Review: Sweet Pea Box PART ONE

Reviewer: Jackie Snider

I had never been a shop-o-holic for clothes. Then I had a daughter.

It became a sickness. I just loved new clothes for her. I didn’t care if they were brand new, given to me, thrift shop, yard sales, etc. Of course actually caring for the small child left little time to do the shopping.

At Sweet Pea Box they take all the work out of getting amazing new clothes for your little ones. Once a month you can have a box of 4,6, or 8 items shipped right to your door.
 

I was asked for my daughter’s age, size, gender and a style preference. Sizing was really difficult to decide because my daughter is VERY tall, yet has almost no waist. For her arms and legs we normally have to get 3t-4t. However if length isn’t an issue, I can still fit her into 12-18m shorts/skirts. It’s insane. So I was a little nervous!

As for style I was given the option of athletic, comfy, country, princess, playful, preppy, and hipster. I told them I’d love a mix except for country (I really don’t like ruffles and such) When signing up through their website you can also choose color preference (brights, pastels, darks, whites, earth tones, and Any) as well as leave the stylist any additional requests of clothing to add or even exclude.

When the box arrived it was very exciting. My daughter absolutely loves getting mail for herself! When we check the mail she will ask ‘but did you check if there is anything for me?’ I think she thinks she has her very own mailbox and it makes her really sad on days there is nothing for her.

She immediately had to try them on. It was a box of 6 pieces, which came in the form of three adorable outfits.
 

This was her favorite of them all, probably because of the tutu aspect. It is a shirt with a tutu and a faux sweater (it is all sewn together as one piece) and plain black leggings. It all fit her well. The pants were certainly loose around the waist but since they are leggings they stay on just fine.

This was my favorite in the box. It looks really good on her and fits well. The sleeves are a little long but it still looks really cute. It comes with black leggings with a small grey flower to match the long sleeve shirt.
 

While we all thought this outfit was very cute, it was just too wide for her small frame. Hailey chose a friend that she wanted to give it to for Christmas, and it fit that girl perfectly. It was a really thick, warm top and funky matching leggings.

I really liked that they were all leggings as that really helped them fit her without having to put drastically different sizes together. I also liked that they were seasonally conscious and all included warm long sleeved tops. I do wish there was a little more diversity in the bottoms. Two pieces were black leggings, one just had a small grey flower on it.

This box would have cost $40. I find that to be more than reasonable for 3 whole outfits, especially of that quality. I didn’t notice with all of them, but I did see that one had a ‘suggested retain price’ of $46, so you know these are not cheap clothes. A 4-piece box would cost just $30, and the 8 pieces would run $50.

I contacted the company once with a concern I had. Two of the outfits still have store tags on them, while one not only didn’t have a new tag, but the inside clothing tag was also roughly cut out with scissors. The website says all clothing is 100% new, so I was a little confused by that. They pointed me to a disclaimer on their site which states that some distributors require this if they have a brick and mortar store. That way customers wouldn't be able to get them from the box and return them to a store for much more than they got them through Sweet Pea Box. It makes complete sense to me.

I definitely recommend this subscription box to any parent out there. They have sizes ranging from 0-3 months all the way to size 8. You can get for both girls and boys, and you can even split the box between siblings! It is like having a personal shopper for your children that will supply you with adorable, good quality clothes, and best yet- it’s a surprise!

I do wish that there were an option for shoes as well, though.

Keep an eye out for Part Two next month, as I will be reviewing consistency in the products! I can’t wait to buy this box for my daughter again and again! They definitely have a forever customer in me.
 
 Sweet Pea Box on Facebook
Website: Sweet Pea Box 
 

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This post was originally posted at WAHM Review and is being cross posted here by the original author.  I received no monetary compensation for this review, however I was provided with the product for free for purposes of review.  All opinions are my own. Click here see our full disclosure policy.

Review: Blue Apron

Reviewer – Jackie Snider 

 

“In France, it is an age-old tradition for young chefs to wear a Blue Apron while they master the art of cooking.  In America, master chefs such as Julia Child and Thomas Keller have adopted the Blue Apron to symbolize the importance of lifelong learning.  We named our company Blue Apron to remind us that amateur and expert chefs alike can always learn something new.”

  

There is an abundance of meal delivery subscription boxes. There are various ones that deliver meals that are completely made and just need  to be heated. There are boxes that come with an assortment of spices along with recipes. For me, Blue Apron completely takes the cake on this market! Blue Apron delivers three full recipes along with all of the ingredients needed to make them all by yourself!

