last week's hellofresh (no.6)

hi guys! we got another hellofresh box! this is our 6th. a few weeks ago, they sent us a $40 off 1 week coupon (aka $29 for 3 meals for 2), and we couldn't pass that up. anyway, here's how this box's recipes went. the meals we chose this time are:

for recipes of these three dishes, see my HelloFresh recipes folder on my google drive. ~Lin-chan ^.~

so. random side notes before we begin.. i didn't take pictures, but they changed the insulating packaging inside the box. instead of some super thick padded..things... there were thick pieces of cardboard with a silver (space blanket-like?) presumably insulated coating on the inner side. otherwise, the contents were the same as before. they threw in an extra cilantro on top of all the boxes (it wasn't inside a 'meal' box...), and none of these recipes use cilantro...? but that's cool, we'll use it! and on the flip side, they shorted us one jalapeno. which is also ok because i'm not huge into spicy and they're so cheap. we ended up buying one about the size of the one pictured (same jalapeno in both below pictures, lol!) for like 6 cents. come on. and i ended up cooking both recipes with the one jalapeno, and i only ended up using half in each of the recipes. so now we've got a jalapeno to use! also, in our absence of this subscription, they began offering breakfast items and saturday delivery. which was great, so we chose both of these, because i didn't want the package to arrive at my apartment office and then she'd leave and close the office before i get home. and she's only open during the week. and on the breakfast side, it was nice because, we get the box saturday and we can do breakfast sunday. niiice!

dinner 1: bacon quesadilla stacks

i made this. so this is the breakfast choice we ordered. and fun fact, we had crazy tornado warnings and such on sunday morning, so this ended up being sunday dinner. but breakfast for dinner is awesome too. back to the recipe. i really liked the salsa, bacon and avocado on tortilla. i did not like the "hash". like it was edible, butttt... the recipe calls for grating a potato on the large holes of a box grater. ok, we got this! then it says to add it to a pan with oil, salt, and "enough water to cover" and bring to a boil. ok, so i cover it with water but not fully. and of course, it looked nothing like the picture. the middle picture shows like actual hashbrown lookin hashbrowns and they probably used a teeny bit of water. whatever the hell i ended up making was potato slime. tried to remedy it by baking it in the oven... didn't work. but whatever, so i ended up proceeding with the recipe, adding the pepper and other seasonings. then i get to the tortillas..which i was reluctant to do, but 425° for 5 minutes for tortillas...? they were balloons when they came out the oven (as partially seen on the right plate). so i ended up opening them along the seam and deflating them. partially because of this, i diverged from the proposed plating of this dish..so we didn't really have quesadillas.. more like tacos with schtuff on the side... anyway, i'm less inclined to make the 'hash' again, but the tortillas...mmmm!

dinner 2: pistachio crusted chicken
i made this. this turned out pretty good. i kind of wish i chopped the pistashios finer, but it said to roughly chop them..so there's big pieces mixed in, because that is a "rough chop"! come on guys! the quinoa turned out a little too vinegary but that was my fault... >.< and the salad was pretty good. i think if you can't find a persian cucumber, you could use part of an english cucumber. and chicken is chicken?

dinner 3: winning pork medallions

paul made this. so aside from the pork not being medallion-y, this came out pretty good. they ended up sending us two flat pieces of tenderloin, so he just left them as patties instead of cutting them.. but i liked it anyway. i do wish the instructions had said to cook the sprouts a bit more as they were very crisp -- and i do like my veggies more on the raw side, but anyway... i'm not sure if we will be doing this one again per se, i wasn't huge into the tarragon, which reminded me of anise and though i'm part italian, i'm not a fan of anise.

bread making!

hi guys! it's been a while since i've said or done much about baking. working 45 hours a week with poor sleep quality (work-related dreams--bleh!), i haven't had the time or energy to do any baking. this month, since there has been a lot of craziness with the flooding, i decided to bake bread to use up some extra ingredients we had. now i'm not master chef or baker, but here are a few of my tips and tricks on how i make these bread recipes. also, consider that i began making these in a small college apartment with little kitchen space, so these tips also include ways i reduce the number of dirty dishes. ~Lin-chan ^.~

oatmeal wheat bread (click for recipe) -- this is actually a pretty easy recipe if you have a stand mixer. for this recipe, i like using bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. the following is how i generally make this recipe.

