Subscription Box Review: eat2explore

Subscription Boxes for Kids

From cooking to creating, keep kids busy with fresh, fun activities delivered to your door. We’ve tested out a variety of boxes and will roll out a new review for you each week. Up this week: eat2explore.

eat2explore

This monthly cooking subscription box lets kids travel the globe with recipes for popular dishes from around the world. I tried out the Brazil-themed box with my 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. The box came with three recipes: pastéis, savory beef hand pies; feijoada, a meaty stew with collard greens and rice; and shrimp moqueca, a stew with veggies and coconut milk. I knew the only thing my sometimes picky kids would even consider eating was the pastéis recipe. (I even skipped the delicious-sounding watermelon salad that accompanied the hand pie recipe.) The box includes pre-measured spice and sauce mixes for each recipe, but you need to supply the fresh ingredients. They also helpfully include a shopping list and options to make the dishes vegetarian and/or gluten free. 

As we started making the pastéis recipe together, I decided that it was a good time to let the kids do more of the actual cooking themselves. I love to cook and have been baking with them since they were toddlers, but most of that was letting them stir. I led my 7-year-old through chopping up the onion. I let both kids sauté the onions and ground beef on the stove. And I set it up so it was easy for them to fill the puff pastry dough themselves. My son especially loved crimping the edges of the dough himself.

The verdict: Both kids actually ate some of the pastéis! And my husband and I really thought the finished product was delicious. The kiddos were very proud that they made them. The recipe was simple enough for us to complete it in less than an hour. Calling for premade, frozen puff pastry dough helped make the hand pies taste decadent without requiring a lot of labor. Bonus: My daughter was interested in reading the geography material and facts about Brazil that came with the kit as we were eating. I’d recommend this kit for elementary-school aged kids who are not picky eaters.

 $24.95 for one box/$22.46 a month for 4 months/$21.20 a month for 12 months. Eat2explore.com.

Denise Castañon
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