Going to the gym has made me more lazy…I have a lot of exciting new posts coming up and it’s taking me a while for me to write my posts! Also working out has made me more self aware of what I’m eating. I’m very lucky to be situated in a workplace that is surrounded with a LOT of food options. Even when I bring lunch, I end up getting a soup/coffee/ice cream/croissant…I can’t help it! At home, my dinner is usually more healthy conscious, and usually…not as exciting. Fortunately, my family does the cooking and we all love a change in our meals once in a while. When Chefs Plate reached out about trying their meal-kit delivery service, I jumped on right away! My cooking skills are anything but amazing and they make it sound easy enough!
Chefs Plate delivers recipes and the fresh ingredients in a giant cardboard box (yes they deliver all the food, spices, garnishes, and even meat too, there are ice packs and the box will be kept cold for 12 hours!) You can choose between a 2 Person Plan or a Family Plan (feeds for a family of four.) The prices vary depending on which plan you go on and how many recipes you want delivered.
For a 2 Person Plan – two recipes cost $49.80/week, three recipes cost $65.70/week, and four recipes cost $87.60/week.
For a Family Plan – two recipes cost $78/week, three recipes cost $117/week, and four recipes cost $156/week.
Sadly, I didn’t have any pictures of the box/ingredients in their bags; as I was at work and told my dad to keep an eye out for a giant box of food. By the time I came home, almost everything was already neatly in the fridge. (#AsianDad) We were pulling out a single eggplant, mushrooms, an onion etc from a bag, it’s amost like grocery shopping but you don’t know what you bought!
I tried two recipies from July – the Garlic Shrimp and Primavera Pizza. My reasoning for these- they looked the easiest to cook! The Garlic Shrimp shrimp dish is actually a kale salad with kumato tomatoes and millet.This was the simpler of the two as it required cooking the shrimp and the millet. According to the recipe, the tomatoes are cut into fairly large pieces. I would probably prefer sliced tomatoes in my future salads rather than a huge chunk – just my personal preference.
I had some doubts of how good the shrimp was going to be, but my whole family agreed it was friggin delicious!! They were very juicy and the garlic taste made me wanting more! My parents are currently going kale crazy so a kale salad is almost like rice to them now.
The Primavera Pizza was a bit trickier and required more prep time than the expected thirty minutes. Slicing up the vegetables and stretching the pizza dough required some extra time. I was a bit wary about this because this isn’t your standard Domino’s pizza to go. Can a vegetarian pizza open my eyes?!
Yuppppppppppppppp. The combination of havarti cheese, portobello mushrooms, yellow heirloom tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, spinach, and onions made this vegetarian pizza surprisingly delicious. My only complaint is probably the dough, it was a bit too airy and I was full off the dough very quickly. My brother was like “whoah…this is good.” All the vegetables tasted very fresh and they didn’t look old or haggard.
I was surprised that it was pretty easy to recreate the recipes and have it look very similar to the photo on the paper!! (When I try to bake something, it never looks like what I found online. People have Pintrest fails, I have Anything-on-the-internet-fail.) Both dishes came out well and I was very satiated after dinner. Between the two, I liked the taste of the Primavera better.
Is it worth it? Depends how your eating plan is. The meals average to $10-12/per person depending which plan you get. If you eat dinner at home mostly, then this is a great option. When I eat out for lunch, I try to not spend more than $10 and same goes for casual dinners (such as pho.) If I spend the same amount of money on a meal delivery service and have to spend an extra hour prepping and cooking, then my mindset would be to save time to go out for a $10-$15 meal.
Don’t let that turn you away if you’ve read this far down in the post and you know you’re feeling hungry!! Chefs Plate aims to make people fall in love with cooking again and this is a fun and a first time experiencing a subscription box of this nature! I have never made pizza before and there’s countless recipes from them that I would love to attempt. (Because when I move out, I know I’m screwed.)
If you live in Canada, Chefs Plate is currently shipping to most addresses in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. You can receive 3 free plate credits off the first order ($33 value) with #MACARONSANDMISCHIEF (yes include the hashtag!) This week’s Shrimp Linguine and Korean Steak Stir Fry is calling out to me! Why am I blogging about food late at night?! 🙁
Happy eating!
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Disclaimer: Press Sample provided, all opinions are my own.
