Box Meal Plans, pt.2: Home Chef & Plated

In my last post, I wrote about our foray into boxed meal plan trials. Previously, I reviewed Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. Today, we’re going to talk about Home Chef and Plated, one of which is a clear winner.

We’ve been commenting that the meals seem to have gone from kind of terrible and disappointing slowly upward, each box better than the previous. That was true until we received Home Chef and Plated in that order, but I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.

Home Chef up first: Our first box was two days late arriving because of a weather delay with FedEx. Home Chef’s customer service was great throughout, they kept us posted and when it was clear that our box would be delayed two days, reimbursed us the whole amount and advised us not to eat the contents for safety reasons. We did anyway, it was all fine (but we did prep extra proteins just in case of spoilage).

We were so used to adding more veg or protein and flavors to the previous skimpy, bland meals that we did so with the first thing we made, realizing quickly that we didn’t need to. Home Chef shot to the top, with all three meals being great. We made, in order: the steak, then the pasta, then the pork chop.

First Home Chef Box: Great Success!

The steak was Excellent. We picked up two extras to replace the originals just in case and we made them all at once. The portions were perfect, we were floored considering how small the other boxes had been. Standard with all boxes, we supplied the oil, salt, and pepper (though they do send special butter every now and again).

Standard two-sided recipe and instructions sheet

Browning the steaks (two were theirs, three were ours, and theirs were better cuts)

 

Scalloped potatoes with spinach

Two huge portions!

The second dish we made was the pasta which honestly, could have appeared in any of the other boxes. It was fine. Nothing spectacular, we added some truffle salt to the whole thing to bring it alive, which helped. Not great, not bad, I gave it a 3 out of 5.

The pork chops however, were the best. We made extras because of the spoilage potential, and supplemented the pretzel coating with panko to make it stretch, while also improvising extra mustard sauce. It was all so good, that one we agreed we’ll make again in the future. We are excited to try the second box, coming in a week after we get through Plated box no.2…

Plated. I’d been told how much people like Plated and how we’d surely like it too. We ordered our first Plated box three years ago and had a bad experience with the produce going off within 24 hours of delivery. Their customer service wasn’t great about it and I wasn’t impressed with that, never using the $10 box credit they finally gave us. BUT we got the same deal this time, four discounted boxes, and decided to give them another shot. Somewhat begrudgingly, we have one more box coming this week because the second set of recipes look good but after that, we agreed that we’re likely done with them.

First Plated Box: Resounding “Meh”.

I was sold by the Thai dish, we make a lot of Thai food at home and love the flavors so

Prep for the Beef Rendang

that seemed like an easy option, same with salmon which we frequently eat and of course chicken thighs are the best part of the bird. The beef and the chicken both had terrible timing written into the recipes. They both called for the rice (and beans) to start first and then let sit while the rest is prepped and cooking, but because the rest of the dish required a 20+ minute cook time for the proteins, this meant the rice (and beans) sat long enough to become gummy and dry. I made the beef for us, D made the chicken a few days later and we both had the same issue with timing per the instructions, had we read the recipe well first, we wouldn’t have followed them to the letter. The flavors were just ok, nothing really impressive that we felt with Home Chef. The beef dish was in fact so flavorless that we raided our own Thai ingredient arsenal and doctored the heck out of the sauce to give it some profile besides salt. We saved it but ultimately gave it a 2 out of 5.

Enter a caption

Plated’s packaging leaves a lot to be desired. They send liquid ingredients and spices in packets, and once the packets are jostled around a few times, the spices coat the insides and that means not only does it make a mess to add to the dish, but you lose a pinch left inside the bag to static. It’s a terrible system and of everything they need to change, that’s maybe the most bothersome.

The salmon sandwiches were very oily per the amount used on the fish and the toasted bread, the beef was tough, the grains overcooked. The chicken was the winner there but we agreed that we wouldn’t make any of these recipes again. Typically I would blame tough meat and overcooked grains on the cooks, but in this case we followed the instructions to the letter and that was the result.

Next week’s Plated box looks great and I’m really hoping it makes up for the first run:

Plated Box #2: Hoping for Better

Recap: Home Chef is impressive and I would recommend it to anyone that has some skill in the kitchen. Plated was far less impressive, I’d rank it above Blue Apron but below the others. There are deals available for Home Chef and Plated, both of them offering four boxes at a discount before the charge goes to full price (but frequency and content can be altered to bring the price down).

