Tag: Hello Fresh (Page 3 of 3)

What Are the Best Meal Kits Out There? Join Me as I Find Out

For years, I had been avoiding meal kits.  I’d get coupons for HelloFresh in the boxes of online orders for all sorts of products or hear my friend rave about the cool Blue Apron meal that awaited her at home, and I’d just shake my head.  To me, the idea of meal kits made no sense.  At a cost of $10-$12 per person, per meal, meal kits rival the cost of take out but you have to go through the trouble of making the meal yourself.   Plus unlike take out, meal kits portions are measured so you won’t have leftovers.  Financially, I figured, I got more bang from my money from ordering out and with less mess.

Meal kits, moreover,  seemed to be the culinary equivalent of painting by numbers:  you end up with something that may be nice but you put no creativity into it (though then again, 99% of my cooking means following a recipe, so what creativity do I ever use?).  Moreover, I worried the meals would not be that tasty and that the portions would not be large enough to satisfy us.

But I’ve been in a huge cooking rut.  I got to the “H” in my international cooking project and I’ve been left with a lot of cuisines that have just not been inspiring me or that require me to hunt for ingredients that are problematic in the first place (pork belly, anyone?).   Moreover, I live with four people with very different diets: a vegan, an uber-picky tween, a low-carb eater and me, who hates vegetables.  Forget cooking a meal that the four of us can eat, I can rarely cook something that will satisfy three of us!   So rather than cook, we’ve been eating a lot of frozen food and take out.  Both horrible options for our taste buds and/or our wallet.  I was ripe for something else.

A few weeks ago, I was doing an online order for Safeway – our local supermarket – when I came across their listings for Plated meal kits.  They had four that I could get as part of my deliver order, with no commitment to a subscription and with no shipping charges.  I figured I’d give it a try and wow, it was a revelation.  The meal was fun to prepare and I did enough of the work (albeit following detailed instructions) that, at the end, I had the same type of satisfaction as when I cook a meal from a recipe I chose and shopped for myself.  The psychology involved reminds me of the story of how boxed cake mixes only took off after marketers began suggesting that cooks add eggs and other elements to make them their own.   And the results were great.  The portion was perfectly sized, the ingredients seemed high quality (unlike what I’m sure the cheap restaurants I order from use), and the results were very tasty.  I wanted more.

And that’s when I remembered those HelloFresh coupons I still had around.   I figured I’d start with them and then give other meal kit services a try and see what they really have to offer and how do they compare to one another.   Some of these companies also offer their recipes online, I will be cooking some of these both to get a greater sense for what each company offers without breaking the bank and to get a sense of just how good or bad of a deal the kits are versus shopping for the ingredients yourself.

I hope you’ll come along in this journey and leave comments of your own experiences with these services – and these recipes.

Meal Kits Subscriptions Reviewed So Far

How Meal Kit Subscriptions Work

While you can now find individual meal kits at supermarkets (Safeway & Albertson’s sell Plated, Walmart  sells their own, Gobble and other ones, Kroger sells Home Chef), most people get meal kits by subscribing to one of many services.  Of these, Blue Apron is the largest one in the US, will HelloFresh, a German company that operates in several countries, following it.  There are currently dozens of meal kit companies, some specializing in particular diets or regions.

A standard meal kit subscription is for a weekly box containing three meal kits, each for two adults.  Some subscription services allow you to order fewer meal kits a week, while others let you order more.  Some subscription services also have kits that feed three or four people.  When you subscribe, you usually chose the “plan” you prefer.

What are Your Meal Choices? Can You Chose What Meals You Get?

Most meal kit companies offer contemporary American food, though I’ll be exploring the meal choice differences between companies.  Some companies offer vegetarian or even vegan options and some even specialize in this fare.  Some have specific plans for specific diets such as paleo and keto.

Most subscription services put up a list of the meal kit options you have every week and allow you to select the ones you want.  You usually have a deadline of 5 to 7 days before you receive the meal to make your choices.  If you don’t make it, many of these services will just send you their own choices.

If you don’t like any meal options for a week or you’ll be out of town, you can simply suspend your shipments for that week – and you can even do that for multiple weeks in advance -, as long as you remember to do it before the deadline.

What Do You Get in a Meal Kit?