1. use a glass measuring cup for the milk. heat milk in a small to medium pot on the stove. 
2. while milk heats, measure all of the ingredients for the flour mixture into the stand mixer bowl and stir them a bit.
3. prepare remaining oat-mixture ingredients: stir in oats and butter (it can melt in the pot!). lightly oil your measuring cup before adding honey (to make it easier to remove) and pour into oat mixture. 
4. heat water in glass measuring cup (from milk) in microwave for about 1 minute. add yeast and honey, and allow to stand 5 minutes or until very foamy. gently stir into to oat mixture.
5. gradually add oat mixture into flour mixture. when mixture becomes less sticky, i stop the mixer, flour my hands and add some flour into the bowl and knead the bread in the bowl (instead of worrying about cleaning and using the counter). after kneading, place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover in plastic wrap and a towel, and place on top of refrigerator. this is actually a fairly warm place, if you don't have the space to do this, a low temp oven should do the trick (minus the towel!).
6. after about an hour or two, or doubled in size, i knead the dough again, inside the bowl. then divide the dough (if i'm making two loaves) and place into buttered loaf pan(s). cover with towel and allow to rise again for another hour.
1. the loaf pans i use are 9x4 pullman loaf pans by usa pans
2. tip: when you finish a stick of butter, fold and save the paper wrapping in the fridge since there's still a bit of butter on it, then use the paper to butter your dishes when baking!
7. preheat oven. i generally skip the step about putting an egg wash and oats on top of the bread, since it's kind of a waste of an egg in my opinion, and the oats on top get kind of messy when you go to cut into it. then bake & enjoy! this bread is more of a snack-size than sandwich, but you made it, eat it how you'd like!

banana [nut] bread (click for recipe) -- this is an extremely easy recipe that anyone can make. say you bought too many bananas and they're too ripe to eat and about ready to be tossed? why waste them, when you can make a super quick and easy banana bread with ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen! this recipe is so simple, i'm not listing out everything like before, but as a tip: use either a fork or a potato masher to mash the bananas!

5th hellofresh box

hi guys! sorry this post is a few days late. work this week has been awful and i haven't had a chance to breathe. anyway onto the food!

here's our fifth hellofresh box! we ended up getting this 'third' box after this groupon because of the credit we ended up getting from the leaky chicken in the 'first' box we received. this will be our last for a now as we have canceled the subscription. the meals we chose this time are:

1. Warm Shrimp and Farro Salad
2. Turkish Lamb Meatballs
3. Marinated Steak Bibimbap

for recipes of these three dishes, see my HelloFresh recipes folder on my google drive. ~Lin-chan ^.~

dinner 1: shrimp & farro salad

so aside from the fact that teh paul forgot the arugula in the salad spinner until like an hour after we finished eating......... it was really good! haha. we're planning on making this again, once we make a trip to trader joe's to buy more farro. he and i both agreed, to some degree, we liked the farro more than brown rice since it's fluffier.

dinner 2: turkish lamb meatballs
this was teh yumz. the meatballs somehow ended up tasting like gyro (yes, i know lamb is in gyro, but still), and the sauce was sweet and tangy. the only issues we foresee with making this again is obtaining ground lamb and turkish spice blend. maybe whole foods and the internets, respectively? i'm not sure.
-- to anyone interested in making this in the future, the "1 box" of crushed tomatoes is about 13.8oz, and "1 stock concentrate" is about 8oz of stock

dinner 3: steak bibimbap

can i first start off with, why is the soyu in a jar... who puts it into a jar when it can be in a teeny bottle?? didn't one of my previous food subscription boxes have super cute little soy sauce fishies??? and secondly, i don't think i've ever seen sriracha in packettes before. not that i ever use it, but i thought it was..different. anyway, this came out really good! it uses simple, easily obtainable ingredients and it was fairly easy to make! can't wait to do it again!

our 4th hellofresh box!

hi all! today i bring you my review of our fourth hellofresh box! the meals we chose this time are:

