I was awarded a Klout Perk which provided me with a free
monthly membership to Plated as well as four plates for the month. I admit I was pretty stoked to receive the
perk because with my weight loss journey I’ve learned that I truly do love to
cook. Plus, with Plated, it would
provide me with “out of the box” foods that perhaps, I would not consider to
make for myself at home.
In case you are not aware, Plated (see website here: https://www.plated.com/)is
a new subscription service in which you pay $10-12/per plate as well as a flat
membership fee. A menu is presented to
you for the week and you get to choose the plates of your choice (minimum order
of 2-plates per menu item). Typically
the dishes contain either a poultry, beef or a fish. Currently vegetarian options are not
available but the website does plan to launch those in the near future. The idea is to be able to cook yourself a
gourmet meal within 30 minutes with the stress of meal planning and grocery
shopping being lifted off your shoulders.
All items are delivered to your home address the day after the items are
shipped (typically menu’s are listed on the website for a week and once that
menu has “closed” the shipments ship out by the promised date). All ingredients are provided within the box,
along with the recipe card for easy preparation. Typically there is one item which is a
“pantry” item (typically it’s olive oil) which is the only item you’d need to
reach for within your pantry because everything else will be provided to you.
Also, every week a member is subscribed Plated donates a pound of food to a
local food bank.
For those who follow Weight Watchers, I found it was quite
simple to find out the points plus values for the dishes. I used the Recipe Builder on the Weight
Watchers website. Since the recipe cards
were provided to me, I put everything in. Since I know I typically only eat certain
amounts of food (like 1 cup of starch, 3-4 ounces of meat) I adjusted my grains
and proteins around that on my tracker.
If you would like to sign up for Plated, please feel free to
use my referral link: https://www.plated.com/invites/620cba.
Also, if you would like to try a FREE 1-month & 4-plate Plated box
during the month of June, please sign up using the following code: junefreegift.
With my membership I decided to try two different dishes – a
chicken and a beef. I ordered 2 plates each
of Chicken Tacos with Mango Salsa and
Spice Rubbed Steak with Baby Carrots and
Israeli Couscous.
My box arrived and unpacked it all to put the items away. One of my barbecue sauces was exploded, but it
wasn’t a big deal. I put the majority of
the items away and aside. I was more
excited about the Chicken Tacos
so I opted to make those the first night. My boyfriend cleaned the chicken (because raw
chicken grosses me out!) and I then marinated it in the barbecue sauce. The preparation for the mango salsa was quite
simple – just some dicing and chopping. The mango was perfect, just the way I like it –
at the stage where it’s ripe enough to eat and sweet. I decided to use ¼ of the jalapeno because I’ve
learned using too much jalapeno can make dishes unappetizing. The salsa came together and was delicious.
I cooked my chicken in a grill pan until it was perfectly
done. I then went to cut up my avocado and quickly learned it was not ripe. I could barely get the seed out of it and I
couldn’t scoop the avocado out of the skin. It was like rubber. I’m not the biggest fan of avocado (I occasionally
like guacamole but that’s about it), so it wasn’t a huge loss. I just dropped it into the garbage pail.
We heated through the taco shells on an open flame,
assembled and dove on in. I have to be
honest … I was not a fan of the chicken tacos at all. I’m a flavor lover and these were just plain
jane to me. I couldn’t eat my second taco because I was not enjoying it. It would have been better if there was some
sort of sauce to put on it. The mango
salsa was good but it needed another level of flavor. My boyfriend even thought it needed an added
boost of flavor. It was not worth the 7
points plus values this calculated out to be (for 2 tacos, not 3).
The next day it was Spice
Rubbed Steak with Baby Carrots and Israeli Couscous on the menu. The preparation for this meal was so
simple. I’ve never made couscous before
so I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, or if I was going to like it. I seasoned my steak in the spice rub and let
it sit out for 10 minutes while I peeled and sliced my baby carrots, tossed
them in the honey, butter and cumin mixture and set them into the oven to
roast. I added 2 cups of water to a sauce pan, brought it on to boil, added my
couscous and let it simmer for the recommended amount of time. I then brought out my grill pan, put my steak
onto it and let it cook.
One thing about me is I do NOT like meat that’s red in the
middle. I can eat a medium-well
hamburger and steak tips (occasionally) but for the most part I don’t want my
beef to moo at me. Once my steak was
done, I set it onto a cutting board to rest for 5-minutes and then sliced it. It was SO red inside I had to put it all back
into the grill pan to cook on each side for an additional minute or two.
When the couscous was done, I opted to skip on adding the
olive oil, so I seasoned it with a bit of salt and pepper and a couple spritz
of spray butter. I tried it and I have
to say, it was AMAZING! So amazing, I am
going to buy some couscous to have on hand as an option when we don’t want rice
or potato.
This meal was quite delicious and only 13 pointsplus values! The steak was spicy, but with the sides it
really brought everything together. My
attempt to bring the heat down was to add steak sauce on top of the meat – but it
was a fail because the spice had penetrated the beef and my taste buds were
screaming Dixie. If I knew the spice rub was as spicy as it
was, I would have used far less to marinate my meat. But we live and we learn – nonetheless the
steak was undoubtedly 2 thumbs up!
I enjoyed the Plated membership and I think it would be
perfect for the individual who doesn’t enjoy grocery shopping OR the individual
who just wants to try something different. I will admit, some of the recipe items are hit
or miss (depending on your taste) but there are 2 dishes this week that I
really would love to try. If you do
decide to give this subscription service a try – HAPPY PLATING!
QUESTION:
Have you ever tried Plated or would you like to?
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