Trying out Plated, Week 1 - Entrepreneur Generations

On the recommendation of a friend who gave us a free week membership, we started Plated last week. It's a meal preparation services, with the tagline "Cook More. Live Better," and, every week, they send you the ingredients for the meals that you then prepare yourself. Our plan is three meals a week, for two people, and it costs $12/meal (delivery is free with this option).

We decided to do it for a number of reasons. First of all, we are both working professionals who live busy and active lives. We fall into ruts where we are ordering takeout far too often, or eating just whatever is easiest, such as scrambled eggs. I love Chipotle and scrambled eggs, and both are pretty healthy, but we'd been doing it far too much.

In general, as well, speaking for myself, I am often disorganized when it comes to cooking. I can never figure out what to make, and when I try to make something new, I am always missing an ingredient or three. It's also frustrating to, say, buy $6 container of spice when you only need a pinch and you're unsure if you'll ever need it again, or a whole bushel of green onions when you don't like them all that much and you need just two of them. And, in general, I find it difficult to be adventurous, to take the risks necessary to try new things. Chipotle always just seems so much easier.

Plated could solve a lot of those problems. Everything is measured for you already, and the ingredients are step-by-step. Also, importantly, this makes two servings, to help control my portions. It's also real food, with nothing processed and no chemicals. Plus, I just think it will - necessarily -- inspire me to cook more, and hopefully teach me some things; I'm considering it sort of a cooking class as well. So, hopefully a better, more organized eating life, with healthier, more diverse food to eat.

The box that arrives weekly.
So, starting last week, on every Tuesday, we will receive a box full of fresh ingredients, and step-by-step instructions about how to prepare the food. Every now and then, I think I'm going to blog about how it's going. I'm excited about it and want to document the experience a bit.

Each week, there are nine options to choose from. I don't eat pork or beef or anything with bones, which eliminates some options. My partner doesn't eat seafood because of allergy, which eliminates some other options. So, for the first week, we ended up with Chicken Pad Thai with Bok Choy, Carrots, and Bean Sprouds; Turkey Burger Lettuce Wraps with Sriracha Aioli and Crispy Green Beans; and Whole Wheat Pizza with Grueyere, Mushrooms, and Ricotta.

Preparing Pad Thai
I was most excited about the Chicken Pad Thai, as pad thai is about my favorite food, and I've only made the pre-packaged kind at home before. So I chose to make that one first. The ingredients were well-labeled and easy to use, as were the steps of the recipe. I turned out tremendously, and made me do things like use Bok Choy for the first time in my life.

The Turkey Burger Lettuce Wraps were the meal I was probably least excited about, but it ended up being a favorite. I screwed up and put too much of the sesame oil into the meat before making the patties, but the burgers ended up being the tastiest I've ever had (turkey burger wise), and the sriracha was also really good. The crispy green beans were interesting to make, and tasty, although they didn't really come out crispy.

The pizza was tough, partially because I don't have a rolling pin, and it felt pretty difficult to roll the dough. But the pizza was so tasty that it barely mattered that the pieces were flimsy. I also ended up putting more cheese on it and turkey kielbasa, which made it stretch out to four meals.

The question now is whether it's worth $12/meal ($72/week) to have someone make all these decisions and provide and prepare all these fresh ingredients for us. Obviously, we're saving on the grocery bill and the takeout food bill. Is this -- and the accompanying increased health that comes with eating real food -- enough to offset the cost? Right now, I'm excited to come home from work to make these dinners, so it definitely felt like it was worth for this first week. Will this attitude keep up during, say, baseball season, with its 12-hour days? We shall see. Right now, I'm digging it.

Lots of photos from the week of cooking are below.

The second box arrived today.

The photo of what the Chicken Pad Thai is supposed to look like.
.

Ingredients were well-labeled.

It was very good, and made at least 3 portions (enough for lunch the next day).

The next day was the Turkey Burger Lettuce Wraps:
Their photo.

These were also very good, and I'm now a believer in Lettuce Wraps. The turkey burger was the best I'd ever had.
How the ingredients look -- all labeled and measured.
Meal 3 was the whole wheat mushroom pizza:

After slicing the mushrooms, had to roast them in the oven.
The photo it came with.
My version.


from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/1PVNGdj Trying out Plated, Week 1 - Entrepreneur Generations

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