There are a few more boxes we’d be interested in trying, especially as spring and summer ingredients start to come back around. I’m investigating Martha & Marley Spoon, Sun Basket, Freshly, and Peach Dish. While I shudder at the idea of spending $70-$80 on a box of only three dinners with no leftovers, we realized that using these meal boxes has cut down on the amount of times per week that we say, “I don’t feel like cooking, let’s go grab something/order in” by a lot. We rarely grocery shop now that we have three meals covered per week, since weekends we eat out or raid the deep freezer for buried treasure. While these $50 per week deals are great, once they expire we’ll have to figure out the revised plan.

Four varieties down, one or two more to go:

Blue Apron
Pro: Most if not all packaging is recyclable. All boxes have an ice pack can be drained and recycled or kept and reused until it eventually bursts (and it will), great for inexperienced cooks or those with little kitchen cookware, and unfussy palates. Pricing is better than average for meal plans of this type.
Con: Portions are small, flavors are often lacking and require additional spices, the app is frustrating to use and frequently bounces a person out to the full site or to the wrong screens.

Hello Fresh
Pro: Some of the packaging is recyclable, the dishes are very tasty and require almost zero additional flavors or ingredients to bulk them up, the techniques are slightly elevated for more experienced cooks, the portions are enough for two full grown adults who like food, a well-done app that includes steps, a timer, and reminders.
Con: Only half of the packaging can be recycled (and there are a lot of plastic bags not marked with recycle symbols). The dishes can be tricky for only one person to make, some of them require timing that works better with two sets of hands, the price is higher than BA. Green onions with every. single. dish.

Home Chef
Pro: Excellent portions! Fresh everything, even when delivery was delayed by two days due to weather, great customer service (they reimbursed us for the whole box because of the delay but offered to credit us instead), good packaging and less of it than Hello Fresh, does not require any additional flavors or ingredients, great serving sizes for two hungry adults.
Con: Not as much recyclable packaging as Blue Apron, which is so far the leader in that regard. The ice pack is half the size of the others which means it’s a little more time sensitive to get everything inside and put into the fridge quickly. Not a con, but if you’re inexperienced in the kitchen or working solo, these dishes are a little more complicated and require a bit more time. Difficult to skip weeks, doing so required a few steps as if I was cancelling the account, no other box made it this difficult.

Plated
Pro: The meals look good on paper, so we’re attempting a second box in hopes that it’s a better bet than the first. The ingredients are slightly more daring and advanced than Blue Apron, but I don’t think the price is justified.
Con: Packaging is lousy and little of it can be recycled, and as mentioned above the spices and liquid ingredients come in small sealed bags which are difficult to empty fully or cleanly. The arugula for the salmon arrived in a breathable veggie bag but was totally wilted three days later with about 10% starting to yellow. Several of the ingredients are packaged separately and scattered throughout the box which can be hard to organize for one trip from the fridge. Portions are on the smaller side, timing per the instructions is very, very off. Not for the inexperienced cook.

Mail Delivery Boxed Meals, a Compare and Contrast (ongoing)

Our lives aren’t so crazy busy that we can’t possibly make dinner for ourselves every night, but we sometimes really don’t want to do much beyond open a box and heat something up. Last time we were in Chicago, we picked up 10 frozen Lou Malnati’s pizzas to keep in our purchased-for-the-occasion deep freezer, for those very moments.

Blue Apron’s Koren Popcorn Chicken (with added broccoli because we are adults)

But we like to cook and that means that no matter how long the day is or how late we get started, the pots and pans come out and we set to chopping. When we were first married, our living situation was unique and we had to be careful with how elaborate our meals were or how long they took, so we went with a Blue Apron trial which I documented here. That lasted about a year, into a new apartment with more space and time, a long break, then two short revisits over the following two years.

By the end of our third round with Blue Apron, we were decidedly done. The portions, we swore, got smaller. The dishes all seemed to require a fair bit of spicing up plus an addition of extra flavors and even then, we were disappointed about 75% of the time. All the while, I had been receiving Hello Fresh offers in the mail so after a bitter disappointment with BA (the saddest ramen on earth), I paused those deliveries and signed us up with the other. This was a very good decision, it turned out.