I am far from an experienced chef. There are many basic techniques I still stumble around. My husband, Danny, certainly picks up where I lack in the kitchen. There are a few things, such as chicken or even frying an egg, that have been completely deemed his territory. We were quite excited for this box to arrive and get to try it out together!

We were home when the box arrived, however just getting ready to head out. I remembered reading on the website that if you were gone when it arrived it would sustain on your porch for many hours until your return. Even though we were only leaving for an hour, I decided to test that theory. When we returned home, everything in the box was still cold or frozen, respectively.

We are such ‘foodies’ so opening the box was like Christmas! The box itself was huge, and you could feel the cold emanating from it. When the lid was opened we could see that the entire box was lined in a thick, sturdy insulation. We could see that toward the bottom of the box the raw meat was under cardboard, contained with two giant gel ice packs.

The first night it came, I already had meat thawing (for skillet enchiladas) for dinner so we weren’t going to be starting the new recipes until the following day.

Inside the box was also a very friendly welcome letter. In the letter is a small introduction to the meals and a small tip for each, (how to know when the avocado is ripe, how we will learn about different ways to deal with butter, and how to cut the multicolored carrots artistically.)

I just couldn’t believe how much the box contained. The further I dug, the happier I got. There were fresh herbs, fresh produce, small containers of cheese and butter and a small bag that said Knick Knacks. Inside the bag were small items that I assume they didn’t want rolling loose in the box.
 
Much of the fresh produce in the box was completely foreign to me. I had to look up where a lot of it should be stored. After placing everything that needed refrigerated into the fridge, we decided that we wanted to try the ‘Pan roasted pork tenderloin with brown butter-spaetzle, roasted brussels sprouts & Granny Smith Apples. We left the Pork in the fridge to stay thawed and froze the cod and chicken.

 The next day we pulled out the pork recipe and started to gather all the ingredients.

Honestly, I didn’t know what a shallot was so the pictures on the recipes were really helped. The only thing I was confused about was that the recipes called for specific portions (2 tablespoons butter, a tablespoon apple cider vinegar, etc.) and the ingredients did not have amounts listed on them. I had to assume that what I was given was exactly what I needed. I knew that they would not give me less, but wasn’t sure that they were not more than needed.

The website boasts itself as being designed to be prepared in 35 minutes or less. The first recipe took us roughly an hour. We aren’t the biggest connoisseurs of cooking meals from scratch, so it took us a bit longer to get in the swing of things. There was A LOT of chopping causing prep time to take an awful lot longer than we expected. We ended up having to tag team the shallots, as we both are quite sensitive to the evils of onion fumes.

 I loved how the meat was already cut into the equal portions. I felt like they really did everything they could to make your job as simple as possible!
 
The meal was great. It wasn’t the most flavorful meal but the textures were rich and heavy and an all around perfect German meal for the cold weather we have been having! My husband even took the opportunity to make a hot batch of Gluhwein (German hot wine) to go along with it.

 

The Spaetzel was unlike anything we have had before and I’m definitely a fan. This 700-calorie meal got an A+ from us all!

The next night we decided to have the Seared Cod with Kaffir lime butter sauce. I loved all the colors in the meals. I didn’t even know that purple carrots existed!

I took the cod out of the freezer and put into the fridge early in the day but it still didn’t fully thaw which caused it to take a little longer than suggested to cook.

All in all, it took less time than the night before but still was about 10-15 minutes longer than advertised. This also came with Israeli Couscous that was so incredible!

The kaffir lime sauce was very interesting! It’s something I will absolutely be making again for fish.

Another interesting thing in this meal was the Tatsoi. We have never even heard of this vegetable. They were like tiny little baby cabbages that had a natural sour taste. My husband (who is a big fan of sauerkraut) was over the moon for these little gems.


 
We enjoyed this meal with a nice glass of Moscato and really loved it! This meal was the healthiest of those included and came in at only 575 calories! Despite the smaller-than-used-to portion it was extremely filling!

 

 The final meal to make was Chicken & Poblano Chilaquiles with escarole & avocado salad.

While the end result was quite tasty, there were many disappointments while making it.  For starters, there wasn’t a shallot for it. Each of the meals calls for a shallot, yet they only provided two.