Meal kits come with most of the ingredients you need to make the meal you select in the precise amounts called for by the recipe.  For example, the HelloFresh meal kit for Sweet ‘N’ Smoky Pork Chops with Apple Carrot Slaw, Mashed Potatoes, and Cherry Sauce came with a sealed package with 2 boneless pork chops,  2 scallions, a handful of small gold potatoes, an apple, little jars with jam and mayo, a little bottle with vinegar, a small plastic packet with a spice mix, a tiny sachet with sour cream and a sealed plastic bag with shredded carrots.

Some meal kits offer fewer ingredients – for example Dinnerly says they keep their meals cheap by only having 5 ingredients in them.

The meals usually call for but do not include staples such as salt/Kosher salt, pepper, butter and oil/olive oil.

The meal kits and recipes I’ve tried so far include a main dish and one or two side dishes – usually a starch and a vegetable.

How Much Do Meal Kits Cost?

Meal kits costs vary by company.  At the bottom of the barrel, you have Dinnerly and Every Plate, which offer 3 weekly meals for 2 for $39 ($6.50 per person, per meal) includding shipping costs.  Both companies get very iffy reviews, but I will assess them myself later in this project.

In the middle, companies like Blue ApronHelloFreshHome Chef and Marley Spoon charge $60-$65 ($10-11 per person/per meal) for the same 3-meals-for-2-people standard subscription.

And at the top, you have companies like Plated, Sun Basket, Gobble and Green Chef offering the standard 3-kits-for-2-people deal for $72 to $84 ($12-14 per person/per meal).

Some companies have premiums on special meals (e.g. HelloFresh will charge $12 more for “gourmet” meals) and most of the larger companies have special deals heavily discounting your first week of meals.  I will be taking advantage of these discounts in doing my reviews of meal kits.

In addition, companies that offer the two meal kits a week option usually charge more for these, and companies that offer meal kits for more than 2 people have a lower per-person cost in these.

Are Meal Kits A Good Value?

This is one of the questions that I will be exploring in this project.  In addition to buying and making meal kits, I’ll be “hacking” meal kit recipes by making them with my own ingredients and comparing how much money I’ve spent on them.  Of course, you can’t buy a single celery rib or a tablespoon of sour cream, so in evaluating my cost I will consider the total cost of whatever I had to buy to make the meal – and exclude the cost of any item I already had at home.

So far, I’ve made five meals from meal kit recipes at an out of pocket cost of $2.75 to $7.50 per person/per meal, and total cost of $5.50 to $18.50 per meal (I increased some of these recipes to feed 3 or 4 people).

My costs, however, reflect the actual ingredients I bought.  Some may be of lower quality than the ones sent by the meal kit companies.  Some of these companies specialize in sending organic produce and free range meats that I may not be able to find at my local discount or regular grocery stores.  Moreover, some of these companies send gourmet items such as demi-glace which I’d have to special order (and will in this particular case for future meals).

And the total cost of the meal does not account for the time shopping for the ingredients or correctly portioning them for each meal.  Time is money, after all, and most people do not enjoy spending it grocery shopping.  Do bear in mind how much you like or dislike to shop and what else you could be doing with your time while evaluating the actual costs of these meal kits.

How Long Does It Take To Prepare a Meal from  a Kit?

Meal Kit companies usually give you an estimate of how long it’ll take you to make a meal from their kits, usually ranging from 15 minutes to an hour.  While I haven’t done this yet, for future meals I will measure how long it actually takes me.  This is more complicated than it sounds, because I seldom *just* make a meal – rather I alternate the steps of making meals with other tasks around the house.  But I’ll try.

What Are the Instructions Like?

All kits come with instructions.  Cheaper kits require you to download them and either print them or follow them from your internet device.  More expensive kits come with printed cards or a magazine with all the recipes for that week’s kits.  Most have step by step instructions, some of which are illustrated.  I’ve found the illustrations helpful specially when trying to determine how to cut vegetables.

The instructions for these meal kits help you maximize your time by intercepting the steps you need to follow to make the main dish and any accompanying side dishes or sauces.  I’ve found this particularly valuable.

What Equipment Do You Need?