We’ve been incredibly happy with the quality and portions of Hello Fresh, I’d put them at about a 90% success rate five boxes in, something we hadn’t been able to say about most of our time with Blue Apron. Thinking that we’d have to spice up the dishes or supplement them with extra veg like we’d been doing previously, we did so for the first three meals. This resulted in way too much food so we stopped. I had a deal that fed us through all of January, four boxes for $54 per box, four meals a week. To continue that quantity after the promo period would have meant spending about $78 per week (with shipping), on four meals. We never spend that much in groceries per week (though that is an average decent dinner out with cocktails once a week, which we’d still do meal plan or no), and we knew spending that much per month would be more than we’d feel good about. After the trial month, I cut it down to two meals per week for about $45. Economically it’s smarter to go with more meals per box but overall, it’s just too much to spend knowing we’d have zero leftovers.

Hello Fresh’s delicious steak, that sauce was a win!

Aside from portions, what seems to set Hello Fresh apart is that it isn’t afraid to include sources of heat (packets of peppers, spicy sauces, single-serve Sriracha), extra spices, and simple but very tasty dressings for salads. The sourcing is always fresh if not organic (which is just a label and I don’t put a lot of stock in it anyway), sometimes local, always the exact right amount, and neatly packaged. While their packaging isn’t nearly as recyclable as BA’s, a drawback, it takes up less room in the fridge, with each meal in its own paper bag, aside from the proteins. This makes for easy and safely separated storage, compared to BA where the ingredients are thrown together and each must be set located in order to pair with each recipe. I also like that many of their meals can be made without their ingredients, meaning each meal is easily recreated using ingredients at the grocery store.

Feeling adventurous, I cancelled BA altogether after giving detailed dish reviews and feedback on their cancel screen (hey, they asked). I have also paused Hello Fresh for next week’s delivery so we can try Home Chef. I believe that Home Chef also distributes meal kits in grocery stores but I’ve never seen that where we are (I’ve also never looked and if I’m going to the grocery store, I’m going to get a lot and fresh ingredients, not frozen take-and-bake). Their special promo is for three meals per week for three weeks and costs about the same as Hello Fresh’s two meals per week ($54 with tax, free shipping during the trial). The dishes look really good, there are steaks and large pieces of fish, and the sauces and sides seem a little more advanced than we’ve seen so far from either HF or BA.

Once the trial for Home Chef is over, we’ll try Plated again. I had a bad experience with them a few yeas ago during a BA break and an even worse experience with their customer service after reporting the issue, so I’m not tagging them here just yet. I’ll review when the time comes and update the table below to keep track of differences.

They all have the same setup: Double-sided instructions with images, calories, time to prep and cook, and wine pairings.

Blue Apron
Pro: Most if not all packaging is recyclable, ice pack can be kept and reused until it breaks, great for inexperienced cooks or those with little kitchen cookware, pricing is better than average for meal plans of this type.
Con: Portions are small, flavors as often lacking and require additional spices, lots of packaging and not much of it is contained so it requires gathering and organizing before prep, the app is frustrating to use and frequently bounces a person out to the full site or to the wrong screens.

Hello Fresh
Pro: About half of the packaging is recyclable, the dishes are very tasty and require almost zero additional flavors or ingredients to bulk them up, the techniques are slightly elevated for more experienced cooks, the portions are enough for two full grown adults who like food, same reusable ice pack included, a well-done app that includes steps, a timer, and reminders.
Con: Only half of the packaging can be recycled (and there are a lot of plastic bags not marked with recycle symbols). The dishes can be tricky for only one person to make, some of them require timing that works better with two sets of hands, the price is higher than BA

Church Pot Luck Hot Chicken Salad

My mother made this dish whenever it was cold, she had to bring a dish to pass, or I asked for it. These days, I can make it myself but it’s so perfect for cool days and nights, and when you need a bit of crunch in your life. Not that central Ohio knows anything about cool days and nights, my a/c is still on. Sigh.

Hot Chicken Salad

6 chicken breasts, cubed and browned

2 cans cream of chicken soup

 

2 cups celery, diced (about fingernail-sized)

1 onion, chopped (same as celery but no smaller than that)

3/4 c. mayo

1 t. Worcestershire sauce

1/4 t. fresh ground pepper

1/4 t. salt

2 T. lemon juice (use the real stuff, not the bottled)

3 – 6 oz. sliced almonds

For topping:
1 c. potato chips, crushed

1 c. grated cheddar cheese

Mix browned chicken with celery, almonds, and onion.

In a separate bowl, mix together soup, salt, pepper, mayo, lemon, and Worcestershire sauce.

Pour both mixes in alternating layers, into greased 9″x 13″ pan. Top with chip & cheese mix. Bake for 45 minutes or until bubbly and hot.

