Sorry for the lack of #FrugalFridays posts. I’ll try to bring them back more often 🙂
Truth be told, I’m not the best cook, but I do enjoy cooking, and eating 🙂 I need quick, easy, delicious and healthy meals. I really don’t like recipes that have too many ingredients or too many steps because then I get frustrated. Also the more steps, the more chance of me screwing something up!
I’ve always wanted to try a meal delivery service but it was either too expensive or didn’t offer any meals that I would be interested in cooking. I was about to give up, but then I saw this on my Facebook news feed 2 weeks ago.
Hmm, $40 off my first order…let’s see what this is about! I went to the website (to make sure it was legit) and then clicked on the Facebook offer to receive the discount code. Marley Spoon starts off at $8.90 per meal per person. I opted for the custom weekly plan to get 2 meals delivered for 2 people which was priced at $48.00 but with my discount I only paid $8! In addition, shipping was free so I REALLY couldn’t pass up this deal.
First I browsed the website to see which meals were available for that week and saw six different options (all photos from Marley Spoon’s website):
Asparagus tart with lemony salad |
Baked cod with jammy lemons, been olives and thyme |
Grilled Shrimp Lavash with feta and preserved lemon dressing |
Thai beef with basil |
Mushroom ramen with mizo glazed tofu |
Scallion and carrot pancakes with yogurt and kale |
I used the process of elimination to decide on my two meals. I’m allergic to soy and carrots, so the last two meals were out. I’m not a big fan of cod so that automatically cancelled out that meal. The asparagus meal looked good, but I knew I would need something with protein so that why I selected the shrimp and beef meals.
I selected my two meals and delivery date. I’m not sure exactly when the box arrived on that date, but it was there when I got home from work in the early evening. I have to say that everything was packaged extremely well and very organized.
My delivery 🙂 |
One brown bag for each meal and the silver bag was for the meat and shrimp |
I loved the personalized notes from the chef! |
First up, the grilled shrimp. Each recipe comes with a recipe card with step by step directions on how to cook the meal (Forgot to take photos of these, sorry!) This really helped me when cooking since I’m a very visual person. Although I enjoyed this meal, I ate it without the lavash as I didn’t like the taste of it, but the shrimp were delicious and the preserved lemons and feta cheese really enhanced the flavor. This is a meal that I would try to make again on my own. I would give this meal an A.
All the ingredients |
Finished product! |
A few days later I made the Thai beef meal. I got really excited when I saw all the limes because I LOVE lemons and limes. I just feel like they add so much flavor to everything, especially water. If I had to grade this meal I would give it a B- because it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t as good as the shrimp meal. This meal came with white rice and I typically eat brown rice so that affected the taste for me. Also when I was cooking the meat I noticed a good amount of fat so I had to drain the meat as I was cooking it. On a more positive note, the vegetables were all fresh and the sauce made from the juice of the limes, soy sauce and fish sauce was really good! For some reason I feel like this meal would have been better with chicken.
All the ingredients! |
Finished product! (Yeah I’m not a food photographer and I am using a paper plate, LOL) |
So the million dollar question is – Would I recommend Marley Spoon? This is hard question to answer. I really loved the shrimp meal but the beef meal was just so-so, not bad, but not that great either. Also I wish there was some sort of option to offer substitutions for the meals (swapping white rice for brown rice, etc). I think I would need to try it again to come to a final decision since one meal was great and the other was just okay. I simply cannot rationalize spending $48 on two meals for at home cooking, so if they have another discount code in the future, I’ll take advantage of it.
If you’re interested in trying Marley Spoon, use discount code SPRINGEATS23 to save $40 off your first order. I’m not sure when this code expires, but it was featured on their Instagram page last week.
Have you ever tried a meal delivery service? What was your experience?
Keeping with the spirit of #FrugalFridays fellow PRO Compression ambassador, Carson, is hosting a giveaway for a pair of PRO Compression socks or sleeves. Click here to enter!!
SD Mom says
I love shrimp! And I agree, the ingredient list sounds like it would be better with chicken!
kookyrunner says
I think I will try to replicate the ingredients with chicken!