What I love best about Gobble meals is that it takes only 15 minutes to cook a meal. And yet sometimes, I don’t have the wherewithal to spend a mere 15 minutes cooking. Saturday night was one such night.
So I made the steak and microwaved the rice, and omitted the vegetable stir fry. The steak was good, the sauce was yummy on the rice. The rice was also very good (if Gobble fails, they should go into the business of selling refrigerated rice – they do an amazing job with it). It was a perfectly fine meal. I was left hungry, even though I had the bigger half of the steak and most of the rice (my husband had gone with the kids to ice cream, so he wasn’t hungry), but that may be because I didn’t make the stir fry (though if I had, I’d still not have eaten it, as it’s not my type of thing).
All in all, not my favorite Gobble meal, but acceptable.
I think I paid around $14 for this kit with a “welcome back” promotion. I would not have been happy to pay full price ($26) for this.
This Gobble kit for Burmese Shredded Chicken with Coconut Rice & Burmese Salad has to be my favorite (tasting) kit meal so far! It was tasty, scrumptious, exotic, not spicy, just satisfying. It had a great mix of textures, it hit all the right notes and combined perfectly. This very much was a ‘sum of its parts” meal – I would have been very happy with a meal like this at a restaurant.
Even my super picky daughter liked it – she’d rate it 8/10!
My only criticism is that I didn’t feel like I was actually cooking anything. The coconut rice was pre-cooked, the chicken was pre-cooked, the sauce and vinaigrette was pre-made. All I had to do is arm things up and put them all together. Obviously all necessary to get this meal on the table in 15 minutes, but still, something was missing.
The taste, though, made up for it. Also, there was too little salad – about half as much lettuce as needed.
I (think I) paid ~$14 for this kit or $7 per serving, with a promo good for one week.
Freshly is a 21st century TV-dinner delivery service. What they send is freshly prepared, fully cooked, microwavable meals. Sort of like Hungry Man, but with fresher and better quality ingredients, updated recipes and no preservatives. The meals take 2 to 3 1/2 minutes to warm up and 2 more minutes before you can plate them (though nothing stops you from eating them directly from the tray, they do look better plated).
While these single-serving meals don’t really work well for dinner as a family, I do find them useful when my husband is out of town – with one daughter in college and the other with an erratic schedule, I often find myself having dinner alone. And, of course, they make convenient lunches any time I don’t have leftovers. Still, they are pricy so I prefer to think of them as dinner fare.
When I first tried Freshly, it was the first service of its kind. Since then, others have come along. I’ve really enjoyed CookUnity, a service where the meals are planned and theoretically cooked by professional chefs, which I felt was a couple of notches better than Freshly, but I decided to give Freshly another try to see if competition has made them better.
The Plans
You can subscribe to get anywhere between 4 and 12 meals a week, and a box is delivered weekly. Meals cost between $9 to $12.50 each, depending on how many you buy. I chose the standard 6-meals deal, which costs $10/meal or $60 a week – which is about the same price as meal kit companies such as Blue Apron and HelloFresh. They now also offer some premium meals at premium prices, usually $1-$2.50 more. Shipping used to be free but it’s now $10/week.
The Food
Freshly offers 48 meals to chose from, a significant expansion from the 30 they had in the past. They have greatly expanded their vegetarian and vegan offerings, they now have 6 of the latter – making it a good choice for those with pesky vegan children. The recipes are modern and classic American fare, plus some things in fashion (like Korean bibimbap). I found most of the dishes to be filling.
I thought the quality of the food was very good (save for one dish). But personally, I don’t think I’d use them frequently simply because they don’t have enough meals that appeal to me.
The meals take between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 minutes to heat up, plus 2 minutes to rest.
The Shipping and Delivery
When I first signed up, they assigned me to get my meals on a Wednesday. That’s not really convenient for type of food which is best suited for busy weekdays. However, I was able to change my preferences to get my meals on Mondays in the future.
The meals were delivered during the day with plenty of time to use them.
The Packaging
Freshly’s meals come in microwavable plastic trays, covered with a film of plastic – just like TV dinner. They do have a recyclable cardboard sleeve around each one that includes information about the meal’s ingredients and nutrition.
