Ingredients for Three Plated Dinners 
Ingredients for Spaghetti with Ricotta Beef Meatballs & Marinara Sauce
Ingredients for Ricotta Corn Empanadas with Spinach in Honey Vinaigrette
Ingredients for Seared Chicken with Mushroom Sauce & Twice Baked Potatoes
This is a review of a food subscription box from a company called Plated. They ship weekly on your choice of Wednesday or Saturday delivery via FedEx. I chose Saturday so that Hubby & I could cook together on the weekend. Since we have been quite bored with our recipes lately, I decided it was time to try out a food subscription box like this one. Our box arrived at 11:30 am on Saturday at our home in North Carolina. It was shipped from Brooklyn, NY and arrived with two large artificial ice packs that were brick hard. I was relieved since my previous experience with ordering food shipments from other companies has been hit and miss with the dry ice or artificial ice packs not lasting long enough. Upon opening the box, we saw that it was very nicely packed and so organized. The vegetables were packed in those green bags that are suppose to keep vegetables fresh longer. All of the ingredients are high quality and very fresh, we were very impressed and happy.
We needed to decide which recipe to try first. We decided on the Spaghetti with Ricotta Beef Meatballs & Marinara Sauce since Hubby was craving Spaghetti. We placed the ingredients in the refrigerator and a few hours later we started cooking. Plated provides a color, two sided, recipe card that is 8 1/2 x 11 in size on thick paper. Thankfully, the instructions are concise & easy to follow. I noticed the marinara sauce is from North Carolina. I got a chuckle out of that since it was shipped to New York only to return back to North Carolina. We just love how all the ingredients are measured out and ready to go as if you were a chef on a cooking show and had assistants do all that work for you in advance. We also like that there is no waste. There isn't a half empty marina sauce jar in our refrigerator or a huge tub of Ricotta cheese waiting to go bad. There isn't a huge box of bread crumbs in my pantry either! Also, there is no need to pack up the leftover meat to place in the dreaded freezer. No more trying to figure out other recipes to use the many leftover ingredients and no guilt of throwing out ingredients that we didn't manage to use before they went bad. The only ingredients that they didn't include were the olive oil, salt, pepper and one egg. Not a problem, since we always have those items in stock at our home. So back to the cooking part, it took the two of us thirty five minutes from start to plate. The recipe card states thirty-five to forty-five minutes so that was accurate. Only one person cooking would probably take forty-five mintues. At first glance it didn't look like that would be possible and I seriously doubted we could cook it that fast. Also, it looked like there wasn't enough quantity of the ingredients but in the end it was the perfect amount! That really pleases me because I hate leftovers and it forces portion control. We usually go back for seconds when we make spaghetti. We were very pleased with the amount of food and had very happy, full bellies. So after thirty five minutes, voilà , feast your eyes on our finished dish:
Wow, it was so yummy! We plan to purchase the ingredients on our own and make the recipe again soon. Though I don't know where to find the fancy Pecorino Italian cheese. Anyone know which grocery store chain sells it? I also don't know where to purchase that brand of marinara sauce. I really like that it doesn't have any sugar or preservatives in it.
So there you have it, my latest subscription box review. Stay tuned for Part Two & Part Three which will feature:
Ricotta Corn Empanadas with Spinach in Honey Vinaigrette
Seared Chicken with Mushroom Sauce & Twice Baked Potatoes
Bargain Alert - $30 off your first Plated order, click here.
I will also be receiving the competition boxes from Blue Apron & Hello Fresh in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for those reviews. What's your favorite food subscription box? Before you leave, check out the other food subscription boxes I have reviewed:
Cravebox (out of business)
Goodies Co Tasters Box (out of business)
Nibblr (review coming soon)
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and/or 
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