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HelloFresh Review! Tried Three Different Services! Part 3 of 4!

17 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by elanbuendia in Cooking, Cooking for Family and Babe, Meal Delivery Reviews, Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bean and Turkey Chili, Beef Bibimbap, Blue Apron Meal Reviews, Blue Apron Reviews, Cauliflower Mash, Crockpot, Forbidden Rice salad, Hello Fresh Credit, hello fresh delivery service, Hello Fresh discount, Hello Fresh Recycling, Korean Beef, Lemon Chicken Quinoa Soup, Lemon Chicken Soup, Love Beets, Meal Delivery Service Winner, plated delivery service, Pork Chops with Apple and Kale, rice salad, Sausage and Bean Soup, Seared Steak and Cauliflower Mash, Walnut Crusted Salmon

Here’s HelloFresh…I’m writing a 4-Part Blog Series on our experiences and reviews of three (3) Meal Delivery Services : Reviews and Pictures of each service, in order in which we used them. We attempted to use each service for two weeks.
Blue Apron    :    Plated    :    HelloFresh
I will complete the series with a recommendation of our preferred service!! Basically, the Winner!

Thanks for joining me and my family on this culinary journey!

~ HELLO FRESH ~

HelloFresh Whole Box

The Back Story
I received a $40 off marketing postcard in my Parent’s Magazine subscription.
(I enjoy receiving Parents magazine, for the content, and the great discount offers they present subscribers.)

Let me offer you $40 OFF your first box!!!
Go to http://www.hellofresh.com and use code : YVHN87
-or-
Simply click this link!

The Details
HelloFresh offers 3 days of meals for 2 people (this is what ‘a week’ consists of). Additionally, there is a 4 person meal option.
The meals range from 500-800 calories, include farm fresh ingredients, and offer a Flexible Subscription option.
All for $10.75 per meal including shipping. $69 per week (per their website FAQs)
($9.08 per meal for Vegetarian options.)

The Pros
~ Farm Fresh ingredients, including hormone free meat.
(AND Love Beets…ya gotta love Love Beets! Just the name is cool, then you taste them… yum!)
~ Quick prep recipes.
~ Can choose 3 of 5 meal options per week. So, you’re not ‘boxed’ into the 3 meals they choose for you!
~ Wednesday Delivery option.
~ Beautiful Recipe card booklet with pictures of completed dishes. Features a “Let’s Talk About” page on the back : Grains, Beans, Leafy Greens, Nuts & Seeds, etc.
~ One can choose a Vegetarian Option, which is slightly less expensive.
~ Actually offer a ‘recycling’ return for their padded box liners.

The Cons
~ ‘Recycling’ return is not all that, but at least it was an option available to me vs. throwing out or dumping into my recycling.
I returned 3 weeks worth of box liners at the cost of $26 via UPS, and received a $16 credit on my account. So, I didn’t even get a credit equal to the cost of shipping, but at least I got some sort of credit.
~ There is no ‘Dietary Profile’. Though, one can chose to go with the Vegetarian option, if needed.  We do have a few restrictions…some Gluten-Free, some Spices, and some Seafood. Luckily, we can choose out of 5 meals, so I pick three meals that are more catered to our needs and modify as desired.
~ Our first box has a couple frozen veggies, which they promptly credited me for.

HelloFresh Recycling

The Goods
Week 1, First Meal :
Korean-Style Beef with Broccolini & Brown Rice
30 Minutes
Gluten-Free (with correct sauces)

Korean-Style Beef!? Heck Yeah, bring it! And, yes, it was good!
We love a good Asian-inspired meal in our house and this met the expectation.
And, yippy, they used Brown Rice! We only use Brown Rice in our house, so it was nice to see a meal delivery service do that same.

Modifications : Added Garlic

HelloFresh Korean Style Beef

Week 1, Second Meal :
Walnut Crusted Salmon with Roasted Green Beans
50 Minutes
Not Gluten-Free

This was good, it was not gluten-free…but I loved the walnut crusting idea.

Modifications : None

HelloFresh Walnut Crusted Salmon

Week 1, Third Meal :
Lemony Chicken & Quinoa Stew
40 Minutes

Gluten-Free

This was surprisingly delish and I didn’t expect it to be so! The flavor and texture worked so well together.

Modifications : Did not use the Chili Flakes.

