You have a crazy week ahead. You don’t have time to go grocery shopping, much less cook. You could order takeout or Uber Eats, but you did that last week and you want something homemade. What to do, what to do? Enter: Scratch Gourmet.
Started by Coronado local Kathryn Jennings, the company operates under the simple idea that “everything tastes better from scratch.” We couldn’t agree more! Scratch is a gourmet meal-delivery service, as in the meals are made fresh, cooked and seasoned. All you have to do is heat it up and put on a plate!
No messing around, no prep time, no opening little packages of condiments and mixing, and no cooking and cleaning like Blue Apron and other such companies.
All you do is select the meals you want from the weekly menu.
And here are the meal and pricing options.
We order Plan #2 because we like to taste and enjoy all the meals (how could you begin to eliminate one of these tasty options?) We also like to add on the kids meal, because my kids are fiends for the homemade mac n cheese and it will last them at least two dinners!
So the meals show up on Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays around 5pm. Sure enough, Monday around 5pm our bag of goodies arrived at our door! Hooray! No cooking for mommy!
Our first night we had the Spaghetti Bolognese. It was served with a large, mixed green salad with oregano vinaigrette and ciabatta toast.
The pasta was perfectly cooked, meaty and delicious! It was seasoned just right for me, and I like a LOT going on in the spice department. My husband actually added a little more seasoning to his but I didn’t think it needed it. I don’t usually allow myself to eat a ton of carbs so this dish seemed super savory and indulgent.
The salad was fresh, big and tasty. The homemade dressing was a nice touch, and there is plenty of it to cover the salad. (Nothing worse then a dry salad!)
Overall, this dish was savory and satisfying, and my nine-year-old loved it also. The portions are big so you know you will have enough for leftovers.
Our next meal was the Indian Prawn Curry, with Indian spiced sautéed spinach, balsamic rice & Naan bread. I totally didn’t notice the “prawn” part when I ordered and realized I wouldn’t be able to eat much of this because I’m allergic to crustaceans. Darn! But my family did, and they loved it, including my nine-year-old! Who knew she liked Indian spiced prawns? (My six year old opted to eat the rice and naan.)
Although I couldn’t really dig into the prawns, I sampled a bit of sauce over the rice and it was fantastic. The spiced sautéed spinach was to die for, and I found myself gobbling this all up myself. I could have eaten two full bowls of this. So good! The rice was well-prepared, and who doesn’t love naan bread?
Our last meal was the Grilled Prime Ribeyes served with mix greens, homemade ranch dressing and twice baked potatoes. I loved all the meals but this was probably my favorite—my husband’s too! The meat was perfectly prepared, juicy, not over-cooked, and well-seasoned and spiced, just how we would have done at home.
We found ourselves aggressively devouring the meat. The twice baked potato? Oh my…be still my heart. I really wanted to slow down and savor this dish but I ate it like a scavenger. Again, the salad was fresh and lovely, and even my grill-master husband admitted that the steak was perfect and he asked me what cut it was a few times until I finally checked (yes, ribeye.)
Scratch Gourmet was definitely a win for us and something I’d love to work into our rotation on a more regular basis. It was super helpful for us last week when I couldn’t get home early enough to prepare a healthy meal, because my daughter had two hours of dance practice each night over the bridge in preparation for an upcoming performance.
Is it cheap? No. The package we got was $210 for a three meals a weak for two people. But when you calculate there is at least one meal leftover for every dinner you order—probably more if you aren’t overstuffing like us—it brings the cost down. And it really takes the stress out of meal preparation for the week. We all know that stress leads to disease, and disease leads to death. So anything that reduces stress is a win in my book!
And you get what you pay for. Uber Eats and takeout can be delightful and convenient…but who knows what ingredients are used, and how healthy each of the meals are. And when you want a home cooked meal, you want a home cooked meal! Kathryn knows what she is doing. All meals are prepared with the love and attention you would expect from a gourmet meal, and everything you taste has it’s own little “something special” going on. I’m actually getting hungry writing this right now, and wishing I had some twice baked potato to eat, or maybe some spaghetti bolagnese…..
To sign up for the Weekly Menus, please visit the Scratch Gourmet website here and visit the Weekly Menu page.
So long Scratch, ’til next time!
