muslims cannot eat pork. The sweet Italian pork sausage included in this recipe is not used in Morocco. Moroccans are famous for their merguez sausage, which is made of lamb or beef and has no pork products in it, but it is probably too expensive for HelloFresh to include.

I paid about $8.50 for this mealkit or about $4.25 per portion. Great deal!

Review: Hello Fresh’ Sirloin in a Mushroom Sauce + Recipe

Rating: 7/10

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Hello Fresh seldom offers steak as part of their regular offerings. Instead, dishes with steak are usually considered “gourmet” and require an additional supplement. These are usually a very poor value, so I never ordered them. I did this time because when I added to my cart, HelloFresh showed that the 65% off discount that I had applied to the supplement as well. Alas, when I checked my account I realized that I was charged the full supplement price, which makes me feel defrauded. Still, it’s a lesson learned and in the future I just won’t order any meals that require paying a supplement.

This meal kit for Sirloin in a Mushroom Sauce with Caramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Carrots was pretty good, if a little too much work. It basically had 5 components that had to be cooked separately: the steak, the mashed potatoes, the carrots, the onions and the mushroom sauce. I think one (the onions) could have been skipped without losing much beyond cooking time.

But all ingredients were very tasty and, in particular, the mushroom sauce was phenomenal, which helped elevate both the meat and the mashed potatoes. I’ve had similar mushroom sauces before, but I liked how simple and quick this one was (recipe below).

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All the ingredients were included and they were mostly fresh (the carrots were a little wobbly) and good quality. The steaks were very, very thick but at least they were around the same thickness.

I paid a little over $20 for this meal kit, including the supplement, or about $10 per person.

Mushroom sauce

I recommend you double the sauce

  • 3 Tbsp butter, divided
  • 4 oz white mushrooms, thinly sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 Tbsp. beef demi-glace
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard

Melt 2 Tbsp. butter over medium-high heat in a pan, preferably one you used to cook steak. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until softened – 2 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the demi-glace and the water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and stir in the mustard. Simmer until slightly thickened. Stir in the remaining Tbsp. butter.

Review: Hello Fresh’ Mozzarella Stuffed Meatball Bake

Rating: 4/10

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After being off meal kits all summer (both because I wasn’t cooking and because I didn’t get any good “come back” offers), I went back to HelloFresh after getting a “65% off your first box” deal. Apparently I had forgotten just how hard it was to find meals that I actually wanted to make, which is why I ended up selecting this kit for Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatball Bake
with Cavatappi and a Crispy Panko Topping
.

Truth be told, I love pasta baked with sauce and cheese, and I’m a pretty big fan of good meatballs as well. Still, this is the sort of dish I can easily make on my own and, as it turned out, much better.

There were lots of things wrong with this dish. First, baking the meatballs was a mistake, they were left dry and with a crusty shell. The recipe also called for too much salt. Second, the tomato sauce was pretty tasteless. No wonder, making a pasta sauce requires a long simmering town. This dish would have been much better with a commercial pasta sauce. Finally, the mozzarella cheese was pretty bland. The dish could really have used some Parmesan cheese instead of the bread crumbs that was included.

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I paid ~$8.50 for this meal kit for two people with the discount.