The meal kits I’ve used assume that you have a fully stocked kitchen as far a cookware goes, though some provide alternatives in case you don’t (e.g. use a spoon to mash potatoes if you don’t have a masher).  Though some of these recipes try to minimize the number of dishes you use, they are not always successful. I’ve found myself having to wash as many pots and implements following these kits as I’d normally have to wash, if not more.

How do Meals Taste?

This is another question that I’ll aim to answer in this project.  So far, I’ve cooked eight meals from meal kits and five more from meal kit recipes using my own ingredients.  All the meat-based meals have been good to great.  The vegan meals I’ve cooked have been merely OK.  But it’s early in the project.

What is Good About Meal Kits?

For me, it’s the fact that many of the meal kits I’ve tried include not only a main dish (which is often rather simple), but also one or two side dishes and that the chef behind them has done the required planning so that all you have to do is follow the steps in the recipe.

Moreover, the kits include all the ingredients you need for the meal so you don’t have to worry, when you menu plan, that your local grocery store may be out of one.

Finally, there is no food waste.

What is Bad About Meal Kits?

They generate a lot of garbage.  While some of it is recyclable (e.g. the boxes and some of the little bottles and jars), the frozen gel packs are not and they are just being accumulated in landfills.  Moreover, many of the veggies come in plastic bags which are not really recyclable either – of course, this is also true of the packaged produce you buy at the supermarket.  While the meal kits bought at the supermarket also have a lot of plastic packaging, at least they don’t require these non-recyclable gel packs, so they may be a better option environmentally.

The meal kits are also pretty expensive, specially if you have to feed a whole family.  And there are no leftovers – which means that the effort you put into preparing a meal feeds you just once.

Do you have any questions? Leave them below.

 

Meal Kit Hacks: HelloFresh Sesame-Crusted Tofu with Spicy Peanut Butter Sauce & Garlic Bok Choy + PB Sauce Recipe

Rating: 7.5/10

HelloFresh does not have many vegan meals, so I was happy to find this recipe for Sesame-Crusted Tofu with Spicy Peanut Butter Sauce & Garlic Bok Choy that I could hack for my vegan daughter.  While it wasn’t a complete dinner – we have yet to find a way to make tofu taste like anything but tofu, outside of deep frying it -, my daughter loved the peanut sauce and enjoyed the coconut rice, I’ll be making both of those again (see recipes below).   She hadn’t had bok choy before, and she won’t again – she found this vegetable utterly tasteless, even with the peanut sauce.  Fortunately, there was extra broccoli from our meal for her to eat.   Most importantly, she totally appreciated that I made her food.  Given that she’s the only vegan in the family, she often is on her own as far as cooking goes, so any time I cook for her it’s a treat.

Making this meal at home was rather cheap, as most of the ingredients are those you are likely to have in your pantry (peanut butter, rice, soy and hot sauce, sesame seeds), and those you don’t are cheap to buy.  In all, I spent under $6.50 in this meal for two people.  HelloFresh charges $20-$24 for the same food.

 

HelloFresh Ingredients My Ingredients Cost
1 block tofu 1 lb tofu $2
2 baby bok choy 2 baby bok choy $2.60
1 Tbsp sesame seeds 1 Tbsp sesame seeds pantry
2 Tbsp peanut butter 2 Tbsp peanut butter pantry
1 can Lite Coconut Milk 1 can Lite Coconut Milk $1.25
1 cup basmati rice 1 1/2 cups Jasmine rice pantry
2 cloves garlic 2 cloves garlic pantry
1 lime 1 lime $0.50
1 cup Panko Breadcrumbs 1 cup Panko Breadcrumbs $1 (for 8-cup ox)
1 tsp hot sauce 1 dash siracha pantry
2 Tbsp soy sauce 2 Tbsp soy sauce pantry

If you’d like to subscribe to HelloFresh use this link to save $40 off your first box, and I’ll get a $30 credit – which I probably won’t use as I’ll be unsubscribing form HelloFresh shortly to try a different company.

Coconut Jasmine Rice

  • 1 1/2 cups Jasmine rice
  • 1 1/4 cup light coconut milk
  • 1 1/4 cup water
  • dash of salt

Rinse rice.  Put coconut milk, water and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.  Add rice, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.  Fluff with a fork before serving.

Peanut Butter Sauce

  • 1/4 cup coconut milk
  • 2 Tbsp peanut butter
  • 1 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • squeeze of lime juice
  • a dash of hot sauce

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl.

