While creating my new resource, A Guide to Vegan Ready-Made Meals and Subscription Services, I stumbled upon a fantastic 100% vegan business, Green Dinner Table.
I love how many vegan-ready made meals and meal subscription services are available now, but it also makes it incredibly hard to pick which one to go with!
Read on for my review of Christchurch-based, vegan food box company, Green Dinner Table...
First, here are a few things about me (that hopefully you'll relate to):
I don't like cooking.
I'm not good at cooking.
I'm busy and I prioritise my mahi so when it comes time to cook dinner, I do not like it to take very long (or take up much space in my head).
Now, I tried out Green Dinner Table for four weeks (gifted) and here are the key things I learnt:
It's easy, they send you everything you need in one box (all the ingredients, sauces etc.). Then the recipes are emailed to you so you don't need to worry about misplacing the recipe or accidently covering it in cooking sauce.
It saved me money. Instead of reaching for my phone and ordering Uber Eats on the evenings I worked late, I just opened up my emails and looked at the recipe for that night. The photos of the meals looked so good that I wanted to eat that instead of takeaways. They also took less time to cook than it would have taken for Uber Eats to be delivered so a win, win!
It made me feel like a chef. The meals don't take long to cook and are easy to make BUT some of them are seriously gourmet. I was shamelessly beaming with pride for making such yummy vegan meals!
I got to try new kai. I cooked fennel and squash for the first time and loved them both. I also made pho for the first time and now I'm obsessed with it (see photo below).
Here are a few of my favourite dishes that I made using Green Dinner Table ingredients and recipes (yes me, I made these!):
Pho with crispy salt and pepper tofu, coriander and bean sprouts
The meals in the photos below include:
Garam masala parsnip, pear and yam soup with confit garlic bread.
Pad Thai with smashed tofu, celery, bean sprouts, and peanut.
Pasta fagioli with arrabbiata sauce, lemony lentils, parsley and parmesan.
Sage and onion sausage, herb smashed potatoes, green beans with onion gravy.
How it works:
You place an order online (if you want to try it out for a week, just put your subscription on hold or cancel it after your first week).
A box of vegan ingredients will get delivered to your door.
You'll get an email each week with links to the recipes you need.
The most bang for your buck:
If you are buying it for a couple (dinner for two, each night), then I recommend getting the Family Plan (for 5 nights a week this is $220). This would be enough for dinner and lunch the next day and works out to be $11 per meal.