The meal delivery service is sweeping the internet. Ok, so I'm being a little dramatic, but there are multiple companies out there that provide fresh groceries along with meal cards to your home/work. It takes the meal planning, grocery shopping, and "what do you want for dinner?" off the table. Which is funny since they are putting food ON the table. Hehehe. Anyway, as some of you may know, we have been subscribing to the company Blue Apron for several months now. We started in August and are still going strong. Loooove it. However....I have been gifted a week of Plated by a fellow new mom and friend. She tried Blue Apron, but likes Plated. So it's only fair that I try Plated, right?? So I did. Here is my review:
There are several delivery options for Plated which I thought was nice. We picked a Saturday delivery as to not run into our Blue Apron delivery on Tuesday. Can you imagine? Both boxes sitting on the porch together, "oh hey there, you sure you are at the correct house?" "ummm, yes. I've been coming here for months. Why are you here?" "::chuckles:: Wouldn't you like to know." I don't have time for box drama. So, Plated arrived yesterday. I had almost forgotten about it to be honest! We had been out running around since 8am so when the doorbell rang a little after 11am, it woke me up from my nap. I opened there door and there she was.
I want to start off by saying that I'm going to try not to compare EVERYTHING to Blue Apron (BA), but I am going to a little. With that being said.....the plated box was a lot larger than I was expecting. BA's isn't that much smaller, but smaller. Oh' I almost forgot! You can check out my BA review by clicking
here. Back to the Plated box. Very excited to open it up. I was immediately surprised at the packaging. It was like a big burlap sack! Very eco-friendly. Nicely on top were the recipe cards. After open it up, I could see the wonderful little packages of food all nestled in together. It was a snuggle fest for the veggies!
The packaging is complete different than BA. BA has the vegetables just freely roaming around the box. Plated has everything grouped together and labeled. It is nice as there have been times that I'm holding an apple and asking myself, "why do I have an apple?" Then searching each recipe card to find out who it belongs to. I laid everything out. With the grouped bagging, it created less items in a way. Less space in my fridge for sure. Again, you can look at my BA review blog to see visual pictures of the difference.
We had dinner plans on Saturday, so tonight (Sunday) was our first night to make our Plated meal. The chosen meal was Caramelized Cauliflower Tagliatelle with Hazelnut Pesto. Here is the recipe card. Same general concept as BA. A small thing that I didn't realize I liked about BA's cards is they show you your ingredients needed with a picture. Not a deal breaker, but I noticed it when it was gone.
The Plated card has a nice feature where it tells you what you will need. 12" large pot, baking sheet, blender (optional), etc. I started by reading the whole card first, which it also recommended. We do this with BA too as it helps you with your overall timing. This reciepe was fairly easy. I only needed to chop up 2 items! And really only 1 when I think about it. I chopped the parsley, but that was it. I tore the cauliflower up with my hands. I soon had everything ready to go.
I roasted the cauliflower in the oven, which I failed to get a picture of. While that was roasting, I made the pesto. This was easy since I had a small hand held blender. If you didn't, I can see how this would be a little more elbow work. Got the pasta boiling and then I had to wait for about 5 mins.
I mixed everything together and topped it off with pecorino cheese and we had a meal! Tada!! It was really tasty and we gobbled it right up.
Sarah's Review: I'm really happy we tried Plated and looking forward to making our other 2 meals this week. I'm not sure if we will completely switch to Plated, but I'm not canceling it right away. I want to end on a positive note, so I'll do my dislikes first. I don't feel like I learned any new cooking skill with my meal tonight. I already knew how to do all of the items. But I could have just picked a non-complicated recipe on accident. I didn't fully examine my options, just went with what sounded yummy. I don't like the portion size. Waaaaay to much food for 2 people in my opinion. This dish could have easily feed 4 people. We double checked the card to make sure the serving size was for 2 and not 4. I mention this because we still ate it all. With BA, it's better portion control for us and we both have been able to tell a difference in our waist size since subscribing to BA. Now for what I liked! It tasted fantastic and was super quick to make. Sometimes with BA it takes me up to an hour and I curse the chopping and chopping and chopping. It called for a whole lemon, but I could only see it using half a lemon. After reading the card again I noticed the other half is to be used for your glass of water. Or as they say, "Use remaining lemon to brighten a glass of water." I thought that was a nice touch.
If you have any doubts about doing a food service, may it be Plated, Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, or whatever else is out there! I vote yes. Go ahead and sign up for a week. I would also like to take this time to thank Sara for this Plated opportunity! It's so much fun and we will keep it around. It will be nice to mix it up a bit.
