Recap: Goodfood #14

Its been a whirlwind of movie reviews over here lately with the Ultimate 70s Blogathon and Valentine’s Marathon tag teaming it, which is great but I’d like to change the pace a little (if just for myself).

Let’s take a quick recap at the Goodfood box last week!

Singapore Noodles with Haddock & Pickled Turmeric

I love Singapore noodles! However, I also have no idea how to make it before this box obviously. It was definitely pretty nice especially since we don’t usually eat haddock and that was a nice change. However, this one is quite fancy with having to grind our own turmeric. If you haven’t used turmeric before (like myself prior to this experience), when they say it stains, boy does it stain? My fingers were yellow for two days after some intense scrubbing throughout. The taste of the dish was somewhat worth the hassle . It had a nice taste and the spices were really nice. The pickled turmeric also came out decent, although honestly, I was a little worried to eat it in fear of my mouth turning yellow. If I were to do this meal again, I’d probably just get some grinded turmeric instead and save some of the hassle.

Creamy Gnocchi with Mushroom, Sundried Tomatoes & Green Beans

I had this meal without the creamy sauce and the cheese. This portion is my husband’s who got all the sauce and cheese so it looks slightly overwhelmed unless you love cheese like he does. He liked this one a lot. To be honest, the meal tasted really good just with the lactose-free base. I did overcook the gnocchi which was my fault since I normally fried gnocchi instead of boiling it like pasta.

One Pan Greek Chicken with Roasted Vegetables, Feta & Crispy Croutons

This is the actual version of the meal with the feta cheese. Mine was without the feta cheese. This one is actually really easy to make and tastes very good. Its mostly 15 minutes preparation then its popping in the oven. I can’t emphasize how much I love efficient cooking solutions especially when this one not only had really tender chicken and oven baked bread which turned into some delicious croutons.

Pork Burgers with Homemade Sauerkraut, Roasted Red Peppers & Potato Salad

Last meal we cooked was pork burgers. Whenever burgers are a choice, that week probably ends up ordered. I never knew my husband had such a deep love for sauerkraut until he wanted to get this burger. So this box taught me homemade sauerkraut which was fairly easy since these boxes always ask us to pickle one thing or another. No complaints since I have learned that while I don’t digest raw vegetables well, pickles is a different story. It also had a delicious pork patty with some amazing spices along with a potato salad which included making our own dressing. All of the above worked so well together.

Overall, last week’s box was pretty decent. A lot of the bad was my own fault for overcooking. The burger was great. Despite staining my fingers, the singapore noodles were also really good and then the one pan chicken was delish and efficient whole the gnocchi turned fairly well also.

Recap: Goodfood #3

Welcome back to the next Goodfoods recap!

We are trying out this new eating healthier and more balanced thing so Goodfoods is a nice step in that which means also that we’re trying to order twice a month if the menus work to our taste. We aren’t sponsored so we just do these as we see fit. Regardless, Goodfoods has been a great addition to our lives. We’re starting to see what weeks it works best in our routine. Plus, the different recipes make for some delicious culinary adventures.

In this third box, everything came well. The box was less dented than last time but still a little scarred from the journey. I still say that they need to find a better, at least more careful courrier company to take care of these deliveries. So far, nothing damaging has occurred with the food so I’m still okay with it.

We’re all hear to check out the food and here it is!

Vegetarian Paella with Grilled Portobello Mushrooms

Vegetarian Paella

The first meal we did was the vegetarian selection, Vegetarian Paella with Grilled Portobello Mushroom. I love portobello mushrooms and the Spanish spices used for this dish is awesome. I’d have to say that this is my favorite out of this box. It did however (somehow) take longer to make than I expected. I’m still not quite a fan of making rice in a pot. Being Chinese, making rice in the rice cooker is how I’m used to. This was a true collaboration between me and my husband as I had the rice ready and he wrapped up by making the portobello mushrooms to add in. There’s a little bit of heat and there’s a nice balance of rice and veggies. The portobellos had a beautiful texture. I really like this one a ton.

