Marleyspoon, Home Chef, and Green Chef Reviews
My little experiment to try all the home meal preparation services has been coming along tremendously!! I am learning SO MUCH, making things I never would have thought of to make, and trying out new foods that I am loving, and eating perfectly portioned meals at dinner!! This has been so much fun, and I look forward to my new meal shipment every week!
I've been bad about taking pictures because sometimes I'm so excited to sit down and eat the meal (or really rushed because it's already late) that I forget to take a picture, so I only have pictures for some of the meals.
So here's the deal with Marleyspoon - I got SIX MEALS for $30! Completely by accident! A few things: Though their customer support did end up ultimately handling everything fine with my cancellation, it was a bit of a hassle. The mobile site wouldn't allow me to cancel, and then I ended up cancelling too late over email, and then I got an email saying my next shipment was being sent to me but I thought I cancelled it. So it took me about 2 phone calls to get someone to help me. They said their customer service email wasn't working and they hadn't received any of my many emails asking for help. Also - when I was on the phone to get a refund back on my second payment, it sounded like a rousing game of beer pong was going on in the background. It could have been an office send-off party, or a particularly amusing staff meeting, and frankly, it sounded like a fun place to work; Buuuut maybe not the best background noise for your customer support phone service line. While cool, it was a little bit unprofessional IMHO.
But the food was great - remember I had 6 meals here and I didn't take pictures of all of them:
Chicken with Tiger Sauce with sugar snap peas and rice - BEST MEAL YET!! Winner Winner chicken dinner!!! The chicken with tiger sauce was our favorite meal so far. Chris LOVED it, I wanted a whole other plate of it, it was so good! If I want to recreate it, I'd have to buy, like, 4 different sauces from an Asian market, but I do hope to recreate this one day! That's what I'm talking about - this used ingredient I have never heard of it my life, and certainly would never even think to buy, but now I want to have my own stash of them on hand!
Thai Pork Lettuce Wraps with water chestnuts and sesame dipping sauce: Delicious. The whole lettuce wrap thing wasn't Chris's cup of tea so he wrapped his in a tortilla shell but this was highly enjoyable and very "diet friendly"!
Seared Flat Iron Steak and Roasted Sweet Potatoes with toasted walnuts, blue cheese, arugula and balsamic glaze. - You had me at toasted walnuts, blue cheese, arugula and balsamic glaze. The meal was good but the salad was the best part :)
Tuna Burger with Parmesan roasted Green beans and salad:
Pesto Orzo Steak with Spinach Walnut pesto, fennel, squash and blue cheese: It was DELISH!! I made this when my parents were here and we split it three ways. It was really good and we all wanted more, lol. I think the portion would have been perfect for two people, but it was still a good amount of food. I would def. make this again.
Apricot-Glazed Chicken with smoky applewood potatoes and arugula corn salad: The potatoes were really delicious, the chicken was kind of like a sweet honey-mustard sauce. It didn't taste too apricoty at all. This is an example of something I would have seen a recipe for and would have said "Chris would never like this"...but he did like it and it was good! Another win! They sent a TON of salad dressing with this so I've been using it all week on my salads and really loving it (that's the corn salad dressing) The only problem is, I'm not sure if I can recreate the dressing since it was already prepared and I don't know the ingredients (to be fair, I didn't check on the website to see if I could find a recipe for it, so that might be available to me).
So far I've tried: Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Home Chef, Green Chef, Marleyspoon.
I have to try out Plated, Real Home Chef, and Sunbasket - and then I plan to go through all of these trials again but using my mother-in-laws address!! LOVING this so much! Are there any other companies out there like this that I'm missing??
I've been bad about taking pictures because sometimes I'm so excited to sit down and eat the meal (or really rushed because it's already late) that I forget to take a picture, so I only have pictures for some of the meals.
MarleySpoon
So here's the deal with Marleyspoon - I got SIX MEALS for $30! Completely by accident! A few things: Though their customer support did end up ultimately handling everything fine with my cancellation, it was a bit of a hassle. The mobile site wouldn't allow me to cancel, and then I ended up cancelling too late over email, and then I got an email saying my next shipment was being sent to me but I thought I cancelled it. So it took me about 2 phone calls to get someone to help me. They said their customer service email wasn't working and they hadn't received any of my many emails asking for help. Also - when I was on the phone to get a refund back on my second payment, it sounded like a rousing game of beer pong was going on in the background. It could have been an office send-off party, or a particularly amusing staff meeting, and frankly, it sounded like a fun place to work; Buuuut maybe not the best background noise for your customer support phone service line. While cool, it was a little bit unprofessional IMHO.