HelloFresh Lemony Chicken Quinoa

Week 2, First Meal :
Roasted Pork Chops with Sauteed Apples & Kale
30 Minutes
Gluten-Free

Delicious and gluten-free. I’m not typically a fan of sweet along side my savory dinner, though I know it’s ‘tradition’ to have apples/applesauce with pork chops, so I knew the deal. Though I loved the addition of kale and then I served mine up with the nuts garnishing the apples vs. the kale.

Modifications : No Modifications.

HelloFresh Roasted PorkChop

Week 2, Second Meal :
Seared Steak with Cauliflower Mash & Green Beans
30+ Minutes
Gluten-Free

Yum, because…STEAK! 🙂
I messed up and made more of a puree vs. a mash, though it turned out lovely to have an awesome sauce to go with this dish. So…basically…the dish was Awesomesauce!

Modifications : No Modifications.

HelloFresh Seared Steak

Week 2, Third Meal :
Forbidden Rice Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash
apx. 25 Minutes
Not Gluten-Free

Good…I didn’t really know what to expect, but I’d really wanted to try Forbidden Rice. Thus, I was super happy to have this as a menu option.

Modifications : Added Chicken to hubs and nephew’s portions.

HelloFresh Forbidden Salad

Overall Impression
Very good!
Even though the cost of sending in the recycling material did not match the credit I got, I am happy that is an option.

We, also, tried HelloFresh during the Holidays…family in and out, schedules up and down and a credit sitting in my account prompted us to go for another week of HelloFresh meals!

In that week we received :

~ White Bean & Turkey Chili ~
Gluten Free and pretty tasty.

~ Sausage and White Bean Soup w. Swiss Chard ~
Not to shabby and Gluten Free.

~ Beef Bibimbap w. Carrot & Zucchini Ribbons ~
OMG! I am still thinking about this meal!
I have no idea why I haven’t recreated it yet!

Don’t forget my offer : $40 OFF your first box!!!
($55-$69 depending on Vegetarian option.)

Go to http://www.hellofresh.com and use code : YVHN87
-or-
Simply click this link!

Be sure to check back at the beginning of next week…
I’ll be posting Part 4 : THE WINNER!

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER! I can’t wait to tell you!

This post contains referral links.

 

Blue Apron Review! Tried Three Different Services! Part 1 of 4!

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by elanbuendia in Cooking, Cooking for Family and Babe, Meal Delivery Reviews, Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bagoong, beef on weck sandwiches, Blue Apron Meal Reviews, Blue Apron Reviews, Chicken Schnitzel, Crockpot, Crockpot meals, Croque Monsieur, Filipino Laing, Glazed Chicken drumsticks, hello fresh delivery service, Hello Fresh discount, Leek and Potatoes, plated delivery service, rice salad, Seared Hake

I’m writing a 4-Part Blog Series on our experiences and reviews of three (3) Meal Delivery Services : Reviews and Pictures of each service, in order in which we used them. We attempted to use each service for two weeks.
Blue Apron    :    Plated    :    HelloFresh
I will complete the series with a recommendation of our preferred service!! Basically, the Winner!

Thanks for joining me and my family on this culinary journey!

~ BLUE APRON ~

Blue Apron Box Oepn

The Back Story
A mama friend sent me a referral link for a week of free meals with Blue Apron! How could I not go for that!?

Having a toddler makes meal-planning a tad bit ‘cumbersome’…and, even though, it was CrockPot season, I thought it would be nice to have meal options ‘outside the pot’. 🙂 I quickly signed-up!
Also, I love to cook and wanted to get some inspiration!

I was only offered the option of delivery on Thursday or Friday. I wanted something earlier in the week to allow for spontaneous weekend dining out, without worry of spoiling meals in the fridge.

The Details
Blue Apron offers 3 days of meals for 2 people (this is what ‘a week’ is).
The meals range from 500-700 calories, include fresh ingredients, and are suppose to take about 35mins to make.
All for $9.99 per meal…so, $59.94 per week!

After you’ve been with them for awhile they offer a referral link to send to friends. But I moved on after two weeks (one paid week) to the other services…thus, they did not offer me a link to share with my readers!

The Pros
~ Least Expensive of all the services :
$59.94 including shipping, for 6 total meals = $9.99 per meal
~ Fresh ingredients, including hormone free meat.
~ Quick prep recipes…most were fairly true to around the 35min completion time.
~ Beautiful Recipe cards with pictures of completed dishes. Includes a little history of the dish and are reusable!
~ One can choose a Vegetarian Option, which is slightly less expensive.