Blackened Haddock with Herbed Rice & All Dressed Corn

Blackened Haddock with Herbed Rice & All-Dressed Corn

Kudos to my husband to taking care of this one. We modified this one and removed the cheese that was supposed to be on the corn. I can’t remember if there was yogurt somewhere else also in the sauce but if there was, my husband took it out also. This one was okay. Nothing really spectacular. It was still very tasty. The seasoned corn was the highlight for myself. The fish was good and the herbed rice was interesting.

Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwiches in Pretzel Buns with Broccoli Salad

Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwich

My husband’s winner in this box was this sandwich. The chicken was really delicious especially with the barbecue sauce. The broccoli was a nice addition. Looking back at the picture, the broccoli was supposed to be added to the sandwich but we left it on the side. I actually even had extra chicken to eat. The pretzel bun is also a lovely touch.

Mazemen Pork Ramen with Grilled Carrots & Yu Choy

Mazemen Ramen with Grilled Carrots and Yu Choy

With the increasing love for ramen, it was inevitable that it would reach one of these boxes as well. Unfortunately, this meal had to be modified as we were so busy that we waited for too long and the pork had expired so we went the vegetarian route here. However, the taste here is really amazing. The veggies they use are great. I like Yu Choy a lot and particularly the multicolor nantes carrots are also something I personally love to use all the time also. They use a Japanese spice blend which is rather unique. It added some heat but never too overpowering.

Overall, this box was a win. The haddock was not a fave but it still turned out well.
We can’t wait for the next subscription box. Coincidentally, the menu in 2 weeks looks fantastic.

Trying Goodfood

As some of you may have noticed, July was an intensely crazy month. It was an entire month of a few days of vacation followed by 3 weeks and a weekend of media coverage. Now, I’m not complaining. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity and I loved every minute of it. However, on stressful weeks like those where its basically maintaining my normal everyday routine, eating becomes an incredibly hard thing to keep up with, mostly because of the cooking part. My husband did a great job trying to keep up but even he has a crazy work schedule and I can’t really let my new stuff put all the load on him. Our other meal subscription plan has really been not having any inspirational choices so after reading about my friend and fellow blogger, Day’s Lee’s post on Goodfood, I decided to give it a go. You can check out Goodfood here.

First impressions right off the site as just being in the process of getting this subscription signed up and going.

• The first subscription offers you a few meals for free so you only pay a fraction of a price. I like that idea. Its a nice way to get the customer in just so they can have a little trial to see if this is for them. Nice move on their part.
• Second thing I like is the customization. Sure, they don’t show the menus in advance for the week before but they offer you six or seven choices and you can change from the initial ones they have picked for ones you like without having to pay more. I like to have choices, especially because I have dietary restrictions and my husband is a somewhat picky eater, so finding meals that work for the both of us can be difficult.
• Next is the customization, you can choose when to have it delivered as in which day of the week works for you and gives you a clear cut-off date to choose your menu and finalize whether you want a delivery or skip the week.

Delivery & Packaging

Delivery was pretty good. We got our box on an unfortunate day where it was having heavy rain. However, they did position it under our shelter so the box itself wasn’t wet however somehow part of the bottom did get it a little wet. What does help is that the box is thick enough that it doesn’t affect the food packaged itself. Minor things.

As for the packaging, this part I love a lot. They have ziploc bags to divide up the portions. The meat is packaged incredibly well. My favorite part is that the chicken is packaged like how you’d get it in the supermarket in a tray. There was just one thing that needed a better job at packaging and it was the fish as that leaked.

Meals

Morroccan Haddock and Stewed Vegetables

Moroccan Haddock and Stewed Vegetables was very delicious. The quinoa was really good mix. The moroccan spices was great and the vegetables was good.

