Dinner in a Box- An Experiment

I hate cooking dinner. Scratch that. I hate thinking of what to cook for dinner. 

While I do enjoy planning pretty much every other aspect of my life, dinner time is just stupid. How are you supposed to know on Sunday when you go grocery shopping, what's for dinner Thursday night? Adulting is hard, sometimes.

Thankfully I have friends who are better at this whole grown up thing than I am. They are experienced meal delivery experts and know a thing or two about not having to plan meals for dinner. Sign me up, I told them. 
Menu card from one of my Plated meals
That was a few weeks ago and since then I've made three meals from Hello Fresh and two from Plated. Next week I'll be receiving a box from Blue Apron and soon after that a box from Home Chef. Hello Fresh and Blue Apron seem to be the least expensive, and Home Chef the priciest. But based on Home Chef's upcoming menu options, I'm thinking they might have the most diverse menu.
This is what the Plated box looks like when it arrives
I have plenty of room in the fridge for these ingredients
Sadly, I don't have any pictures from my week of Hello Fresh meals. I can tell you that they were all easy to cook; idiot proof, even! My favorite of the week was a french onion soup burger; my least favorite was blackened tilapia. I didn't not like the tilapia, it's just that fish isn't my favorite thing to eat in general.

This week, I'm up and down with my Plated meals. Earlier in the week, I made brown butter gnocchi with pattypan squash and asparagus. It was very easy to prepare and cook, but it just had no taste. Gnocchi is kind of a sacred thing in my family, and to have made and eaten a disappointing gnocchi is pretty much sacrilege. 
I love the pictures and the broken down steps
The finished product. Looks pretty, tastes pretty terrible.
But last night, Plated redeemed themselves with Hawaiin style fajitas with sauteed pineapple. It was essentially marinated chicken, folded into a tortilla with sauteed red onions and pineapple. And there was a side of cucumber salad that was so crisp and refreshing. It all felt and tasted so light- healthy even?!

I've got one more meal to make from my Plated box- creamy chicken rigatoni. I'm a sucker for rigatoni, so I'm really excited about it. 

As of now, I've canceled my subscriptions with Hello Fresh and Plated. Honestly, that was pretty much just because I was nervous I'd forget to put a pause on my delivery, and come home one day to multiple boxes of to-be-prepared meals.

But this is something I might stick with once I pick my favorite service. I love not having to plan a grocery list, I love already knowing what I'm making for dinner that night, and I like that all the random ingredients I need show up in the box. I would agree with some other critics, that there is a lot of packaging. For a clutter-phobic person like myself, it can be a little frustrating to unpack the boxes and dispose of all that excessive packaging. But I like recycling and organizing so it's not too too bad.

It's also really nice to have a variety of dinners during the course of the week. Typically when I've cooked dinners in the past, I've made one big dish that I can eat over and over again all week. Lots of casseroles, baked pastas, chili, soup, etc. A lot of those hot foods aren't really tasty in the summertime, and heck sometimes you just can't look at another bowl of chili. So this type of service helps avoid the food boredom syndrome that comes from cooking for one.

Have any of you tried and loved a dinner in a box service? I'd love to hear about your favorites. 
-Jill

Comments

  1. Love your blog! Jeremy and I are still loving Hello Fresh 😊

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