SJMitch

I put a Gaggenau built-in steam oven in a previous house in a kitchen remodel (back in 2011 or so). Used that thing every day; in fact, we could have used two sometimes! Now we have a CSO on the counter and one new in box in the garage just in case. I got them for $150ish so bought two at the time. And the one on the counter was replaced free under warranty to the newer version by Cuisinart (great service!). Didn't read the Financial Times article, but I honestly can't see how this is a viable business at current prices. It works really well for us right now though. Cheaper than and takes about as long as a restaurant outing and much less food wastage than cooking at home With the mealkits, we mostly buy long-lasting grocery items leaving the perishables to the mealkits. We now mostly buy frozen foods, nuts, dried fruits, cheeses, fermented, aged and cured foods, etc (great for augmenting the kits). We do still buy fresh fruit and milk/milk substitutes.

Aw, thanks! I just love those sauce dishes; I got them at Bed Bath and Beyond (a year ago?). They caught my eye but were several bucks each so I just admired but didn't buy. Then one day they were on sale for a dollar so I got a few. But when I got to the register they were 50 cents each! I quickly went back and bought all the rest! 5 different leaf styles. We use them a lot. Sometimes just to hold cut limes and as seed/skin discard dishes, which is why the red dishes are out for the chaat meal: for the lemon skin discards. BTW, you only see them in that photo since I mistakenly uploaded the un-cropped versions with background clutter. Eh, more realistic anyway. The wraps are Mi Rancho corn tortillas. I softened them in the microwave in a damp muslin towel (they suggested warming in a pan but I can never quite get them pliable enough that way, even then one cracked -- oops nuke another minute). Stuffed with the sautéed mixture and then baked until crispy.

It's been a month since Blue Apron, but we enjoyed this baked panko crusted eggplant dish from them: I really liked how the eggplant turned out, I plan to use that technique for doing eggplant again in the future (just a standard flour, egg, panko coating and then baked 24 min at 475F). But, I don't see anything compelling in the next 4-5 weeks from them. One or two dishes here and there, but never three in a week that make me want to order.

A couple dishes from Purple Carrot from 2/3 weeks ago (we'll get them again next week, but then they are out of the rotation again for 3 weeks): The above dish was fun: sweet potato chaat with mung beans and puffed rice. I've had puffed rice chaat in restaurants but never made one at home. The vegan 'raita' had a texture that was off, but the flavor was great. I like unusual and this dish delighted me. This is an italian-style white bean stew with vegan sausage and vegan parmesan. Both my husband and I are fans of mock meats (we'll even cook up stir fry and curry with a mix of fake meat and real meat, we love the texture variations). The sausage was great but the parm was 'eh'. Ended up adding real parmesan to it later.

Here's a recent vegan dish from Sun Basket: We added the tomato-salsa dipping sauce, but the filling was pinto beans, red onions, and riced cauliflower (came already riced). And a fish dish from Gobble: This is miso baked cod with bok choy, shiitake, and baby corn. Brown rice came pre-cooked. It had a dashi as a broth, but I wanted something less soupy so reduced it with a bit of added white miso for a thicker sauce.

It depends on whether you mean it's a good option for vegetarian/vegans because of complexity or that the meals from services tend to be vegan/vegetarian. If it's the former, I agree with you. In general (except for Purple Carrot), mealkit services are very meat focused (I just tend to order the few not-so-meat-heavy dishes). We're still regular users of Sun Basket, Gobble, Purple Carrot, and Blue Apron. I do have photos up on instagram (quick and easy to post). I rarely order from Blue Apron (more meat heavy, less interesting dishes). Purple Carrot has also been less interesting just of late (so this may just be random variation), with more pasta and burger type dishes. Sun Basket has been making more changes. You can now "upgrade' the meat and fish in some dishes for an extra charge. E.g. change from top sirloin to new york strip or filet mignon. Or, say, change from salmon to halibut. They have the most selections of any service (usually 11 or 12 to choose from). Although you can't order unlimited number of dishes, you can choose 2, 3, or 4 dishes (with multiples allowed). They also have their selections and scheduling the furthest in the future of any service, about 7 weeks out, which is important so you don't forget to skip! Blue Apron is almost as long at 6 weeks, but Gobble and Purple Carrot only allow skips out 4 weeks on average. Sun Basket's website also has your ordering history and you can go back and get any recipe. I like their website the best from a usability perspective. Purple Carrot is the worst. We haven't had any major missing/bad ingredients in the past month or two, but two services had a week where they gave us double dishes mistakenly (we were not charged for them). Sun Basket accidentally doubled up on two different dishes and Gobble on one.