Mole Chicken with Lime Cilantro Rice

Mole Chicken with Lime Cilantro Rice was the more bizarre choice here as this sauce has 70% dark chocolate. We can’t say that we’re a huge fan but the rice does have a distinct taste to match with the meal. The chicken however turned out very tender which is a great thing. You can’t win them all. Every box has an experimental thing usually and this one was ours.

Pork and Shanghai Noodles with Garlic Scapes

Goodfood sent us a newsletter about Garlic Scapes and how they aren’t quite used enough in any recipes and how they included it into this meal of Pork and Shanghai Noodles. I’m personally a huge fan of Shanghai Noodles but never quite knew how to make it. This meal was our fave from the box. The garlic scapes are decent. The pork chop should be cut. However, the photo above was taken before it was cut (sorry!). Delicious altogether.

Meal not photographed: Ground Beef, Potato and Green Pea Keema

Ground Beef, potato and Green Pea Keema came with Naan bread. I had to opt out of the bread myself and used normal bread mostly because I feel like naan bread has some dairy ingredients and I like to be safe. The meal itself is a little heavy on the lemon juice. Probably because of our inexperience and not really knowing how this should taste. It was decent overall. It definitely should be paired with something to absorb the taste.

Overall…

We’re really happy with the first Goodfood experience. We aren’t sponsored or anything so this is completely honest on our part (as we always are). Its been an uphill climb trying to find something that could fit what we wanted and this change and chance we took was a great one. There are minor issues in delivery and packaging that I had me a little cautious however, we did end up ordering a second meal subscription for the week after. This meal’s star menu was the Pork and Shanghai Noodles.

Our next recap for Goodfood will be coming up soon!

Recap: Miss Fresh #10

And we are back with another recap for Miss Fresh! Can you believe its been ten boxes?  Thinking about it. I guess we’re pretty casual meal subscribers, right? Either way, these things do average more than how I’d do groceries but the convenient and hassle-free  feeling sometimes is well worth it. Miss Fresh hasn’t let me down a lot. Only a few disappointing recipes and some issues in the earlier recaps but so far, they’ve been pretty solid.

The recipes lately haven’t quite been to our taste so it was hard to really settle on one. This one seemed to be the answer but it turned out that two of them were just suitable for my husband. That’s okay as well. As long as they are tasty. 🙂

Moving right along!

Polish Sausage Penne with Kale and White Beans

Possibly one of the meals that peaked my interest and was hopefully a win and it definitely was. We’ve never had polish sausage before and they tasted great. Penne was good along with the kale added in along with the white beans for added texture. It tasted very good. I did have a minor issue with the original cook time they gave for the sausages not working out too well but I ended up cooking them through in the pan in the final bit so everything worked out in the end. 🙂

One Pot Chicken Burrito Bowl with Black Beans and Cheddar Cheese

We’re fairly unfamiliar with the whole Mexican scene of foods (or what I suppose a Burrito bowl originated from). The husband had both of these servings  because of the whole  raw foods thing but it was a breeze to put together and the chicken was marinated with mexican spices and that tasted really good. My only comment on this, which my husband confirmed was that there was way too much onions in this recipe.

Crispy Stir Fry Pork, Rice Noodles and Red Cabbage

I’m a little on the fence with this one. On one hand, I do like the taste of the dish except it never got the crispy part for myself. I did end up making two versions. This is the intended version and my version is with cooked red cabbage. I do have to say that I’d marinate the pork like they did here because it tastes pretty good. Not exactly my favorite but it was good enough.

Mini Spinach Quiches with Swiss and Sumac

My husband was the one who had both portions of this one because there is cheese in the egg mixture for the quiche and also cheese as the topping. Quiches are usually a fallback when things are hard to put together in the kitchen. Enough to say that this one was super easy to put together. This one did have an additional step of making spinach in the pan before putting it in the oven with the egg mixture. He did enjoy this a lot. There was a good balance and he liked the spice which I assume is sumac. I’ve never used sumac before and not exactly sure what it tastes like.

