Home Chef Thoughts

I’m in the middle of trying a few subscription meal services and seeing which is better for when I’d like to just be lazy, order my food and cook (lazy and cook?). I love that they are real food (not processed to hell) and great recipes that show me how to do things in different ways. I often like just grabbing the recipes and following them.

I’m always excited to get a package in the mail. So when the box came I opened it immediately and this time I took a few photos. Everything was nice and chill.

The ingredients were fresh and unblemished, nicely packaged and ready to go. I liked the little round containers so much that I repurposed them. I so love little containers they are great for keeping organized. I also got a handy recipe binder. I stamped holes in the blue Apron recipe cards and stuck them in there also. The cards are very nice. I might buy a cook book from either service. My collection of cook books is growing and growing…

The portions were okay, and I only had one mis giving about the umami burger. I was like this little bit of ground beef is not gonna make two burgers that’ll fit on these awesomely large buns… I was wrong. I liked all three recipes and will make them again. But I especially loved the umami burger with miso-marinated beef with mushrooms, white cheddar, and parmesan sweet potato fries. I don’t like mushrooms but I didn’t want to waste anything so I gave them a try. As a side note, I don’t like them because of bad experiences with them growing where they shouldn’t not with how they taste. I was indeed surprised that they were so awesome on this burger. I just want to hurry up and make it again. I didn’t think of taking a picture of this one till after it was gone. That first bite was the end.

The pan-seared chicken and roasted beet salad with goat cheese and pistachios was a little different because I’ve never had beets in this way. I’ve always eaten them cold and pickled I believe so this was a new experience for me. I like how they taste though so I thought the dish would be good and I was right. Also, I haven’t eaten pistachios in ages and this use of them was really yummy.

Crispy garlic and lemon crusted salmon with creamed kale and charred grape tomatoes was interesting too but I was willing to try something different. This was the most skeptical I was about a dish. I learned about the different types of kale and how the curly one is a bit more tender than the flat one. They have names but I don’t feel like hunting them down. So I was surprised how the dish turned out. I suppose I was expecting it to be tough given the cook time. I also thought the crispy garlic was interesting and I ended up munching on a few of them before plating the dish.

In comparison to what I thought about Blue Apron, Home Chef is a little different but not by much. There are more choices of meals. I do like that you have the option to add more or less to your order where Blue Apron is a set 2 or 4 recipes for their two tiers. Home Chef also has smoothies, breakfast and fruit add ons. I like Blue Apron’s wine add on though (total wine head here #rebelred). Both have great recipes! How would you ever choose one over the other. I’d probably just buy from whichever one has the most appealing recipes at the time.