I Accidently Tried a Food Subscription Box, Heres What Happened
One of my coworkers had been ordering one of those boxes, where they send you about 95% of the ingredients as well as all the instructions. A couple of weeks ago she found another on her desk, but immediately mentioned how it didn’t fit her new eating regimen. She was trying to get rid of it so I asked her if I could help, I then mentioned that I’d be happy to take it if she’d let me and so I got the food in the work freezer and the next day or so I took it home.
Well, I got it home got the ingredients packed into my fridge at home and found myself intrigued by what the meals were. I decided I would make them in the evenings and immediately pack them away for the next day’s’ lunches each time.
That evening I put together the first one, a Vietnamese steak bowl with rice. This one looked quickest upon first glance for some reason, plus I’ve I couldn’t remember the last time I had had Vietnamese food so I went for it, The trickiest part may have been shredding the carrots oddly enough, but it was a good mix with some zip. The steak could’ve been more flavorful but the sriracha mayo helped with that across the board. Cooking non-minute rice was a little different for me so I’d probably substitute that in next time. Because these veggies weren’t cooked I also packed them separately in my lunch box so that made lunchtime a bit trickier, but it was still good, and probably something I’ll make again sometime.
A few days later it was time to try making spicy honey butter chicken. This one was relatively straight forward because there were three distinct elements, the sweet potatoes, the zucchini slices, and the chicken, which I ended up cubing to pack, but that’s not what the recipe showed, but I liked it that way and it seemed far more practical. They were all cooked seperately and then I mixed them into the zucchini pan at the end to stir it all into one mixed before this one went into to-go dishes. This one was easiest to eat by far, as it was all in bite-sized pieces. Though I struggled with cooking the chicken correctly because of the seasoning, which was good none the less.
Lastly was the sausage-stuffed peppers. I’m not big on peppers, but I wanted to make these for the most part as instructed, so I gladly went along with the instructions. The peppers made this one tricky because I didn’t really know what they were supposed to taste, or look like after cooking. But I feel like they turned out all right, honestly though I’d probably only make the sausage, couscous, tomato paste portion of the recipe and make a unique “sloppy joe or something.
After trying all three there were definitely some trends between the three meals.
Time. these took waaaay longer than I expected. Maybe it’s because I’m not much of a cook still at this point, but I felt like I spent over an hour from first step in the recipe, to packing up the meal for lunch. That said, they were quoting, about 5 minutes prep and about 35 minutes cook time for each. Not. What. Happened. I think this remains far since I feel like I probably fit a portion of their target market (young professional, and what not).
The other thing was that, at least with this box, all the meals were from scratch. Like even the sriracha mayo it provided instructions on how to mix the included mayo sriracha etc. Now I guess it is kinda helpful to know how it’s made, but I’ll probably buy it mixed next time I make the recipe. But like everything was from scratch no pre-shredded carrots, no precooked chicken, etc, the only caveat is that I do believe the sausage and steak may have already been cubed.
From what I could tell on the website for this box the price would’ve been about $6.50 per meal accounting for shipping (which I think is important). So not the most expensive thing but also not the cheapest option if you’re looking to be as frugal as possible.
It was a good experience that made it relatively easy for me to try something new, because I knew I probalby couldn’t mess it up to bad, I will say the recipes still seemed tricky and it was hard to time many of the elements I put together for each meal. I very much enjoyed each meal because I had personally, completely prepared it too.
Would I get it again? Maybe. We’ll see how the budget goes.
Happy cooking.