1. Shrimp Saganaki with Spicy Marinara, Feta, and Israeli Couscous
2. Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Lemony Potato & Zucchini Hash
3. Spanish Steak Salad with Roasted Red Peppers & Rosemary-Garlic Vinaigrette 

for recipes of these three dishes, see my HelloFresh recipes folder on my google drive. ~Lin-chan ^.~

dinner 1: shrimp saganaki

i'm already a huge fan of couscous, but israeli couscous...so much better! the only major thing i'd change with this recipe is that the onion was huge and the recipe called for the whole thing.. i hate onions, and i spent more time picking them out of this than actually eating the dish. i mean look at that picture...it's all onions! the shrimp (though large) are hiding under the feta! i'm not sure how much of the chili flakes the paul put in, but it was just above my tolerance level and can also be adjusted in the future. also, i think i'd rather the sauce tossed with the couscous before serving. some of the couscous clumped together. this was so super easy to make and we can't wait to make it again!
-- to anyone interested in making this in the future, the "1 box" of crushed tomatoes is about 13.8oz

dinner 2: pork tenderlion
this was also a very easy recipe! i guess i'm not a huge fan of dry meat..and this one is no exception. i like pork, but not if it comes out dry or has no sauce. this one, i did squeeze some of the extra lemon onto it, but i don't think it was quite good enough. i definitely enjoyed the potatoes & zucchini, that was awesome. so i think we will probably make this recipe again, and maybe cook the pork differently or something.

dinner 3: steak salad

this was by far, the most complicated salad ever. who takes an hour to make a salad??? first there was roasting the peppers, then the garlic and rosemary, then cooking the steak and slicing and toasting the bread... such a hassle. the salad was pretty good, but not worth the effort we put into it.

last week's hellofresh (our third box)

hi guys!!! we got another subscription to hellofresh! since it's been a while and teh paul's finally a workin' man, we decided to get another groupon. this time, we chose:

1. Parmesan-Crusted Chicken with Balsamic Potato Salad and Garlic-Roasted Tomatoes
2. Seared Cod with Mediterranean Bean & Tomato Salad
3. Jamie’s Roasted Chicken with Lemony Bombay Potatoes

for recipes of these three dishes, see my HelloFresh recipes folder on my google drive. ~Lin-chan ^.~

dinner 1: parmesan crusted chicken

this was really good. the secret ingredient was the dijon mustard. so basically, the parmesan crust adheres to the chicken with the dijon mustard, which also flavors the chicken. i really liked it and i am not a mustard person. the tomato salad thing could have been...a bigger serving...but it was also really good. and the potato salad was interesting, like i enjoyed it, but i'm not sure if i want to do it again. so we will probably make this recipe again, with more tomatoes, and maybe sans balsamic potato salad.

dinner 2: seared cod
i really enjoyed this one too. seared fish is seared fish..but the bean salad thing underneath was really great! i'm not sure if i like it cold with hot fish on top.. it's a super simple and easy dish, and we're definitely making this one again.
-- to anyone interested in making this in the future, the "1 box" of cannelini beans is about 13.4oz

dinner 3: jamie oliver's roasted chicken
did ya notice that there's a discrepancy in these two photos..? all of the meat in this box was wet and covered in blood on arrival, and after thorough investigation (squeezing the packages..), we had to mourn the loss of this poor hen. end result: we got a credit toward an upcoming box, and used some chicken we already had.

anyway, so it appears that hellofresh has partnered with jamie oliver somewhat recently, and this is one of his recipes. come to find out, i have cook with jamie (cookbook) and this recipe was in there! never knew we had such a gem of a recipe! i'm not huge into curry (or i haven't tried enough..?) but i really liked this turmeric chicken. and i hate chicken breast! (not really hate..but it often comes out too dry..) anyway, turmeric's on the grocery list and i'm super excited to make this one again because it was amazing!

our second blue apron box!

hi guys! last week came and went and i didn't get around to posting this up here......sorry! anyway, this box was actually really good, better than expectations! and we can't wait to make these again! ~Lin-chan ^.~

for those interested, i added the meals we received into my recipes folder.
links to previous hello fresh posts (first, second), and previous blue apron post

dinner 1: steak tacos & mole verde
preparation: i made this. this was pretty simple to make and the instructions were pretty straightforward.
thoughts: this was teh amazingz. we are making this again. pretty sad that the avocado they gave us was not ripe at all when we got the box (probably could have used a few more days), but we already had some and it worked out.

dinner 2: meyer lemon-glazed catfish
preparation: i made this. i think the only issue i had with this was that i didn't pay as close attention while making the lemon syrup stuff and a lot of the liquid evaporated and we lost some! not sure why the instructions said to put flour on one side of the fish...i put it on both without reading it apparently, but it still turned out great!!
thoughts: this was really great too, and we're definitely making this again as well. only real complaint about this one is that i didn't shred the collards enough to mix as nicely with the freekeh (the rice stuffs). otherwise, it was really nice and light and the lemons and syrup were amazing!