******

That’s it. No more, no less. I made this for an old boyfriend once and he chided me for making “a casserole”. I barely defended it because I freaking love casseroles and PS, WHO DOESN’T?! so I made it with his noted protest. Twice.

My friend’s sister is preparing frozen meals for her friend who’s about to undergo major surgery. My friend asked me for some suggestions and recipes that would fit the bill, so I sent her six suggestions. Of those six, this was one of them along with my mom’s recipe for Sloppy Joes, with which a person can never go wrong. Both of these recipes are great for families though I’ll be honest and say that I have no earthly idea if this chicken salad will freeze. Naturally, the hot, crispy, bubbly cheesy topping will be lost when freezing and that will be a bummer, but not as much a bummer as major surgery, right?

So hug your loved ones, be grateful for your health (hopefully), and make this dish when fall actually shows up.

I didn’t take this photo but it’s what it looks like, so there you go. Though it looks like red onions are in there, and I can’t recommend that.

Thanksgiving 2016: Traitors

Dylan made a mock-island for me, it saved the day.

Sirloin Roast rub

Should have left the red pepper out. Choked the house, whoops.

Waiting for the yeast.

Dough balls formed and rising before bake.

Roast fresh out of the oven. Amazing.

Yorkshire puddings and roast cauliflower.

The puddings were perfect but not as tall as I’d liked.

Potatoes, mushy minted peas, roast cauliflower, sirloin roast, yorkshire pudding, and mashed potatoes.

The spread.

The rolls, I have to say, were maybe my second favorite (next to the roast).

First of all, there was no turkey. SEVEN DOLLARS for two tenderloins? No way. Roast it was, and we were ok with that.

Pinterest was on deck. I had the whole day to prep and cook, and planned to tackle two things I’d never made before: A sirloin tip roast and potato rolls from scratch. I lounged and watched movies, checked emails, played some games on my phone, and somewhere around 1 realized I should probably get going if we were to eat around 5:30.

I checked my recipes, one required at least two hours total (the roast), the other about an hour plus bake time (the bread) and everything else could be done as the roast rested. The Yorkshire pudding batter was made first thing and sitting out all day so it could come to room temperature, I salted the roast when I woke up Thanksgiving morning, then I made my spice mix for the rub. I fixed myself a drink and chilled out… about two hours longer than I should have.

Checking the bread recipe a second time, I saw that there was not one, but two rises, each taking one hour. Whoops. I sprung into action and got out the KitchenAid. Warm water, yeast, wait, you know the bit. Unfortunately, I lost count of my flour cups around the 3rd or 4th due to distraction, and rather than add too much, just went with it. It was clearly the 3rd cup because that dough was sticky. I added flour until it pulled away but it still seemed stickier than it should have. Eventually after much flour adding bit by bit, it came together and I set it aside to rise for the first time.

Onto the meat. Spices rubbed, trussed, sear. Hmm, Dylan sure does seem to be coughing a lot out there and my eyes hurt a little.
“What’s in that rub?”
“(list list list) red pepper”
“… honey, you just pepper sprayed us”.
Whoops. What kind of crazy person makes a recipe involving red pepper flakes and then tells you to introduce it to a very hot, out-in-the-open pan? Well, most of the roast recipes I saw, actually. So I cracked open the door and kept on. Seared, into the oven for at least an hour until temp reached, then hang out in the warm oven for another 40 minutes or so.

The dough rose and were single-serving portioned off into a buttered baking dish to rise for another hour, the roast was doing its thing, and I waited. By now, it was rounding about 6. Well past my intentioned dinner service time, but I reminded myself that it was a holiday, I was enjoying cooking without having to do it after a long day of work, and I had wine.

By about 7, the roast was almost to temperature, the bread was in the oven (if you have only one oven in your kitchen and cook a lot, get a convection toaster oven. I cannot tell you how invaluable mine has been), the cauliflower was chopped and as soon as the roast came out to rest, the Yorkies went in along with the veg. It was all coming together so well that by the time the peas were whizzed up in the food processor, I was starting to panic that I’d forgotten something major.

The table set, the wine poured, the roast out and cut, Yorkies puffed, bread finished, potatoes mashed, gravy peppered, peas minted, cauliflower roasted, can of cranberry sauce plopped into a dish. We sat down to dinner and took our time.

