Anybody here use Dinnerly, or another meal delivery service?

[CTyankee]

My kids want me to consider it. We're both in our early 80s and in good health overall (hubby uses a walker due to back surgery a while back but he drives and does the stairs once a day).

Is it worth it? Is it easy, fast and good?

[Wingus Dingus]

1. I had Home Chef for nine months, stopped it

for the summer (too busy/taking trips), will probably re-start it in September. I can't speak about other meal kits, never tried them, but I liked Home Chef, the quality of the meat was good and I liked the recipes. Had some trouble with Fedex getting the boxes to me in time and intact sometimes, but that's a quirk of where I live (Colorado).

[CTyankee]

2. Can you have them avoid certain foods (substitute cauliflower for broccoli, for exampled)?

[Wingus Dingus]

3. No, you would just choose your recipes and your favorite

meal categories based on your preferences, BUT you can choose your meat or protein on every recipe. So if it's tofu stir fry, you can get shrimp or chicken instead of tofu, etc. They have a bunch of meal categories and I think you can put in allergy info, I never did that. They ask you what foods you need to avoid, if I recall.

[Kali]

9. ok, I am going to give them a try

price ended up a little more than Hello Fresh, but I like the delivery day choice much better and the menu looks better too.

[Wingus Dingus]

11. Hope it works out for you. My biggest beef with

Home Chef has been that they put sauces in jars with screw top lids and sometimes don't tighten them enough! So you get leaky liquid over all the other ingredients. My second biggest beef was sometimes I have to add in my own potatoes or bread because a lot of recipes don't come with a starch. My third beef is shipping--if my box originated from the Salt Lake City facility it arrived cold, on time and in good shape. If it originated in Texas, it arrived with ice packs melted, beat up, leaky--like the Fedex guys took turns using it for kickball. I think it was more a Fedex issue than a Home chef issue though.

[Kali]

12. how were they for handling complaints?

especially on box condition/leaky sauce containers

[Wingus Dingus]

13. I don't know, I never complained.

Just a little annoyance--I washed or wiped things off and just made the dinners and they turned out fine. Occasional leaky meat juice is contained by a separate plastic bag, so that wasn't an issue. Didn't get sick from anything, either of us.

[woodsprite]

4. We use Hello Fresh.

We like it. It works out to between $94 to $126 for 3 meals a week for 4 people. The higher price is when I pick a more expensive selection or add extras like dessert, salad, or extra protein. We have 4 adults, and there is usually enough left over for lunch the next day for 1-2 people -- especially if it's a pasta or casserole type meal.

Last night we had roasted middle eastern veggies and couscous with zatar crusted grilling cheese (Halloumi). Hubby wasn't too keen on the idea of grilling cheese as a protein, so when I ordered, I added a couple of salmon filets for him. Tonight's menu is chickpea fatoush salad, but I will be adding seasoned chicken breast and pitas w/ dipping oil to the meal to round it out since we are adding a 5th person for dinner tonight. Our favorite desserts are the salted caramel cheesecake or the molten chocolate pie.

We've been getting it since the beginning of the pandemic. We have had 2 times (both bad snowstorms) where the meal box was delivered a day late or didn't get here (one telephone call got a refund and a discount on the following week). One time where they forgot to include a recipe card (but the recipes are available online). The produce always seems very fresh and the products have always arrived with lots of ice in the pack to spare. We're in Delaware and I believe our delivery comes out of NJ.

It's good to know you're getting all the ingredients for the recipes rather than having to hunt ingredients down by going to multiple stores. Meal prep time takes from around 20-30 min for the 'quick' meals, to 45-50 min. for the meals that require lots of chopping or various cooking techniques (like shepherds pie).

[CTyankee]

5. It involves chopping? I try to avoid anything that requires doing that. I'm just tired of cooking

with any prep work. The ad for Dinnerly looked very fresh and appealing and I wondered if it would be one of those ("all you do is add....&quot . I don't mind tossing salad inredients, I don't want to "make" a salad.

[vsrazdem]

6. Nope, it still invoves chopping. I have tried both Hello Fresh and Dinnerly.

Hello Fresh seems to have much more chopping, and is more expensive. Quit using them because they kept leaving out ingredients. Its kind of hard to make the meal when they leave out the meat. I guess the chopping mostly depends on what you are ordering. Some meals have little to no chopping such as enchiladas and then some have more, like dinners with mashed potatoes, so it depends on what you are ordering.

[woodsprite]

7. Yeah, the prep takes some time, but the meals taste good.

Sometimes, I'd just rather take some chicken breasts, dump some canned pineapple and fresh onion on top and douse it with Baby Ray's bbq sauce, and zap a bag of broccoli in the microwave. And sometimes, I still do that.

I think 3 meals a week seems like a lot. I'd like to try some new recipes that I've collected or Pinterested But I didn't want to cut it down to 2 meals a week until after my surgery in September. I'll be laid up for awhile, and I figure even hubby can't go wrong fixing these.

[Trueblue1968]

10. I'm just tired of cooking.... ME TOO. BEEN COOKING for over 50 years & I HATE IT NOW !!!!!

[Kali]

8. yes

had Plated for a couple years before they went under - they were good and pretty much worth it, fair amount of prep - great for beginning cooks

tried Freshly and the food was pretty good, but too much money - no prep other than heating

getting Hello Fresh now, not that thrilled. kind of pricey for what it is (the best choices cost A LOT extra) meats are good, haven't had a bad ingredient so far, much less prep than Plated, but the starches and sides are too repetitive (sick of carrots and couscous!) they do have other options you can add like deserts, bread, soups, just proteins, etc but I haven't tried those. when they screw up they are kind of chintzy with the apologies - free garlic bread? Plated would give a free box or refund the whole box for a bad avocado. maybe that is why they went out of business, heh!

*off to check out Dinnerly*

ok that looks pretty good, but they don't deliver out here