Share Your Savory Treats
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Acorn Squash with Kale and Sausage. Looks pretty, filling was tasty, but I won't do it again...0 -
Sunday we had 6 inches of snow. I made my favorite Sunday dinner, Cabernet braised short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes and roasted carrots.
Now I'm on a work trip and we had a nice dinner last night. We shared calamari and beef carpaccio, I had a house salad and ordered the seafood mixed grill.
Dessert pic in the sweets thread!
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Karen I think we should be roomies. I'll make the desserts and you can make the dinners.0
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kristen6350 wrote: »
Acorn Squash with Kale and Sausage. Looks pretty, filling was tasty, but I won't do it again...
I've had a few things like that recently. Mostly I feel like there have been quite a few "yeah that was good, but not worth all that trouble."0 -
Yep. That's how I feel about most of the recipes I get from Pintrest. Actually, if I count the recipes I've made and made again, it's maybe 12 since 2012. But I'm willing to give anything a shot if it sounds good.0
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kristen6350 wrote: »Yep. That's how I feel about most of the recipes I get from Pintrest. Actually, if I count the recipes I've made and made again, it's maybe 12 since 2012. But I'm willing to give anything a shot if it sounds good.
I have the same issues with Pinterest and I think it's partly because people that use that site don't actually cook...ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »Karen I think we should be roomies. I'll make the desserts and you can make the dinners.
Deal! I am totally coming out ahead in this!
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I think generally my luck runs about 50/50 with pinterest. Some of my favorite recipes have come from there, but also some of the worst/most cumbersome things I've ever tried.0
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Anyone ever heard of / tried the Munchery (munchery.com)? It's a new (?) meal home delivery service - sort of like take-out, except the meals come prepared but ready to be reheated. Styles itself as a chef-driven, menu-changing daily, home delivery of wholesome meal operation -- you visit the website, pick what you want, schedule a delivery time, and they deliver the meals. Lots of "green," "clean / local / organic," "giving back" aspects to it, too, if you're motivated by that sort of thing. (I just re-visited the website and used my local area, and the menu has completely changed -- there's about 10 - 12 entrees and they're more or less all different than today's menu was.)
Anyway, I work full-time, my wife works three days a week, and neither one of us likes to regularly cook on work days. We were looking for something to break up the monotony of the usual take-out options that we do several times a week and that our three kids enjoy / tolerate -- essentially a rotating group of pizza, Chinese / Asian, burgers or cheesesteaks, occasionally Mexican / Latin. My wife really wanted to give this a try as it let us each individually pick a meal (no fights over what's for dinner!)
Maiden voyage tonight. I had selected Miso Shrimp Stir Fry; I'm including a BBQ-glazed chicken breast one of my kids and my wife got. Son had pasta (but he's working and won't be home for a bit; another kid went with beef stir fry).
As delivered:
Heating instructions:
Opened:
Plated (so it looks a little better than an airline meal):
Verdict: It was good; not great. Not bowled over by the flavor or anything, but well done and enjoyable. My stir fry portion was a little small -- if I made it myself at home, I'd end up with less rice and more stir fry. My daughter's chicken breast was large -- probably around an 8 oz breast; my wife's chicken breast looks closer to 6 oz. Both daughter and wife say "plenty of food;" daughter who had beef stir fry said "need more food." All the entrees were about $9 - $12 and delivery is free though they expect and appreciate tips for the drivers. They delivered on time during a one-hour window, and were happy to put the food in an empty ice chest on the porch, so we didn't even have to be home (though some of us were).
I think we have probably added another rotation to our take out / prepared meals. Again, it was good but not great. But the flexibility to order different entrees for each person, have it delivered, have no prep time and easy clean-up, all at a price that's pretty similar to what we'd do for take-out - yeah, we'll probably use them once or twice a month. I appreciate having some nutrition info (and I am comfortable / lazy enough with what I do in terms of weight management that I'm happy to rely on their nutrition info rather than carefully scrutinizing portion size, e.g., the differing chicken breasts -- my shrimp stir fry comes in at 440 cals, 43c / 7f / 49p - most other non-veg entrees are 500 - 700 cals). For busy folks it's nice to have a reasonable meal ready and waiting and not the headache of prep and clean-up and the arguments / disappointment from someone who isn't happy with dinner choice for the night.