Meal Kit Hacks: HelloFresh Oven-Baked Apricot Chicken Legs with Roasted Potato Wedges and Lemony Broccoli

Rating: 6.5/10

I was inspired to make this recipe for Oven-Baked Apricot Chicken Legs with Roasted Potato Wedges and Lemony Broccoli by actually seeing a similar Plated meal kit on Safeway delivery.  While I’ve been cooking for many years, the idea of using jam as a glaze or sauce for meats is actually very new to me.  I tried it recently in the HelloFresh Pork Chops with Cherry meal kit and I was both impressed and intrigued.

I figured I’d try the  HelloFresh version in order to get a more thorough view at the offerings from this company before moving on to the next.

All in all, this meal was perfectly fine but not particularly exciting.  I did use orange jam instead of apricot, as I prefer that flavor myself, but that’s the only change I made from the kit.  The chicken was pretty good, it was perfectly cooked and moist and I liked the flavor of the skin.  However, it was not spectacular – a home meal, rather than a restaurant quality one.  The potatoes were good but not remarkable, and the lemony broccoli was not a great hit for the family.  Still, they ate it.  In all, it was a perfectly all right family meal which I don’t think I’d make again.

I made a bit more chicken and potatoes that the 2-person recipe called for so I’d have enough for 3 people (one doesn’t eat broccoli so I didn’t increase that amount).  In all, I spent $18.50 out of pocket for this meal for three, instead of the $20-$24 this would have cost me from HelloFresh, though I saved a bit by not having to buy potatoes as I already had them at home.

HelloFresh IngredientsMy IngredientsCost
32 oz chicken legs3 lbs organic chicken thighs and drumsticks$9
1 tsp paprika1 tsp paprika$1 for jar
24 oz Yukon Gold Potatoes3 lbs Yukon Gold Potatoespantry
1 Tbsp fry seasoning*1 Tbsp Homemade fry seasoningpantry
1 lemon1 lemon$2.50 for bag of lemons
2 oz Apricot jam4 oz orange jampantry
2 tsp Dijon mustard4 tsp Dijon mustard$5 for jar
16 oz broccoli florets1 lb broccoli$1
1 tsp chili flakesforgot to usepantry

If you’d like to subscribe to HelloFresh use this link to save $40 off your first box, and I’ll get a $30 credit – which I probably won’t use as I’ll be unsubscribing form HelloFresh shortly to try a different company.

Meal Kit Review: HelloFresh Saucy Thyme Steak with Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans Amandine + Recipes

Rating: 9/10

I, obviously, need a new camera – or something better than my I-pad, which always takes blurry pictures.  But I think even my out-of-focus picture of my thrown together Saucy Thyme Steak with Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans Amandine is more appealing than HelloFresh‘s:

Saucy Thyme Steak

This, indeed, is one of the problem with HelloFresh: their photos don’t make the food appear particularly enticing. To be honest, neither does the description of the dishes.  Most of them sound totally boring – and yet everything I’ve had from them (albeit, it was just four meal kits) has tasted good, if not great.

And this recipe has probably been the best of the bunch.  The “ranch” steak was good in itself, but the pan sauce was amazing – it made me a convert to demi-glace.  I’m not the biggest fan of sweet potatoes, but I liked them served in this manner and they were perfectly cooked (per the instructions), and not at all chalky, as they can get.  The combination with abundant thyme was also great.

And the green beans weren’t too shabby either. All in all, this meal was of the quality you’d expect at a nice restaurant (one in which they serve boring side dishes, as they do in my town).  Most amazingly, it wasn’t even part of HelloFresh’ “gourmet” offerings, so it was regular price ($22 to $24, depending on your plan).

All the ingredients in the kit arrived in good condition. I was a little surprised at just how much thyme there was, but it was all used.The recipe didn’t call for peeling the sweet potatoes, but I did anyway.  The only real issue is that one of the steaks was significantly thinner than the other, so it required less cooking.

The portions were good and we actually had leftover sweet potatoes/beans.

Making the meal was pretty straightforward, and the only thing I had to watch for was cooking each steak for a different amount of time given their relative thickness.

In all, if you have HelloFresh, I’d recommend this meal.  And if not, I’d recommend making it with your own ingredients.  You can sign up for HelloFresh using my referral link and get $40 off your first week, which is a very good deal.

