HELLO FRESH Subscription Box Review - 4/29/15 Delivery

What it is:  A flexible subscription service delivering fresh food and recipes of your choosing to your doorstep

Cost:  $69/week for 3 meals for 2 people (or $129/week for 3 meals for 4 people) for the "carnivore" option.  $59/week for 3 vegetarian meals for 2 or $109/week for 3 vegetarian meals for 4 people.

Details:  Each week Hello Fresh chefs offer a new group of meals to choose from.  You select your meals and delivery date.  Hello Fresh ships the recipes and all the ingredients to your doorstep in insulated packaging to ensure freshness.   

My current cooking skill level:  I consider ordering pizza or making a box of Shells & Cheese to be cooking.  I HATE cooking and think it's a complete waste of time!  I hate going to the grocery store, I'm a picky eater, and I have no creativity when it comes to planning meals.  My husband however is a great cook (especially when it comes to grilling)!  Since we got married many years ago, he's wanted me to cook, which is why I decided to try this subscription box.  I pick the meals and Hello Fresh sends everything to me.  Easy enough, right?  Welllllllll........

I was a little nervous about receiving meat thru the mail, but everything was shipped in a sealed, Styrofoam container.  The meat was separated from the veggies and shipped under ice packs.  I carefully inspected everything when I took it out of the container and it was all fresh and crisp! 

What I Ordered:  For my first 3 meals, I chose Goat Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Roulades, Mustard Pork Chops with Green Beans & Crispy Potato Cakes, and Indian Stuffed Peppers with Curried Beef & Garam Marsala-scented Rice

There was even a booklet of recipe cards that explained this week's box theme.

All of the ingredients were bundled together by meal as well, which made things easy to find.  As I noted in a prior post though, my Jus by Julie juice cleanse came the same day as my Hello Fresh box, so everything went into the freezer until the cleanse was over.

My First Meal:  Goat Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Roulades with Kale & Couscous Salad

A few confessions here - I've never tried goat cheese and was afraid of it.  Never tried kale or couscous either (or tried to make stuffed chicken).  Let this cooking journey begin!

Ingredients:  2 chicken breasts, couscous, sun dried tomatoes, Tuscan kale, golden raisins, stock concentrate (chicken), sliced almonds, goat cheese, and white wine vinegar.

Time to Cook/Make Meal:  40 minutes

Difficulty Level (according to Hello Fresh):  2 (out of 3)

The Process:

After pre-heating the oven to 375 degrees, I chopped the sun-dried tomatoes and added them to a bowl with the goat cheese.  Seasoned them with salt & pepper and set aside to allow the goat cheese to soften.

Next, I butterflied the chicken breasts (something new I learned how to do), put them in a bag, and pounded them with a heavy-bottomed pan until they were approx. 1/3" thick. (And maybe chanted to myself about how much I hate cooking while beating the crap out of the chicken - ha!).  

Note to self:  Invest in a mallet.  It would make this much easier!  It did work though.  Look how much bigger the chicken became...

Next I mashed the softened goat cheese/sun-dried tomato mixture with a fork and spread it inside the chicken breast.

The directions said to roll it up and put 3 toothpicks in it, but the chicken was still a bit too thick for me to roll, so I folded it over instead.

While the chicken cooked, it was time to make the couscous.  (Again, something I've never tasted or tried to cook before).

Next it was time to remove the ribs and stems from the kale and cut it into ribbons.  (You guessed it - never done any of those things either.  In fact, I had to Google it to find out what the ribs and stems were).  

Added the white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Then proceeded to massage the kale ribbons until it was slightly softened.  (Forgot I don't like the taste of vinegar until I already dumped it in there.  If I had it to do over again, I would've just used olive oil, salt, and pepper).

Fluffed the couscous next

and stirred in the kale, golden raisins, almonds, more olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Sliced the chicken into "rounds", plated the couscous salad mixture, and VOILA!  Dinner is served!!

The Verdict for Meal #1 - I liked the chicken with the goat cheese/sun-dried tomato mixture.  The goat cheese was tangy and was pretty good with the sun-dried tomatoes.  I wish it would've melted more, but maybe goat cheese doesn't do that.  (Not sure).  I loved the golden raisins and almonds in the salad.  Not a fan of couscous though!  It didn't have much taste for all the carbs in it.  Hubs liked the meal though, so that's all that matters. 

