meals: hello fresh

box – 19 apr 2016

As I mentioned in more adventures in cabinet excavations, I subscribed to a meal service when we returned from spring break. I’m not sure how long or how often we’ll use it, but we’ve had a few boxes delivered so far.

When looking at the options (Plated, Blue Apron, HelloFresh), I went with Hello Fresh because they offered vegetarian meals for a family of four. Plated offered the same, but was much more expensive.

I was not impressed with our first box. On Monday, the day it was to arrive, I received an email saying the box would be delayed by a day — I had planned our weekly meals around having the box, and had to scramble to throw together a dinner for Monday.

The box did come on Tuesday. I found myself faced with a lot of trash and recycling. I have not been impressed with the suggestions for recycling the trash – I wish there were a local center where I could return the reusable stuff such as the ice packs. Too much packaging going to waste ….

Many of the meals have lots of preparation – much more time than what is indicated. Partly because the instructions are four meals for two people, not four. But sometimes I have spent over an hour preparing dinner. After a long day of work, volunteering, taking care of kids, etc., that’s a lot of time in the kitchen.

So while I’m not overjoyed by the service, I haven’t stopped the boxes yet. I like having three meals planned for me. The ingredients are fresh, and I feel like I’m cooking from scratch more, which has been one of my aims for the year. I like that I don’t have bits and pieces of ingredients leftover (except I *still* have excess tomato paste) since I receive exactly what’s needed. The meals have been interesting and tasty. And we even have leftovers for lunches. While the boxes are expensive, I don’t think I’m spending much more on groceries that I had been doing in the past as I don’t go to the grocery store quite as often.

We’ll see how often I’ll order the boxes. For now, I’m going to continue.

boxes – 19 apr 2016

boxes – 19 apr 2016

ingredients – 19 apr 2016

dinner – 19 apr 2016

ingredients – 2 may 2016

bibimbap – 2 may 2016