But the food was great - remember I had 6 meals here and I didn't take pictures of all of them:
Grilled Romaine & Steak Salad with Lemon-Grana Padano Dressing - Loved the grilled romaine, and did this again a few days later. This was a very easy meal.
Miso Cod & Bamboo Rice with Sesame Spinach - The cod was a little bit tricky to cook here and was a little tough. Not sure if I overcooked it or what. Enjoyable, don't necessarily feel the need to make again
Honey-Mustard Chicken with Potato, Celery and Apple Salad - This was great, Chris enjoyed it too. A nice light, summery Friday night dinner
Chicken Puttanesca with Zucchini and Orzo - This is a dish I never would have normally made because it calls for olives and I HATE/am allergic to olives. So I just omitted them and it was AMAZING!!! I ate this for dinner and then lunch the next day, and it made a LOT. I def. would want to make this again. YUM!
Pork and Pepper Skewers with Corn Rice Pilaf - Another great recipe, enjoyed by both of us.
Poblano Tacos with
charred corn salad - Didn't make this!! I ended up freezing this meal because I didn't have time to make it, so no opinions on it yet!
Home Chef
Chicken with Tiger Sauce with sugar snap peas and rice - BEST MEAL YET!! Winner Winner chicken dinner!!! The chicken with tiger sauce was our favorite meal so far. Chris LOVED it, I wanted a whole other plate of it, it was so good! If I want to recreate it, I'd have to buy, like, 4 different sauces from an Asian market, but I do hope to recreate this one day! That's what I'm talking about - this used ingredient I have never heard of it my life, and certainly would never even think to buy, but now I want to have my own stash of them on hand!
Seared Flat Iron Steak and Roasted Sweet Potatoes with toasted walnuts, blue cheese, arugula and balsamic glaze. - You had me at toasted walnuts, blue cheese, arugula and balsamic glaze. The meal was good but the salad was the best part :)
Green Chef
Tuna Burger with Parmesan roasted Green beans and salad:
Pesto Orzo Steak with Spinach Walnut pesto, fennel, squash and blue cheese: It was DELISH!! I made this when my parents were here and we split it three ways. It was really good and we all wanted more, lol. I think the portion would have been perfect for two people, but it was still a good amount of food. I would def. make this again.
Apricot-Glazed Chicken with smoky applewood potatoes and arugula corn salad: The potatoes were really delicious, the chicken was kind of like a sweet honey-mustard sauce. It didn't taste too apricoty at all. This is an example of something I would have seen a recipe for and would have said "Chris would never like this"...but he did like it and it was good! Another win! They sent a TON of salad dressing with this so I've been using it all week on my salads and really loving it (that's the corn salad dressing) The only problem is, I'm not sure if I can recreate the dressing since it was already prepared and I don't know the ingredients (to be fair, I didn't check on the website to see if I could find a recipe for it, so that might be available to me).
So far I've tried: Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Home Chef, Green Chef, Marleyspoon.
I have to try out Plated, Real Home Chef, and Sunbasket - and then I plan to go through all of these trials again but using my mother-in-laws address!! LOVING this so much! Are there any other companies out there like this that I'm missing??
Are you interested in trying out Green Chef?? I Have two coupon codes for your first box (that's 3 meals) completely free!! Leave me a comment or email me at littlemomentsbigmoments@gmail.com and I'll send you the code - first come, first served!
Hey! It's Ruth Ann! Im so curious! What was the ingredient in the tiger sauce recipe that you discovered you loved? Also, the coupon code is for a totally FREE box? If it's still available I'm interested! As long as they don't make it impossible to cancel the trial! Xo.
ReplyDeleteHey Ruth Ann!! There were a BUNCH of ingredients this called for that I never heard of: Chili Paste, Ponzu Sauce, White Miso Paste, and Mirin, (ever heard of these???) I will email you the coupon code now, let me know if you try it and like it!! It's very easy to cancel but you do have to remember to do it in time!!
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