dinner 3: spicy orange chicken wings
preparation: teh paul made this. the instructions were stupid but some of the sauce on the wings burned in the oven. it didn't tell you to lower the heat in the oven and sauce at 475 burns pretty fast, faster than 6-8 minutes!!
thoughts: aside from the charred bits, it was really good. the shiitake rice was kinda meh, but the chicken was pretty tasty.

our first blue apron box!

hi guys! we just finished our first blue apron box and it was pretty good! it was on groupon at some point (might still be) and we decided to give it a try to compare it to hello fresh, which we really enjoyed. so, onto the food! ~Lin-chan ^.~

for those interested, i added the meals we received into my recipes folder.
links to previous hello fresh posts (first, second)

sorry that i didn't get photos of the box..i was out of town and teh hubz had to condense to put this in the fridge. basically the box has a huge lined bag with two giant ice packs and a piece of cardboard to separate the meat from the other ingredients.

dinner 1: shrimp & pineapple fried rice
preparation: i made this. some of the steps were kind of annoying because it says to take a peeler to the lime...when realistically you want to zest the lime. please say that first and not two sentences later! so i peeled it with a peeler, then had to cut it into smaller strips because i didn't use my zester. >.> otherwise, no complaints outside of the ones mentioned in the overall thoughts section below.
thoughts: first, the fried rice called for 2 tsp of lime zest, it was very zesty! i wish that i didn't cook the rice for as long or with as much water..or something, it was wetter and stickier than i like. otherwise, i enjoyed it.

dinner 2: italian beef grinders
preparation: teh paul made this. see overall thoughts below.
thoughts: i'm not sure if i wasn't a huge fan of the bread because it was refrigerated (a bit stiff)..or that it was so huge that it was difficult to take a bite. not to mention that you basically have to split the bun in half in order to stuff it..... i thought this one was ok. i liked the steak fries, but teh paul didn't put enough salt on them. the cheese sauce stuff was interesting. i kind of wish it were more liquidy and melty than a semi-solid blob. the meat was seasoned only by the mushrooms and onions that were cooked in the pan before and with it, so it was very boring and plain-beefy. it was ok.

dinner 3: chicken & sage biscuit pot pie
preparation: teh paul made this. see overall thoughts below.
thoughts: this was more or less like a chicken and dumplings..except it was biscuits and you put them on top instead of the bottom...... the "filling" was actually really good. think deconstructed chicken pot-pie. yumz. this is the only one of the three we are considering making again, if we can figure out how to make the chicken demi glace ourselves, and locate some creme fraiche.


overall thoughts:
we enjoyed all of the meals, but there were things that will need some tweaking if we make them again. one of the issues we had with the recipes in this box was that you had to do multiple things, while others are cooking...but by the way we're not listing this on the step you're on. it's on the next one. i didn't have as much of a problem with this...because you're kind of supposed to read ahead anyway, but teh paul was getting kind of annoyed when he made some of the meals.
cancellation: we did attempt to cancel this before they charged us for the second box, but since i didn't create the blue apron account, i wasn't familiar with how it worked and assumed teh paul suspended the next week's box....he didn't and i hit the cancel button before he told me that we could postpone it........... so a second box arrived yesterday and i will post about its contents next week.

comparison to hello fresh:

1. the ingredients were kind of tossed into this bag and not sorted by recipe (aside from the "knick knack" baggies). the hello fresh had everything for each meal but the meats neatly arranged into their own boxes.
2. the quantity of food/leftovers was a lot more with blue apron. we ate maybe 1/2 of the pot pie that night, and i was full about 2/3 of the way through both the fried rice and beef grinder.
3. blue apron is a bit cheaper at $60 for the 3 meals for 2 (at regular price), and hello fresh is regularly $69.
4. aside from skipping weeks, you can't choose what meals you will receive from blue apron. hello fresh lets you pick 3 from 5 choices (with the omnivore box).
5. the recipe cards are kinda dinky. with blue apron, they give you..basically glossy card stock. and because i have a messy husband and occasionally sticky counters....these cards either got stuff on them or they stuck to the counter and were miserable to peel off afterward. and they didn't keep very well, they kind of warp (if wet, like normal paper) or bits of paper got stuck to my counter where it was sticky......... >.>
1. hello fresh had all of recipes printed onto a nice, heavier paper and then 'bound' (glued) together, like a booklet.
2. reprinting nice looking recipe cards from blue apron was a no-go, as you can see in my recipes folder, linked above. hello fresh let you download an exact copy of the recipe cards in pdf form.