Five weeks of food in boxes

Sunday, August 23rd, 2020 at 05:18pm

Back at the start of July I realised I was tired of the same few meals as I kept going back to the couple that are both easy to prepare and are ok to be made in bulk and frozen. I didn’t feel motivated enough to cook new things completely from scratch, so I succumbed to the marketing and decided to try one of the meal kit services.

There are a few different services around the world, with a couple available in Melbourne. I’m not going to name which one I went with, but it was one that I was seeing marketed a lot on podcasts and YouTube. I used the discount code from one of those to get the first few weeks at almost half price.

So how has it been?

It has definitely been worthwhile, both in forcing me to get away from my desk to cook and bringing back some variety. The variety has meant that I have eaten things that I haven’t had for a while (in a number of cases confirming that I don’t like it, I’m looking at you pumpkin) or had never tried (sliced pears in tacos).

For future weeks there is an automatic selection of the meals you will get, but up to a week in advance you can go in and change the meals. Some of the meals cost more and you can add additional meals for additional cost. I have been altering my selection to avoid meals I know I won’t like (pumpkin) or that I know were a pain to cook.

Generally the meals in the box are two or four portions. I live alone so I opted for the smallest box of three meals, intending to get six lunches or dinners out of it. Splitting the meals does require additional planning and some trial and error. For example cook all the rice because that is ok to microwave the following day, but for a salad you prepare all the dressing, but keep half aside to be mixed tomorrow.

You also need to plan ahead of time as there are a number of “pantry” items not included. Some last a long time like olive oil or salt, but others like butter or eggs do not.

Another thing I have heard people say is that you then have the recipe that you can use in the future, that is true and in many cases you just need to source the items yourself instead of them turning up on your doorstep. However there are some recipes that are not so easy to reproduce, I could go buy a bottle of Kecap Manis or a jar of Sichuan garlic paste, but what is in the Mexican Spice Blend or the Southeast Asian Spice Blend?

Currently the price is working out to $12 per meal which is more expensive than if I sourced the ingredients myself, but it is so much more convenient and varied. It is also a lot better than getting takeaway for around the same price…

Tagged with: cooking