Goodfood Recap #38

Welcome to the next Goodfood recap! Its been about a month since the last box. This time is mostly all new recipes, except for one but I think that one had changes but can’t be too certain.

Honey-Glazed Salmon
with Roasted Pepper & Corn Salad

Easy to make and very delicious. The husband loved this meal a ton as did I. There’s a freshness to it especially with the spinach mixed into the rice and then having other parts of it cooked separately and put together in the end. Its always a nice little addition when the rice is spiced up with whatever ingredients. Plus, we love salmon but don’t usually eat it a lot since its still a bit pricey. To be fair, I have a hunch its only supposed to be one fillet usually but we got doubles for two of our recipes. If thats a case, a happy accident for us and a huge thanks to Goodfood for giving us more food. If not, the portion was extended a little for us which is always nice. 😉

Fresh Shanghai Noodles
with Peanut Sauce, Yu Choy & Cucumber Ribbons

I’m always attracted to making the more Asian style meals. Its mostly because I understand the flavors but not usually sure how to execute it myself. While my mom has great cooking skills, she hasn’t been very articulate on how to replicate it. Its why a lot of Chinese cookbooks don’t really work. However, we have had the Shanghai noodles before. however, it feels like this one changed a little as well. I can’t be certain if its actually different but it feels a tad different but its still really good. I like the thick noodles used in Shanghai noodles as well as the peanut sauce mixture. The cucumber ribbons were the part that took the longest to do.

Korean-Style Fried Chicken Thighs
with Kimchi-Cucumber Salad & Sticky Rice

Our spicy meal of the box! Korean-style Chicken Thighs are pretty awesome actually. I’m not sure the husband agrees since he only said that its good. However, I thought it was pretty nice. I did however tone down the sauce because in the recipe it specified to only use half of it for medium spicy and I followed that and it turned out to be at the borderline of where I found it acceptable. The rice adds in the spice blend as well and boy, did that work out great. Plus, I love Sticky rice and this time was probably the time that it turned out in texture as I like my sticky rice. Everything else was pretty good here. The sauce was a bit of a hectic job since its a bigger pan (should have used a saucer) and the oil was just hopping everywhere. Either way, at least the hard work reaped this really delicious outcome.

Crispy Pork Cutlets
with Homemade Ranch Dressing & Salt & Vinegar Potatoes

I can’t say that Goodfood has given out some spectacular pork chops/cutlets recipes yet. They never are my first place This one was okay. The salad was alright and the salt and vinegar potatoes were pretty decent. The pork cutlets were decent as well but nothing that will make me want to do this recipe again. However, my search for more pork chop recipes are in the horizon. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still good. I’m just not a huge fan of panko crusted anything so its more of a personal preference.

That’s it for this Goodfood Recap!
Have you been trying out any new recipes? Do you order meal subscription boxes like Goodfood?

Goodfood Recap 32

Its been a month since our last box and we’re back to recap on last week’s meals. We have gotten in a relatively good routine without the Goodfood box weeks so having the boxes is a welcome change in pace to just have something already set during the week. Not to mention, this week was completely new recipes and a lot of of the recipes were meals that we’ve never had before so it was a fresh new experience.

Sheet Pan Chicken
with Maple-Cranberry Sauce, Roasted Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts & Green Beans

Just like bowl meals, one pan meals are the best. They are efficient and delicious. With that said, this one was exactly that. And also the reason why I chose it for the first meal in the box to prepare to get back into the goodfood prep routine. After all, its the prep time that takes me longer than the actual cooking process. This one turned out really good. I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of the maple-cranberry sauce but the whole sheet pan experience with the potatoes and brussel sprouts and green beans worked really well together with the spices and the chicken.

Pork Chops
with Mustard-Citrus Vinaigrette & Radicchio-Orange Salad with Farro

The husband was a big fan of this one. His words, if I remember correctly, is liking the way the flavorful hot food is mixed with the cool salad having this contrast that works really well together. I’m glad he did because he had it fresh. I ended up reheating mine the next day so my veggies were all warm. The only issue with recipes like this being reheated is the citrus (aka the orange) turns super bitter and it ruins the meal a little whenever its near where the orange is. However, the pork had lovely delicious seasoning and the radicchio and the vinaigrette was really good. The vinaigrette to myself was a pleasant surprise. I was a bit skeptical when I was making it so I’m glad it turned out better than I expected.

Mee Goreng
with Fresh Shanghai Noodles, Crunchy Vegetables & Spiced Peanuts 

I’m not sure what Mee Goreng is. I don’t think I’ve had it before. However, this one just like many noodle things are quite easy to do. The only deal with why this one was hard was that it wasn’t my night and I cut my finger and then scraped my hand on the knife within 10 minutes so I tried to work with one finger less on one hand while trying to not cut myself again until the husband came to the rescue after he was done his stuff. So thanks to my husband, this meal made it here. I like shanghai noodles so this was obviously my choice. My husband is not so much into thick noodles so he thought it was okay. I thought the meal came together well plus making Asian meals always have the perk of doing a one pan sort of cooking style and that always is welcome. Delicious and efficient!

Sumac-Spiced Pork Strips Winter Fattoush Salad
with Crispy Chickpeas and Pita

I’ve avoided Fattoush Salad for a while, mostly because I wasn’t sure what it was. I think it has to do with chickpeas since this one had chickpeas and I remember other recipes have it also. If you know what it is, do correct me. This one was really good. However, since we did have a recall on lettuce the past few weeks, we decided to cook the lettuce and all the veggies just to be on the safe side. However, I’m not sure it made such a big difference because this one still turned out pretty good. They have the bite from the chickpeas and then the pita. The veggies had a lot of crunch and the pork strips were seasoned really well.

Overall, I can’t say anything meal last week that I loved.
But, they all had their pros more than cons and worked out to be pretty flavorful and tasted good.

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!