It’s All About That Cheese, 'Bout That Cheese (Plated Review)

Being buried under 5 feet of snow and having to stay inside for hours/days on end makes me crave ALL THE THINGS. And gain like 20 lbs.  Because I want to keep cooking and baking. This was my little creation for lunch on Sunday, the 15th. 

Essentially a huevos rancheros on tostadas. I cooked black beans in a pan with garlic and onion and then added some chicken stock. I partially mashed them and added chile, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and Epazote and let them simmer for a few minutes. What is Epazote you say? It is essentially Mexican Oregano . 

PS – I buy my spices through this site or through World Spice Merchants (https://www.worldspice.com/). 

I toasted 4 corn tortillas at 425 for about 10 minutes or so until crispy. Assembly began with the tostadas, adding on the beans, salsa (jarred, sorry I’m not sorry), Greek yogurt (I use this instead of sour cream), avocado, and hot sauce. Complete with a Moscow Mule obviously.

Anyways.

Have you guys heard of Blue Apron and/or Plated? I’ve utilized both but tonight I am going to talk about Plated. A couple of weeks ago, I found a coupon deal for Plated to get 4 free plates with a purchase of 2 (or something like that) so I decided to try it out.  For Plated, you can pick from a set menu of meals and choose if you want a Tuesday or Friday delivery. All of the ingredients come wrapped up in a freezer box and dropped at your front door (complete with recipes). The best part is that you have the exact amount of each ingredient that you need. No need to buy 5 pounds of thyme to use 1 sprig!

Each “plate” costs $12 each (so $24 for a meal for 2 people). Not horrible. Lots of convenience and fresh ingredients. The meals take 30-50 minutes and tend to be around 500-700 calories each. They also are sophisticated meals that are “chef-inspired.” So I did the first round as a trial with 4 recipes then accidentally didn’t read the fine print and ended up ordering another week’s worth of meals. Happy mistake but unexpected when my husband called me at work to tell me Plated showed up at the door. Now it is cancelled for reals like I originally intended.

Sunday night’s meal was Seared Chicken, Mushroom Sauce, and Twice-Baked Potatoes. Really good overall. I messed up the twice-baked potatoes, I don’t think I cooked them enough the first time so I basically destroyed them trying to get the flesh out. So they became twice-baked potato lumps. But they tasted great!

Tonight’s meal was Carrot Risotto with Fontina, Lemon, and Thyme. Really good. Directions were pretty easy, here is what the card looks like.

Sorry I screen-shotted (shot?) the PDF version of the recipe card.

The time was accurate although I feel like the carrots roasting in the oven took longer than it said.

Here’s early in the process:

Here’s the finished product. Pretty close right?

The hubby gave two thumbs up and started singing “all about the cheese, about that cheese” to the tune of Meghan Trainor. Definitely a good, meatless Monday kind of meal…on a Tuesday.

I definitely recommend Plated for someone who enjoys cooking and wants to try new things. I'm not sure how great it is if you are a rookie, it might be more on the complicated side. But it forces you outside of your comfort zone to try new recipes and ingredients. The meals have all tasted great.