It was a smashing success. My family was horrified that we were just picking our forks up at 7:45, but that’s close to when we eat normally so it wasn’t a stretch. The roast was AMAZING and I have actually made two since. I just picked up another at the store yesterday for half price, and aside from the time it takes to do, it great for having around. We get about three meals and some meat snacks out of one, and when eaten with horseradish cream, it is just the best. We finished all leftovers within about five days, and the rolls are fantastic frozen then brought back to life.

Side note about that, actually: I didn’t realize that yeast lives after it’s frozen. I took the advice of some commenters from the recipe and shaped all the dough into balls then laid them on a greased plate to stick in the freezer. I left them there overnight then took them out, broke them apart and threw them into a freezer bag. Since then, I’ve taken a few out here and there, let them come to room temperature at least an hour if not two or longer, then bake normally. Sure enough, they puff right up and come out of the oven identical to the first day I made them. I can see why people go crazy about bread. It’s a pain and it takes forever but it’s so worth it. Nonetheless, I have several bread recipes pinned that I plan to do soon. Given Chicago’s weather forecast for the weekend, this may be the time I do it.

The night was lovely. We missed our families as you do, but were so incredibly grateful to have the day together and a quiet dinner to eat and enjoy one another without all that goes along with a crowded house. After it was over, we loaded the dishwasher for round one and I retired to our room to watch White Christmas (Dylan refuses Christmas that early but I need it). I’ll be honest and say that I wish we could do this every holiday, but I know that if we miss Christmas, I will be heartbroken. There will be turkey and maybe a ham, food we’ve eaten every Christmas of my life in some way or another, and lots of chaos and Fred peeing on mom’s carpet, but it will be good. It’s always good.

Thanksgiving for Two

T-minus four days to Thanksgiving. While we’d normally drive 30 miles (and an hour) west to my mom’s and spend most of the day cooking and hanging out, this year Dylan has to work a five hour shift likely in the middle of the day. If mom’s house was only a mere 20 or 30 minute drive, we’d just head over before or after but as it happens, an hour there and then typically more than that back on a holiday night is not really ideal. Plus, honestly, we’ve never had a holiday of our own in our own home, and when we realized he’d be working for some of it, we kiiiiiinda…sorta…. hoped it would keep us in for the day. And it is.

Meal planning for a traditionally huge supper when only two people are eating is a pain. I grew up with all the standards: turkey (which we’ve discovered over time nobody really likes all that much), buttery mashed potatoes, a green veg of some kind or another, two styles of stuffings, gravy made from both jars and the drippings with help from some Gravy Master and Wondra, canned cranberry sauce (the only kind that counts), strange Jellos that my Aunt Jan makes yearly without fail, appetizers of a veggie tray, meats, cheeses, some baked things my sister will choose the day or so before, and wine. It almost never changes and when it does, usually by me, there are frowns. Ah well.

I look forward to it every year, though. These things I have come to count on: the smells and hustle to get it all going, the comfort of the only childhood home I’ve ever known, the guard-change of my two older sisters and me doing all the cooking instead of my mom who tires out faster these days, opening the doors and windows because the kitchen gets so hot, the annoying tradition of my brothers-in-law planted in front of the television doing nothing while the women run about in a frenzy, the pride I have to see Dylan stay in the kitchen asking how the can help (his offers are almost always refused but noted), and the general security in the knowledge that of all the changes in life, holidays at mom’s are basically the same each year, give or take a few family members.

The downsides are few but weighty. Since Dylan and I got serious three years ago, we’ve spent every family holiday at my mom’s. We’ve come home late and exhausted, we’ve spent hours cooking (or trying to help) only to watch the food devoured in 15 minutes flat. We’ve both been so tired to drive home in the evening that we’ve flipped for who had to do it. We’ve left Fred alone all day or brought him with to chase him around the house making sure he didn’t pee on the carpet (there’s two other dogs there, it happens). My young nephews are hilarious and fun but Dylan being the only male relative who can talk video games with them, gets bombarded all day long. It takes a fair bit out of us, we homebodies, but typically it’s worth it.

Last week we started tossing around menu ideas. He loves lamb more than I do and while I do like it, five bites or so and the quantity of the intense flavor becomes too much. I love ham but he doesn’t really care about it, I wanted prime rib but it doesn’t do a whole lot for him, and neither of us care about turkey. We tabled the topic, revisited it, came to no decision, repeat. For a week.

So yesterday in the effort to price some options, we went test-grocery shopping, having not yet committed to anything but the sides. Lamb? Ham? Prime Rib? There were drawbacks to all and we couldn’t seem to agree. While perusing the meat department, found a sirloin roast. “Yorkshire Pudding” popped immediately into my head. Then mushy peas. Then some buttery mash. I mentioned these items to Dylan and his eyes lit up… wait a minute, are we planning a Traitor’s Thanksgiving? Yes, yes we are.