A Gobble dish from the last few weeks: When the girl's were here we ordered "General Tso's Chicken" for them from Gobble (they like orange chicken from Panda Express so I thought they might go for this). They did like the chicken part, but again, only the more adventurous eater liked the veggies. No photo, but ... we got also ordered the vegetarian version they offered: "General Tso's Cauliflower" and we made and ate that after they left: It was tasty. About 12 years ago I got hooked on Dhesi-Chinese dishes, especially Mandarin cauliflower and would order it every chance I got (first mostly from restaurants with Chettinad dishes). Fried cauliflower in place of fried chicken has exploded lately with both Mediterranean and American restaurants offering it as an alternative to things like buffalo wings. Interesting to see Gobble jumping on the trendy substitution. Thank you Indians! Fried cauliflower sauced up like chicken usually is (any flavoring or style) is still a big favorite and I still order it every chance I get.

The Spice Bible? Is there an ebook version of that? I do see Spice Companion by Lior Lev Sercarz for $1.99

The two girls helped with last night's meal (above) but didn't want to cook tonight. So my husband and I made two mealkits. For the girls, I cooked up Gobble's Parmesan crusted chicken with orzo salad: Both girls loved the chicken and the more adventurous eater liked the pasta salad. The other did not (her preferences are more limited). My husband made Vietnamese shaking beef with roasted ginger sweet potatoes from Sun Basket for us: Surprisingly, the both girls loved the beef in this dish and loved the simple lime juice + salt + pepper dipping sauce and dipped both the beef and their chicken in it. Neither of them wanted any sweet potatoes.

We have two teenaged guests this week. They cooked two dishes from Blue Apron. Chicken tenders with potato salad, marinated cucumber and spicy honey dip And Salmon with freekeh salad and herb salsa They loved both the salmon meat and chicken tenders. One is a more adventurous eater than the other and she liked the freekeh pilaf after picking out the dates (the other kid didn't like it). Both liked the potato salad and neither seemed fond of the cucumbers. My husband and I thought it was all just fine. At the same meal, my husband and I prepared a dish from Sunbasket: Brazilian shrimp stew with yuca-coconut mash Proportions were off for the yuca mash had to boil it down a long time, but it was tasty and the two girls even tried a bite of the mash. They passed on tasting the stew. I thought it was very good. It should also have had some cilantro mixed in fresh at the end but the cook for the salmon accidentally grabbed the cilantro and added it to the herb mix for that dish. We had 4 people making 3 meal kits at the same time. With an Echo Show coordinating named timers for everyone. A bit of a zoo, but all the food worked out in the end!

Quick Gobble meal: Thai red curry with shrimp and brown rice. Quick and easy. We extended it with additional mixed seafood and cherry tomatoes (they provided one roma).

Very cool! Sun Basket now lets you pick 4 recipes in a week, and if you do drops the price to $10.99/serving. And, as always, allows ordering multiple(s) of any dish. So now you can choose any 2 ($12.49/serving), any 3 (11.49/serving), any 4 (10.99/serving) or just skip. Several of the services have been sending out surveys lately asking for opinions on various options for flexibility and different categories of purchases (deserts/sides/wines/etc). I also noticed that Gobble now offers higher priced entrees sometimes ($35/serving) in addition to the lower-priced soups/sides as add-ons.

