Soulara

I posted a while ago about trying out a meal delivery service called Herbidoor (see that post here). After working my way through those, I also tried another meal delivery service, this time one called Soulara. I had a $30 off your first order code, so why not. Unlike with Herbidoor, Soulara does not allow for you to order one off, you have to sign up to a regular delivery plan. However, you can sign up for your first one, and then pause or cancel your subscription from then on so you don't get stuck with it. It's a bit fiddly, but that is what I did. Depending on how many meals per week you order, they are a little bit better value. After trawling through to see what was available to me that was free of chili and coconut cream, I ended up just going for the pack of 9 meals. But you can also order them in packs of 7, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24. Depending on how many meals per day and how many people you are ordering for. I wasn't going to eat all of mine in a week, so I froze several of them. Most of them did not come with extra vegetables, so I generally served them over some wilted baby spinach that I added.



The New York Ragu has penne with a lentil, tomato, and nutritional yeast topping and cauliflower bechamel. The cauliflower sauce was a nice touch.



I really loved the flavour of the Soya, Edamame, & Black Fungi Udon! It was one of my favourites.



Thea's Deconstructed Moussaka comes with a mix of zucchini and eggplant, a tomato TVP mix, and some more of the cauliflower bechamel.



I forgot to take a photo of the Supercharged Satay, so here is one from the Soulara website. I ate this at work, and mine was obviously not as pretty as that. I really enjoyed the peanutty sauce on the tofu. It also had carrot, cabbage, edamame, and black rice.



It looks like the Mindful Miso Noodle Bowl (with soba, kale, pumpkin, and TVP is no longer on the menu, which is a shame because it was a nice.



The BBQ Black Bean Casserole is fun because as well as beans it has seitan in it. While it is nicely spiced, there is no chili in it. It also has corn and pearl couscous and comes with some potatoes. As well as serving this over spinach, you can see I also added some avocado to it.



I ate the Sticky Ginger Stir-Fry at a friend's house after work, so you can see what it looks like in its non-plated form. I loved this because it uses TVP as the protein, and I love those bigger chunks of TVP. It also came with rice and broccoli. It looks like they have rotated this out of their current menu as well.



The Mushroom Bourguignon with Black Garlic Mash has also been rotated out, which is a tragedy because this was the best out of all of them! I wish it was a bigger potion, because I just loved the mushrooms so much.



The final of my nine that I tried was the Green Goddess Soup. This has also been rotated out, and I think in this case there is good reason because it was just sort of meh and not very satisfying.



As well as ordering your meals, you can also add on some extras like snack balls or juices. I added on some Choc Chip Cookie Dough Bites, which was a good decision. They are delicious! And not too sweet.



So, would I order from them again? I hadn't really planned to, but as I was looking at their menu while writing this post I see they have some new meals that sound like they would be nice to try. So maybe I will. The one downside about Soulara compared to Herbidoor is that there was a lot more packaging to be disposed of. While some of it was recyclable, not all. With Herbidoor everything could be recycled and they minimised plastic use as much as possible. I'd like to see more of that ethos in Soulara.

HerbiDoor

I'd never ordered from a meal delivery service before, mostly because I like to make stuff. But with all that went on after Dim Sim, it seemed like a good time to try some, especially with some discount codes. I have tried two, and I will talk about the first one today (the second one will need to wait until I finally finish the last one I have in the freezer).

HerbiDoor got me with their targeted advertising, which had a 25% off your first order code. The thing I liked about Herbidoor is you do not have to sign up to a recurring plan. You can buy things individually, or get a 10 pack of your choosing for slightly better value. I went with the latter. I got nine meals, and one dessert. My options with any sort of ready meals are limited because I have to filter out anything with chili or coconut cream, but Herbidoor still had a good selection. Most had 8 days until they expired if kept in the fridge, but you could also freeze them. I wasn't eating them all in a row, so I froze a lot of them. They all reheated well. There was not a lot in the way of vegetables though, so you will see I added greens (mostly baby spinach) to them. I'll do my best to remember how things were!



Creamy Kale Fettuccine: Not as creamy as I would have liked, it had a bit of a vinegar tang to it. I like vinegar, but this was a little out of place.



Eggplant Katsu Curry: The ingredient didn't specify chilli, but there was chilli in this. I realised later they just said 'curry powder', and I had been scanning for chilli specifically, so the sauce was too spicy for me. However, I scraped it off and can say that the eggplant cutlets were delicious.



Ayuverdic Healing Kitchari: This wasn't anything flash, but it was nice and comforting. Which is what kitchari was supposed to be. It came with the roasted potatoes, I added the spinach and some peas.



Spinach and Herbi-Cotta Canneloni: This was nice, though was not very filling. More a lunch than a dinner. It had a nice mix of herby tofu-based ricotta, and was topped with some tomato sauce and cashew cream.



Sunday Roast Yorkies: For all the appearance of a mediocre reheated frozen roast dinner, this was really yummy! A seitan-based roast, roasted vegetables, peas, gravy, and those great little yorkshire puddings. It was very satisfying.



Cashew Cream Lentil Lasagne: This was one of the gluten free range, and it was... not good. The pasta had that really heavy, grainy gluten free texture. And the rest of it was just very dry.



Lentil Shepherd's Pie: This was nice. I enjoyed that it had a sweet potato mash on top. Nothing special, but nothing bad. The green beans were added by me because I was out of spinach.



Bangers and Mash: This meal has been rotated out for some new options (they seem to do this with a handful of meals every few months, keeping things fresh). I didn't add anything extra to this, it came with the peas. And more of their yummy gravy! I don't remember what the sausages were, I recall they were some brand, and they were OK. I guess being microwaved they were a bit smooshier than if you had pan-fried them, but this meal was all about comfort.



BBQ Cottage Pie: I liked the creamy yet crunchy potato topping on this, and the insides were good too. You cannot really tell, but there is a bit of vegan cheese that was included in the topping, it has just melted in the microwave. The filling was lentils and vegetables and apparently silken tofu but maybe that was blended into the BBQ sauce because I couldn't tell. It was a little bit dry, so I did add some more BBQ sauce for eating.



Did I mention dessert? I sure did.



I got a two pack of sticky date puddings, yum! You can eat them cold or warm, so I ate the first one straight out of the packet with some custard and it was good! The second one is still tightly wrapped in my freezer, waiting for a good cold winter night to heat it up and have it with some ice cream.

Would I order from Herbidoor again? Yes!