I must admit that I get stuck in a rut when it comes to making dinner. My routine goes a little something like this: Make the week’s menu, go to the store and buy supplies, make dinner. If I do not follow this script, I tend to end up with food I have no idea what to do with. One of the issues with this technique is I end up making the same thing a lot of the time. It is my assumption this is not that uncommon.
That is one reason I like Hello Fresh; it inspires me to step out of my comfort zone. Along with that, I obviously also love the fact that the food comes directly to my door. Particularly in the winter, I am somewhat disappointed in myself that I didn’t get it more often. I previously received a box and enjoyed it; however, it has been a long time ago and there was a special offer. So I figured I would give it another try.
I restarted my subscription (3 boxes a week for 2 servings for a special price of 39.95 – to the best of my recollection). The box arrived yesterday and last night I made the first dinner – Italian Meatball Soup. For those unfamiliar with Hello Fresh, it is a food delivery service. Basically, you choose the menu and they ship you the ingredients to make said dinner with recipes that include pictures. Yes, this makes me incredibly happy as all recipes should include pictures!
Here is an example of the front. I didn’t remember to take a picture of the recipe itself.
I love that there are exact amounts for all of the things you need with the exception of things like olive oil and butter. This is particularly helpful with things such as herbs. Unfortunately this recipe didn’t really use any, but kale is also a good example as it is sometimes hard to find smaller quantities of that item and it is not something that gets eaten a remarkably lot in our household.
The produce is portioned out but not prepped. In my opinion 10 minutes must be an estimate for a professional prep chef (or at least someone with more prep skills than myself…HA!) as it took me more like 20 to 30 minutes. Then again, I suppose I do have a 7 month-old distraction and that might be a factor. Here is a picture of the bag and everything inside:
This soup was SUCH an easy recipe to follow…with one exception. There were sections of it that said different amounts for 2 and 4 servings. That led to a slight amount of confusion and only seemed to really have an effect on quality (I suspect) in regards to the amount of liquid as it turned out to be less of a soup than an orzo pasta dish. At the end of the day, it was tasty either way. The other wonderful surprise was that this did end up, indeed, making four real servings. Yahtzee! I’m a woman who loves some leftovers!
The verdict, at least for this first meal, is that I am loving it. The big takeaway from this one is that I need to experiment more with my spice profile. Also I love garlic bread and it is ridiculously easy to make. This is a delightful service for inspiration if, like me, you find yourself often in a rut with dinner. However, I doubt I would continue it indefinitely as it is slightly wasteful from a packaging standpoint, despite most of it being recyclable with the exception of the individually packaged pantry items. Those are my initial thoughts on restarting this subscription. If you are interested in more of my thoughts as I continue to try them out, I will likely post more about it on twitter and Instagram (@pardonthejess on both). You can check out Hello Fresh here.
Have fun and be kind!