I’ve never posted here, but after last night’s meal I’m motivated to. My wife and I subscribe to a meal delivery service called Blue Apron. For $60 per week we get three meals for two people. All the ingredients are there, with no waste. They takes typically 30 minutes to prepare.
Anyway, last night was a 10. It was “Korean Tteok & Spicy Pork Ragu.” Wow good. Spicy with depth of flavor, great texture contrasts… I could go on.
You know it was good when you’re still thinking about it the next morning!
On the other hand, it’s harder to save money when you’re cooking for two unless you want to eat leftovers all week (which we do for lunch sometimes). Theyjack up the prices of small portions at any grocery store in a middle class area (Safeway has three “tiers” based on how much they think they can soak you for). Spices, fresh vegetables, dairy products, etc all have a limited shelf life. So small portions that are just enough for a meal can be a great idea.
I just bought a whole packer brisket since it was on sale for $2.99 a pound. I’m not really saving money, but my friends are going to eat well!
What’s wrong with leftovers? We cook for 4-6 people and eat the extras for lunches during the week. If we have extra leftovers, we make “B for D” (breakfast for dinner) so we don’t have anything leftover but it’s still a proper meal. Love B for D nights, especially now that I can knock out Eggs Benny in about 15’.
My wife and I have been using Blue Apron for about six weeks and we’ve been really impressed. The best parts for me are:
The variety of the meals has been great, and out of ~20 meals, only two of them have been less than excellent flavor to our tastes.
Food waste has dropped dramatically since we weren’t all that good about eating things before they went bad. With this service you get what you need and only what you need for the meals so nothing goes to waste.
I think we’re actually saving money because it was very easy for us to drop $60 for a single dinner out (with drinks) because we were tired of the same old same old. Combined, I believe our grocery and restaurant bills have dropped by more than the cost of the service.
I assume that it probably wouldn’t work all that well if somebody has kids that are picky eaters, and I also know that it isn’t within everyone’s budget, but I’m sure glad we gave it a try.
As someone who loves to cook I have trouble wrapping my head around this. Are the meals prepared and you just heat them up or do you get all the separate ingredients and recipes to follow? If the latter, do you get pre-chopped vegetables and pre made sauces etc?
It seems like a very limited market if its not just heating it up, otherwise its just people who kind of want to cook but don’t want to do some of the work.
It’s ingredients and recipes, but they aren’t already cut up and you do make the sauces from the ingredients provided. The fresh herbs come in the right quantity so you don’t have more than you need and the same is true if there is another unusual ingredient that you’d need to buy a whole bottle of and not use again for a long time (if ever). Last night’s dinner had a quarter of a watermelon radish, just enough bread crumbs, and just enough fresh thyme for the dinner. If I’d have shopped for those items myself, I’d have a lot left over that I would probably not end up using.
I see. I guess the market is for someone who doesn’t eat at home every night. We cook just about every day at home so nothing goes to waste. I start a meal by looking in the fridge to see what needs to be used first.
There was a business here in town for a while where you could go in and package meals for yourself and take home and freeze until you needed them. All the chopping and cutting was done for you already. My friends who tried it said you just picked your recipes and then assembled each dish and put it in an aluminum foil pan. Stick the recipe card on the top and you were done.
I never tried it. With 4 kids at home having too much food is not normally the problem.
I love to cook large meals. Leftovers get used in our house or serving size packets get vacuum sealed and frozen for later. Most mornings when I’m throwing lunch together for work I find that everything I thought was in the fridge is gone already.
Someday, a service like that may be handy to have available but I personally can’t see us using it a lot.
Paul
EDIT *** Added a couple words I missed on the first pass.
Same here. Building meals off of the remains of the last one’s prep is a pretty simple way of not wasting food if you have time for thinking. My procedure is usually to look in the freezer to see what protein is in there, then the pantry for any accompanying items. Whatever is missing from that gets bought at the store. Then I try and figure out what I can make with the remains of that meal… and so on and so forth.
I’m sure life will change in due time and I won’t be able to have the forethought that requires though.
I’m fairly diligent about my diet and have little problem eating the same thing multiple days in the week so I’ve always been able to cook efficiently for myself by making a handful of meals on the weekend and eating them through the week. It really cuts down that desire to stop and get something unhealthy because I always know there is a meal ready to go at home. I can easily count out calories and macronutrients that way. I buy exactly what I need and cook it all over the weekend so there aren’t many ingredients sitting around to go bad. I got my wife on the same thought process when we were dating so it’s easy to do the same thing for both of us. We don’t have kids but that would make that whole system pretty much impossible.
I can see how a service like Blue Apron makes a lot of sense especially if you lack the time or desire to plan out your food and try to figure out how to avoid throwing away a lot of excess food. There’s a premium to be paid for it but if you’d end up going out to eat and/or tossing out unused food at the end of the week then the difference in price is probably negligible and maybe less if you eat out a lot.
My brother was asking me about this service. I’ll pass on the positive feedback and he can decide about whether it’s right for him.
His main issue was the freshness of the package. I told him they probably only service the radius around major metropolitan areas. Montana? Perhaps not.
Yeah we tried one of those assemble-your-dinners places. It worked pretty well and the recipes were OK. The thing that turned me off was cheap ingredients. I remember the cheese just turned to oil when cooked. Seriously gross. Like mentioned above, it lasted maybe two years here…about two months as far as our house.
I basically try to do “recipe night” and do something new once or twice a week. It takes planning and a trip to the store for a few things- usually meat and other essentials.
Blue Apron is primarily aimed at the folks who don’t cook everyday but are mildly interested in the process. I want to eat it not cook it… 8)