The lime was bad, but it was only for squeezing over top of the shallot and the avocado, which was also bad, so it wasn’t needed. The avocado was placed into the fridge two days previous as soon as it reached its peak ripeness, as instructed. However when cut into, it was completely brown inside. As I didn’t have any other vegetables I decided to forgo the salad altogether since all that was left was the escarole.
 
Again though, the end creation was more than tasty and filling all on its own without the salad. It just really stinks to have that much go bad after 4 days of arriving. This meal was 700 calories per serving.

This box was for a 2-person family. We are slightly more than, as there is two adults and a four year old. Not once did we run into an issue of not having enough to feed us all. The only one that didn’t have leftovers was the cod!

They have plan options to include 2,4 or 6 family members, costing $9.99 per person, per meal. Each box includes three meals. In other words the plans will cost roughly $60, $120, or $180. To me, that is about the same as enjoying a decent meal out at a restaurant a couple of times.

You can choose from either a vegetarian meal box, or a box that includes poultry, meat, and fish. It would be nice to see them make a combination box with a mix of the two. Another thing I would love to see is maybe a dessert recipe included.

While the price is a little steep, I will definitely be doing this again in the future. We do tend to budget for eating out so I'd much rather the money go to something like this. It gives you great healthy meals you probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise. It gives you some cooking skills you may not have had before. For my family, it also gave us a quality bonding experience. We don’t tend to cook together, and for that week, we were both in the kitchen, phones off, learning something new.

The beautifully printed recipe cards are definite keepsakes that we will visit again!

Also, the box it came in was perfect for an upcoming eight-hour road trip. We refroze the ice packs, and packed sandwiches and drinks and when we arrived on the other end, the ice was still frozen and any food left was still cold.

I highly recommend this box to absolutely anyone. I can’t wait to do this again with my family.

Blue Apron on Facebook
Blue Apron Website

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This post was originally posted at WAHM Review and is being cross posted here by the original author.  I received no monetary compensation for this review, however I was provided with the product for free for purposes of review.  All opinions are my own. Click here see our full disclosure policy.

Review: Brownie Brittle

Reviewer: Jackie Snider

I don’t know why this hasn’t been thought of before. For years company’s have been taking apart old favorite treats and stripping them down to the key elements.

If you look in your local store, you will find a box of just muffin tops. You will find frozen bowl of just the yummy middles from a cinnamon bun. It is no quite secret that everyone prefers the crunchy edges of a brownie. I’ve seen plenty of tools sold to create that crunch on each of your homemade brownies, but what if you could buy JUST the edges. Just cut right to the chase and take out the middleman, or middle brownie if you will. Sheila G. certainly thought so, and created Brownie Brittle!

They have currently have four varieties available. I was lucky enough to try all of them! The flavors are Chocolate Chip, Mint Chocolate chip, Toffee Crunch, and Salted Carmel. I couldn’t wait to rip open each one!
The first one we tried was the Salted Carmel. It is one of my favorite flavors of candy or coffee and I love the scent as well. They smell wonderful! The flavor was really good, but I wish it were a little saltier. The toffee crunch was delicious! It was the first bag to go empty. The chocolate chip tastes like an amazing super crunchy chocolate chip cookie. Lastly, the mint chocolate chip was my personal favorite. It has a lovely light cooling mint taste wrapped in chocolate.
 
The pieces were much bigger then my picture shows. Unfortunately I just didn’t take the picture until we were down to crumbs! Many were coming out the size of graham crackers. Believe it or not you could eat about 6 pieces (1 oz) and only be taking in about 120 calories!

While my family stuck to eating them straight out of the bag, now that we are down to crumbs, I plan to use them in baking! You can crush them to use as a crust, add them into cookie batter, or even just sprinkle some into ice cream! I wish I had thought to use them for S’mores while I still had big pieces. There is a section on their website filled with recipe ideas, and I can’t wait to try them when I buy some more!

Brownie Brittle can be found at restaurants and amusement parts around the country. You also can buy them at leading grocery stores such as Safeway, Costco, and Publix just to name a few! Even more so, you can purchase them straight off their website in varying bulk sizes and flavors.

Brownie Brittle Facebook
Brownie Brittle Website

 

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This post was originally posted at WAHM Review and is being cross posted here by the original author.  I received no monetary compensation for this review, however I was provided with the product for free for purposes of review.  All opinions are my own. Click here see our full disclosure policy.