The Cons
~ Late delivery…in week AND time of day!
The earliest day we could receive our box, at the time, was Thursday!
So, I waited all day on our first Thursday…and dun, dun, dun…received our box at 8:40pm (Eight-Freaking-Forty!). Needless to say, that first night’s dinner was not a Blue Apron dinner and our Toddler went to bed a bit later than normal!
~ Packaging Waste…sorry but this makes me cringe. Though I was able to pass along the cold packs and foiled bubble wrap to local fisherman and such.
~ Recipes that were not true to the 35min time…were so far off! Nearly an hour!
~ The ‘Dietary Profile’ is limited and only offers the opportunity to select main protein sources : Beef, Poultry, Fish, Lamb, Pork, Shellfish.
We do have a few restrictions…some Gluten-Free, some Spices, and some Seafood.

The Goods
Week 1, First Meal :
Croque Monsieur-Style Sandwiches w. Bacon, Radish, Little Gem Salad
35 Minutes
Not Gluten-Free

I’ve seen this on the menu at our favorite French Cafe in Redwood City, Ca. Pamplemousse. Though I’d never ordered it myself when we lived there!
Boy, was I missing out, this was delicious!
Blue Apron portions were big and the salad was huge!

Modifications : Bacon on the side, Substituted Provolone for the Swiss.

Blue Aprong Croque

Week 1, Second Meal :
Seared Hake w. Melted Leeks & Fingerling Potatoes
50+ Minutes
Gluten-Free

I am a Leek and Potato girl, and hubs is a fish guy…so this meal was so our style!
However, the prep took forever and our total time was 50+ minutes before we ate.
Thankfully we ate it at lunch and, thus, weren’t set back for a late dinner.

Modifications : Omitted Paprika and Added Garlic

Blue Apron Hake

Week 1, Third Meal :
Yuzu Kosho-Glazed Chicken Drumsticks w. Shitake, Turnip & Rice Salad
5
5 Minutes
Gluten-Free
(Prepared on the 5th day from delivery (!) for Dinner, due to late delivery as described above in the Cons section.)

This was another wonderful dish that is very much our style.
It had a wonderful flavor and was one that our toddler enjoyed as well!
There was plenty of food for more than the allotted two servings.

Modifications : Substituted Organic Brown Rice for the Jasmine, Added Extra Sesame Oil, Omitted the Togarashi Spice Blend due to being unsure of Paprika, would have loved more Ginger.

Blue Apron Drumsticks

Week 2, First Meal :
Beef on Weck Sandwiches w. Heirloom Potato Salad
30 Minutes
Not Gluten-Free

Oh. My. Goodness! This was good! We didn’t know what to expect, and we were pleasantly surprised! The delicious crunch of the airy bread was just too amazing!
However, the beef was thinly sliced vs. shaved, as was stated in the ingredients…shaved would have been so lovely! Plus, I looooove Arugula!

Modifications : Panfried Bread in Butter vs. warming in oven, Added Mayo to Potato Salad, Added provolone to sandwich.

Blue Apron Beef Weck

Week 2, Second Meal :
Shrimp & Mustard Green Laing w. Jasmine Rice
30 Minutes
Gluten-Free

Ohhhh…yeah…this is our style, I mean Hubs is Filipino, afterall!
This was good and tasty, I loved the shrimp with the sauce, and the freshness of the cilantro was amazing.

Modifications : Substituted Organic Brown Rice vs. Jasmine Rice, Needed my own Garlic (as it was not in the box!), Kept Bagoong on the side for hubs to eat as desired!

Blue Apron Laing

Week 2, Third Meal :
Chicken Schnitzel w. Watercress, Apple, Beet & Red Walnut Salad
35+ Minutes
Not Gluten-Free

This was so yummy…just straight up goodness.

Modifications : Surprisingly, no modifications…that is so rare for me!!

BLue Apron Schnitzel

Overall Impression
Very good, except for the late deliveries.

I love how they have little brown bags labelled as “Chicken Knick Knacks” and such, these are all the little goodies for each meal, so you know where it is!

Blue Apron KnickKnacsk

Be sure to check back this week…I’ll be posting parts 2, 3, and 4 (THE WINNER!) every couple days! Next up…Plated Review!

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