I don’t know what the growing trend in meal subscription services says about us as a society, but as a person who loves to cook, I couldn’t wait to try one.

There’s Blue Apron, Chef’d and Hello Fresh, but I decided on The Purple Carrot because it provides all the ingredients for vegan meals, three dinners for two ($68) or two dinners for four ($74) each week, and because Mark Bittman left his dream gig at The New York Times to become Purple Carrot’s chief innovation officer and largely because of what he has taught me, I believe that eating much less meat is good for the planet and good for me.

Certainly, you don’t need a meal service to cook vegan or vegetarian meals. But working with fresh vegetables and grains all the time is a lot of work.

The planning, the shopping, the preparation — it makes me tired and hungry just thinking about it. A meal service eliminates two of the most arduous steps: figuring out what you want to cook and shopping for a never-ending supply of fresh ingredients.

As a first-time Purple Carrot subscriber, I would received a $20 discount on my order, so my first three meals would cost me $48 — $16 per meal for my husband and me. They can’t be making much money at this, I thought. So I quickly signed up.

My first box arrived on a Tuesday, as promised. It was big, made of sturdy cardboard with an insulated liner that seemed to do its job well: it was still quite cold inside. The premeasured ingredients were packed in clearly labeled plastic bottles or bags, and there was one plastic bag-full for each meal. 

We started with Manchurian Cauliflower with Sesame-Tamari Bok Choy, a “typically Indian dish,” according to the large recipe card, which featured lots of step-by-step photographs and clear instructions. I began with toasting then simmering millet in water, preparing the sauce with fresh garlic that needed peeling and slicing, tomato paste, turbinado sugar and spices, then letting that come to a simmer. 

Next the cauliflower — lovely and fresh — needed to be rinsed, chopped and added, with some water, to the sauce, then simmered until tender.

Lastly, the bok choy needed to be rinsed and chopped. Mine was predominately stem with very little leaf. It was to be cooked in a skillet with tamari, sesame oil and water until tender-crisp. For serving, the lemon needed to be cut into wedges, the scallions sliced and the peanuts chopped.

All that took about an hour and 15 minutes and resulted in a pretty good meal. The millet had absorbed all the water but had kept a nice texture. The cauliflower was tangy and spicy, and that squirt of lemon and sprinkle of scallion and peanuts brought the whole meal together.

The next night’s dinner, Linguine with Crisp Mushrooms and Saffron Broth, took about the same amount of time to prepare but did not deliver much in the way of flavor. The recipe card called for dusting oyster mushrooms with a mix of whole-wheat flour, salt and pepper, then quickly sautéing them in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. The result tasted more like oily whole-wheat flour than mushrooms.

Celery, onion, garlic, wine (not included and I didn’t have any) or water, and half a teaspoon of saffron threads comprised the broth. The instructions called for dividing the cooked linguini between two soup bowls, dousing each with half the final broth, serving the mushrooms on top with wedges of broiled romaine lettuce in a red wine vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette on the side.

The flavors were subtle, perhaps too subtle for my palette. The description promised “a dish that will dazzle,” but I found it dull.

But the final meal, Tofu Escabeche with Bamboo Rice and Mango Slaw, more than made up for that disappointment. Escabeche is a technique in which “something fully cooked is marinated in an acidic sauce.” In this case, a mustard vinaigrette dresses both tofu that has been baked with nothing but some salt in a 400-degree oven where it puffs and browns to perfection, and the accompanying slaw. The tofu is served atop a pile of bamboo rice, which has been “infused with bamboo extract, which lends a chlorophyll-fueled tint, green tea-like flavor, and a Vitamin B boost.” Who knew?

The final result was an orchestra of textures, and the flavors — sweet mango to tangy marinade that dripped down into the warm rice to a cool breeze of fresh mint — were just delicious. We practically licked our plates.

On the up side, Purple Carrot delivers exactly what it promises. It gets you to eat three vegan meals a week by taking on all the responsibility for planning, finding the ingredients, and delivering them to your door.

I found the preparation challenging enough to be interesting and I even learned a couple of new techniques: the baking of the tofu was a brilliant lesson, as were the tips on cutting the mango.

The prep time was about the same for each meal and, although that hour and 15 minutes is just about my maximum tolerance for cooking after work, the dinners were tasty enough to make me forget about the prep. And the recipe cards make it possible for you to recreate the dishes later.

The big con for me was the packaging. There’s a lot of it, and if you buy Bittman’s concept about eating for your health and for the planet’s, it’s kind of difficult to feel good about generating so much trash.

On its website, Purple Carrot encourages recycling. The box can be broken down and recycled. They say the insulated liner is biodegradable, so “You can safely place (it) into your regular trash receptacle.” The same goes for the goo inside the freezer pack. They advise letting it thaw, dumping the gel into the trash and recycling the bag. They recommend reusing all those zip-top bags and little plastic bottles, but realistically, how many do you want lying around your house, waiting for reuse? And the liner and gel may be biodegradable, but once you seal it in a garbage bag that’s destined for burial or incineration, does that really matter?

Each week, Purple Carrot gives you until the end of the day Thursday to decide whether you want the next cycle of meals. The recipes are available in advance on their website so you see in detail what’s coming. If you don’t like the looks of things, you can pause your subscription for weeks at a time with no penalty and reactivate it with ease whenever you want.

It’s worth noting that Bittman left his job at Purple Carrot last week. He kept his ownership stake in the company, though, and he had nothing bad to say, just that he was “ready for something new.”

I’m going to keep my eye on him. I don’t know how many Purple Carrot meals are in my future, but I’ll keep trying to find new ways to make eating more plants fit into my life.

Tofu Escabeche with Bamboo Rice and Mango Slaw

Serves 2

12 ounces firm tofu

Salt

½ cup bamboo rice (or other rice of your choosing)

1 shallot

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Black pepper

12 ounces red cabbage

1 mango

A bunch of fresh mint

Step 1: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut the tofu crosswise into 4 triangles, each about 1-inch thick, then cut each triangle in half again through its middle so you end up with 8 ½-inch-thick triangles. Put the tofu in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and rub each triangle to coat evenly. Roast, turning the pieces once halfway through, until the tofu is crisp and golden, 20-30 minutes.

Step 2: Rinse the bamboo rice in a strainer until the water runs clear. Put it in a small sauceplan along with ¾ cup water and a large pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Lower the heat so it bubbles steadily, cover and cook, undisturbed, until the rice is tender and the water is absorbed, 15-20 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and keep covered.

Step 3: Trim, peel and thinly slice the shallot; put the slices into a large bowl along with the oil, vinegar, mustard and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and whisk until the marinade is emulsified. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Add the tofu and gently turn the pieces to coat.

Step 4: Rinse and core the cabbage; slice it into thin ribbons and put them in another large bowl. Rinse the mango. Cut off both flat sides of the fruit. Cut crosshatches through the flesh (not the skin) of each piece, then turn them inside out and cut the flesh from the skin. Discard the skin. Cut any remaining flesh from the pit. Add the mango to the cabbage.

Step 5: Rinse, dry and trim about half the mint (save the rest for another use); strip the leaves from the stems and chop them. Add 2 tablespoons of the tofu marinade to the slaw and toss to coat; taste and adjust the seasoning. Fluff the rice with a fork. Serve the tofu on top of the rice and slaw, garnish with mint, and pass the remaining marinade at the table.