We're trying out blue apron

I don't know why but I'm super excited about this! I think that it's something to do with the thought of being able to try new recipes all the time. I've always loved trying new flavors and foods.

The thing I hate though is finding the recipes and shopping for the ingredients for a weeks worth of groceries to make exactly the right number of servings. But be honest with yourself, you hate it too. We all hate it.

We decided to do something about it and subscribe to Blue Apron. When I say we arrived at this decision after months of looking at different options I'm not kidding you. We truly did look at all the options we could find that met our basic criteria.

This isn't a post recommending Blue Apron to you, though. I promise. This is a post about my experience with it thus far.

Ordering was fairly painless. Azure picked a few things from their options and added them to the cart and then we decided the number of days we needed and the number of servings for each day and I picked the recipes for that number of days (5).

If I was thinking at all about my blog I would have taken pictures of the boxes outside when they arrived. If I had, you'd be looking at pictures of them right now outside my house on Tuesday at about 7:30pm. Instead you're reading words that I'm hoping convey that I wanted to be frustrated (because I wanted to cook something fun!) but wasn't actually because they were still delivered before their self-imposed deadlines of 9pm.

Honestly the biggest thing I noticed (and you'll see later) is just how much packaging all comes with these meal kits.

Actually cooking something

We decided to let Ruby pick what we ate last night. We got 5 meals, 3 with 4 servings. So she picked between Chorizo Enchiladas (what we ate) and two other options. Which brings us to one of the reasons we liked Blue Apron: we subbed the chorizo for regular ground beef. We worried the kids may not enjoy chorizo.

As you can see from the recipe card its printed for either 2 or 4 ingredients. There's also measurements listed but as you'll see from the pictures you pretty much just throw in all of whatever they give you.

The first step was cooking the rice but that's not exciting so I didn't take any pictures of it. However, I will say that Azure is on to something with rinsing your rice... 🤔

The first real step was cooking the ground beef. I was initially wary about the lack of seasoning it was asking for. But after cutting up and putting in the Pablano peppers my doubts started to retreat and be replaced with curiosity. The smell was amazing!

This is when things really started to get interesting because it was asking me to do something I was familiar with from cooking some Italian recipes before. I moved the meat and peppers to the side of my pan and put the tomato paste right on the pan. I don't know why, but I've been told this makes it taste better. So I do it.

Once it had cooked a bit and mixed in I could tell just from the smell that this was going to be delicious. If you asked Azure I'm sure she would describe me doing that thing I do where I raise my hands above my head and think about Tusken Raider noises (don't ask).

This is where things got boing again so I didn't take any pictures. You mix this meat and tomato paste and pepper stuff into the cooked rice. That becomes both your foundation and your filling. Listen, I'm not here to teach you how to make this. That's why they send you the recipe card. Just trust me that it was easy and boring to go from what you see above to the finished plate you're about to see, okay?

I honestly thought the kids were going to turn their noses up at this. That's why we subbed the ground beef in. But they loved it. They had seconds. Ruby copied me with putting hot sauce on hers. Azure had seconds as well! We all did. This shit was magnificent and easy and simple. Why do we make food so complicated?

So what?

I think if you asked everyone what they thought about their food delivery box service they would (if they liked it) write something pretty much like what I wrote above. I'm not unique. Neither is Blue Apron. I like that I'm not locked into a monthly contract. I'm glad that I'm not locked into auto-ship.

I say again: I'm glad I'm not locked into auto-ship.

We make food complicated. I said it at the top that I didn't want to have to find the recipes and shop and blah blah blah. I was making it complicated. This recipe was a handful of ingredients that I mostly always have on hand. The only thing I'd have to buy out of the ordinary to make this is the Pablano pepper.

I'm not locked into auto-ship. I got a recipe that I can now easily shop for and make regularly. I'd say that's a win-win. If you were considering a food / meal subscription box and this post resonated with you at all I'd tell you to give it a try!