Aussie Farmers Direct Weight Watchers Dinner Box
Last time, I reviewed the Aussie Farmers Direct Best Sellers Box. In summary, it was delicious and substantial, with enough leftovers to make several additional meals. This week, I’m taking a look at the Weight Watchers Dinner Box.
Compared to the regular dinner box, which caters for 4 meals for 2, the Weight Watchers box provides 5 meals at a slightly lower per meal cost (both boxes cost the same). With the Groupon voucher I used, this box cost $51 (RRP$89) for $10.11 per meal ($5.05 per person).
The five meals in this box are:
- Allspice chicken skewers with eggplant salad
- Chimichurri chicken
- Mushroom pasta with goat’s cheese
- Pork & vegie stir-fry
- Tandoori beef patties
Again, for all these, I followed the recipe cards for portioning.
Allspice chicken skewers with eggplant salad
Quite simple to make, tasty, and the salad was really substantial with the chickpeas making up some extra bulk. And we had salad left over as well. The serving suggestion on the card was some wholemeal pita bread, so I made some sourdough pita to accompany the dish.
We were a bit short on parsley given the number of recipes that called for it, but we had enough ingredients to make a modified second meal of this with a purchase of more chicken and some of the extra veg from the rest of the box.
Even without the pita, I wouldn’t have guessed this was a Weight Watchers meal given the serving size.
Chimichurri chicken
Again, easy to make and tasty. Though you can’t really go too far wrong with chimichurri.
Not enough herbs to go a second round, but cabbage and spring onions for daaays. I desperately wish they only gave you what you needed for the spring onions.
Portioning was a bit Weight Watchers-y, it was one of the less substantial meals we’ve had so far. The potatoes were a serving suggestion, so it was a good thing we had some on hand.
Mushroom pasta with goat’s cheese
So easy, so tasty. And a good sized meal, especially with the added green beans serving suggestion (extra from other recipe cards).
Plenty of dried pasta, rocket and goat’s cheese left over. Would definitely pull this one out again for something fast. But maybe with more mushrooms because mushrooms are delicious.
Pork & vegie stir-fry
They forgot the lemongrass, so it’s a good thing I grow it.
Stir-fries are pretty straight forward, and the portioning was about right though I would increase the amount of rice a bit to make it a little more substantial. Possibly because I’m Asian, and possibly because I’m a piggy. Hard to say.
Not much stretch out of this recipe. One shot only.
Tandoori beef patties
Delicious. The jarred curry paste is what made this taste good. A little Weight Watchers’y in portioning, but it was more substantial than the Chimichurri chicken.
They forgot the mint (I used some that I dried from our garden). Plenty of paste left over. Could easily make this over again for a light summer meal. I’d prefer it as a lunch over a dinner really.
Summary
Often I find that ‘healthy’ recipes lack that satiety factor, and tend towards bland (and for some reason, lean heavily on lemon to provide flavour). Was pleasantly surprised by these recipe cards.
The chimichurri might need a little tweaking, but the rest were pretty good and well balanced in flavours. Compared to the regular dinner box, there might need to be some portion adjustments, but in general they make good light meals that left you feeling comfortable, or at least close to. Which is probably the best way.
Overall, I think I got the same amount of stretch from the leftovers as with the regular box, so it does work out a bit cheaper, but in this case it’s borderline whether you’d do better buying the ingredients yourself, especially as you’d be needing to buy extra protein anyway to use up the left overs.
Also, as we’re in the habit of buying groceries when we need them, things are less like to go bad before we get to them. But for two people, and the amount of veg there was left to use from the box, I did feel that some of it was kept in my fridge longer than I would have liked for freshness. I guess if you meal plan and grocery shop accordingly you can make it a bit more efficient. And I’m not sure how much Aussie Farmers puts into strategising for their boxes.
I’m still tempted to try out some of the other services like HelloFresh and DinnerTwist if I can use some coupons to compare, but even with a small child to hinder mobility, I think I’d feel less stressed about wastage by doing my own grocery shopping.