Thursday, April 16, 2020

How is it already Thursday? Distance learning/teaching is going much better this week and I have a post planned for next week to talk about it.

Today I want to talk about the struggle bus that is cooking every night. I love to cook, but if even I am getting tired of cooking – I feel bad for those who truly don’t enjoy it.

I read a blog from time to time called “The Frugal Girl”. She mentioned a meal delivery service – they send you the ingredients and recipes and you cook it – that I had never heard of called “Dinnerly”. Come to find out it is a Martha Stewart company. Love her or hate her – the girl can cook!

I have now had two deliveries and I am really pleased. FYI – I did Hello Fresh and Blue Apron once each and chose the meals for 2 people – my boys were maybe 11 when I did it. It was too expensive to do for a family of four and I was cooking extra food so it was a bad idea.

Dinnerly, on the other hand, claims to only cost $4 something a person so I am doing 3 meals a week for 4 people to the tune of about $55 a week. We can’t really get one take out meal for 4 for less than $40-50. So, I find this super affordable and I think it will cut my grocery bill a bit. But, that is not reallymy motivation right now. My motivation is that grocery shopping is not easy now.

So, they send you the suggested 3 meals based on your preferences that you filled out and then you can deny one or all of the meals an choose from maybe 5 other options. The meals are simple and real life meals that my family would like.

BBQ Chicken

broccoli

Everything but the bagel seasoned potatoes

I added the corn because it was leftover (By the way, I ordered a pack of already shucked corn on the cob from the produce section on my last Kroger order and it was delicious!)

Here is an example from their website of quesadilas but I didn’t choose that because I make them all the time and already have the ingredients on hand.

Here is another example of lemon pepper chicken and fresh green beans. I added the roasted cauliflower and banana bread.

And, cheeseburgers with potato wedges and I added the corn again.

All of the meat seems great quality and it has been hard to find the chicken and ground beef I normally buy. All of the vegetables are super fresh. They sent giant baking potatoes to make the wedges. They sent nice bags of red potatoes for another side dish. They gave me a whole head of garlic when I only needed a tsp. They also send all the spices needed. They do asssume you will have olive oil, salt, pepper, milk, butter.

Anyway, whether you follow the recipes to a T or kind of use it as a jumping off point for dinner/grocery delivery like I have been doing, I think you might really like it.

Have you ever tried one of these services? Would you?

Amy

P.S. – One of my favorite things about it is that I am out of dinner ideas and this takes the thinking about what we will have out of the equation. Hallelujah!

P.S.S.- I can send a free box to two people – the first two to respond with Name and Email address get it. But there is a catch – I believe you have to give your credit card info to get the box and then you can cancel but you have to cancel quickly so you don’t get charged.

16 thoughts on “Thursday Thoughts – Dinnerly”

  1. You make me hungry! We have services like that here, but I think they are too expensive…
    I’m glad to hear that your distance teaching is working! One of my colleagues is working from home because of health issues, and she says it works fine… But I’m quite happy to be able to go to work!
    We still don’t know if we can go to Florida this summer… We have tickets for the middle of June, but I don’t think it will be possible… What do you think?

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    1. Haha! I think this service is a good price. Working from home is kind of nice but it’s definitely not the same and I know they aren’t learning as much.
      I think mid June might be a possibility. It’s just too soon to know. I think we will know more in a month. It’s so hard to plan and that is frustrating. It’s almost Friday!

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      1. Fri-yay!
        Yes, the not-being-able-to-plan is frustrating. I’m the kind of person that writes to-do-lists, plan my packing months before, buy plane tickets 6 months before… you know! But maybe it’s good to be forced to go with the flow?…
        Today most of my students were back, that makes me happy! I think the parents were expecting a school shut down, but it never came…

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  4. My daughter is in Colorado and was having a hard time finding groceries because all the stores are cleaned out so we signed her up for home chef and she has really liked it and been pleased with the quality and the ease of preparing the meals. I am sure you can find a code for a discount but I would highly recommend home chef.

    She sends us pictures of the meals she’s prepared and they look like they are out of a magazine.

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  5. I did Hello Fresh for a whole summer. My family loved it! It was very, very convenient for me. I live/work 10 miles from our local grocery store and 35 miles from Kroger or WalMart. During the summer there are weeks that I don’t get into “town” and having the exact items for a recipe is a God-send. I really need to get back to some sort of delivery service right now.

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    1. I think they are good portions. You could always add another side? I know that defeats the purpose in a way but I had two frustrating grocery trips Wednesday!

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