So, I've been seeing ads for Blue Apron pop up on my facebook page for some time now. I pretty much disregarded them until I noticed a promo code floating around and thought "why not?".
The basic concept of Blue Apron is to deliver 3 meals a week (you schedule the day) to your door. You get all the ingredients (except salt, pepper and olive oil) and you do the prep and cooking (which I really enjoyed!).
So I signed up and created my profile which consisted of:
* number of people in family (we just did it for the 2 adults)
* meat choices (I only eat seafood so that was nice to select but it had many types of options)
* delivery day of the week (we chose Saturday)
I plugged in my promo code (getplated4) and then entered billing info and I was all set! My first week (that I chose to get delivered) would be $39 instead of $59. This price includes shipping. So that equaled out to $6.50 per person, per meal (or $13 total per night for the 3 nights).
Each week you can choose to decline or accept your delivery. You have to do it one week prior and you can decline as many weeks out as you need (which I did, as I would rather select "yes" then forget to say "no" and get charged!
You get to see all 3 meals prior to your delivery so there are no surprises!
So Saturday May 17th rolls around and at 1pm we hear a knock on the door- it was here!
My first impression was that the box was HUGE! It was also very heavy:)
We opened it up and saw that everything was perfectly packed. There was insulated bubble wrap all inside the box as well as about 20 ice packs throughout. It was a warm day and it easily could've been sitting on my doorstep all day and stayed cold.
Our first night- Blackened Drum fish on a bed of cheesy grits topped with a sorrel salad:
So each meal you get a double sided 8x11 nice card that has everything you need to prepare the dish on one side and a very easy to follow (with pictures!) recipe on the back. I got all my ingredients together and then made dinner!
Verdict- we both really liked this dish:) The salad on top was very flavorful and the blackened Cajun fish was amazing and very fresh. The grits were ok- they aren't our favorite but if we liked grits (or polenta) a lot then this would've been a home run.
Our second night- Lentil Soup with crispy maitake mushrooms and a celery salad on the side:
This was also very easy to prepare- and I have never really made this kind of soup before! It was fun.
Verdict: SO good. Even Matt really liked this one. He's used to eating vegetarian with me but just soup isn't his thing. But this was! The mushrooms in the middle were very good and made it a little heartier. I would've liked more salad - it made very little and we both really liked the dressing. One super positive thing though- it made leftovers! We had this the next night as well with a gouda grilled cheese sandwich.
Our third night of cooking- Sweet potato, caramelized onion, béchamel sauce and topped with Arugula
This was the most time consuming recipe as browning the potatoes and caramelizing the onions (and making the sauce and actually cooking the pizza!) took what seemed like forever. maybe we were just really hungry that night though:)
Verdict- good. I loved the flavor combinations of this! It was a little thick though. I think it was my fault though and my pan wasn't big enough. So it was more deep dish style then I like. However it was good! The sauce turned out perfect and it was a little intimidating. The only thing that I think Blue apron needed to improve on here was the cheese. it was fontina and it called for you to shred it which I found REALLY hard. But overall I would make this again.
So to wrap up- this service was really great. It was fun to try new foods and I liked that you saw what was being delivered prior to you getting it so you could decline the meals that week if you wanted. The recipes were very easy to follow and I liked that it used seasonings and ingredients that you prob don't have in your house.
I expected to cancel my subscription as soon as I got my order but I think I will hold off. I wont use it often (pricey!) but I will if I really see a meal plan that I love.
To some though $10 a meal per person isn't that bad - in that case sign right up! Or try it in place of a date night and get fun new meals a few times that week:)
(disclaimer- I did not receive and sort of compensation for my shipment or my review)
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