Shortly after moving into this house, I tried Blue Apron for a little while. Unfortunately, I tried it as we moved into harvest season with a surprisingly large number of squash… I couldn’t keep up with both of them, so I cancelled my Blue Apron subscription.
Last summer was… complicated. I never got around to re-starting the subscription. Now that things have finally calmed down a bit, we decided we could try it again.
Each box comes with ingredients and recipes that you order – my box had three recipes for two servings each. You can pick recipes each week or accept the defaults (if you forget to log in), or skip weeks when you won’t have time to cook them. All of the ingredients arrive in a freezer bag, with a pack of ice by the meats to keep them extra cool.
In addition to pretty pictures, the recipes are available on the Blue Apron website when you select your menu options for the week, so you can get a feel for how long each meal will take to cook. Two of this week’s recipes were 45-55 minutes, so I had to make sure I had that time to cook.
All of the recipes come with step-by-step directions, so you just follow along, preparing bits and cooking other bits generally in the recommended order. In my case, I occasionally add steps like “hide raw meat in microwave until oven is heated” and “hide cooked meat in microwave until side dishes are ready”… anything to protect the food from Arwen.
I normally cook from ingredients, rather than prepared foods, so that part isn’t really a change. The big differences are having the exact amount of ingredients needed to prepare the meal, and the ease of access to a variety of recipes, particularly with their recent addition of Mediterranean recipes. It allows me to explore new ideas – such as including capers and raisins in the same dish – without a remnant jar of capers remaining in the fridge. (To be honest, I think I already have one.)
So far, it’s a successful experiment. For comparison, I’m working through a HelloFresh order. In the end, I only want to order recipes and ingredients from one website… watch this space for my thoughts on HelloFresh.