My Blue Apron meals have been entertaining and delicious!  For $59 a week I get three different meals for two people. The first one arrived to much excitement and anticipation.  I couldn’t wait to get into it to see what was cookin’ for the next week.

Once I got it opened, I was greeted with a letter from Blue Apron and all the recipes on these beautiful, big, easy-to-read cards.  Nice people.  Underneath the welcome letter was all the produce and knickknacks (spices, butter, vinegar, cream, etc.) for the meals.  Everything is measured, with just the right amounts being sent:  certain amount in ounces of greens, the required amount of veggies whether it’s one onion or several fingerling potatoes, enough meat for two, fresh herbs all packaged and labeled.

The packaging is eco friendly, with an insulated storage bag that could be reused to go to the grocery store (which comes in very handy in rural areas where the grocery store is at least 20 miles away).  In the bottom of the box are two frozen ice bags keeping the meats cold.  The whole kit and caboodle can be recycled.

 

Ingredients so far have included shrimp, cod, ground lamb and beef, ground turkey, chicken, and flank steak.  Along with the vegetables I normally use such as garlic, onions, potatoes, and carrots, I’ve also been introduced to adding kale and spinach and Swiss chard and fava leaves and epazote and pea tips to the skillet to cook in with the recipe.  Then there’s the red rice and barley that I have found are delicious as well as filling, making a meal satisfy all evening.

Time to start cookin’ it up!!!

Tonight’s meal was turkey meatballs in pita bread.  I lined the pita with a vanilla yogurt, lemon juice, and diced cucumber dressing; added some of the lettuce from the salad, then placed the spiced meatballs in the middle.  Not bad but it wasn’t one of our favorites.  We aren’t big fans of ground turkey — too bland.

 

The Navarin-style lamb meatball stew was one of our favorites.

The chili blackened cod just needs a little tweaking for our tastes.  Just a little less grapefruit cut up in it and little more finely chopped.

The flank steak with peppercorn sauce, creamed spinach, and fingerling potatoes was super.  Definitely will be making that one again.

Since the shrimp and fresh pasta meal, I may have to invest in a pasta machine.  I had no idea the difference fresh pasta makes in a dish!

The chicken was very good as well.  The barley added flavor as well as kept us satisfied.

Blue Apron has raised my awareness of how I cook and how I eat.  Only one dish has had much fat in it, and then not excessive.  Learning to cook for two with no leftovers or very little leftover is a plus as well.  The mingling of flavors of the herbs and vegetables and meats combinations has been a learning experience, things I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing together.

The next shipment is Wednesday, and I’m looking forward to it.  None of the meals have taken much time to prepare nor more than two pans.  We have enjoyed critiquing each dish together.  A “foodie” date night.

Sometimes I freeze the meat if I am not going to get to it within a couple of days, but the dishes are much better the quicker the use of the ingredients is.  The meals turn out like the pictures on the cards (my nephew thought I was posting the web site pictures instead of my own when he saw them on Facebook) after you “plate” them.

I just need a chef hat… a really cool chef hat.