Au Jus

Make this recipe on the pan where you’ve pan-grilled or broiled steak,with the pan juices are your base.

  • 1 Tbsp demi-glace
  • 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup water
  • 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • salt & pepper

Place pan with pan juices over medium-high heat and add the demi-glace and water, crapping the bits of browned meat from the pan.  Simmer until slight thickened, 1 to 2 minutes.  Turn heat off and mix in the butter.  Taste and season as needed.

Roasted Thyme  Sweet Potatoes

  • 2 small or 1 large sweet potatoes
  • 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • olive oil
  • 1 Tbsp sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Peel and cube the sweet potatoes into 1/2″ cubes.  place on one layer on the baking sheet.  Sprinkle with thyme and salt and pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Remove to serving plate, sprinkle almonds on top and serve.

Make the green beans amandine by following the recipe for the sweet potatoes above, don’t use thyme and cook for 15 minutes only. 

Meal Kit Review: HelloFresh Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos with Avocado Crema and Cilantro

Rating: 5/10

My oldest daughter is a vegan and I always find it challenging to know what to cook for her – or even to want to cook for her at all (fortunately, she’s learned her way around a wok).  So I was very curious to see how these meal kits would work for her.  Alas, while HelloFresh – the meal kit subscription I’m currently trying – seems to offer three vegetarian meals a week, they don’t really do vegan food.  No matter, some of the recipes can be easily made without the diary.  This recipe for  Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos with Avocado Crema and Cilantro, for example, only uses diary in the crema – a blend of avocado and sour cream with lime zest and juice -, and it was easily enough to just omit the sour cream altogether and turn the crema into  a simple guacamole.

As this kit did not contain any meat, all the items came inside a paper bag.  My first week with HelloFresh, I just put these paper bags in the fridge without bothering to open them.  But after reading about wilted and missing items in HelloFresh kits, I decided to check whether all the items were there and in the right condition.

That was a good idea, as I found out that part of the cilantro was wilted and that the avocado wasn’t ripe.  I was thus able to discard the spoiled cilantro, keeping the leaves that weren’t yet gone.   It turned out that the only item in the kit that needed to be refrigerated was the small sachet of sour cream (which I wasn’t planning to use anyway),  so  I was able to just keep the kit inside its paper bag in the pantry, which allowed the avocado to ripen quicker than it would have otherwise.

All in all this kit was “OK,” but not one that I would buy again

The overall flavor of the food was underwhelming.  My daughter liked it well enough, but wouldn’t be eager to have it again.  Note that as a vegan, she is not particularly picky.

There was too little food.  The kit has six tortilla, but enough filling for just 4 tacos – and this despite the fact that I used the whole box of black beans, and not just half as the instructions called for.  Two vegetarian tacos (and these are a little larger than those at your average taqueria) are just not enough food for dinner, without rice or something else to accompany them.  Fortunately, I had made the whole kit for my daughter thinking she’d have leftovers for the next day, so she was able to eat a third taco and not go hungry.  But had she had to share this whole meal with someone else, she would have been.

The avocado wasn’t ripe when the kit arrived.  Had I wanted to make this meal kit that day, I’d have had to go buy another avocado.  Fortunately, by the time I decided to make it, two days later, it had ripened enough to use it.

The avocado was too small. Really, it reminded me of the tiny avocados you can get in the California cost for 5-for-$1.  There just wasn’t enough to cover 4 tacos.

There wasn’t enough cilantro and part of it came wilted.  I threw those parts away, but it left very little left.  Fortunately, this was the only non-fresh item I’ve gotten from HelloFresh.

The meal is greatly overpriced, not just in comparison with what it would cost to make this meal at home, but in comparison to the cost of tacos at taquerias (not that sweet potato tacos are that common).  And those generally come with free chips & salsa.

In all, because I bought this kit with a discount (and you can find an ever greater one by following my referral link) and only paid $7.50 for it, I wasn’t too disappointed.  It was cheaper than what I’d spend at a taqueria.  However, I’d be horrified if I’d bought it at the regular price ($22-24).  For that amount of money, you can have something much better at a top gourmet Mexican restaurant.

