Sole In Parchment With Warm Date And Apricot Salad – Sun Basket Meal Kit

Burst Of Flavors With The Wow Factor!
  • Flavor (5 = best)
  • Prep Time (5 = short and easy)
  • Difficulty Level (5 = easiest)
  • Cleanup (5 = quickest)
4.8

Summary

WOW!

The explosion of flavors as you bite into this dish made my eyes grow wide, and I immediately said “OH!” in a surprised, pleasant way. Gail had a similar reaction, and she said it has a WOW factor. I agree.

I’m not a baked fish kind of gal. To me, baked fish, no matter what kind it is, is just too “fishy”. I suppose it’s possible this sole was too fishy, but I had no chance to ever know it. Why? Because all the flavors from all the other ingredients completely dominated the palate, and I almost didn’t taste the fish at all. That’s perfect! All the benefits of the fish, without any of the “fishiness”.

Easy and Fun To Make

The prep work was simple. A few slices of this and that, and we’re ready to cook. It was a little bit fun to layer the spinach, shallots, fish, and lemon slices in the parchment, and then package it all up neatly.

It was simple to throw the dates, apricots, and almonds into the pan to heat them up as well.

Cleanup Is Almost Nothing

Except for the one pan and our plates, there’s virtually no cleanup to deal with. The parchment paper just gets thrown away, and just like that, it’s done.

So What’s The Best Part?

The warm date and apricot salad is to die for. Almost a year ago, I said “The dates…oh my, the dates. They were insanely fantastic. They made the dish, in my opinion. I now want to put dates in EVERYTHING.” in my post, Za’atar Roasted Cauliflower Date-Farro Salad. I discovered how delicious this taste is then, and I rediscovered it today. Of course, I never get around to putting dates in anything else after that dish, until today, and now I am determined once again to use dates as much as possible. Ok, I will probably forget again, but at this very moment, I want to!!! LOL. But back to today’s dish, I really really loved the flavor of that “salad” that gets put on top of the fish. I could eat the salad all by itself. And no, I wouldn’t really call this a “salad”, but that’s what the recipe calls it, so I will too. Anyway…yum, yum, yummity yum.

What About Sun Basket?

I almost forgot to mention that this was the first Sun Basket meal kit we’ve tried! Like I mentioned in the Green Chef review, Sun Basket is one of those “premium-priced” services. At $11.99 per dish, which is $3.00 more than services like Hello Fresh, it’s a little pricier than I would like it to be. (Family plans for 4 are just $10.99 each).

I’m not sure yet if I can justify that cost. But here’s what I like so far about Sun Basket, and the Pros might outweigh the pricey con.

Eleven types of meal plans including:

  • Chef’s Choice
  • Carb Conscious
  • Paleo
  • Mediterranean
  • Lean and Clean
  • Gluten Free
  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Quick and Easy
  • Diabetes Friendly
  • Pescatarian

The cool thing though is that you aren’t limited to any one plan, even within the same week. You can mix and match from any plan for any week.

Sun Basket sends organic produce, antibiotic-free, hormone-free meats, and wild-caught seafood.

There are 18 meals to choose from each week.

When I unpacked the box, I was happy to see each set of ingredients in their own paper bags. As I’ve mentioned before, I like having all the ingredients (except the meat/fish) together in a bag. I don’t have to hunt down the individual ingredients in the fridge, and I can use the bag to throw scraps and wrappers into it as I cook. By the time I’ve finished cooking, all the throw-aways are together in the bag, making cleanup much easier.

After unpacking the box, I panicked for a moment, because there were no ingredient cards. I’d noticed a “catalog” but hadn’t looked at it yet. I’d assumed it was some sort of advertisement, but I was wrong. This was a fairly thick “book” that included every recipe I might have possibly ordered that week. I kind of like that and kind of don’t. It took me a little extra time to hunt down the page with the recipe I was cooking. Not much time, granted, but any extra time is too much time. Still, it worked fine.

We’ll see how the next two meals turn out before I make any real judgement calls about Sun Basket, but so far, I’m pretty impressed.

 

If you decide to try Sun Basket, you can get 3 free meals (which is $40 off your first week) by clicking this link. You can freely choose to skip or cancel future deliveries, so there is no lock-in. If you don’t like it, no worries. Just skip or cancel.

Disclosure: If you use my link, I may also receive credit on my meal kit. We both benefit!

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