Time to head back into the kitchen with Marley Spoon. If you’d like to try out this weekly meal subscription service for yourself, use the coupon code COOKSMART for $30 off.
My meal plan is for a weekly delivery of 2 meals (2 portions each), which costs $48.
Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with Ciabatta Croutons
Download the recipe here.
Caesar Salad is a pretty straightforward dish and it seemed like something easy to make for a weeknight.
Our Fresh Ingredients…
Except we are missing a bunch of them. I didn’t have nearly any of the the ingredients for the dressing. I was missing the Grana Padano, sherry vinegar and Dijon mustard. I subbed out from my own pantry and used white wine vinegar, my own Dijon mustard (which is sadly never as good as the Marley Spoon kind) and some grated parmesan.
We make some croutons, and marinate the chicken.
Next comes the dressing made from what I could scrounge from my cupboards.
Then we prep some lettuce, grill some chicken and build our salads.
Our half Marley Spoon/half Lisa’s Pantry salad:
Taste: Good
The taste on this was good and it was an easy healthy weeknight meal, even if it wasn’t too exciting or special. I’m sure it would have been better with the fancy pants Marley Spoon ingredients, but you gotta work with what you have. I contacted Marley Spoon about the issue and they gave me credit toward a future order. Unfortunately, when the box is missing key ingredients it takes away from the recipe, even if it tastes really good.
Portion Size: Excellent
Good for Entertaining?: Nope. A bit too ordinary.
Pasta Carbonara with Prosciutto, Leeks & Lemon
Download the recipe here.
This recipe was from “Martha Stewart’s Vegetables” cookbook and sounded amazing, so I opted to give it a try.
More fresh ingredients:
This time everything is included so we’re already ahead of the game!
We prep our ingredients and boil some water.
We need to broil some broccoli which is always a bit worrisome in my ancient oven. I just pop it in and hope for the best.
We cook the prosciutto in some oil and transfer it to a slotted spoon. We add leeks,salt and pepper.
We finish the pasta by making a sauce with egg, lemon zest, Parmesan, reserved pasta water and lemon juice. We mix it up with the pasta, prosciutto and leeks and toss until creamy.
We stir in some parsley as a finishing touch, season with salt and pepper and serve our broccolini on the side. It gets garnished with our remaining Parmesan cheese.
Our completed dish:
Taste: Love!
This was very delicious. Even with the prosciutto it was light with a subtle creaminess. All the ingredients blended well together and it was an easy dish to put together. I don’t think the broccolini was even necessary for this. I think the pasta was fine on its own. The ingredients in this recipe are easy to find out in the real world and this is definitely a Marley Spoon recipe I want to make again.
Portion Size: Enormous (we had leftovers!)
Good for Entertaining?: Yes. I’d omit the broccolini side and instead, serve this with some lemon chicken and sautéed wild mushrooms. For an appetizer, I’d go with a fancy cheese board like this one from Half Baked Harvest. Drinks would include lemonade and white wine, and dessert would feature a cheesecake tart topped with berries.
OVERALL
Verdict: Good recipes, but points taken for missing ingredients
Both recipes this week were tasty and the carbonara will definitely make an appearance in my kitchen again. The only reason this one wasn’t a “Love” was because of the missing ingredients. And it wasn’t just one item missing, but nearly everything for an important component of the dish. Putting that aside, I loved that both of these recipes were relatively straightforward and didn’t require tons and tons of dishes and prep. I’m hoping for more recipes like these, but you know, with all the ingredients.
Have you tried any food subscriptions?
If so did they ever leave out any important ingredients?
THE BACKSTORY
Marley Spoon creates delicious, easy to follow recipes.
They deliver fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and you select your recipes from their changing weekly menu.
They are dedicated to sourcing organic and sustainable whenever possible. Building relationships with environmentally aware farms and producers ensures that the highest quality ingredients arrive at your door each week.
Using trusted delivery partners, your Marley Spoon boxes come insulated and chilled, staying cool for 30 hours! After delivery, all the ingredients are guaranteed to stay fresh for up to 4 days – allowing you to decide when to cook.
Marley’s Spoon donates any leftover ingredients to City Harvest. City Harvest exists to end hunger in communities throughout New York City through food rescue and distribution, education, and other practical, innovative solutions.
Each week you’ll automatically receive great dishes, but as a flexible subscription, you can skip a week or pause your subscription anytime. You can also change delivery frequency, recipes, and the number of portions you’d like to receive.
Marley’ Spoon delivers to the mid Atlantic and New England regions: most of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Washington D.C.
Monthly Cost:
Varies by number of servings and number of meals.
Check here for the configuration of your choice
COUPON CODE: COOKSMART
Lisa Preziosi 