Purple Carrot - Meal Delivery Review

 This is my "take 2" on the Purple Carrot review. The first time around I didn't have the greatest experience but a year on I decided to try again and was pleasantly surprised that many of the kinks have worked out. I like to prepare meals myself so they are slightly cheaper than the ready made meals. This was always a temporary "over the summer" thing for me. It's still a little pricey, the cheapest the dinner meal being $11 a serve (if you get four servings). I decided I liked it so much this time that I ended up keeping it but trying to get it every second week. You can easily skip weeks.

What I will say that I like is that if you opt for the four servings it still comes packages in two serve bundles so you don't have to cook all four servings at once which I love. I still love that they have the colored recipe book and don't have many pre-made ingredients so you can easily recreate at home on your own budget. I also love that they display the calories and nutrition at the bottom of each meal. Delivery was much more reliable than last time and there are plenty of GF options. 

I like the "pantry" option too so you can take on a couple things to make free shipping (over $100). What I thought worked best economically beside the four serve option was to skip every second order and in the order I was getting a couple of extra meals. It means I'm spending less per week plus ensured free shipping.

My only real issue is that there is no Eastern hub so everything is shipped from the North West so by the time it gets to Florida I almost have to eat everything the same day because a lot of the greens are on their way out. I also hate the GF wraps, they crumble and are very average. I use my own store bought ones. They give you an occasion free box to send to someone which is great but they definitely should set up incentives for customers to recruit other customers. I've sent two free boxes to friends who became subscribers so it would be more motivating to give something back, Purple Carrot are you listening??

Vegan Meal Delivery Services

So in a bid to try and make healthy eating easier I thought I'd try a few meal delivery services. Unfortunately there are not many that offer both gluten free AND vegan, but many offered one or the other. There are quite a few on the market that offer vegan/gluten free prepared meals but I specifically just wanted ingredients and recipes to prep the meals myself. I like to know what's going in there :)

It sounds ridiculous but after my research of all the places out there, Purple Carrot and Hungry Root were the only two that really had GF/Vegan options. Fresh and Lean seemed like a great option if you want pre-made meals (everything is vegan and gluten free)-around $10/meal, as are Territory, Splendid Spoon and Veestro. I also loved the idea of Sakara bowls but they were so expensive that I bought thri cookbook "Eat Clean, Play Dirty" instead!

Purple Carrot

I had SUCH high hopes for this one since it's ALL vegan and had lots of gluten free options so it was such a disappointment with the service didn't stack up.

 I ordered online and it gave me a delivery date. When the delivery didn't show up I messaged their online chat which is pretty quick. They told me because of the national holiday it was running a little late and they mentioned that it was communicated on the website, I hadn't noticed it and there was no communication to me directly but ok that's fair I thought. 

I ended up paying three times for only one box. First and third box never showed, second box came, was missing an ingredient but other then that pretty decent food. They finally refunded me for two of the payments but only the discounted ones. So I ended up paying full price for my only box, even though the first one was supposed to be discounted. I liked how the food was grouped together per recipe, the instructions were fairly easy but there was some prep involved. The recipe book was lovely and glossy and could be repeated by buying my own ingredients (which I have for one recipe many times now).

So the bad taste in my mouth wasn't left by the food but because of my bad customer service and delivery experience. The food was actually really good. A little calorie heavy considering the serving size but delicious and easy to follow instructions with a lovely glossy recipe book that can be used again. 

Cost: $14.50 per meal

PROS: Great Food, 100% Vegan

CONS: Expensive, Unreliable, Terrible Customer Service

Hungry Root

I was actually impressed with the amount of options for vegan/gluten free. The menu lets you hone in on every ingredient used for the dish to see what's in it which I like.

I got my first box when they said I would so already I felt like they were a step ahead. Recipe page wasn't as fancy as the Purple Carrot one but that's not really where I need my money to go anyway. 
The packaging was easy to understand and I could group the items for each recipe easily in the fridge. Each deliver comes with free almond chickpea cookie dough which was so good, my son stole it. 

It was missing an ingredient but it was an easy one to replace (rice) and they kindly put a small credit on my account. Customer service was easy because they have a number you can text 7 days a week.

The recipes were simpler to put together but there was a small amount of cooking/prep. I like the 2 person meals because I can take the second one for lunch the next day. They give you a printout of the meals, ingredients and each recipe prep instructions.

First order was discounted and was $75.01 for 6x 2 person meals. Second box was $115.02, so $9.50 per meal)

I ended up editing my meal plan to 4x lunch & 4x dinner which was $86.95 (anything of $70 is free shipping) so $10.87 per meal).

I was able to go in and change the meals I was receiving, plus how many I was getting so I ended up getting 3 2x person meals (so 6 meals altogether) which cost around $12 per meal.

I like that you can choose between two different shipping days (for one weekend it was handy since we were going out of town I had it changed to mid week).

