After last Sunday’s homerun with the Peanut Chicken Curry, I was looking forward to making my next meal from Plated. The opportunity came up last night, and I made the Quinoa Grits with Squash. Here’s their reference picture. Sorry that I don’t have as many pictures as I did for the other dish, but my camera was at work and my phone battery had died. And I was too hungry to wait for it to charge so I could take pictures as I went. 🙂

The recipe is slated to take 25-35 minutes to make, and it took me 30 minutes. So, again, they were spot-on as far as cook times go. The only thing I would do differently with this recipe would be to either reduce the temperature of the oven or the bake time for the squash. And probably try to stir them around a bit halfway through. My squash got a little burnt on the bottom.

I also ended up cooking the quinoa a little longer than what they had specified, as it was supposed to be cooked until “tender” and never seemed to get to that point. But I got it to be acceptably cooked and went on from there.

Grits.

I’m not really a big fan of grits. But I’m willing to give it a try. As soon as I was done, I put half of the meal in a container to take to work today for lunch. Which worked out perfectly, since it’s a vegetarian dish and today’s (No Meat) Friday!

This is how mine turned out. Not too bad. And taste for this one? It was okay. It was slightly on the bland side. Were I to make it again, I would add a little more cheese and seasoning to the grits, and perhaps more sumac on the squash, as that flavor didn’t stand out as much as I thought it would.

Lunch today, even reheated, was also good. And both meals were filling.

So, on a whim, I decided to try one of these services that ships you all of the ingredients that you need in order to make a dinner. I thought it would be a good way to try out some new recipes and flavors, since they only give you what you need to make that dish, instead of having to purchase, say, an entire bottle of Worchestershire sauce when you only need a teaspoon.

My first trial was the Peanut Chicken Curry. I made this last Sunday after Mass.

All of the ingredients were packaged well, clearly labeled, and fresh.

There were a few ingredients I was not familiar with. (I’m looking at you fish oil, red curry paste and gochujang!) I wasn’t sure what they would taste like, so I tasted a tiny bit of each before I used it. The fish oil was not as fishy as I expected, which was a relief. 🙂

The instruction card states that this recipe should take between 30-40 minutes. I was interested to see how long it would take me — being a fairly novice cook and not pre-prepping the food at all beyond what they packaged for me. It took me 35 minutes from start to finish.

It didn’t look *exactly* like their photo, but it was close enough. And taste? It was *amazing*! I seriously could eat this ALL THE TIME!

For my first trial of Plated, they hit it out of the park!