Overall, this box was a bit of a gamble but I think we ended up winning since while it was pretty experimental for some dishes, we did try out some new simple recipes and flavors and it all worked out pretty good. My favorite dish personally had to be the Polish Sausage Penne.

What do you think of these meals?

Recap: Miss Fresh #9

As I’ve been talking about recently, its been a busy time so what better week than to order another Miss Fresh box. The last one was just two weeks ago. However, this menu fit what we liked so why not, right?

Let’s get cooking! 🙂

Miss Fresh #9

Shrimp Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Shrimp Rolls with Peanut Sauce

This box was quite the adventure since I found my cooking motivation early in the morning as I scrambled to get this together and prepare for heading out to work. Particularly the first two recipes were made in the early hours however, they did turn out pretty good. The first was this shrimp rolls. I used to my shrimp rolls with my best friend however, she always took point and I just had to put it together so learning how to make this felt great because I’m a huge fan of this plus Miss Fresh’s recipe avocado which is a really nice twist since I don’t eat raw veggies so my husband made them with the cabbage while I had a simple one with vermicelli, shrimps and avocado along with the peanut sauce. The peanut sauce was really awesome and really made this dish delicious.

Asian Tofu Stir-Fry

 The first two meals are very easy to make. In fact, they are delicious as well. I’m a huge fan of stir-fry and its not only because I’m Chinese and grew up with it. The idea of tossing a bunch of stuff together in a wok and it turning into a meal is efficient. Of course, it is never as simple as tossing it together but how to cook what and when. We don’t get a lot of tofu and my husband’s not a huge fan of mushroom although he does tolerate shitake mushrooms. This dish made the house smell so nice and it is incredibly easy to do. Maybe one of my faves Miss Fresh recipe.

Shepherd’s Pie with Cauliflower Topping

Shepherd’s Pie

My husband loves Shepherd’s Pie. I just never make it because its a bit of a hassle. I hate meals where I need to cook and then bake. As you see, I’m all about efficiency. Shepherd’s Pie also has that mashed potato aspect which only is good with a decent amount of milk or butter. While I digest butter, I know my husband prefers milk and then there’s the whole corn issue. My health is ridiculous, I know. The price for not taking better care when I was studying in university. Now I’m getting preachy, so I’ll stop and get back on track. However, this one does a nice twist with a mix of mashed potatoes and cauliflowers. I do like the texture of it even though it only uses butter. The minced meat is seasoned well and its all very tasty. Definitely one worth giving a go a second time.

Pork Tenderloin with Apples, Brussel Sprouts and Rice

After the searing part…

Pork Tenderloin with Apples & Brussel Sprouts

The pork tenderloin is pretty easy to put together and it does taste good with just coating with coriander and a spices blend (cinnamon and something else). The searing part after 10 minutes each side gets about that look up in the top picture. Sorry for the blur. However, we’re not much for seared foods so I decided to cook it through instead in making the veggies portion. It turned out for the better and I really liked this one a lot as well. The apples add a little acidity to it that works well with the dish. I’m not huge on the apple cider vinegar part. I’ve tried it out a few times in some other Miss Fresh recipes and it adds a weird taste to it that takes time to like. Overall though, this one is good. I’d redo it but maybe change out the apples or maybe use something else than vinegar.

Overall…

Miss Fresh doesn’t fail us. I’d venture to say that this is one of the better boxes because all the meals were winners even if I would have tweaked it to match our tastes a little better. Shrimp Rolls definitely take the win for this one. That peanut sauce is to die for and the rolls are good even in its simplest form. I’m actually craving it as I write this up (not only because it is during my lunch break).

Unboxing + Recap: Miss Fresh Subscription #2

I know we’re a little behind on this. I got this box for the last week of July and it was well suitable because it was right before the crazy Fantasia schedule went crazy and I wasn’t home much. I thought it would be a good idea to get one of these boxes and at least make sure that things would be under control the week before. And it definitely was. Surprisingly, unlike last time, I made half of these recipes and it all turned out relatively well…except for one (which was not exactly under my supervision). But we have learned from our mistakes. You will see.

