I’ve seen a few of these companies going around – you know, the kind that send you out all of the ingredients to whip up a delicious restaurant quality meal. I thought that it sounded pretty good and it appealed to me as a way of being able to meal plan – so when Marley Spoon approached me and asked if I would be interested in trying out their service, I said YES PLEASE! Please note that although I was provided these dinner options for free, Marley Spoon has not paid me to write this review and all opinions are my own. 

Marley Spoon had me at their tagline – ‘Weeknight cooking simplified. Market fresh ingredients and delicious recipes delivered to your front door’. Who doesn’t want their weeknight cooking simplified? I mean, so many people are talking to me about meal planning and letting me know that they are having difficulties with it – this basically is the simplest meal planning around. And I really think I would love this service when I had a newborn. This would take the stress out of thinking what you were going to prepare for dinner and getting out to do the groceries – the cooking part doesn’t bother me… the recipes were really well laid out and cooking relaxes me.

Now, what I loved about this service was that I was able to head online and choose exactly what they were going to send me. And then rather then me having to pack everyone up and take a trip to the shops and then the local farmers market and then maybe to a speciality store…I just slept and like magic, everything appeared on my doorstep on the morning that I had selected. It was beautifully packaged and everything thoughtfully designed to keep everything at its freshest.

Night One, I whipped up Soft Shell Crab and Green Papaya Salad. The recipe card stated that ‘this date night dinner is guaranteed to impress, with its fresh green papaya salad with classic Thai dressing, sweet prawns and the crowning glory of golden, crunchy soft-shell crab.’ My mouth was salivating already when I took out all of the ingredients and read over the awesome instruction card {so that I could work out if this meal could be prepared in naptime and then finished off quickly before the witching hours took hold – it could indeed}.

Now, I was a little worried when it stated at the bottom of the recipe card ‘you’ll need about 500mls – 750mls of oil to fry the chicken’. Ummm – what chicken? But this would have to be the only {and extremely minor} hiccup that I had on my Marley Spoon journey – and really what is a typo amongst friends?.

The Soft Shell Crab and Green Papaya Salad was extremely tasty and easily feed two adults and two children {from the 2 adults serving}. I had blanched some rice noodles to add to the dinner if the children had given it the thumbs down, but they happy munched away on the green papaya salad with beautifully fresh prawns, tomatoes, beans and herbs. My two year old even gave the soft shell crab ago – although, I’m not sure that offering it to him was a good idea as I think he enjoyed it a little too much for my liking – Mummy should have held onto this special treat for herself.

Night Two, I prepared the Fish burger with pea tartare sauce. I think that this meal would have had to have been the standout meal for the children, I mean what little kid isn’t interested in fish and chips. And the fresh peas – well they certainly did go down a treat with my one year old. In fact, fresh peas have been a regular staple in our household of late. I pull them out whilst I am finishing off the dinner – they are delicious, nutritious and provide an excellent game of hand eye coordination!

In terms of proportion size – this meal for two adults was really a meal for two adults {my children love fish and could easily eat a whole piece of grilled fish each – I was unable to re-proportion the fish}. I ducked down to my local fish monger at the Friday Eat Local Markets and picked up some delicious, seasonal, line-caught fish for the kids to go with this dinner and I also chopped up a few extra potatoes to fry. I don’t normally fry potatoes – so this was a special treat.

 

Night Three, I delighted the family with Korean BBQ pork with sesame rice. The meal card stated ‘can’t face another boring stir-fry? Spice things up by marinating pork steaks in Korean BBQ flavours, then use the rest of the paste to make a sauce to drizzle over lettuce cups filled with pork, sesame rice, spring onion and carrot for crunch – it’s a wrap’.

I added a little extra rice to the pot and this meal easily served two adults and two children from the 2 adult serve. Eating with out hands was lots of fun… who am I kidding, the boys normally end up eating most meals with their hands anyway. We often eat Korean food, so my children didn’t find the pork too spicy – but the Korean BBQ paste {made from Korean chilli paste and Korean miso paste} sure did have a little kick to it.

If you’re not confident in the kitchen, this service also offers a cooking hotline {9699 8045} Mon-Fri 9am-5pm – which I thought was pretty nice. It’s not going to help you out if you’re calling whilst cooking at 6pm. But it’s all about being organised and reading the recipe card early enough to know what you need to do before you need to do it.

 

I loved this service and will definitely be looking in to it when I have busy weeks and need some meal inspiration. I received the 2 person box which contained three meals. This would have cost $69.90 and means that each meal works out at $11.65 which I thought was pretty good considering I got some pretty amazing ingredients. They also provide a family box which caters for four to five people. This box is $114.00 and works out to be $9.50 a meal. You can choose to have a delivery of 2, 3 or 4 meals a week. I would highly recommend you checking out the Marley Spoon website.

Do you meal plan? Have you tried out Marley Spoon or another meal planning service? Would you be open to trying new meals and new ingredients throughout the year? Let me know if you try out Marley Spoon and what your experience was with them.