I had seen ads for Plated, Blue Apron, Home Chef, and many other services on Facebook, but was always a bit wary. Every time I explored into these options more, I was dazzled by their coupons and free shipping, but always chickened out (forgive my food pun). I was worried about liking the food (I can be a picky eater-ask anyone who tried to feed me growing up) and I was worried about finding meals I could modify to be dairy-free. Most of the services simply sent you meals after you selected your preferences (gluten-free or gluten-filled, vegetarian or meat filled). A few had vegan and paleo options, but I honestly felt my husband and I would both have turned our noses up at these.
But then I came across Terra's Kitchen and found the confidence to hit the purchase button. Here are my reasons why:
1. Their menu of 44 dishes is adventurous without being too out-there, great for a picky eater like yours truly. You decide which meals from their kitchen that you would like to cook with each box, which vary in size based on servings for each meal and how many meals a week you want. There are vegetarian, gluten-free, and paleo options if you want them. All of the meals are with a healthy mindset, which I appreciate. If you aren't picky, they can select the meals for you and auto-ship as well. Be vigilant to your selection deadlines if you are selective!
2. They list out the allergens in each meal as well as providing the recipe card during the meal selection process. This is huge for me and anyone with allergies, sensitivities, or a general interest in what you will be cooking with/eating. Having this information available allowed for me to know what meals were possible for us and which ones we needed to pass on.
3. Modifying was not that hard to plan for. For some recipes, such as their Swedish Meatballs, modifying consisted of replacing the sour cream in the sauce. For others, converting the dish to dairy free was as simple as leaving off the finishing sprinkle of cheddar or Parmesan cheese or using a dairy-free alternative. Obviously there were some that could be not be modified, but I was incredibly pleased by the amount of ones that were either dairy free to start or could easily be with a substitution or two.
4. Terra's Kitchen does everything they can to use locally sourced ingredients. If you aren't much of a shop/buy local person or a big Farm to Table advocate, this may not matter to you. But if you care where your food comes from, this might be a big selling point for you.
5. There are extra items you can add to your box. If you want extra protein to your meals, a salad for lunch,
We settled on Pecan Crusted Tilapia with Lemony Fennel-Arugula Salad, Seared Chicken with Creamy Avocado Basil Pasta, and Cheese-steak Sliders. Our plan is three meals for two people. Like I said before, there are other options available for more meals a week and larger household sizes.
The arrival of our box was incredibly exciting. Terra's Kitchen is awesome with their packaging and presentation, so if you enjoy aesthetics and organization makes you happy, you will enjoy unboxing this mini-fridge of ingredients for your future masterpieces.
You need a decent amount of shelf space free in your fridge. I used a drawer for our meats, and almost a whole shelf in the fridge.
The shipping label peels off to reveal the return shipping label. We simply put our empty box with ice packs back on the front porch before 8 AM the following day and it was picked up!
Our Meals:
CHEESESTEAK SLIDERS
We actually did not get to eat this meal.
The flank steak for the sliders went bad before we could eat it. This was one of my biggest negative take-aways from our experience with Terra's Kitchen. We had a few ingredients that were dated with expiration only a few days after our box arrives. I fully understand the difficulty of shipping fresh produce and deli, but when we purchased our box for a "week of meals", even though there were only three meals to make, we assumed that we had a week to make the three meals. Based on some of the expiration dates, we would have needed to make the meals in the three consecutive days following our box opening. Looking back, I should have been more vigilant to the expiration dates and frozen what was going to expire before we were going to use it (if possible).
PECAN-CRUSTED TILAPIA WITH LEMONY FENNEL-ARUGULA SALAD
We loved this meal and I've now replicated it twice!
This was an incredibly delicious meal! The fish and salad paired so well together. A great entertaining meal if you want to impress anyone and seem like a pro in the kitchen. The crunch of the crust on the tilapia is superb and the dressing on the salad is spectacular. My husband will no longer eat Ranch dressing on his salads at home and requests a re-make of this dressing. We highly recommend trying this one out. The arugula and fennel do come in separate packages, so if you are wary about trying fennel root, you don't have to add it into the salad. This was also a completely allergy-friendly meal for us with no dairy (or eggs). I'll post my own version in a post soon!
SEARED CHICKEN WITH CREAMY AVOCADO BASIL PASTA
We enjoyed this meal and now have a new way to make pasta sauce!
I was very excited to give this meal a shot and find a new way to make pasta sauce that didn't include super acidic tomato sauce or dairy overload alfredo. Making Pesto has always seemed a bit daunting, but this was a great shortcut way. Using avocado to get a creamy pasta sauce is not something I ever would have come up with on my own! We did have trouble searing our chicken, but I blame our cheap frying pans more than anything. In the future, I would sear the chicken on all sides and then finish it off in the oven. If you do happen to get this meal, I would suggest planning to make this the first night you get your box. Avocados go bad quickly, and our basil was already wilted when we got our box. I had to go out to the grocery store and get a pack of fresh basil to make this.
What we loved:
- The selection process was fully informative of allergens, cooking instructions (in case there is a cooking technique you absolutely cannot do, or maybe if you don't have a microwave), time required to cook, and completely customer selected.
- Our box was picked up from our front porch the next day. I didn't have to drop it off at UPS or the post office.
- The recipe cards were easy to follow and even had a section with a suggestion for dinner conversation and wine pairings.
- The prep was done for you. Everything is pre-chopped and pre-portioned. Except for scooping of an avocado or slicing and squeezing of a lemon, I didn't have to chop and slice till kingdom come. That I could get used to!
- We really loved the meals we ate and they were fairly healthy. We have a new pasta sauce to use, a salad dressing recipe that we eat weekly, and a fish recipe that is simple to make but makes us feel like we are eating so fancy!
What we didn't love:
- The basil for our creamy avocado basil pesto was not incredibly fresh by the time it got to us. Fresh herbs are difficult to maintain, but we did end up going out and buying some of our own basil.
- Some of the ingredients expired (technically) before we were able to use them. Considering Terra's kitchen is a weekly service, I would have expected to have a full week to prepare the meals before hitting the "eat before dates". Instead, we had about 4 days. For most of the ingredients, we ate past the date (such as the spring arugula where it is easy to tell spoiling). For other ingredients like flank steak, we didn't risk it.
Final Thoughts:
For the price we paid (with a coupon and free shipping), we got a heck of a deal. We paid around $44.93 for 3 meals, with 2 servings each, and a salad (big enough for two-not reviewed) for this box. The meals were yummy, dairy-free accessible, and easy to make. While I don't love the idea of paying for a few ingredients that we didn't use in order to make dairy-free food, my best guess is that it would have only been a wasted dollar or two. The ease of pre-portioned, fresh, locally and ethically sourced food was worth the cost. I'm not sure we will continue to purchase if we don't scavenge for more coupons, but we thoroughly enjoyed our experience and would highly recommend!
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