#4 Daughter, like many people, finds the hardest part of cooking is thinking up what to cook. So, because of that and because they offered a sweet deal, she signed up with Hello Fresh. When they expanded into my area, she send me a sweet deal, too, and I felt compelled to sign up.
They’ll send you at least three meals a week, although you can order extras. The fewest people you can order for is two. It usually comes out to about $64 dollars, which is $32 for one person, and between $10-11 dollars per serving. But, considering the portions I eat, it’s more like $7 or less. That’s including shipping.
Since I buy fewer groceries if I have food from Hello Fresh and I skip every other week of deliveries, it comes out about even.
You get three bags of ingredients and the meat (if any) outside the bag between two cold packs. You can order all meat, all veg, or a mixture. There are other filters you can use, and you can skip as many weeks as you want. You can also remove any of the menus they offer for any given week and substitute from a long list of alternatives. You also get step-by-step recipes to work from. There’s nothing to keep you from saving the recipes and making them on your own, which is what #4 and I do.
I’ll keep this one:
Black bean enchiladas. Looks just like the picture!
I’ll definitely make this on my own. Only simpler. I’ll probably use Liz of i heart vegetables’ 5-Ingredient Black Bean Enchiladas recipe. Because 5 ingredients. Also: less expensive.
A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: How many ingredients are too many?
MA
RAAckerman@Cerebrations.biz
January 5, 2021 at 1:15pmI cook OVER a stove and never UNDER a compulsion. And, use only store/market/farm ingredients.
But, that dish does look tempting.
Marian Allen
January 5, 2021 at 2:01pmI reckon the Hello Fresh ingredients come from a store/market/farm. But, when the farmers market is in session, I cook with those ingredients, for sure.
acflory
January 5, 2021 at 8:04pmA friend of the Offspring uses, or at least used, something similar here in Australia, and the recipes were excellent. My problem with it is that I like to choose my own ingredients, and now that covid is with us, I decontaminate everything delivered by the supermarket so it simply wouldn’t work for us.
Am I bored out of my brain after almost 12 months of constant cooking? Oh god yes, but this enforced cooking spree has also taught us some interesting new meal ideas. For example, I now order frozen vegetable dumplings [Asian] every week and they are delicious cooked in an Asian style broth. Quick, easy and economical as we get a dinner and lunch out of one packet. The dumplings and/or the frozen BBQ pork buns are my version of ‘takeaway’ now. 🙂
We’ve also started growing some of our own veggies which makes cooking a fun treat rather than a chore. I am really, really looking forward to eating out one day though. Thai curries, Chinese soups and noodles, Italian pasta… Sorry, I’ll go wipe the drool off my face now. 🙂
Marian Allen
January 6, 2021 at 8:50amI’m drooling too! LOL! I know what you mean about wanting to choose your own produce. But I live in America, so I don’t go into the grocery. I order online and have my stuff brought out, so I might as well have meal kits as far as choice goes. I thoroughly wash what I get from the grocery or from the meal kit, so no difference there.
I LOVE the frozen dumplings! I can make my own, also my own tamales and bao, but sometimes I want it quick, so frozen works.
When summer comes back up here, #4 Daughter plans to garden. Charlie had given it up because the critters were stripping everything bare. Summer means farmers markets, though, so I’ll still have fresh. 🙂 And I have beaucoup bags of frozen corn from last summer, so at least there’s that. I miss the garden, though. Nothing better than when Charlie would ask, “What’s for supper?” and I would say, “I don’t know. I’ll go see what’s ripe.”
acflory
January 6, 2021 at 8:50pmOh my, where do I begin? Recipes, PLEASE! For both the veggie dumplings /AND/ the bao. I’m not that great with Asian style cooking but the Offspring has a real knack for it and has mentioned that making our own would be great. I’ll volunteer to clean up afterwards!
We have critter issues here too which is why I mostly have fruit trees and herbs. There is nothing as good as sun-ripened fruit, picked warm and juicy, straight from the tree.
Hmm…I think you’ve just given me an idea for a post! lol
Marian Allen
January 7, 2021 at 9:05amYour wish is my command. Dumplings: https://marianallen.com/2020/01/oh-dumplings-my-dumplings-vegan-vegetarian/ and bao: https://marianallen.com/2020/01/bao-wow-vegan/ . Mmmm, fresh fruit! The best ice cream I ever had was made by a friend in Tennessee from her own peaches and cream from her own goats. No sugar necessary!
acflory
January 7, 2021 at 5:19pmThank you! I copies the bao recipe but the noodle recipe at fatal foodies seems to have been moved or deleted as the link didn’t work. 🙁
A lifetime ago when I was very young, I went back to Hungary to visit relatives and they took me down to the Balaton – a huge inland lake that’s like their version of the Riviera. Anyway, just down the street from the house we were staying in was an ice cream vendor – all sorts of flavours made from real fruit. It spoiled me for commercial ice cream ever since.
Marian Allen
January 7, 2021 at 5:41pmSorry, Meeka — Fatal Foodies is now defunct. Here’s a link to the recipe: https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-handmade-noodles/
acflory
January 7, 2021 at 7:27pmThanks, Marian! I have a feeling we’ll be visiting woks of life rather a lot! lol
Dan Antion
January 5, 2021 at 8:22pmThose look pretty good.
Marian Allen
January 6, 2021 at 8:53amThey were good. Although I like enchiladas in corn tortillas, not flour ones. When I make ’em on my own, I’ll use corn. 🙂
joey
January 8, 2021 at 8:59pmI could go for a black bean burrito, yes ma’am.
Marian Allen
January 9, 2021 at 10:28amAs our #3 Daughter says when a food tastes good, “Deeloash!”