I was sorting some photos from our visit to family in Shanghai last March and wanted to share these photos from the vegetarian restaurant Wujie (they have 3 locations, these are from the one in The Bund). I'm always on the lookout for food I haven't tried yet and these were all firsts for me! Sea grapes: Cattail "noodles" in a cauliflower-yam-onion broth: Lilium bulb and winged beans: Tempura aralia sprout: OK, this last one didn't have anything in it that was a first for me, but it's a neat presentation of a classic marinated rice-stuffed lotus root:

I had fun with this one, although it needed a little help in the end: Chopped salad with charred vegetables and orange-ginger-miso dressing Some veggies were to be prepped raw and some charred in a skillet. It reminded me of making a coffee blend where you blend the same bean at different roasts, so I ran with it a bit and charred some of the scallions and left some raw. I also 'massaged' the chopped kale to break down some of the cells in advance. I also roasted the provided thai chili to tame it a bit but then added chipotle powder to the garbanzo beans when I crisped them up. Ingredients prepped: There are: orange segments, massage chopped kale, whole mint and cilantro leaves, chopped raw scallion, crisped chipotle garbanzo beans, charred chopped savoy cabbage, a ginger-orange-miso-sesame oil dressing, chopped mint and cilantro, sautéed chopped zucchini, nori-sesame seed mix, and charred scallion and thai chili pepper. Served it up so: The orange juice didn't provide enough acid to make a good balance, so I added fresh lime juice to the dressing at the end to make the recipe work. I enjoyed this one.

And the dish from Purple Carrot I was so interested in from their regular menu that I skipped the TB12 offerings for: Okonomiyaki with vermicelli noodle salad Here is 1/3 of it: Not bad -- not amazing. Decent. Pancake is a mix of flours with shredded Japanese yam and savoy cabbage. Noodle salad is savoy cabbage and vermicelli with scallions and flavoring They provided nori for garnish. We also added sesame oil and sesame seeds.

Another Gobble, the Pork tenderloin with peaches, bourbon sauce and farro-arugula salad in sherry vinaigrette. This is about 1/3 of it, we split 3 ways. I added a citrus-chipotle rub to the pork tenderloin. Skillet cooked instead of grilled. Very good.

This is the kind of black sesame paste mix we use for desserts: Besides black sesame, it has rice flour, sugar, and more oil added (and some preservative). Yeah, it's more gray than black. We usually boil some rice/sweet potato/taro balls to add to it and serve it warm (here with coconut flakes on top): Although we were out of balls today, so I just had some cold with added coconut cream, blueberries, and chocolate chips. Fast junk food. No photo, ate it all, ugly anyway (ugly-good). Heh.

And Gobble again tonight -- this one a winner dish. Their various gnocchi dishes are always quite good. The one is ricotta gnocchi with fresh cubbed zucchini, roasted red pepers, kalamata olives, fava beans, and a pre-made pomodoro sauce. Basil and parmesan cheese to garnish. I only added onion, garlic, and swapped the fine grated cheese for shaved parmesan. Oh, and I was wrong about the extra packet of food for a pork dish, it was actually this dish we got double of (cool, because it's veggie and complete, though since this is an extra large order for us, 4 dishes plus 2 sides, 2 soups, and dessert, it'll be a bit before we can make and eat the extra). We were properly charged for what ordered.

Another so-so dish. This one from Gobble: Salmon cakes with salad and gribiche sauce. This week's Gobble box has one error so far: but this time it's extra food: they shipped two bundles of one of the meals we ordered (we only ordered one). The meat is separate from the other ingredients and they included the correct amount of meat. So we have all the fixings except the meat if we want to make a second portion of that dish (a pork dish). I worked late so my husband cooked this one up. He's a bigger fan of salmon cakes made from fine ground salmon, so he liked it much more than I did. It was fast, easy to make, and filling.

You need to have Amazon Echo Silver for that function.

I had a lot of hope for this dish from Purple Carrot: Strawberry tomato gazpacho with avocado toast Gazpacho made with a full pound of strawberries (ours arrived nicely ripe, a good batch), a red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, 4oz of cherry tomatoes, and various seasonings. But the balance was off -- too sweet for a main course (even with the jalapeño and Sriracha). Would have been better with double the tomatoes and half the strawberries. Good thing we still had leftovers from yesterday, we each made it about halfway through the soup before switching to leftovers. It was like having a smoothie for dinner. We polished off the avocado toast (which was covered in provided hemp seed). Avocado toast was ordinary but tasty (the provided avocado was perfectly ripe on arrival).