The trays come in a recyclable cardboard box. Both the freezer packs and the lining of the box are landfill material. It did bother me that Freshly tries to make itself appear more environmentally friendly by claiming that “most” of the lining – made out of recycled denim – is biodegreadable. That may be the case, but you cannot compost the lining (I called Freshly and confirmed this), and biodegradable matter thrown in a landfill produces methane and other greenhouse gases, for which reason most modern landfills are packed tightly so no biodegradation occurs. Freshly surely must know this, so it’s attempting to deceive its customers which gives me a bad feeling.
Same with saying that their freezer packs are “non toxic’ – well, I guess it’s something – but why not provide compostable freezer packs or those that can be emptied down the drain?
The Results
The newer meals I tried are on top. Click on the name for a thorough review.
Hearty Veggie Bolognese with Red Lentil Ziti & Parmesan Cheese
Steak Peppercorn Surprisingly tasty, juicy steak and tasty mashed potatoes
In all, they were clearly superior to frozen meals, and they were of about the same quality as meals you make from meal kits, and – depending on the restaurant choices in your area – probably about the same quality as takeout/delivery. I think at $10/meal, they’re a bit overpriced – but at $7 (what I paid for each with a promo), they make a lot of sense – at least if you are not a picky eater, and you don’t mind repeating your meals frequently.
I think that if you like enough of their offerings, Freshly is a good solution for people who want a nice meal at work/school and don’t want to go out to a restaurant or get take/out. They are certainly very quick to microwave. They also work for families like mine where it’s hard to know who is going to be eating dinner at home each night. If they had a whole line of vegan meals, I might very well get them for my vegan daughter. And they are definitely a good idea for single people who don’t want to cook for themselves every night.
But obviously, they cannot replace family dinners – the idea of each one of us eating something from a microwave is sad. If you are a family that sits together for the dinner every night, these are not for you.
I found this frozen sandwich at Grocery Outlet for $2 and decided to give it a try. It was actually pretty tasty, though a little too heavy on the meats, which made it a bit salty for my taste. I microwaved it, so the panini was soft, but it was a pleasant doughy-chewy consistency. It’s not a huge bite, but it’s good for an easy snack.
Yesterday, I was shopping at Grocery Outlet when I came upon a set of Good Cooking ceramic knives. I don’t have a smart phone so I couldn’t look at reviews for them, but at $30 for the set I figured they were cheap enough to take a chance on them. They were worth pretty much what I paid for them and no more.
I’ve been using Kyocera ceramic knives for years, and I just love how sharp they are. Cutting vegetables or meats is a breeze with them. Plus I’ve never had to resharpen them. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago my trusted Kyocera “bread” knife broke while I was cutting some tough vegetable and later, it developed a chip.
Mike got me a Kyocera set of knives for Christmas that year, and they were just as good as my previous one as far as sharpness went. But the chef’s knife in the set – the one I use most often – almost immediately developed a chip and then another, and then the tip broke off (when I was washing it, I think).
I love using those knives – but they’re too expensive to be this disposable. Kyocera presumably will replace knives damaged due to a manufacturer defect – but I’m not sure if being easily broken is a “defect” or a nature of the product. Amazon reviews of the knives are filled with photos of chipped knives. I wrote to Kyocera with photos of my knives, but have not yet heard back.
Meanwhile, the Good Cooking knives are not nearly as sharp as the Kyocera. They work more like regular steel knives. This is likely because they are thicker than the Kyocera.
I assume, for that reason, these knives will last longer – but only time will tell. Reviews online are not particularly encouraging.
If anyone knows of a brand of ceramic knives that are both very sharp and don’t get easily broken, please comment below.
My local Grocery Outlet store is currently currying a variety of Sky Valley bottled sauces. I picked up the Tikka Masala sauce because it’s vegan, and I’m always looking for stuff that my vegan daughter can eat. Unfortunately this was a bust.
The sauce itself wasn’t bad. While I wouldn’t say it tastes like the tikka masala you can get at Indian restaurants, it’s better than anything I could make myself. Indeed, it tastes very much like Trader Joe’s masala sauce. They are both far more acidic and less sweet than your restaurant tikka masala sauce.
The big problem for my vegan daughter was that the sauce was too spicy. She ate it with lots of rice, but still couldn’t get past the spice. Now, she doesn’t like spicy food, so in terms of level of spice I’d say this sauce is “medium” spicy.
The 13.8 oz bottle of Sky Valley tikka masala sauce sells on their website for $5.30, but it was just $2 at Grocery Outlet and it was on sale for just $1.75 at Walmart (regular price $3.65). It’s produced in Danville (so not to far away from where I live) and exported all the way to the UAE!