This revision to the original sort of plan is cutting my shopping list in half which was a welcome surprise, but is also leaving me feeling a little weird. I am fighting the urge to pick up a turkey tenderloin since I have a fantastic marinade recipe for it but then I need gravy and stuffing. That is too much food for just two people in spite of the guaranteed leftovers (which is appealing since we are terrible about making enough of anything to have leftovers). With that said, I still have to hit up the only grocery store I know of that will likely carry turkey tenderloins, and there’s a good chance I won’t be able to avoid having turkey on Thursday after all. Some traditions are simply too difficult to ignore.

Like this one, which no matter from whose nation we may borrow food traditions, will always have a place at my table: 

In cruising Pinterest and making my final grocery list, I admit that I am becoming more and more excited about it all. I plan to bake while Dylan’s at work now that I have additional counter space thanks to his Dremmel, a spare piece of Masonite, and my existing wire rack. I will likely listen to Christmas music while I do it, sip some coffee with Bailey’s or maybe a mimosa, and run dialog of my cooking show to the dog.

Pictures of the ingredients, process, and feast to come. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Wrong Recipes, Thrown Towels

I made this dish that I found on Pinterest tonight. I figured I’d start it when Dylan was on his way home from work, somewhere around 7 pm, and we could eat close to 8. It is now 8:43 and the dish is finishing in the oven. Part of that was a miscalculation on my part about how long the squash and onions would take to roast (50 minutes) and the other is just how putzy this recipe is to do. Especially so when it’s written wrong.

Sigh. So, the first half was fine. Squash and onion roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper then whizzed up in the food processor. While that was going, I made the sausage, garlic, and spinach part of the dish. I noticed almost immediately that proportionate to the one pound of Italian sausage, two cups of spinach disappeared so quickly it looked like it wasn’t even there. I added another cup and let it wilt. The recipe also doesn’t mention how to prepare the garlic, so I chopped it by hand to leave thicker pieces than my typical small crush with this amazing gadget.

When it was time to take the veg out of the oven, I realized I never stirred it (because the recipe never said to, so the reminder slipped past me) and some of the bits were very dark roasted or burned to parchment. There goes my uniform color sauce, oh well. I love roasty bits, but odd the recipe never reminded a stir to prevent a burn, I thought. Anyway, I whizzed up the onion and squash and tasted. Dylan wisely recommended, “salt”. I salted. And salted. And peppered. And salted. Then I added the milk and the veggie broth. And salted. And tasted. And salted. I could not believe how much salt I had to add to bring the flavor back (because the recipe never said how much to use while making the sauce, just whiz it up and add the liquids). I’m guessing at least a teaspoon went in, and another 1/4 t. of pepper.

The shells cooked while I made the sauce. “One pound”, says the recipe. A pound? Really? How can this be? The box I bought was 12 oz. and looked like way more than I’d need. Before adding them to the boiling water, I laid several into my two dishes (neither are exactly 9″ x 13″ plus I’d rather have extra) and noticed I’d need only about half, plus a few to account for breaks and rips. Why would the recipe call for a pound of shells for only one 9″x 13″ pan? That can’t be right. I grabbed my other roasting pan, a cute little 9″ x 4″ Le Cruset my sister gave me. I never know what to use it for, until I do. I ladled the sauce into both and then stuffed the shells, to set down onto the sauce bed. As I stuffed (conservatively at first), I realized the meat/cheese mix wasn’t really going away. So I kept stuffing and stuffing, then when they were all full, I stuffed some more into the ones that looked sparse. I literally had to force all that meat into those shells. There was also much more sauce than I think is necessary, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

So now we have more filling than we need, we’d have had more noodles than we’d have ever needed per the serving size, and I’m STILL left with about six or seven unused shells leftover. What is going on, here? Who the heck wrote this thing?!

The oven is about to buzz in a moment and we’ll dig in. Hang on, please.

Two days later:
Dinner was eaten, somewhat in silence. I was disappointed to say the least. The sauce, so much of it especially, was overwhelmingly sweet and thick. I’d have added cayenne or something to brighten it up, perhaps even some sort of acid to cut through all that cloying butternut. We sprinkled cayenne on the finished product and it seemed to help but ultimately, the sauce was overwhelming to any other flavor.