Anyway - thought it might be of interest here. I gather they are pretty new and have very limited geographic coverage. Their website doesn't say where they cover, but at least SF area and NYC areas -- I suspect they don't list coverage because they're trying to grow quickly -- I imagine they're targeting larger metro areas and some of the more "granola-y" reputation areas if I can use that term without offending too much (places like Seattle, Portland, Denver or Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, maybe Madison or Columbus, etc.).
Anyone have any experience with this outfit? (And, for the record and out of an abundance of transparency, before my wife mentioned it to me a few days ago, I'd never heard of this company, and have no personal, financial, or other interest in any way with this company).0 -
@Cortelli how much are the meals? No commitment to order a certain amount?
I've seen some stuff about Hello Fresh, but I think that's more focused on cooking the meals, what you are talking about is ready to eat? Or heat and eat?
I'm always looking for some short cuts too, but usually with these things I'm disappointed in the end product. I tried a couple rounds of one of those meal prep places where you walk out with 10 meals to stick in the freezer. Only a couple meals I felt were good enough to go back for, most of them were disappointing.0 -
@Cortelli how much are the meals? No commitment to order a certain amount?
I've seen some stuff about Hello Fresh, but I think that's more focused on cooking the meals, what you are talking about is ready to eat? Or heat and eat?
I'm always looking for some short cuts too, but usually with these things I'm disappointed in the end product. I tried a couple rounds of one of those meal prep places where you walk out with 10 meals to stick in the freezer. Only a couple meals I felt were good enough to go back for, most of them were disappointing.
The entrees (which include the sides pictured like mashed potatoes and broccolini with the chicken and the rice and sauce with the stir fry) run around $9 - $12 bucks. They offer sides like a side salad, roasted beets, etc. for something like $3 - $5 bucks. Desserts too, but I am not willing to go that route. No minimums; no commitment to buy a certain amount. Basically look and click in an order from a single entree to many. All designed / intended to be eaten that day as opposed to stored in the freezer or otherwise.
It is heat and eat, not ready to eat. It comes fully cooked, but refrigerated (and is apparently cooked that day - dinner orders have an order cut-off time of 2 pm where I am at). Heat options are oven or microwave. We did the oven, but I might do microwave for stir frys or pastas; would probably still bake for 10 minutes for things like the chicken breast or some of the other entrees.
I've never tried the take-home-for-the-freezer places.
This is my first try on this company. I wasn't bowled over but I also wasn't really disappointed -- it is not something I'll eagerly look forward to, but it is a nice change from just grabbing some take-out from one of our local joints, especially given that our rotation seems so limited by kid preferences. I'll definitely want to try some more meals to see if it is truly worthwhile. But at roughly $10 a pop, and the freedom to have totally different styles of food for a meal so kids get some autonomy over their choices without the discussions / arguments, and putting aside the prep, cooking (except for reheating), and clean-up -- well, heck, we end up paying almost as much just doing Chinese take-out or getting a couple of decent pizzas or similar.
We'll definitely try them again, and I have hopes that it can be decent enough to add some variety but it is not a gastronomic wonderland by any stretch. I hope this might relieve some of the stress associated with meal planning with (now) three (!) teenagers in the house. We'll see.
And my selfish reason for posting is to see if others have tried it and what their impressions are!
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Hm, we have Snap Kitchens everywhere, which seems like a similar idea, but I think delivery is more sparse. There are tons of locations, and you can swing by and pick up different meals. They also encourage an eating program where you get all your meals and snacks for the day through them (I think it's like $30-40 a day
) and I think it's easier to get delivery for that. I've never eaten there though. And apparently you can go in to the restaurant to dine, but you essentially pick up a meal, and they have microwaves for you to use. Which is just odd. 0 -
Nice! What a cute little guy!0
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Aww that's so awesome.
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I bought this at Giant & it was amazing.0
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kellyjellybellyjelly wrote: »I bought this at Giant & it was amazing.
Oh this looks good!0 -
Last night's dinner - threw some shrimp on the barbie! With a little garlic and herb marinade.
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The D approves, I am pleased with this. Tapas is just a fun approach to food, I remember this one place in boston...
Sadly, I have no contribution to make, as I just had foie gras ice cream again, and that is decidely not savory. lol.0
