Tag meal delivery

Initial Review of Hungryroot

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Greetings and good morning. When I was at the doctor last week, one of the questions he asked me during my mental health screening was if I was overspending or shopping more than usual.

I bought myself some fun tee-shirts for the gym. I subscribed to a self-care planner service (silk & sonder). And I’ve been trying out online meal/grocery services.

I tried Hello Fresh in June. Loved the quality, the recipes, the process. But they are expensive and I found it stressful to have to make the meals in a timely fashion.

I thought having the meals almost ready to go would make it easier to prepare them. Instead it pressured me to carve out time to make them.

I have heard Every Plate is the same as the Hello Fresh model but cheaper. Meals don’t look as fancy but they are very similar. From the web site anyway.

The convenience factor of these meal/grocery services makes them more expensive than going to the grocery store, but in my chaotic life, I’m finding myself depleting the nutrient dense foods and then slipping into bad habits instead of going to the store.

A lot of this is lack of time. That, in my opinion, is caused my poor planning.

So two weeks ago I placed a Hungryroot order, using their grocery option versus the meal option. I wanted to try foods I normally wouldn’t splurge on (Lightlife smoked tempeh) and get some proteins into the house now that I am strength training again.

For about $60, this is what I got:First Hungryroot Unboxing (The unidentified beige patties were the salmon burgers.)

I also have an urge to try Purple Carrot and their high protein menu. Without discounts that would be about $75/week for three two-serving meals. They also have prepared meals. Depending on the cost, I could try those for my work dinners.

But, as usual, I digress. This is supposed to be my review of Hungryroot. I tried Hungryroot because my neighbor was using the service and she fed me the items she didn’t like. I like some of the weird stuff.

Last night, lamenting the fact that I hadn’t had a real vegetable in a couple days and I was eating an uncrustable for dinner, I placed a second Hungryroot order.

This time, I ordered two meals and groceries. The scallop tacos — how can I resist that — and spinach artichoke tuna melt. I also got some tofu and some chicken bruschetta patties.

This box is supposed to arrive Saturday, so I should be here to open it.

Thoughts on my first Hungryroot Shipment

  • The first thing I opened was the Lightlife Smoked Tempeh, which I have always wanted to try. I was a vegetarian for about eight years and even spent six months as a vegan in the days 20+ years ago when you had to buy plant milk in cases from the natural food store. So l love to hear contemporary vegans talk about how hard it is to find a good coffee creamer. I used to drink rice milk. Anyway, I sautéed that tempeh up, smeared a hearty dose of Hungryroot’s lemon tahini on some 12-grain bread from my local Lidl and added a deli fresh slice of pickle and romaine lettuce. It was exactly what I was craving but got the anticipated “I don’t like it” from the teenager. I also used the tahini on a turkey sandwich and think it would make amazing hummus.
  • I opened Hungryroot’s cashew cheddar, another item I wanted to try since my old vegan days. I dipped it on some sort of snack food and more or less liked it. Again, the teenager labeled it weird. I wanted to make a dish with the remaining tempeh, the cashew cheddar, some sort of grain or noodle and maybe peas and kale. You also need to take the teenager’s input with this knowledge: her favorite food groups are bacon and fruit. She is the reason I am no longer a vegetarian.
  • We both enjoyed the salmon burgers. I served them on romaine with avocado, because we didn’t have buns. Did I love them? No. I found them boring. Would I eat them? Yes. Would I order them again? Not sure.
  • We both enjoyed the Chile limon chicken. I made a Mexican inspired tater tot casserole out of it. And I think I made chicken tacos too.
  • The free protein was pork canitas. I have not tried that yet. I put the beef tips in the freezer. I have yet to try the chickpea curry.
  • I devoured the cucumber black bean salad. The teenager, again, did not like it.

I honestly can’t recall if there was anything else… I don’t think so. I’ll be sure to do another unboxing when the new box arrives.

Week Three of Hello Fresh: delicious meals and quasi-final thoughts

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Earlier this week we got our third Hello Fresh meal delivery. The teenager (I have reason to believe teenager #2 will be moving this week; as she has only been home a few hours in the last week, I hereby formally declare that teenager #1 is now, once again, the teenager) asked to try one of the discount offers provided in another of our subscription services.

