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.
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