 

Meal Kit Hack: HelloFresh Balsamic Rosemary Steak with Garlic Herb Toasts and a Roasted Pear Salad on the Cheap + Salad Recipe

 

Rating: 8/10

Today I ended up with some extra top sirloin.  This meant I had to figure out what to do with it and I had so much fun making hacking the Plated recipe for French onion soup burgers, that I decided to hack something from Hello Fresh this time, as I’ve started trying their kits. I decided on this recipe for “Balsamic Rosemary Skirt Steak with Garlic Herb Toasts and a Roasted Pear Salad” because I had most of the ingredients at home and it was one of their “premium” recipes, which cost an additional $12 per 2-person meal.  There is no way that I’m going to spend $36 on a meal for two without leftovers that I have to cook myself, unless a rack of lamb or some prime beef is involved, so I can only try these recipes by making them with my own ingredients.

Once again, I shopped at my neighborhood grocery store so I had to make some drastic substitutions:

Hello Fresh Recipe My Version My cost
1 pear 1 bag Bosc pears $3
1 demi-baguette 1 loaf sourdough bread $2
2 shallots 1 large shallot Pantry
1/4 oz rosemary 2 tsp chopped rosemary homegrown
2 Tbsp. garlic herbed butter 4 Tbsp. garlic herbed butter pantry/homemade
12 oz skirt steak 12 oz top sirloin $6.50
3 tsp balsamic vinegar 3 tsp red wine vinegar pantry
chicken demi glace 1 tsp. beef base pantry
2 oz arugula 2 oz mixed greens leftover
2 oz Ricotta salata  4 oz blueberry goat cheese  $3

 

In all, I spent $15.50 on the meal, less than half of what I would have spent if I’d bought the kit.  I was lucky that all the substitutions worked great.  Bosc pears are actually preferable for baking as they keep their shape.  Sourdough bread (which I’d bought the day before and not used) is tastier than the plain baguettes and the croutons came out great.   While I, myself, prefer skirt take, the top sirloin worked just as well and it was more tender than skirt steak would have been.  And the blueberry goat cheese on the salad (for which I used the mixed greens I bought for my last hacked recipe) was a revelation.   I did have to make the herbed butter myself, but it wasn’t too hard.  I simply chopped a few fresh herbs I had around the house (rosemary from the side yard, basil and some of the living herbs thyme I bought for my last recipe) in addition to a couple garlic cloves and mixed it with softened butter.

The overall meal was very good, and I loved that it had three elements: steak with a sauce, a grown up salad and herbed garlic bread – but it was a pretty laborious meal to make for that reason.  Still, we both enjoyed the steak and the sauce certainly added flavor to a cut that I think usually needs it (as opposed to NY steak or rib eye which just need salt to be great).  The herbed garlic bread was quite good and I very much enjoyed the salad.  The blueberry goat cheese, in particular, was a revelation.  I’d never had thought of putting it on salad otherwise, but it worked perfectly well.

But hacking this meal also had me make a mistake: instead of using balsamic vinegar, which I did have in my pantry, I just used regular red wine vinegar for both the steak and the salad.  If I had been using Hello Fresh’s own ingredients I wouldn’t have been able to make the mistake.  I’m sure the balsamic vinegar would have improved the flavor of both.

Below is my recipe for the salad.  If you want to try this kit without having to make it yourself,  you can use this link to get $40 off your delivery of Hello Fresh (it’s a referral link that will also give me credit towards a future purchase).

Roasted Pear Salad with Blueberry Goat Cheese

  • 2 Bosc pears
  • 1/3 French or sourdough baguette or 1/4 bread loaf
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil + more for drizzling
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 2 oz mixed greens, washed and dried
  • 2 tsp red or balsamic vinegar
  • 2 oz blueberry goat cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.  Line a baking pan with aluminum foil.

Cut off ends from the pears, cut them in half and core them; then cut the pairs into 1/2″ wedges.

Cube the bread into 1/2″ cubes.

Place pears on one side of the prepared baking sheet and bread cubes in the other.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake until the bread is toasted, about 8 minutes.  Remove the bread cubes to a salad bowl.  Turn the pear slices and continue cooking until soft, about 10 more minutes.  Remove from the oven.

Add the mixed greens to the bowl with the croutons.  Add 1 Tbsp. olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Toss.  Top with pears and crumble the goat cheese over the salad. Serve.