They are certainly clever marketers. Box one comes at something like 50% off, then they scale back the discount until delivery four is eight percent off.

And box five, for four people, once you include the shipping, is about $40 per meal.

On my previous Hello Fresh posts (see Hello Fresh, Continuing Thoughts on Hello Fresh, and Hello Fresh Delivery Two)

Now, as I have mentioned, I am a good home chef and a very thrifty shopper. For the cost of one of these meals I bet I could replicate at least three of their recipes.

But that’s not the real point of one of these services, at least in my opinion.

These services:

  • Renew people’s interest in being in the kitchen.
  • Teach people to cook without the risk of randomly googling a meal on the internet, buying the wrong ingredients or admitting you don’t have any skill in the kitchen.
  • Offer the convenience of avoiding the shopping experience or running out of or forgetting a key ingredient.
  • Provide better choice and healthier options than restaurants.
  • Help people meal plan and stick to that plan which can reduce the chance of poor food-related decisions.
  • And my favorite, expose people to new recipes and new uses to standard ingredients, expanding a person’s cooking repertoire. That, in my opinion, is worth the investment and why, after next week, I will be converting to a two-meal, once-a-month plan.

Now for the “cons” of specifically Hello Fresh:

  • I am freaked out by the idea that my raw meat spends 24-36 hours in transit, and by the amount of ice packs in that box. The waste generated upsets me. I noticed that our cat foster godmother reuses the boxes as cat huts.
  • The ingredients sometimes disappoint. I bought their “chicken protein pack” and their chicken strips were tiny chunks— like popcorn chicken. I ordered an extra bag of Brussel sprouts and they were either $3.50 or $3.99, which is the going rate for fresh Brussels. Now they are my favorite and I thought Hello Fresh might have access to special sprouts. Maybe organic or a unique source. Nope. Green Giant.
  • Our schedules in this house are chaotic and finding the time and energy to commit to preparing several meals a week like this is more stressful than I anticipated.
  • The recipes assume you have a certain efficiency in the kitchen. I think we, on average, require one hour at least for a meal that should take 10 minutes prep time and 30 to cook.
  • There’s a lot of rice.
  • I’m not sure these meals fill me up for more than two hours.
  • There are cheaper meal delivery services available. One friend recommended trying Every Plate.

So what have we tried so far?

  1. Pork with Apple Dijon Pan Sauce over farro and wilted kale. (Photos above) I liked it. Teen found the pork scrumptious and well-seasoned but does not care for neither farro nor kale.
  2. Thai Ginger Curry with creamy coconut veggies, peanuts and lime rice. I loved their creative use of red peppers and green beans for the vegetables. They provided a fantastic, full-fat coconut milk. Teen did not care for it. She likes my curries, but this curry was not her thing.
  3. Tuscan Garlic Butter Chicken with creamy kale and paprika carrots. Amazing. All around. The Tuscan heat spice blend excites me. Teen still hates kale.
  4. Paprika Chicken in a Lemony Sauce with pistachio rice and roasted carrots. Not the rich Hungarian dish I was hoping for but very yummy. We both agreed. The pistachios in the rice seemed so decadent.
  5. Thai Shrimp with candied peanuts over sesame cabbage and arugula. I bombed this one. I loved the salad portion and the peanuts, but I’m not a fan of shrimp. The teen loves shrimp but is not fond of purple cabbage and discovered that she detests arugula. So I ate salad for three days until I got sick of it and she ate a lot of shrimp.
  6. Meatloaves with creamy mushroom sauce plus garlic mashed potatoes and roasted Brussel sprouts. The teen and I might agree this was our favorite. But I didn’t eat my mushrooms.
  7. Creamy Cilantro Steak Bowls with garlic lime rice and charred poblano. I enjoyed this one but they were so generous with the steak portions that I got three meals out of what was listed as two servings. This was spicy. And that was good, but the vegetable was onions and neither the teen nor I wanted to chomp on a serving of cooked onions.

We have one meal left this week— apricot ginger chicken— and one more box coming this week. Hello Fresh offered a refresh of our taste buds, but hits hard on the wallet.