Hamptons Lane Subscription Box Review & Coupon – July 2016 Modern Grilling Box

Hamptons Lane is a luxury monthly subscription box catering to cooking enthusiasts. Each month Hamptons Lane sends out themed recipes along with 4-7 curated artisanal ingredients and a kitchen tool that you can use to make delicious food at home. Once you sign up, each month you’ll receive an email describing that month’s new box. You can choose to skip that month without any penalty (no later than the fifth of the month), substitute another box for the current offering or, if need be, you can cancel at any time.

The theme for July was modern grilling! The box arrived full of things to help you produce perfectly seasoned dishes: a salt plate, skewers, barbecue sauce and jerk sauce.

The recipe book included gorgeous color photographs of all of the box’s ingredients along with directions for using  the enclosed salt block and recipes that utilize it.

This Himalayan Salt Block by Charcoal Companion ($19.97) is 8″ x 8″. It can be used hot or cold, but bringing it to temperature takes time. It is naturally antimicrobial, so warm water and a scrub brush are all that are required for cleaning. Once washed, leave out to air dry for at least a day before reusing. Filled with salt and trace minerals, the salt block promises to impart a subtle saltiness to any food that touches it. Even with proper care, though, it will break down eventually so that it can no longer be used as a plate. Once that happens, simply grind it up to add to your dishes.

These eight inch long bamboo skewers ($1.19) are stronger than most wood skewers. Just remember to soak them for at least a half an hour before placing them on the grill to help prevent burning. Hamptons Lane claims that these skewers were made especially for them, but their packaging suggests otherwise.

Mable’s Barbecue Sauce ($12.25) really is liquid country gold! It’s my new favorite barbecue sauce! Although it has a good deal of vinegar and smoke, it also has a medium body, which I love. This turned a ho hum meal of reheated grilled chicken and brussels sprouts into a gourmet feast. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff! For those with dietary restrictions, it’s worth noting that this sauce contains both fish and dairy.This Jamaican Jerk Pineapple Chutney by Wozz ($10) is divine. My husband and I have enjoyed it so much that after making the shrimp and skirt steak recipes provided by Hamptons Lane, we started eating this by itself with a spoon. This chutney is very chunky and heavily spiced. While the pineapples does lend some sweetness to the condiment, the pineapple taste is somewhat overpowered by the spices, as I was hoping it would be!

This month Hamptons Lane enclosed a card advertising a number of additional tools that subscribers may be interested in to augment what they received in the modern grilling box. I think this was a good move on the part of Hamptons Lane. Now that I’ve used the salt block and tried to clean it by hand, I can attest that a dedicated cleaning brush would be an indispensable tool to have on hand before grilling with the salt block.

Here’s what I made this month:

I enjoyed this caprese salad very much! I loved the saltiness afforded by the salt block, and the simplicity of the recipe was spot on. Delicious!

These watermelon skewers were, likewise, delicious! Next time, I’ll mix some whipping cream in with the goat cheese to help it spread more easily.

Tried as I might, I couldn’t get a sear on my mangoes. I guess I hadn’t brought the temperature up high enough before putting them on the salt block. Ever persistent, I left them on too long and they turned out very salty. I still ate them, don’t get me wrong, but next time, I’ll cook them at a higher temperature for a shorter amount of time.

The grilled shrimp turned out delicious! Aside from cleaning the salt block afterwards, the only difficulty I had with this dish was knowing when the shrimp were done. Because they were skewered, it was difficult to discern any change to their curvature while cooking.

My husband and I ate the shrimp with an extra side of the Jamaican Jerk Pineapple Chutney. What a treat!

After scrubbing the salt block for over a half an hour by hand, I still couldn’t get all of the residue from the shrimp dinner off the salt block, so I turned it over and used the other side.

The resulting skirt steak was delicious! I liked that it used the Red Boat Fish Sauce that we received in the Taste of Thai box a few months ago to marinate the steak. I would happily eat this dish any day.

Overall, I thought this was a fun box that contained a number of delicious recipes. Both Mable’s Barbecue Sauce and the Jamaican Jerk Pineapple Chutney were out of this world. Still, I probably won’t make many of these recipes using the salt block again. I found the salt block difficult to clean and very time consuming to use. It’s small, so every recipe had to be made in batches. It takes a long time to bring up to temperature. In short, as a busy mom, it just doesn’t fit in with my lifestyle too well. Still, I was glad to have tried it and, more important, thrilled to have been introduced to the two enclosed condiments!

Again, though, if you’re looking to Hamptons Lane to save you money on the cost of the items in the box, you may be left disappointed. Hamptons Lane says the salt block is worth $35. The only place I saw it for sale was at Home Depot for $19.97. That’s a pretty big difference. In fact, it brings the cost of the box at the discounted monthly rate just over the cost of the individual components if you were to buy them separately online.

Still, I love Hamptons Lane! Their recipes are divine, and the suggested techniques and tools always make for nice date nights at home with my husband.

Do you subscribe to Hamptons Lane? What did you think of this month’s salt block? If you haven’t, get $10 off your first box with coupon code hellosubscription10.

Visit Hamptons Lane to subscribe or find out more!