Plated, Part 2

On Saturday night, we tried out our second vegan Plated meal: Pomegranate Tofu with Warm Arugula Salad & Roasted Butternut Squash. First, let me begin by saying that there must have been a little mixup in our meal, because we were sent spinach instead of arugula. But that’s a very simple and easy fix for us since we love spinach. Anyway, it turned out honestly really fabulously and tasty and it looked like this:

I was really impressed with this meal because it taught us how to work with ingredients we’d never used before like pomegranate molasses and Israeli couscous (both much easier to work with than I would have guessed). I don’t know if we’ll keep using Plated on a regular basis, but the service did help us come up with ideas on new meals to create based on what we ordered. Oh and I did realize that I could share the recipes with all of you, so here’s this one, and I’ll add the Winter Rolls one to the previous post. Kinda small and hard to read, but I’m happy to email them out to anyone who wants to give them a try.

Plated.com

There are a few new services out there that allow you to order meals to have delivered directly to your front door. One of those services is called Plated. Essentially, you tell it the type of food you want (meat, vegetarian, vegan, allergies, etc.) and it shows you your options. You pick what you want and they deliver all the ingredients to you via FedEx Overnight – and the best part, they don’t charge for shipping.

A couple weeks ago, I ordered 2 vegan meals from them, based on a friend’s recommendation. Today, our meals arrived and we had one tonight and we’ll have the other tomorrow night. Tonight was: Winter Rolls with Wild Rice

The “Winter Rolls” were pretty much Summer Rolls – not sure what made them Winter. – but at the same time I don’t know what Summer refers to either in Summer Rolls. Hehe. Anyway, the rolls were filled with Napa cabbage, fresh mint, and roasted carrots & beets. Alongside the rolls was a really yummy peanut citrus sauce. And finally, wild rice. Overall, a totally tasty meal and pretty simple to make. Their directions were easy to follow and the meal was very flavorful. I look forward to making our second meal tomorrow – which includes blackened tofu. Yum!

Go now and check out Plated.com!

Hummus. I got the Hummus.

(Bonus points if you’ve watched the show Friends as many times as I have and recognize the title of this post as a reference to Joey getting hummus on Phoebe’s dress.)

Well, I’ve got the hummus. The hummus addiction, that is. It’s weird because before I went vegan (or mostly vegan) I wasn’t a huge hummus fan. I mean, I would totally eat it, and enjoyed it. But I wouldn’t regularly have it in my fridge. It was a nice novelty snack. Now, hummus is the biggest staple in our household (ok, that and garlic stuffed olives). We go through TUBS of hummus at a time. I’ve found new love for it! My favorite so far has been Trader Joe’s Cilantro & Jalapeno Hummus. This stuff is unreal.

I hate to say this stuff is flavorful because I feel like that’s become my fallback word for everything – but I have to. IT’S FLAVORFUL. If this product isn’t full of flavor, I don’t know what is. The jalapeno doesn’t make the hummus spicy – for those of you who are worried about that – but it does give it a nice kick. And cilantro – if you don’t like cilantro, just avoid this all together. Luckily, I’m a huge fan of both cilantro and jalapeno. I’ve always cringed at the thought of putting hummus in a wrap or sandwich, but I would welcome it with this flavor. Well done TJ’s!