Absolutely agree! Our mealkit usage exactly tracks to a transition from having more time than money to having more money than time. I've had an amazing food journey for a kid from a midwestern trailer park who grew up on overcooked, over-salted vegetables. Then I hit Boston, in a little basement apartment with one slim window looking out on a Beacon Hill cobbled street 30 years ago (it was under foreclosure, so had cheap rent for about 1.5 years before it went up for auction). Boston launched my interest in food. My food explorations really exploded when 3 of us lived in a 500 sq ft 2-bed 1-bath apartment next to the freeway in East Palo Alto, CA in the 90s (when East Palo Alto was briefly "murder capital of the US"). Still co-own many of those early kitchen gadgets with various people. That little galley kitchen was so heavily used. My trek to the Tennessee farm was done by car from California and back, throwing up a tent along the way. That's also when I went to judge at the American Royal in KC. Had the car, had time, might as well make the side trip! Now I don't have time like that for those adventures, alas. Honestly, though, if I could get restaurant food like what the meal kits are doing? I wouldn't do meal kits. Where we live now, there aren't any restaurants that serve food like that black rice ramen I recently made, so restaurants aren't even an option to get interesting food like that (and we live near several really good ramen places). And the very few options for food like I want cost 1.5 to 4 times as much as what Purple Carrot and Sunbasket are doing (especially with tax and tip). Might be different if I lived in a big city like SF or LA or NYC, tho. So for us, it isn't really a time savings over restaurants: it's a time savings over planning and shopping for home cooked meals (and a reduction in food wastage) while it's a money and availability savings over restaurants. And yet, in a few years we may give up the detached house, front yard orchard, and wonderful bay area weather for a cramped apartment in Shanghai and more time. Change is the only constant.

I'm not really sure about the long term viability myself! I don't see how they can make this cash flow positive long term. I spent decades as a hard-core research/plan/shop/cook foodie. Buying cow shares and pigs and goats from small farms before pastured meat parts were available at the farmers markets or independent groceries, learning to butcher and dress chickens, making our own sausages and other tasty meat parts, making my own seitan starting from wheat kernels, buying dozens of heirloom beans, dried corn, etc. Spending two weeks camping at Sandor Katz's farm in TN learning all kinds of fermentation techniques. Backyard garden (still have yard orchard, tho). Making our own injera after frequenting the local Ethiopian grocery and chatting with the owners. I'm a Kansas City certified BBQ judge and have judged barista competitions (and own an aging Hottop coffee roaster, which I still use every couple years). Had Modernist Cuisine on pre-order and make a few things from it time to time. Love gadgets, too! Used to have a built-in steam oven, but now have the CSO. Had grain grinder, stone wet mill, electric pasta roller, chamber vacuum, etc. Own a few sous vide setups (including older Sous Vide Magic with its bubbler). You couldn't have gotten me to use mealkits 15 years ago, for sure! Still would enjoy that part of the foodie lifestyle (it IS fun!), but now lack the time and have too many other things I want to do too. We've really been enjoying the mealkits (2 years, 300+ meals, no kidding), especially the ones that use unusual ingredients or combos. But I don't think there are enough people like me to make this business model work long term. But we'll see ....

So we made the last dish from last week finally: Black Rice ramen with tofu, corn, and bok choy from Purple Carrot. The dish liamsaunt did earlier with added duck egg. We made it standard: My husband wanted to cook up leftover fish cake and chrysanthemum greens before they went bad, so he also put together this stir-fry: The slim sticks are the fish cake, it also has preserved vegetable, fried sponge tofu and fake abalone in it. He and I are really good matches foodwise -- we both enjoy nicely done fake meats (such as the canned mock abalone in this dish) and will cook them up with real meat as well. The purple carrot dish was plenty of food to begin with, but the added stir fry was delicious in the broth as well. We now have more cooked leftovers!

Tonight's Purple Carrot dinner: White bean walnut patties with mashed yam, asparagus, and kale This was decent -- not great, not bad. Baked patties made from white bean, walnuts, oats, parsley, mint, and garlic. Yam mashed and flavored with garlic and vinegar (I added some togarashi spice as well). Sauce is vegan mayo with lemon juice and dill. They called for the garlic to be added raw to the mashed yam and the patties (which were only to be baked for 15 min) so I doubled the garlic and sautéed it first. Also stir-fried the asparagus and kale instead of boiling/steaming it and added just a touch of ponzu. Mashed yam with vinegar is quite good. Will have to remember that.