I’ve been furiously trying to get caught up with my regular (super boring) job and my manuscript editing (my way cooler job), and have finally found minute to talk to you all. I thought we’d have another Foodie Friday with one of my Marley Spoon reviews. 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.
Pork Dan Dan Noodles with Mustard Greens
Download the recipe here.
I adore noodle dishes so I figured I’d give this one a chance.
Our Fresh Ingredients…
This is the fanciest ramen I’ve ever seen. I wish I could find this in my grocery store instead of the hard blocks with seasoning packages.
Our meal prep starts with some chopping and setting a large pot of water to boil.
We mix the pork, five spice seasoning and salt in one bowl and combine the tamari and mirin in another.
We saute the mustard greens and then cook the pork in the same skillet until it’s brown and crispy.
Next we make the pork sauce by adding ginger and garlic to the skillet and then stirring in our tamari and mirin mixture, plus tahini and ¾ cup water.
We add the ramen noodles to the boiling water. They only take a couple minutes to cook.
We pile our greens and pork over our noodles and voila:
Taste: Love!
I was concerned that this recipe would have too many flavors, but they came together beautifully and it was delicious. It was light, flavorful and healthy. It also had easy prep, used minimal dishes and came together very quickly. This is a perfect weeknight recipe. To lighten it up even more, I’d swap out the ground pork for ground turkey. I think it would work just as well with the other ingredients. The only downside to this one was I thought they could have included a few more greens.
Portion Size: Good, but we could have had a few more greens.
Good for Entertaining?: Not really my style choice for entertaining, but great for a healthy easy meal.
Broiled Steak House Salad with Shallots, Blue Cheese & Spinach
Download the recipe here.
I’m a sucker for the quality of steak from Marley Spoon so I gave this one a try.
More fresh ingredients:
We prep our vegetables and then mix the beef, tamari, crushed red pepper, garlic, shallots and 1 tablespoon of oil in a bowl.
The beef and shallot mixture gets poured onto a rimmed baking sheet and broiled.
BEFORE:
Now here’s where it gets dicey. If you’ve read a lot of these Marley Spoon reviews, then you know my ancient oven has a broiler that does not accommodate regular size sheet pans. It also doesn’t allow you to adjust the placement of the rack in relation to the heat source. Therefore, I had to “broil” this in my regular oven.
AFTER:
It obviously keeps me from getting that lovely caramelized broil, but it still cooked the dish adequately.
We transfer the cooked food from the baking dish and then add red wine vinegar to the sheet pan and scrape up any browned bits. The vinegar mixture gets transferred to a bowl and mixed with oil, salt and pepper to create our dressing.
We build our salad, starting with spinach, half the vinaigrette, beef and shallots, the remaining vinaigrette and then top with crumbled blue cheese, salt and pepper.
Our completed dish:
Taste: Love!
Even without being able to use my broiler, it still came out delicious. I’d also never thought to make dressing using the leftover meat and vegetable juices. I’m definitely going to use that trick in the future. The meat for this recipe already came in strips and it was a super quick and easy recipe. Minimal prep and only a few kitchen tools–exactly what I’m looking for in a weeknight recipe. This is also a low carb dish, which is always nice to have in your rotation.
Portion Size: Excellent
Good for Entertaining?: Yes. This would be an easy main dish to put together. Just prep the beef in advance and toss it in the oven right before meal time. The salad can come together in minutes. To go with the steakhouse salad, I’d do baked potato soup with lots of toppings and some fresh bread. Drinks would feature a plum sangria. For an appetizer, I’d serve goat cheese stuffed mushrooms and dessert would be a caramel apple pie.
OVERALL
Verdict: Love!
Both recipes this week were delicious and easy to make. For once, I felt like all the recipes in my Marley Spoon box were suited for weekday meals, plus the steak salad had easy to find ingredients so you could recreate that at home without too much effort. This week was definitely a win!
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.
Monthly Cost:
Varies by number of servings and number of meals.
Check here for the configuration of your choice
COUPON CODE: COOKSMART
Lisa Preziosi 