ScratchDC: Helping You Cook Dinner

Occasionally, I'll browse through a farmer's market and select fresh, high quality ingredients for the evening's meal. After leisurely chopping, measuring, and mixing as required, everything goes into the oven to produce a delicious and healthy meal. But, more often, there is no time for shopping and the only energy I have for food preparation is taking a handfull of ground beef, flatting it, and tossing it onto a grill. This week I had the opportunity to try a dinner provided by scratchDC, a meal delivery service made for people like me.

ScratchDC, delivers everything you need for a great meal, all cut, measured, marinated and ready to cook. Ingredients are packaged in what scratchDC calls "bundles". A bundle is suitable for serving two adults. The best way to explain how scratchDC works is just to describe our experience with it

Everything begins with the menu. Each week scratchDC posts the week's menu on their website. There is no membership or minimum order required. Simply browse through the week's choices, add bundles to your cart as desired, and check out. The ingredients arrive each morning at scratchDC, where they are chopped, mixed, marinated, and packaged. Then the bundles are delivered daily to your door at a time you indicate during ordering. Because we were invited to review the service, we skipped this part and just sent our meal choice by email. Our choice was "Chicken Marsala & Asparagus over Penne with an Arugula, Pecan & Dried Cranberry Side Salad."

Our "bundle" arrived right on time. Everything was packaged in a brown cardboard box tied with twine. Inside were several containers of various sizes and chicken breasts wrapped in butcher paper. There was also a card which contained cooking instructions on one side and information about the ingredients on the other. According to the card, the chicken had come from a family farm in Pennsylvania, the organic sage and parsley from a grower in Harrisonburg, PA, and other organic spices were from Baltimore. All the containers were made of biodegradable corn starch.

The instructions said it would take 30 minutes to turn everything into a meal. It ended up taking me 40 minutes. The instructions were clear and easy to follow. Most of the containers were not labeled, but the ingredients were easy to identify -- it's not hard to figure out which is the asparagus and which is the penne, for instance. But, a couple of items were more challenging. ScratchDC marked those with various symbols such as a star and a smiley face. In addition to the chicken marsala and salad, scratchDC included chocolate chip cookie dough for baking cookies.

Now, the important part: how did it taste? Maria and I thought it was delicious. The chicken marsala actually exceeded my expectations. The boys were split. One loved it, even asking the next day if there were leftovers (there weren't). The other declared the chicken "spicy" and refused to eat it. It should be said that he has previously declared plain white rice to be "spicy" and, as such, you should not put too much credence into his evaluation. The cookies -- still warm from the oven -- were also a big hit (and apparently not spicy).

All in all, I was impressed with scratchDC. But, this is not a cheap service to provide. The organic ingredients, daily instruction and ingredient lists, even the biodegradable packaging all come with a cost. Obviously, the service is priced accordingly. Bundles range from $26 - $28 each, meaning that a family of four is looking at over $50 for a home-cooked meal. On the other hand, the cost compares favorably with what we might spend on home delivered Thai or Chinese and is likely a healthier choice.

I see a number of advantages to using scratchDC, such as the time-savings from not needing to shop or chop, mix, and marinate. Also, I would be unlikely to have tried cooking chicken marsala had it not been for this opportunity. So, an expanded menu is another benefit. We are planning to try additional meals from scratchDC and, assuming future experiences are equally pleasing, could become fairly regular customers.

For a limited time, scratchDC is offering DC Urban Moms and Dads readers a 15% discount. Just enter the promo code "UrbanMoms" when ordering.