experiments with cook-a-meal delivery services

[edenfalling]

One of the tenants of the rental company I work at forgot to cancel their HelloFresh subscription over winter break, and when contacted said the office staff should just make use of the meals instead. So on Saturday, Miss Cactus and I split the three items from that week's box: she took two (zucchini flatbread with stuff on, freekeh soup with sweet potatoes) and I took one (winter veggies and brown rice).

All ingredients except salt, black pepper, and cooking oil are provided. The instructions are basically clear, but this particular recipe really needed one additional line saying something to the effect of, "Start the pan sauce immediately after you put the vegetables in the oven to roast," because as it was, I got the rice and the vegetables to turn out at approximately the same time (the rice ran a little long), but finishing the sauce took me an extra twenty minutes. *headdesk*

As I am not a vegetarian, and wasn't entirely sure how the meal would come out, I also sliced up one chicken thigh and baked it with a balsamic dressing marinade while I was cleaning and prepping the vegetables -- I wanted to make sure I'd have at least one thing I'd enjoy eating. This proved helpful, since chicken tastes fine even cold but the rest of this meal really needs to be hot or the flavors get noticeably unappetizing; I kind of forced myself through the last few bites as it cooled off. (It was definitely tasty when hot, though!)

Other thoughts: 1) This supposedly serves two people; I think it serves three, and portioned accordingly. 2) I do not need to work with fresh herbs ever again. Yeah, they bring more intense flavor, but they are just way too much work to be worth the reward. 3) I totally cheated and did not bother cutting up an entire lemon for two squeezes of lemon juice; this is why I keep a bottle of lemon juice concentrate in my fridge. :D


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1) roasted vegetables: cauliflower, artichokes, & carrot seasoned with salt, pepper, oil, and fresh thyme
2) brown rice (self-explanatory)


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3) herb pan sauce: oil, vegetable stock, water, fresh rosemary, a bit of lemon juice, and butter
4) baked chicken thigh in balsamic dressing



5) everything together (the veggies/rice/sauce has been sprinkled with pepitas, but not parsley because I dislike parsley)


[[original Tumblr post, for when the embedded images inevitably break]]

Comments

[redwolf]

Nice to hear feedback about one of these things that doesn't come from a paid marketing shill. The end result looks quite appetising.

[edenfalling]

I can't speak to price point, but if you have a general idea of how to get around a kitchen (basically, can you peel and slice a carrot, can you manage not to burn water, do you know the difference between a simmer and a boil) the instructions were clear and the end results were, indeed, appetizing. (When hot. Cold, not so much. But a lot of foods are fairly temperature-dependent so I don't consider that much of a problem.)

It's more work than I generally want to put into a meal for just myself, but if you enjoy cooking in its own right and/or are making meals for more than one person, HelloFresh seems like a reasonable way to try out a bunch of things you might not otherwise purchase or eat. *shrug*

[gramarye1971]

I mostly find that fresh herbs inevitably go everywhere in spite of one's efforts to be neat about chopping them. Brought to you by the fact that I'm still finding random bits of desiccated parsley and mint stuck in the kitchen countertops from my roommate's last efforts at cooking an Iranian stew well over a month ago.

I'm less fond of the food boxes because they never make enough leftovers for me to enjoy, at least not when it comes to the Blue Apron boxes my friends seem to like. I prefer to make a vat of chili or stew and then eat it for several days, freezing some for later, or to prepare a half-dozen baked chicken breasts and save them for future use. Single-serving meals don't even appeal to me as a single person.

[edenfalling]

*makes note to check countertops for sprigs in the morning*

I am also of the leftovers-all-week school of cooking (or at least leftover-for-three-days), but I figured that since this was effectively a free sample kit I might as well give it a shot. I have no idea if the meal will reheat well. I suppose I'll find out tomorrow...

[autumnia]

I have a few friends who have been using Blue Apron and they seem to like it. Sometimes, I see the end result on their Instagrams and I think what helps make these look so appealing is the "packaging". Anything that gets plated so beautifully will always look delicious. :-)

[edenfalling]

I have started getting Blue Apron coupons and gift cards in the mail every few weeks, which is a little baffling to me since so far as I know, I've never done anything that should put me on their radar. (Well. Beyond living in a college town, I suppose.)

And yeah, the meals do seem to be designed with an eye to presentation as well as to flavor and relative ease of cooking, which is a lot more than I can say for my own recipes. (Many of mine taste pretty good! But they are, uh, not particularly visually appealing; instead, I have a general theme of 'mixed glop in brownish rice' or 'mixed glop in brownish sauce' going on. *wry*)