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The second meal we made was one I chose myself from the GoodFood website prior to ordering. I thought it was a healthy, family-friendly option and was praying my picky men would enjoy this one.
Before I delve into that part of it, let me first describe how it came.
Rather than a brown paper bag, all the ingredients came in a plastic, ziplock bag. Besides the environment thing, I actually liked that the bag was see-through - I was able to see the ingredients in all their glory every time I opened the fridge. Although each meal was individually bagged, there were a lot more "loose" ingredients than the last meal, which I quite liked - no sense in adding waste if you don't need to. Also, the hummus came in an adorable little container I will definitely wash and re-use!
This is what the card looks like, and this is what we were making: Pork Souvlaki Pitas. The one thing I noticed immediately was that it had "cooking time" only as opposed to prep time and cook time, which I don't love. When it comes to slicing and dicing, I feel it's important to know how long all that should take in addition to the actual cooking time.
So we set to cooking! And when I say "we" I mean me and my son. One of the things I noticed about this whole process is that since he knows I have never tried the recipes either - we're doing this taste test thing as a family and so he is more likely to taste test it himself. He is also super into cooking right now, so I got him to help me. I will admit, this probably did add a few additional minutes to the prep and cooking but he's pretty good at listening so it wouldn't have added too much time.
So we set to cooking! I chopped while he zested and we followed the directions completely.
One thing I found with this prep as opposed to HelloFood was that we required a lot of small bowls and dishes. The directions called for chopping everything up before we even began cooking. It would have gone a lot quicker if we had started with cooking the meat (which took a fair bit of time) and then chopped and zested.
But since I'm no expert, I listened to what GoodFood told me. But here's the thing - one things I still don't love about all of these companies - although they send you the ingredients and the recipes, you still have to cook them. Which isn't a terrible thing....if you're a decent cook. I don't cook pork often so I wasn't sure how long I should cook them for or what, so they ended up a little rubbery. I'm not sure if that was what they were supposed to be like or not, but it wasn't great.
Although my son really did love helping me. Whenever we cook, he always asks me to find a cooking show on TV and then tells me he wants to be a chef when he grows up. Any other time, he wants to be a hockey player, but when we're cooking he's in chef mode!
At the end of it all (roughly an hour and 20 minutes in total) it wasn't great. My son had about 2 bites and I had maybe 4 before I realized there was no way I was going to be able to eat it all. We had planned on going to the Halloween store after our meal, so we ditched the dishes and went to the mall. After the Halloween store, we went to grab a bite at the cafeteria. This one was definitely a fail.
MY VERDICT:
Meal Selection: 0/2
This one was tricky for us. There are four categories: Classic Meals, Family-Friendly, Vegetarian and Easy Prep Meals.
Because I had a code for some free meals (3 meals if I ordered from the Classic Meals and 2 if I ordered from the Family Friendly meals) I was a little limited in what I could order. The Classic Menu has stuff like Lemongrass Beef with Shitake mushrooms, Beef Meatballs and Fennel Stew. But the family meals seemed a little less...."fancy." So I had ordered two meals from there - The Souvlaki and Chicken Paprikash with Mushrooms & Peppers.
That said, when I went to cancel our subscriptions, I noticed all the meals were a little bit more appealing my family. From Whisky-Rubbed Pork Chops with Scalloped Potatoes to Spice-Rubbed Porterhouse Steak with Parmesan Baby Potatoes to BBQ Pork Ribs with Garlic Green Beans. So I guess it really depends, from week to week. Which is unfortunate when this is the only company you order from on a regular basis.
Family Friendly: 0/2 Although I won't make a habit of doing this, I will simply reiterate what I said above. If you're planning on using this as your weekly meal delivery and relying on it to feed your family, it would be nice if there were similar meals every week to choose from - going one week where everything is exotic to the next where everything is "North American" it would be nice to have a bit of everything every week for those who do not have the taste for "exotic" foods like my picky eaters.
Quality of Ingredients: 2/2
The quality of the ingredients were great! Everything looked and smelled fresh, everything was ripe - I have no complaints here!
Packaging: 1/2 Again, some of the ingredients were packaged in plastic bags, and the entire meal came in a plastic bag, which isn't great for the environment. But being packaged in a plastic bag is good for keeping the food fresh, and it was a good little bag to have to put all the food scraps while cooking.
Taste: 0/2
I won't say much here except for - gross. We couldn't even finish it and went for New York Fries instead.
Nutrition: 2/2
Since this was souvlaki pita with salad, I would say the nutrition value here was good. They didn't ask for too much salt or oil, and everything else (including spices) were minimal.
Pricing: 0/2:
GoodFood is the most expensive out of the four companies I am trying. Here is a breakdown of their prices:
Classic Meals: You have the option here for 2, 3 or 4 recipes at 2 or servings for each recipe. For us, we would order 3 recipes at 2 servings and (without the code) would have cost us $66 for the week. That's $10.83 per serving (keep in mind, however, that the Classic Menu only sometimes has family-friendly meals. That said, you can change, from week to week, which menu you want to order from - but you cannot order from multiple.
Family-Friendly: You have the option here for 2, 3 or 4 recipes at 2 or servings for each recipe. For us, we would order 3 recipes at 2 servings and (without the code) would have cost us $115 for the week. That's $9.58 per serving.
Vegetarian: There is actual "meal kit" for vegetarian, you simply have to choose one of the menus you like most and sift through all the recipes to find the vegetarian ones.
Easy Prep Meals: You have the option here for 2, 3 or 4 recipes but you can only order 4 servings per meal - no more, no less. Four serving for our family is too much, but this menu does have more family-friendly meals - which is unfortunate. So if we wanted to order 3 meals at 4 servings, For us, we would order 3 recipes at 2 servings and (without the code) would have cost us $75 for the week. That's $12.50 per serving.
Overall thoughts - Well....I don't even know where to begin. The packaging was nice, the ingredients were nice and ripe, but the meal was horrible and the pricing isn't great either unless I'm willing to take my chances on the Classic Kit. So all in all.....I will wait to try the next meal before I say anything else.
TOTAL SCORE: 5/12
TOMORROW NIGHT: Chicken Paprikash with Mushrooms and Peppers #Goodfood!
Missing something? Check the first article in this series: The Meal Delivery Challenge! Which One Is Superior!?
Had an experience yourself with GoodFood? Comment below with your opinion and experience!
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