Hatchery Tasting Box Review: January 2015

The Hatchery Tasting Box is a monthly selection of artisan cooking ingredients and recipes. Each box comes with a handful of small size ingredients, as well as a booklet outlining not only the product and a suggested recipe (which you can get through the website), but also info on the company making it.

One thing that stood out to me about the ingredients in this box is that they can all be used easily. Although it's fun to get an exciting ingredient, if it's something that can really only work with one or two recipes, it ends up not being used. Each of these items is something you could use in multiple ways, either following the suggested recipes or just being creative. I like that I can be creative with minimal effort, too, since I'm not much of a cook.

Each item comes individually wrapped, which is definitely a plus. Since they're almost all glass, it's nice knowing I won't get the residue of olive oil instead of the actual sample! :)

The first item I opened was paprika mayonnaise. This sounds great and I'm looking forward to trying it on fries or a veggie burger. It's exactly the kind of sauce I would want, because it's not dry and has a little kick. In addition, we received a bottle of hot sauce - and we never mind hot sauce!!

I was very excited to see olive oil, as we literally just ran out of ours. We have an extra bottle to open, but it couldn't have come at a better time. I love olive oil and use it in a lot of the cooking I do, so this will be used very soon.

Another thing I really liked about the Hatchery Tasting Box is that it included a mix of dinner-type ingredients with some breakfast/dessert ingredients. I like having a lot of variety in the pantry and each item in this box will get used, but I appreciate that I can use them for different types of meals or cooking.

For sweeter products, we received a Key lime curd. I'm not sure how to use this exactly, but the booklet suggests just adding it to shortbread. I'm perfectly fine with that! I love lemon and lime, so this will be quite yummy.

Finally, we opened cinnamon honey, which sounds awesome. It also has only two ingredients - cinnamon and honey. All of the products are all natural, another bonus.