MetsFan5

The other night I had their turkey burger with tots meal. The tots were a bit undercooked but the exterior crisped up in the (provided and maybe reusable) aluminum pan and were good. The turkey burger was juicy, flavorful and surprisingly good. It was a very generous turkey burger— (I did check the internal temp at its thickest it was 160F before resting). i could only eat about 1/3 of the burger. I continue to enjoy the meals. I’ve placed future orders and am thinking as long as I keep salad ingredients and raw veggies on hand, this has me relaxed. I do plan to go to TJ’s and get some of the products that align with the Tovala bar codes in the near future. Turkey burger cooking, prep and instructions:

@rotuts thanks. I am enjoying how easy and mess free this oven is. The meals so far (3 out of 4) have been better than expected. The serving sizes are too large for me so I generally eat 1/2 to 1/3rd.

I admit to finding comfort in canned soup when sick. This new soup— Campbell’s tomato and grilled cheese is interesting. I have grown to like tomato soup but while I have no issue trying a canned version, it wouldn’t be with water. https://sporked.com/article/campbells-grilled-cheese-and-tomato-soup-review/

Yes it has a toast button and I used that and felt it was a total failure. The oven is sealed. I did not flip the toast as the instructions didn’t say to do so. I saw the steam function on but either the water reservoir is empty or close to (and why didn’t this highly intuitive machine alert me is that was the case) because the toast was horrible.

Also, looking ahead at the meals I have, one is appealing to me right now, but it’s too much food for me (I had onigiri and a salad for an early dinner). I’m craving a pizza but have this meal, which I wish the bar codes had separate bar codes for each item (I suppose I could make both and try the reheating feature out but I’m not that hungry):

it does have a toast button, that’s what I used. It cycled between steaming and baking. I was very disappointed— I love toast and the CSO seems to be great at that. I am going to try to make toast using manual settings. I think I will visit the CSO index for times and temps. It was really bad toast. I would rather eat microwaved bread with butter than that toast.

The outcome? The toast looked good. To be fair the bread was slightly stale but the toast sucked. It was dry and crumbly throughout, burned on the bottom (I did not take a picture of the bottom of the toast) and the only thing it may have been good for would be making bread crumbs. I did not replenish the water that was used during the steaming of the shrimp prior to making the toast. So I will try again— the oven makes a noise and a signal when the water reservoir is full, so I’m not always measuring the amount. The deceitful toast:

I used the toast feature in the oven. It has toast levels between 1-5, 1 being the lightest. I set it for level 2. Here are pictures of the bread being toasted. You can see that during the toasting process, the oven used both steam and baking features as indicated on the dial screen:

@blue_dolphin thank you for explaining the pricing and functions much better than I ever could have (especially using an iPhone)! You can manually set it to both bake and steam or broil and steam. I will post the cooking instructions for the other meals as I make them.

I should also add that just in terms of convenience this really was a success for me. I know “how” to cook but it’s not enjoyable for me, especially when cooking for one. I also hesitate while cooking proteins at times and this alleviated that issue. Had I made this meal and purchased the ingredients I would have been left with 5-10 servings of left over slaw, had to buy fresh herbs, a lot of pantry ingredients, would have a ton of left over tortillas, etc. and would have a sink of dishes to wash.

The meal itself was surprisingly good. I would order it again. I didn’t have any pans to wash, just silverware and a bowl I mixed the slaw in. The shrimp came with a small aluminum baking tray. The oven cycled through different cooking functions while cooking the shrimp— I did not watch them all, but scanning the QR code prompts the oven to use the methods needed to best cook the meal. The oven as mentioned, can be used manually. Tovala has partnered with various companies— Trader Joe’s, Kirkland/Costco, Ore Ida, Amy’s, Pillsbury, etc so that their QR codes for cooking these products works with the oven. The meal was salty and I love salt. It wasn’t overly salty to my taste but I imagine it would be for a lot of people. The serving size was generous. I didn’t manage three tacos so I ate the shrimp mixed with the slaw and tossed the extra tortilla. It was my only meal of the day and I was stuffed, not unpleasantly though. So far I’m pleased with it; the oven wasn’t a large investment and I am not obligated to order weekly meals, only 6 meals in total over I think 6 months time. Meals are generally $9.99 and you can upgrade proteins and order “premium meals” like crab stuffed sole, filet mignon, etc. Setting it up was super simple— the hardest part was wrestling the oven out of the box. The app allowed me to connect the oven to my wifi, which is how the scan feature works. As directed, before using I washed the sheet pan and air fryer basket and manually set the oven to cook at 450 for 20 minutes. My phone gets a push notification when the cooking time is complete (the oven turns off but the residual heat can over cook things, obviously) which is nice as well. If anyone is interested, I can continue to document cooking the meals I have and I’ll also be testing out the toast feature and doing more “manual” cooking.

Yes, you can set the temperature and time and cooking method (baking, steam, broil and air fry as well as “toast”) manually. The user manual has suggested methods and temperatures for various things like a chicken, reheating things (there is a reheat button) etc. When scanning a dish’s code, the machine knows what time, temperature and cooking methods (s) to use. I believe the machine used steam and broil to cook the shrimp but I didn’t watch it cook.

Here are the prep instructions. I have used meal kits and did wasn’t like one in terms of prep etc:

Here is the meal assembled on Dixie’s finest paper plate:

Honestly considering I mostly live off delivery food from restaurants, this may be an improvement. Here’s the box unwrapped: