Saturday, April 4, 2015

Blue Apron Box #3 | Review of Meals #7 - #9

Our third box was much better than the second.  This box was delivered on Saturday 3/21 and I cooked the meals during the following week.

Blue Apron Meal #7

First up was the Tom Yum-Style Shrimp & Noodles with Gai Lan & Thai Basil. I think this one was my favorite meal since ordering Blue Apron. It totally reminded me of a meal that I'd get from my local Thai restaurant! The Thai basil was just amazing and the coconut milk was rich, creamy and total decadent. The Tom-Yum paste had the perfect amount of heat and it all balanced perfectly.

The meal looks pretty ordinary as the color pallet isn't very appealing, but trust me. This. Taste. Amazing.

The recipe made 3 meals and we got 3 meals out of it. My husband doesn't love Thai food, so I took the leftovers for lunch and they were just as amazing reheated the next day.  This meal is rated a 5 out of 5 forks!



 

Blue Apron Meal #8

The second meal of the week was Turkey Chili with Avocado & Cheddar Cheese. While I loved this meal, I owe it to all the recipe tweaking that I did. The turkey tasted better this time (as my last experience with their turkey wasn't great), but the seasoning was seriously lacking. I added chili powder, cumin, and red pepper. I would have added bell pepper if I had it, it seemed like the onion and celery alone wasn't enough. I also wasn't sure about the chili texture that this recipe made, it's probably due to the crushed tomatoes.  I use diced tomatoes instead and it's more chunky than just thick.


I also think that it could have been a little better had I let it simmer for longer than the recipe indicated, maybe an hour would have allowed the flavors to meld better.


I wouldn't have thought to add avocado on top, but it was wonderful, so I'll be adding that garnish to future bowls of chili. This meal is rated a 4 out of 5 forks.

Blue Apron Meal #9

The third dish was Corned Beef-Spiced Flank Steaks with Braised Cabbage & Buttered Red Potatoes. I was really looking forward to this dish. I ended up cooking this almost a week after St.Patrick's Day as the holiday fell on the Tuesday before my box was delivered. I thought the timing was a bit off for a holiday themed meal, but I was looking forward to it regardless.

You'll notice in my ingredients photo, I have another steak that I purchased there. I figured that if they stuffed two steaks into that tiny package, they were pretty small servings, so I picked up another steak and I'm glad that I did. The two flank steaks were indeed small but it worked for the meal. My husband ate the larger steak and I had the second steak for lunch the next day with the left over cabbage and potatoes.  This recipe is for 2, but there was more than enough veggies for a 3rd meal, so the extra steak came in handy!  You'll also notice a photo of the bad parts of the potatoes that I cut off. I wasn't happy with the quality of potatoes we received, as you can see, they were less than stellar.


I notice that many of these meals include Whole Grain Dijon Mustard, apparently the Blue Apron chefs love the stuff. I wasn't sure how that would be in cabbage, but I guess it worked. The champagne vinegar was very strong in the cabbage, almost overwhelming.  The buttered potatoes were underwhelming, it could have used some herbs, it also would have been better roasted. The best part of this meal was the meat seasoning. I really enjoyed the flavor profile on the meat, just perfect. I have to admit, while this recipe was good, my cabbage recipe would have made this dish amazing!

Overall I liked it well enough and my husband liked it.  This meal is rated a 3 out of 5 forks.

I just finished cooking the last meal from our fourth box, and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you soon!

Happy eating,
~Tamara




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