The quality of the food is ok, I wasn't a huge fan of their premixed items like sauces. I just didn't think they tasted good and I kept having to change them up a bit. Having said that they have given me some great ideas and certainly saved me a ton of time since almost everything is less than 4 ingredients and less than 30 mins cooking time.

All in all it was a decent experience. I did it for a few weeks and the ease and convenience of the dinners was my favourite part but I didn't love it enough to keep up with it. I'm a frugal DIY girl at heart after all and taste matters!

Cost: $11-12 per meal

PROS: 

• Super Easy and Time-Saving
• Good Amount of Vegan/GF Recipes
• Reliable and Great Customer Service
• Good first time discounts

CONS: 

• Food was honestly not that great, I wasn't really impressed with any of the recipes or their brand name items (except the cookie dough)
• Although it was cheaper than the others it's still a lot to spend per meal when you're getting 3-4 ingredients you could pick up from the supermarket for 1/3 of the cost

Vegan Meal Prep

 So I know it’s been a hot minute. With all the things going on, (new house, new full time job, youngest starting school) I haven’t had much time for the blogging I’d like to. Plus I have been cooking a lot of the recipes that are already on here because let’s face it, a lot of them are staples in our family! In fact I started writing this post nearly a year ago and clearly got sidetracked.

Red Cabbage and Kale Coleslaw, Millet, Wholly Veggie Cauliflower Wings, Cashew Cream

Now that time is crazy tight during the week I have been trying to get better at meal prepping on a Sunday for the week so I’m not left wondering at 5/6pm what I’m going to cook for five people who all have different tastes! I also am trying to get away from the amount of process foods we’ve been eating. A few places that have been giving me a lot of motivation are Plantiful Kiki (starch based diet, she shows you how she preps her starches for the week), Pick Up Limes and one of my new favorites Rainbow Plant Life (seriously all her recipes are winners). She’s almost sold me on getting an Instapot!

Here are some great places to start for inspiration!

The Kichn - Easy Plant Based Meal Prep Plan

Rainbow Plant Life - Vegan Meal Prep

Pick Up Limes - Meal Prep Like a Boss

The inspiration was great but I ended up just cooking from other people's recipes because I was scared to experiment and make my own combinations. What if the combinations tasted bad and I was stuck with them for a whole week? Well I haven't had a bad combination yet! I treat each meal prep like bowls (1/2 container is serve of salad/veggies, a protein, a grain, a sauce and maybe added sprinkle of nuts or beans etc). So far everything has been really good. One thing I've been trying to do is to get through all the dried grains taking up room in the pantry. If you're not into beans, tofu or tempeh I've been really impressed with some of the newer fake meats on the market which are far less process such as CHKN Not Chicken, Like Chick'n and Daring.  If you can't have soy Wholly Veggie does a lot of chickpea and cauliflower based items. They make the protein side very easy because some of them already have their own flavor/seasoning. I've only been using variations of the cashew cream as a sauce because it's so good I honestly don't get sick of it..

I love those frozen rice servings that you can microwave in 3 minutes. Obviously more packaging and cost involved but invaluable when you're on top of it and need something healthy fast. Don't be afraid of frozen veggies or pre-cut items in the supermarket. They might cost more but if that's what it takes to get you to eat it then start with that!

It's Summer now and I'm trying a few weeks of Purple Carrot, a vegan meal delivery company, to see if they can give me some inspiration for getting back into wholefood cooking and not relying so much on the convenience of processed foods. I'll definitely be reviewing that :)

Some ideas of meal preps I've done. A lot of the time it will be themed around some leftovers or what I have in the fridge that needs to be eaten...

Daring chicken pieces, brown rice, steamed summer squash, roast asparagus, Cashew Cream, cucumber and red peppers.

Like meat wings, wild rice, steamed kale, roast paprika cauliflower, hollandaise sauce, fresh cucumber and red peppers with 15 year aged Balsamic

Daring chick pieces, Quinoa/kale mix, mashed sweet potatoes, steamed spinach, roast cherry tomatoes, onion gravy, fresh cucumber, romaine, cucumber and orange peppers with peach balsamic

Steamed Broccoli and Kale, Quinoa/Rice mix, marinated baked tofu, GF Asian crunchy noodle topping. GF Hoisin sauce. 

Baby tomatoes and smoked paprika cauliflower (both roasted), mixed rice, Daring faux chicken pieces (Cajun), steamed baby spinach and homemade vegan ranch.

Asian style bowl, marinated baked tofu, steamed kale, brown rice, spicy Asian cucumber salad, Asian style eggplant.

Sushi Bowl - Sushi Rice, Teriyaki Tofu, Fried Shitake Mushrooms in a Chili Mayo, Steamed Boy Choy, fresh cucumber,

Garlic Tahini sauce, steamed veg (sweet potato, yellow squash and broccoli), brown rice and Daring "chicken" - plain.