I bought a pound of spicy ground Italian sausage from my local grocery and found the flavor too was lost in the sauce and the quantity of the thick noodles. The consistency of the filling was separated and strange thanks to the ricotta, the sausage crumbles, and the spinach. Each bite fell apart in some way and couldn’t stand up to such a sweet sauce. Tomato sauce probably would have been delicious, but the filling was still too dry.

Very few things frustrate me like spending hours on a dish that is ultimately a disappointment. Dylan ate it all and has had a few leftovers since because it’s food, he’s a champ, and it’s what he does but I stared at my portions begrudgingly. It may be the last time I buy a butternut squash, they are just too much to handle (or I haven’t found the best way to handle them yet). I don’t have a sweet tooth nor do I love the texture of squash, so it goes into the “wish I could but I don’t like it” category along with cooked carrots and squab. Ah well, onto the next fall dish.

Unboxing and Infacing

I think I called it lazy. Maybe even a gimmick: Those meals you have delivered to your doorstop on a set day of the week, that contain everything you need to make the meals but salt, pepper, and olive oil. I thought, “that is so for bachelors and people who don’t know how to cook”… uh, no. Not really true. It’s for people who love to eat well and have a hard time finishing grocery lists. Who shall remain nameless.

About three weeks ago, we took delivery of our first Blue Apron box, an experiment courtesy of Groupon’s “First Week Cheap” deal (a savings of around $30). To set the scene and justify the thing, allow me to present to you a snapshot of our lives: We live in a studio apartment. Anyone who has lived in a studio, let alone a small studio, knows that space is at a premium and you have to be careful with the foods you introduce into your immediate environment. I work full time, Dylan is about to start school and will be placed in a job immediately following. He takes care of our home while I bring the bacon to it, and does an excellent job. One of the ways we unwind and hang out after I’ve been gone all day and he’s only had Fred the dog to talk to, is by cooking dinner together. Unfortunately, one of the things no one tells you about being a newlywed who didn’t live with the spouse before marriage, is that when you get home from work all you really want to do, is just hang out together and not much else.

Grocery shopping was an afterthought, leftovers were king. It was time to make a change. So we ordered our first box. It arrived via FedEx on a Thursday afternoon and Dylan kindly waited to open it until I got home. They’re packed to sit on your porch or in the mail room for 24 hours, so it’s full of cold packs and insulation (all can be recycled, because it does wind up being quite a bit of packaging waste since every element is packaged individually, plus the packing materials themselves). We carefully unwrapped the box. First, four large-format instruction pages with ingredient photos and step-by-step images. The fourth page highlighted a farmer who supplied the produce, corn in our case. The first dish we made was Shrimp & Grits (left). The wine bottle in the background was part of a set my maid of honor/bff made for one of my wedding showers. She bought a ton of Trader Joe’s wine, scraped the labels off and affixed these amazing labels that she designed (we had a very minor pig theme going on, she wasn’t being cheeky). Of all the things people did for us during that crazy time, this one brought tears to my eyes the fastest. I was so touched. Therefor fittingly, we drank the very last bottle along with this first meal.

The instructions were simple and clear. The only seasonings for the shrimp were paprika, salt, and pepper. The grits were ambitious since they’re easy to scorch if you don’t know how to maintain proper heat, fortunately we do (more on those thoughts in a bit). We were floored. The veggies were so fresh, the shrimp plump and tasty, and best of all: completely uncomplicated recipes. I would not say the beginner could feel 100% comfortable, you should know how to properly sautee and time garlic and onions, for example. But it does attempt to be as clear as possible right down to how many cups of water one should boil for pasta. There is room for improv. We always increase the garlic by at least one or two cloves.

So here we are, three boxes later and completely satisfied. Some of the real winners have been Lemon Linguine with Summer Veggies, and Freekeh with Corn and Catfish, in particular. Last night we made mushroom calzones with spicy marinara sauce. Seriously, they sent the dough, the mushrooms (maitake and crimini), and a (pull tab, in case you don’t own a can opener) can of crushed tomatoes. They include the herbs (that need to be chopped or de-stemmed), the butter, any cheese or breadcrumbs, cooking wine or vinegar, hot pepper flakes… it’s completely inclusive aside from salt, pepper, and oil. Those are used in every single recipe, along with garlic and frequent shallots, so we have a spate of both lying around since they send a new bulb every time it’s called for. This is fine, as we just chuck the extra garlic heads into the oven and let them roast while we make dinner, then spread the cloves on bread when it’s time to eat. Whoever let garlic too close to the fire for the first time is a genius, I tell you.

