My daughter was born July 18th and that’s probably the most creative thing I’ve done all year. Posts may be sporadic, but I’ll try to keep up. So far the most difficult part is that my son, who is 22 months old, doesn’t understand what the heck is going on. We’ll get there though.
The final meal that I was trying out from Hello Fresh was these delicious looking pork sausage skewers. The potato salad threw me off because it’s made with very simple but odd to me items. It was mayo (real stuff, not miracle whip stuff), white wine vinegar, sugar, red onion, parsley, and potato. Red ones this time instead of the yukon yellows that I had in the first meal.
Still, the flavours were fantastic. It was a bit spicy for my husband, but I didn’t mind it too much. Since we don’t have a grill and I ended up ruining the oven temporarily, I used our little flat top counter grill to cook the kabobs. I did find that the meat portion was lacking slightly in this rendition. They give you 8 skewers, but I was only able to make 6 with the portions of meat I had on hand. Maybe I cut them too large, but they seemed to be the proper size for the item mentioned.
As I mentioned yesterday, it was $32 for 6 meals (3 meals for 2) and I couldn’t really go wrong taking it for a test. None of the meals were especially fancy, they were all easy to prepare, took 30 minutes or less to cook, and were all enjoyable. We’ll see how the next trial turns out (Good Food, which I have honestly never heard of before) and then maybe we’ll stick with one for a bit to make things easier at home while I continue to heal from my c-section and watch two children under two.
Bon appetit!
Meal two from Hello Fresh was hoisin beef, which I was really excited about. Some of my favourite flavours are right there on the plate, and unlike Chef’s Plate where I found the meals almost too small for two people, this one meal seemed gigantic. It could have easily created 4 meals for myself (but of course I shared with the husband, so it came to less than that).
It was easy to prepare, didn’t take many ingredients, and was still packed full of flavour. So far Hello Fresh is shaping up to be one of the better meal delivery services I’ve tried. I do have a basket order of Good Food coming in next week, a family member gave me a coupon for an entire free trial of food (3 meals for 2 people) and they look REALLY fancy. It’ll be interesting to compare and see how the food is. From my cousin’s description she enjoys the flavours of Good Food but the meats in Hello Fresh are incredible.
Either way, it’s great to get out of my comfort zone when it comes to food. Being pregnant and running after a 2 year old all day means that I tend to stick to simple meal plans that I know we’ll enjoy and I can whip up without too much thought. That doesn’t leave a ton of room for creativity. Trying new foods and new flavours is great. Portion size is under control since they send me all of the ingredients, and it’s cheaper than buying fresh produce where I live. I understand that the price of these services is not something everyone wants to pay for, but in my case some weeks it’s simply worth it (plus I’ve only been trying out these services when they’re on sale at a hefty discount. I paid $32 for both Hello Fresh and Chef’s Plate, and Good Food is free… you can’t really go wrong with those prices).
You might remember that not too long ago when my husband was in depot, I tried Chef’s Plate, a Canadian version of Blue Apron. Well, I since learned that Hello Fresh is a thing here in Canada, and unlike Chef’s Plate, they deliver here to Saskatchewan. With a 60% off coupon I decided why not try it for three meals and see if it’s something that we want to pursue going forward for healthy portioned meals. Fresh produce this far North is expensive, and I could use a break from all the meal planning from time to time.
I’m counting it as a creative endeavor because I think meals and meal preparation IS a creative task.
First up was garlicky shrimp.
It was amazing. The portion size was perfect, they offered lots of protein and I had zero complaints. I found the meal superior to the meals I had eaten at Chef’s Plate, and well worth the cost. My husband also enjoyed the meal which is great because I wasn’t sure if it was something he would be fond of. The potatoes filled us up, the baby arugula was a unique taste that neither of us would have thought to pair with everything else.
I’m looking forward to the next two meals.
For christmas last year my parents bought me one of those 5-in-1 griddle / panini press things and until yesterday it sat in the box collecting dust under my desk (blocking power cords from llama bean, actually). Then I had an incident with my oven preventing me from using it, so I dug it out so I could make some kabobs and noticed that it had a waffle attachment.
I’ve never made waffles before, I didn’t even know what the difference in recipe would be between waffles and pancakes (turns out not that much, waffles are a bit richer) but heck I was feeling creative so I decided to go for it.
They were pretty good. A bit thicker than I am used to (I’ve never had fresh waffles before, only frozen, so lets be honest here I have nothing to compare them to) but they seemed to turn out pretty well and they were really simple to make. I’d like to try my hand at some savory ones too, eventually. Have waffle recipes you want to share? Let me know in comments.
stargrace