 

Meal Kit Review: HelloFresh Sweet ‘N’ Smoky Pork Chops with Apple Carrot Slaw, Mashed Potatoes, and Cherry Sauce Review

Sweet 'N' Smoky Pork Chops

Photo borrowed from Hello Fresh

Rating: 8/10

We are not pork eaters, both because commercial farming of pigs – fairly intelligent animals – is just brutal and because we don’t find pork particularly flavorful meat, but there weren’t many exciting menu choices in the week I chose to try Hello Fresh,  so we went for this meal kit.  We were pleasantly surprised.  While I was a bit disappointed on how small the boneless pork chops were – specially after I cut off the strip of fat on one side -, the cinnamon-paprika spice mix gave them a very nice flavor, in particular when topped with the cherry sauce.  I don’t like cherry, but loved this sauce and would think it’d go well with turkey as well.    The mashed potatoes could have been better – the kit included small potatoes that couldn’t really be peeled, and I prefer peeled potatoes in my mash.  The slaw was pretty good, but not earth shattering.

The meal was also fairly easy to make, the carrots come pre-shredded, which saves a lot of time.  The apple was fresh and delicious.  All the ingredients seemed to be high quality and the recipe was easy to make.

In all, this was a good dish.

I’m more likely to pay $12 for it than for the tacos I had before.

If you’d like to try Hello Fresh, you can use this link for $40 off your first box (it will also give me $30 towards a future delivery).

Cherry Sauce Recipe

enough for 2 chops

  • 1/8 tsp hot paprika
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 Tbsp. cherry jam
  • 1/2 tsp water
  • 1/2 tsp vinegar
  • 1/2 Tbsp. butter
  • salt & pepper to taste

Combine in a microwave safe bowl the paprika, cinnamon, jam, water and vinegar.  Microwave on high for 45 seconds.  Stir in the butter and season with salt and pepper.

Meal Kit Review: HelloFresh Pork and Poblano Tacos Review & Kiwi Salsa Recipe

Rating: 7.5/10

It’s true, sometimes all it takes is one trial.  After trying the Plated meal kit for Vietnamese Meatballs with Chile-Lime Dressing,  and being impressed by the convenience and taste, I decided it was finally time for me to join the 21st century and try  other meal kits.  There are a myriad of companies selling these, of course, but I settled on Hello Fresh because I’d gotten tons and tons of coupons for it with other stuff I’d bought online.

I didn’t look at the menu until after I signed up & paid, and I was actually disappointed once I saw the options.  Most of the offerings seemed to be mainstream American food with a little twist.  I was further disappointed that many of the recipes that sounded more exciting and that included steak or other more expensive ingredients had a $12 premium! A $12 pp meal is no bargain, but at $18 pp, we’re talking about restaurant prices.  Still, I was able to find a couple of recipes that sounded good.  If you want to try Hello Fresh, use this link and you’ll save $40 off your first delivery (and I’ll get $30 off my next),  which gives you a better deal than the promo I used!  Remember to cancel within 2 days of getting your first box to not be charged again.

 

Review

I wasn’t expecting much of this dish based on the title.  We’re not big taco eaters at home.  However, this dish was better tasting than it had any right to be.  The kiwi salsa was particularly refreshing and unusual, and I can imagine making it again (recipe follows).  I had never thought of mixing sour cream with lime juice before, but it was a good idea and I’ll do it again as well..

The pork itself was pretty tasty and while the Mexican spice almost gave it the flavor of Mexican chorizo, it was mild and tasty.  This is not my favorite flavor, however.

The meal made four tacos, so two per person.  It was just the *right* amount of food to satisfy me, though as I had an early dinner, I was hungry later.  So far this have been the same problem with all the kit meals I’ve made.

In all, I thought the meal was great for the discounted price I paid for it, but I can get very good tacos for less than $12 pp at my corner Mexican restaurant (albeit not with this great kiwi salsa).

Kiwi Salsa

  • 1 Roma tomato, chopped
  • 1 Kiwi, chopped
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 5 cilantro stalks, leaves removed & coarsely chopped
  • 1 small lime, halved
  • salt & pepper to taste

In a bowl, mix together the chopped tomato, kiwi, onion and cilantro.  Squeeze a lime half on the chopped vegetables.  Season with salt and pepper and mix well.

 

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