The Second Meal - Mustard Pork Chops with Green Beans & Crispy Potato Cakes

Ingredients:  2 pork chops, Dijon mustard, thyme, green beans, stock concentrate, shallots, & 1 Idaho potato

Time to Cook/Make Meal:  45 minutes

Difficulty Level (according to Hello Fresh):  2 (out of 3)

The Process:

After preheating the oven, mincing the shallots, and attempting the strip the thyme leaves from the sprig (note to self - I'm fine with the thyme in a bottle/shaker.  That was ridiculous to try to do), I trimmed the green beans and peeled/grated the potato (which I didn't even know you could do) and seasoned it generously with salt and pepper.

Next I put the green beans on a baking sheet with olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper.  Placed the baking sheet in the oven for 13-15 minutes.  While the green beans were cooking, I placed the grated potato in the center of a thin kitchen towel and sprinkled it with thyme.  I then squeezed as much liquid out of the potatoes as possible, heated 2 tablespoons of olive oil (in the future - I would only use 1 TBS so the potato cakes didn't turn out so oily).  I cooked them until they were golden brown.

I used the same pan to cook the pork chops (it was supposed to be for 2-3 minutes per side, but I lost track of time trying to do the next step)

Once the pork chops were golden brown (OK, really brown), I combined the pork shops, potato cakes, and the green beans on the baking sheet and cooked them for 4-5 more minutes.

The final step was to make the sauce.  In the skillet, I combined olive oil, Dijon mustard, water, and the stock concentrate and added salt and pepper.  (Not going to lie - I forgot the shallots).  

The Verdict for Meal #2 - This meal was a lot harder to cook in my opinion than the first one.  Everything got cooked a little longer than it should have b/c it took me longer to do the in-between steps.  I would like to try this meal again without messing with the shallots and mustard sauce and using less olive oil overall than what the recipe called for.  The potato cakes, although a challenge for me to do the first time, were good.  I'd like to try to make those again using cheesecloth instead of a kitchen towel.  Once again, the husband liked the meal though, so that's all that matters!

The Third Meal - Indian Stuffed Peppers with Curried Beef & Garam Marsala-scented Rice

Ingredients:  2 bell peppers, ground beef, onion, curry powder, garam marsala, a carrot, peas, Basmati rice, and parsley

Time to Cook/Make Meal:  45 minutes

Difficulty Level (according to Hello Fresh):  1 (out of 3)

This meal met an unfortunate fate...  As in I put everything in the freezer when it first came and pulled everything out this past Sunday night and put it in the refrigerator so I could cook it Monday night.  Didn't end up cooking Monday night (or Tuesday for that matter).  By the time I was ready to cook this meal Wednesday night, everything veggie-wise had turned to mush!  Gross.Soggy.Mush!  Whoopsie!!  I still have the recipe, so I may try to make this dish in the future.  If I do make it, I'll post an update.

4/25/15 UPDATE:  I did end up making the stuffed peppers dish and did a blog post featuring it.  See how it turned out here.

FINAL VERDICT:  As I said earlier, I am not a fan of cooking AT ALL!!  Although these meals were a little challenging for me to make, I still really enjoyed it.  It almost felt as though I was taking a cooking class in my own kitchen.  The meat and vegetables were really fresh and tasty and the instructions were pretty easy to follow!

I must confess though - I initially cancelled this box after the first set of meals came at my husband's urging.  (He felt we could come up with similar meals at a cheaper price).  However, a week after I cancelled my membership I signed up again.  I do want to learn how to cook and would never think of these recipes on my own.  (And would never search the grocery store for all these ingredients on my own either).  I was really proud of myself for making these dishes and loved that my husband enjoyed them!  I was bummed to lose the last meal, but my mistake there did teach me a valuable lesson about freezing/thawing food.

  
**Click here to receive $40 off your first Hello Fresh box (like I did for this one).**  

This isn't a subscription box my budget will allow me to do every week, but I do plan on ordering meals once or twice a month depending on what the menu offers.  My next box is set to arrive on 5/27/15 and I can't wait!  (I ordered the Smoky Adobo Chicken Tacos, Seared Provencal Steak, & Pan-Seared Pork Chops).  

Have you tried Hello Fresh yet?  If so, what did you think?

XOXO,
Stephanie