I had not heard of Cedarlane before I found this refrigerated Cheese Tortellini meal at Grocery Outlet. It turns out that Cedarlane is a 40-year old company that sells frozen and refrigerated food. I couldn’t find this exact item in their website, but they do show several intriguing vegan meals I’ll try to find (they apparently sell this brand at Lucky Supermarkets).
This tray meal of tortellini in tomato sauce was basic but tasty. I liked how soft the tortellini were. There are three servings in this meal, but I can’t imagine that it would satisfy more than one as a full meal.
It was $5 at Grocery Outlet, so I imagine it costs significantly more at the supermarket. At $5 is a good meal, I’m not sure I’d pay any more than that.
Tacos & fajitas seem to be one of the most common meals offered by meal kit companies. I’ve ordered them a few times, simply because I didn’t see anything else they offered that we might like, but it’s not a top choice for me. I can get three ready-made tacos of a similar size at the Mexican Restaurant in the corner for $13, and I don’t have to spend the time cooking them. Or, of course, I can make them myself for a few dollars.
Still, some of the taco recipes I’ve made have been good and I’m always up for a discovery. This recipe for carne asada fajitas with pickled onions and lime cream, however, did not produce one. The tacos/fajitas were pretty straightforward and just OK flavor wise – indeed, they might have been better without the southwestern flavoring.
They were fairly easy and quick to make and at $13 for a meal for six tacos, they were pretty cheap.
I got this kit for free, with a special one-time code that someone gave me. The regular cost for the two serving kit is $13, including shipping. Use this link to get $20 off your first box.
I didnt manage to take my own photo when I made these.
Rating: 7/10
Sometimes a meal kit fails you, and sometimes you fail a meal kit. This time I think both of us failed each other. I think this could have been a pretty good meal kit if I’d had all of the ingredients, and if I had been more careful while putting it together. As things were, my husband got a decent sandwich – but not really a sloppy joe – and I got to eat the remaining filling with a spoon. At least it was pretty tasty.
This EveryPlate kit consists of ground pork which is supposed to be cooked with BBQ sauce and ketchup, potato buns, an onion to quickly pickle and sweet potatoes to bake. One of the two packets of BBQ sauce my kit came with was open, so I had to toss it away. Unfortunately, when I went to make the pork, I realized I didn’t have any more BBQ sauce at home. Even worse, the kit called for using my own ketchup – and I was also out of it. At the end, I was only able to cook the ground pork in a the single packet of BBQ sauce. Amazingly, this still gave a very nice flavor to the pork.
I didn’t try the pickled onions, but my husband raved about them. I’m thus including the recipe below.
As for the buns, I burnt my first two when I put them in the toaster – and then dropped them (thus my lack of a sandwich myself). I also managed to burn the sweet potatoes. Indeed, one of the things that did not work with this kit is that the sweet potatoes require that you preheat the oven (something which takes at least 15-20 minutes) and then you cook them for 20-25 minutes. The rest of the meal takes a very short time to make. So we were ready to eat far before the sweet potatoes were ready – which is why I forgot about them.
I got this kit for free, with a special one-time code that someone gave me. The regular cost for the two serving kit is $13, including shipping. Use this link to get $20 off your first box.
Quick Pickled Onions
1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/4 tsp sugar
juice from one lime
pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Let to pickle for at least 10 minutes.
Sloppy Joes
drizzle of oil
1 red onion, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb ground pork
1/3 cup BBQ sauce
1/4 cup Ketchup
1/3 cup water
1 tsp lime juice
Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, season with salt & pepper, and fry, stirring frequently, until soft – 4-5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the ground pork and cook, stirring and separating, until browned, about 4-5 minutes. Add the bbq sauce, ketchup, water and lime juice. Cook, stirring frequently, until it thickens. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve in burger buns topped with the pickled onions.
Last week I found this refrigerated tray meal for Chicken Marsala with Penne Pasta at Grocery Outlet, and decided to give it a try. I love chicken marsala. At $5 for what is really a portion for one person (unless you are eating something else), it’s not exactly cheap for a pre-made, refrigerated meal, specially when bought at a bargain store, but I figured it was worth a try. Unfortunately, that was all that it was worth.
The chicken in the dish was incredibly dry. Now, this is very unusual for microwavable meals, but somehow Heat.Eat.Done managed it. The sauce also didn’t actually taste of Marsala wine – it lacked the sweetness of the wine -, and it was too liquidy and tasteless. I would not buy it again.
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