This is kind of an unboxing but its also a recap of the recipes and how they turned out. Maybe along with some impressions. This is a long term thing we’re planning to keep as a once a month little something for ourselves. It keeps things fresh and gives us new ideas. We’re really enjoying the experience as a whole.

Miss Fresh #2

Opening the Box

Everything unloaded

Recipes

This week’s menu had:

Fish (Turbot) with Pancetta and Sage

The fish is Turbot which I’ve never cooked before. It was served with fennel and white rice (not in the picture).  The fennel made my house smell like licorice for the next 24 hours but that is nothing to complain about. The best part about this meal and recipe other than it tasting really good was that it was perfectly made so that it was easy dividing into two portions. One filet each and the fennel was already chopped so just half on each plate.

Sausage and Vegetable Stuffed Mushrooms

A heaping mess is what I’d call this BUT appearances aside, it tasted great. This recipe is served with radicchio salad and well, we ended up cooking that separately with balsamic vinegar and it turned out decent as well. So this is where I started thinking that we should have videos to teach us how to make these recipes because somewhere along the way, I did something wrong. My guess is the mushrooms. Fact is, some recipes do have video instructions but this one didn’t. However, it probably is my inexperience with stuffing anything that caused the issues.

Rosemary Chicken Skewers

Add on more zucchini! Starting at the end of July till now, we’ve been harvesting zucchini like crazy so this was just another meal to add onto the immense amounts of zucchini I’ve been eating. But I love this veggie the most so its all good! This was another great recipe. We had to modify it a little, I believe, because I don’t do well with spicy foods. However, the spices used and just the balance of this dish was really great. I loved it. This meal is served with grilled zucchini and green salad.

Black Bean and Zucchini Cheeseburger

And finally…our fail. We never make veggie burgers before so this is a completely new concept. We did learn that we needed to remove the water better before adding in the egg that held together the patty. However, we did end up eating this with veggies and whatnot and it tasted pretty good.

A few thoughts after this box 

I’m not sponsored or anything so I guess as a consumer, I get to have some thoughts about this. This box and the one before gave me some little things that came to my mind as I was cooking.

• Leafy vegetables: We had Boston lettuce for the veggie burger but salads are almost always green salad consisting of arugula. One thing is freshness. Our Boston lettuce either wasn’t fresh enough or it was frostbitten from the cryo ice packs. That is fine. I can understand it. However, it would be nice to not see arugula as the green salad. On a personal level, I have to cook it and it tastes like bitter leaves. Even my husband is hesitant to eat it. You know, once in a while is fine but we get this once a month and we land right on the arugula salad. Minor criticisms. We still ate it just not exactly sure if there is more variety of veggies presented eventually. We can always modify as we see fit.
• Recommended cooking order for the meals: When we get the boxes, we get a little instruction card that tells us how long each item should be good for. An example would be meat is good for 1 to 2 days. Deal is we had to use the guidelines to figure out which is the best order to make sure none of it went bad. We used our better judgement but it would be a nice guideline to recommend which should be done in what order. Like this time, the majority was fish and minced meat and chicken and all these things have rather short shelf lives in the fridge before going bad so we had to cook it and put it aside to eat later since cooked food lasts three to four days.

I’d add in instructional videos for all the recipes but I think most of the recipes are rather straight-forward. It doesn’t mean that I am disappointed with any of the meals. I just think these are ways to improve on a pretty great service to improve efficiency for its users. Another thing would be to have allergen-free options. I believe I mentioned this in the previous unboxing so I won’t go further into that. As someone with allergens, I just find that a constant frustration.

Overall, some really decent meals in this Miss Fresh box. We’ll be getting another one soon and it will be much more timely with the overview of it.