Tonight we ventured out on a new limb and tried a meal from Plated, a company that allows you to choose a menu that gets delivered fresh to your front door every week. Their slogan is: “FARM TO FRONT DOOR”, they add that their ingredients come from responsible providers and are sourced locally whenever possible. “We deliver to 95% of the US from the Plated facility closest to your home.” They also claim to uses sustainable ingredients that are raised and produce in a environmentally conscientious way.
Although that sounds nice there has been a large debate in our house whether we were even going to try Plated out. Sarai’s sister Sharon has used the service before and reported excellent results. I was FIRMLY against it – the idea of someone delivering your food instead of going to the grocery store seemed backwards, plus I didn’t like the idea of excess packaging involved in the process. After some time of Sarai mentioning it I relented, hoping that the trial meals this week would be terrible and we could go back to life as usual; pulling wonderful recipes from Cooking Light and heading to the grocery store on a weekly basis.
Our first recipe that we chose from Plated is a Thai dish:
The packaging that the recipe comes in is not much different that what you would find in the store, the ingredients are pre-measured and come in small, thin disposable containers.
The instructions are very simple and extremely easy to follow, I feel like even the most rookie cook would be able to follow the steps and nail the recipe. Sarai helped start the recipe and then went to get ready for teaching piano lessons. Oliver helped fold the sticky rice.
Much to my chagrin the final dish turned out wonderful. I mean absolutely wonderful.
I pared the dish with a golden ale from Big Bend Brewing Co. The dish was nothing less than superb. The thai peanut curry sauce was perfect, I mean perfect. At the end of the night I am left speechless. Definitely a 2015 favorite.
Side Note: Sarai reports that the initial meals we got from Plated were on special, the expense of a regular subscription gives me a small amount of chest pain. Still, it is nice to have the ingredients pre-measured and ready to go. If you have a ton of scratch and no time to prep meals this is an excellent service, also these fancy meals could be great for a dinner party that needs to be thrown together in a timely fashion.
– JB –
The Brinker Table 