I love a meal plan. If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen a few of my handwritten plans appear previously. Sometimes though I am a bit out of inspiration and can’t face a week’s worth of pasta or rice and it’s nice to hand over the meal planning baton to a third party. Enter recipe boxes. I like to go home knowing that I have a meal ready and waiting, I just haven’t cooked it yet so when Marleyspoon asked if I would be interested in trying theirs out I was very much looking forward to its arrival.
When I got the box I was really impressed with how it was all packaged up. The chilled ingredients were still very cold, the brown paper bags were a nice touch and the handwritten labels all made it feel like a luxury box. The handy thing about the brown bags is that all the ingredients for each recipe are in each bag so when you’re ready to cook you grab a bag and go rather than scrabbling round the fridge and cupboards finding the ingredients.
The first recipe I tried was Chicken with Aubergine Caponata and Polenta. I’ve never made polenta or caponata so was interested in trying this. The chicken drumsticks were absolutely huge so there was plenty of it to go round, as you can see my plate wasn’t quite big enough to hold it all comfortably. The recipe instructions were easy to follow and the meal was cooked within the 30-40 minute time guidelines. I really liked the caponata and would make it again when I had an aubergine, the chicken was full of flavour but I wasn’t that keen on the polenta (no fault of the polenta, it’s a personal texture thing).
The other recipe was Paneer Curry with Carrot and Kohlrabi Salad and Rice. This recipe starts with blending coriander and parsley together which I actually found quite hard to do. I used an immersion blender like the chap in the photo but I think using a food processor would be much easier! The smell of the fresh ingredients once blended was really nice. I liked that this came with a five rice mix and I found it cooked really well. The paneer was easy to cook too; I’ve had some before that didn’t fry as well. This meal was again quite large and looked very appetising once cooked. I didn’t have a lot of the kohlrabi salad, for me it was one thing too many, but it added a good crunch to the meal.
The ingredients that came in the box were of a very high quality, the kind of ingredients that I would try to buy myself and of all the boxes I’ve tried to far Marleyspoon’s seemed to generate the least amount of packaging and rubbish. This may sound a bit funny but I thought the portion sizes were too large; both of the recipes could easily have fed three and with a bit more rice or polenta could have even fed four. This is the most expensive box that I have tried at £36 for four meals (two meals for two) including delivery. Currently you do get £10 off your first order making it £26. Although it’s expensive I think that’s down to the quality of ingredients and it does have a very high end, luxury feel to it.
To see how this recipe box compares to the others, take a look at my Recipe Box Comparison post here.
Thank you to Marleyspoon for the recipe box. All opinions expressed are my own.
Agreed Caroline. First about paying for quality ingredients. Then about what to cook and eat. The food looks good and quite a big quantity. I think similar concept over here but since I work from home, I have not tried before.
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Yum! This looks amazing!
Melanie @ meandmr.com
Wow it does look good this box! Nice getting caponata and polenta. I made caponata only once, it is a bit of work but all worth it!
It looks like a good food box and very well organized with all the packaging.
Thank you for sharing this!
I yet have to try these boxes…the ingredients are sure important as you want them as fresh as possible…
Thanks for the post Caroline…hope you are having a fabulous week 🙂
This is so much fun. And tasty — particularly the paneer curry. Love that stuff. This looks excellent — thanks.