Now, $59 a week seems steep doesn’t it? It averages to $9.99 per person per six meals per box, but the portions are huge. We actually had an entire calzone left over last night (There were enough ingredients to make three). Typically, we finish each meal on the spot but if I was to cut my portion size down, I could probably get one more meal out of my portions. Deceptively filling, the photos wouldn’t have you think so. The amount we pay per week, and the quality of the food, has actually kept us from spending too much on dinners out during the week. Typically when the cupboards are bare, we go out or order in and even if we manage to find deals around town, there are beers and shared plates and almost never leftovers, and next thing you know, you’re $65 in for one meal. Aside from the corner diner or fast food, $10 per person is basically an impossible (good) meal amount in Chicago. Particularly when it’s delivered to your door and you get to cook it with someone you enjoy.

Blue Apron offers a few options for those with more than two people at home. There is a “family” option, which I don’t have so I can’t say much about, and an option for delivery days (Thursday through Saturday). You can pick and choose which types of ingredients you want (beef, poultry, lamb, shellfish, etc. vegetarian, gluten-free, etc) and there is the option to pause a delivery if you won’t be around to accept it or eat it for a week or so. They charge about one week in advance, so letting them know early works with you. If you don’t get them in time, you hopefully have a friend who can benefit from your loss because that box is coming no matter what (a slight drawback for last minute happenings).

The cons are few, apart from the cost for some, but the biggest one we’ve found so far isn’t even really a legitimate one: the ingredients are fresher than what we’re used to. We accept deliveries on Thursday afternoons and find that by Monday or Tuesday, the tomatoes have gone soft, the corn is dried out, the pasta has begun to turn, or the bread is over it. Last night we made the calzones because we figured the dough wouldn’t last the weekend, even in its plastic bag. Tonight’s meal are salmon burgers since the buns and fish shouldn’t be pushed to Monday, the next time we’ll have to cook anything, and the last dinner of the pack is Pad Ke Mao with dried pasta in a bag. Fortunately that one has some hearty-looking veggies that should be ok to sit. The chicken is vacuum-sealed but if it goes bad before we get to it, it’s easy to replace. The waste is hard to take. The box arrives full of at least four pieces of packing (the mylar liner, at least two cold packs, another piece of cardboard to separate everything plus the box itself) and many plastic clamshell containers as well as plastic bags. They are great about telling you to recycle, but I think if they could work out a way for the customer to return some of those packing materials back to Blue Apron in exchange for some kind of discount, they’d go a lot further with the green folks.

The most important surprise that we’ve found so far, aside from the money savings and the strength and quality of ingredients, is that once we’ve collected say, three months’ worth, we could quit and easily just feed ourselves using the recipe cards included with each box. There hasn’t been a single thing that we couldn’t find at our local store and the most complicated to recreate being the calzone dough. In truth, we probably wouldn’t miss it. It has been a wonderful kick start to show us what we can achieve in a quick-n-dirty dinner, then there’s room to futz with the ingredients and amounts to make more or less of whatever we’d want. Last night’s salmon burgers for instance, could easily be shrimp, whitefish or cod next time and still be excellent. The whole system is a fantastic jumping board to better dinner ideas than most of what comes from text messages half an hour before I leave work.

I documented an unboxing so you can see everything included. The small brown paper bags are full of tiny items (two pats of butter, small airline bottles of vinegar, soy sauce, etc., a head of garlic, a shallot, small bags of Parmesan, etc. per each meal. It arrives weighing 15-20 lbs thanks to the two large but incredibly effective cold packs included with every box.
       

So this is the review: Blue Apron is really a great thing for people who are in the position to afford it and make the most of it. Provided you do so within about a four day window, before any of the produce starts to turn. The proteins are vacuum packed to prevent that, but the veg isn’t long for this world, regardless of your environment. The flexibility of the recipes could be better, it is perhaps one of my only real gripes. The portion sizes are also a bit erratic. Some of the meals I barely finish the last two bites because there is so much food, other ones we finished and were left snacking towards the end of the night. It would be nice to say two or four dinners one week instead of always three, and it might be nice to swap one or two out without losing the options for the other one or two (this is common and offered up to a week in advance about four weeks out). Not much to complain about, when you get down to it. Try it, and if you don’t like it, look into the other options like Plated and Cooked, depending on what’s available in your area. They all have variations on the same idea, it’s worth testing and it might just change your entire outlook on dinner.