has anyone tried those prepacked food boxes? I just got my first box from HelloFresh my first meal was yummy. I hate to shop prep cook and clean so this takes one step out of the process, it also means I have enough stuff for the two meals without having to buy a huge amount at the store. for instance tonights meal had about 10 olives that I sliced up. Who know when I would make something else with olives and they would just linger in the fridge until I through them out.
This box was normally $60.00 for six servings (3 meals). First one is discounted.
Here in Houston, we tried Blue Apron for a couple weeks. The food was excellent, the packaging was outstanding, the price was reasonable. The only problems were not with the product: some of the selections and spices were things we didn’t care for (too many ginger dishes; plantains suck!) and we both hate to cook; gimme a turkey sandwich if I have to stand over a hot stove. Those are OUR problems; I heartily recommend BA.
One snag: BA needs to watch out for Fedex/UPS and how they handle the package.
My BFF likes Hello Fresh. He loves to cook, though.
Me, I dislike cooking like **burpo **and I also dislike spices and fish. So I felt like I would be disappointed by the whole experience and never gave it a try.
In Cleveland we have a cool new service that delivers ready-made restaurant-quality food for just a few bucks, so that is the service I glommed on to. No subscription just order when hungry.
We get Blue Apron about once a month. We like it, but see it as a treat, more than a staple. It forces us to try new things. I like that I don’t have to buy huge quantities of some spices just to see if I will like them in a new recipe. The instructions are really clear and usually my son ends up doing the cooking, which is a bonus.
I heard a report on NPR last night about upscale cafeterias that sounded interesting. I don’t think that has made it to Memphis yet. We are slowly moving up in the world, we are getting a Trader Joes and an Ikea later this year.
The HelloFresh allowed me to choose what 3 entrée I wanted, in the few weeks I have looked at the menus, they have a chicken dish, a pork dish, beef dish, fish/seafood and a vegetarian dish. If you get the bigger boxes you would still have the same choices though. They also have a series that is all vegetarian.
My wife has tried several of them that either had free trial meals or deeply discounted trials- not Blue Apron, but I know Green Chef was one, and I’m pretty sure Hello Fresh was one.
They weren’t anything special- basically they’re sort of like a box of already more or less mise-en-placed fresh food that you cook according to their directions. Decent, but generally not awesome recipes.
So you basically get more or less scratch-made food without the hassle of finding a recipe, shopping for it and doing the prep, although at a fairly steep price. I can see how it might be handy for a single person or a couple who doesn’t make a habit of cooking themselves, but want to do so on a somewhat regular schedule.
I was comped three Blue Apron meals, so I gave them a try. All three were heavy on the ginger, which I seriously don’t like, and all three featured kale in some form, which I also don’t like. I worked around both ingredients, but felt a bit miffed that I had to. Perhaps if you subscribe you can have some input into what you receive (ie, can tell them what you don’t like and have them leave that out). If so, I might reconsider trying them again, as I did appreciate the convenience with my crazy work hours.
So far the two dinners I have cooked this week have been quite good. (no ginger and no kale so far). Some stuff I would tweak when these meals come up again like on the steak salad, cut the steak in half before searing it, it said to sear and then put in the oven with the roasting vegetables to finish cooking and my convection oven isn’t big enough to do that so I just pan cooked the steak, it was a little rarer than I like… so cutting in half would work. The shrimp Saganaki, through out half of the onion or maybe substitute another vegetable in there. Way too much onion for me.
We really like ‘Chef’d’ which doesn’t involve a subscription. It’s just a single purchase. The food is great and the recipes are created by some of the tv-chefs I’ve seen before.
Everything is pretty easy, but heavy on the prep-work. We like it because it enhances the date-night atmosphere.
Am I missing something about Blue Apron? Is it a subscription only? Or can you similarly order a single meal (for 2)?
^ Check out their website for particulars, but we got a box per week, with 6 meals, for $60, and I believe we had to call to get the next one sent, or maybe call to cancel :smack:. AFAIRemember, there was no subscription, no obligation and no sales pressure of any kind–I apologize if this seems sketchy, my wife handled the ordering.
We’re debating trying either Blue Apron or Hello Fresh. A good friend gets the former and says that it’s saved her $ over the long haul because it’s cut out what she calls “unnecessary shopping”. She and her husband are very happy with it.
My big thing is meal planning. I’m the food service person, so it usually falls to me. Thing is, by the time I get home from work, I want nothing more to do with food prep, LOL. My husband’s a good cook when the mood strikes him, which isn’t often. I’m figuring one of these boxes will give him incentive
Obviously the demographic are DINKS living in an urban area. I cannot imagine families ordering any kind of food box, especially families with little kids.
For helloFresh, if you want to private message me your email information, I can send you a thing for a free box. if I understand it correctly I can send up to four free boxes to people and if you then go on to purchase I get a discounted box later on.
Actually when you try it your get a $20.00 discount making it 39.00 for the smallest size box, my referral will give you a $40.00 discount.
