For most of my twenties, dinner was more often than not
either cheese and crackers (and alcohol) or carrots and hummus (and alcohol). I saw nothing wrong with this. Once TG and I started spending most nights
together (I mean before he says goodnight and then leaves to sleep in his own
apartment, right Dad?), I felt I probably should break myself of this habit. Not
because I thought it would be healthier for both of us to have actual nutrients,
but because I didn’t want him to know about my bachelorette lifestyle. Because the foundation of all healthy
relationships is changing who you are and lying about who you were.
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| Slim pickings... |
For a time, this was an easy habit to break because we went
out to dinner every night. Like, every
single night. Eventually, though, I
realized that wasn’t sustainable in the long term. (By “realized” I mean “opened
my retirement account statement”). So we
started going to the grocery store.
This was not successful.
We roamed around the aisles, changing our minds 30 times about what it
is we were going to prepare, until I was so starving and hangry that we had to
order dinner anyway.
This continued apace while simultaneously, my girlfriends
began The Social Diet, and suddenly my cheese-and-cracker habit wasn’t just
apparent to myself and my boyfriend, but my girlfriends as well. Girlfriends who also have busy lives, many of
whom have husbands, a child even!
Girlfriends who manage to prepare legitimate, healthful dinners from
ingredients that cannot be found in Duane Reade (related: TG hates when I buy
groceries from Duane Reade, but I think if I can get hummus and shampoo at the
same time, why wouldn’t I?!). And so, in
deference to health awareness and also fear of being shamed and judged by my
peers, I formally and publicly committed to cooking more.
In the spirit of the Social Diet, my friend Liza immediately
offered a show of support for this goal.
She explained that she and her fiancé had tried Blue Apron and had a
free trial they’d be happy to give me.
With nothing to lose, I snapped it right up.
I had heard of Blue Apron from a couple of friends and
colleagues, and one of TG’s siblings had even tried it before. The gist is this: once a week, Blue Apron
sends you fresh ingredients and recipes for 3 meals, for 2, 4, or 6
people. The service costs $9.99 per
person per meal, or about $60 per order for the two of us. You choose a delivery window (we do Thursdays
between 6pm and 10pm, though the box typically arrives before 8pm), and your
food (every ingredient required except, salt, pepper, and olive oil) and recipes are delivered in an insulated box. Fair warning: the box weighs about 15 lbs, so
maybe if you live on a fifth floor walk up, this isn’t for you. Everything within the box is labeled, which
is handy if you don’t necessarily visually know the difference between cilantro
and parsley and think one tastes like ass and belongs in the garbage can… You can specify if you’re vegetarian, or don’t
want to receive a specific type of meat (say, seafood). So far as I can tell, however, other dietary
restrictions aren’t accommodated. I am
allergic to garlic (yes, it does suck), which as you probably know is a very
common ingredient in recipes, but I just leave it out when I’m cooking. And I was serious about throwing out the cilantro. Otherwise, though, part of what I’ve liked
about Blue Apron thus far is that you’re given recipes and ingredients you
might not otherwise try. I don’t like
olives, for example, but included them in an awesome tilapia recipe last week
and gobbled them up. But I’m getting
ahead of myself.
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| The "knick knacks" are all the little ingredients for each recipe, like spices |
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| Dorito loves the Blue Apron boxes, which is also great. |
The week of our free trial, TG and I first decided to make turkey
burger sliders with arugula salad with toasted hazelnuts. This seemed both tasty and most important, simple
enough for our first foray. I discovered
quickly, however, that my apartment, in which my kitchen, living room, dining
room, and foyer are in fact all the same space, is not really designed for
tandem cooking. I banished TG to the
couch and started chopping and mincing and mixing and pan frying. I’ll be honest – it was a bit
overwhelming. The sink filled up with
dirty dishes rapidly, and with very limited counter space, I wasn’t sure where
to put what I had prepped while still having room to prep the remaining
ingredients. Panko breadcrumbs ended up
all over the floor, and shallot peels clogged the drain. Considering my distaste for disorder, this
was a lot for me to handle.
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| Recipe cards |
But once the dinner made it to the plates, it tasted
good! While we might have made burgers
for ourselves, we probably wouldn’t have thought to use ground turkey, nor made
them sliders, and we definitely wouldn’t have added minced shallots and Dijon to
the patties. Plus, I loved that the
recipe included both a protein and a side, and included in the directions when
to prepare what parts of each. So often,
my problem and hesitation in cooking is that I can make a main dish, and pick a
side to go with it, but don’t know how to time them so they’re both done and
hot and edible at the same time. Granted,
this side was a salad, which is raw and generally takes 11 seconds to prepare,
but there was some hazelnut toasting required.
So while nothing revolutionary, our first Blue Apron meal was a success!
Since then, we’ve received two more deliveries (these we
paid for), and have made a number of other meals, including pan seared cod with
roasted potatoes, the aforementioned tilapia with a Mediterranean sauce, chickpea
fritters with ratatouille, and chicken, artichoke, and spinach casserole. Unlike the turkey burger sliders, we never in
a million years would have made anything close to any of these meals, and were
very pleasantly surprised with each of them (or at least I was. TG is too polite to tell me if he thinks this
all tastes like shit. Just last night,
for example, he ate an artichoke that definitely could have stood to have a few
more of the outer layers peeled off before human consumption. Sorry about that…). The recipes also allow for substitutions – the
casserole we made last night could easily be made with basically any other
vegetables. The recipes are portioned
for two, and with rare exception, there haven’t been leftovers, which could be
a plus or a minus, depending on how willing you are to reheat tilapia in your
office microwave for lunch. Since we
started, I’ve definitely gotten better at managing the mess that cooking makes,
which is an efficiency I think only comes with practice. I’ve also gotten better at not stressing out
about the mess when it happens (the
sauce accompanying the tilapia ended up splattered all over the white walls of
the kitchen/living room/dining room).
Remembering to take the batteries out of the smoke alarm before getting
started also helped reduce my mid-cooking anxiety. But in just a few shorts weeks of cooking
once or twice a week and I already feel like “hey! I can totally do this!”
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| Directions with pictures AND order of operations hints |
There are, of course, a few draw backs. I already mentioned that there isn’t much in
the way of accommodating for food allergies.
Also, Blue Apron isn’t cheap. Granted, $9.99 per person per meal is
drastically less expensive than going out to dinner every night, but if you’ve
grocery store savvy, you can probably buy these same ingredients on the cheap
(my local grocery store is Whole Foods, so it’s probably a wash for me). I like that Blue Apron provides the
tablespoon of Hungarian paprika required for a recipe, rather than a whole
bottle I’d have to get at the grocery store, but that obviously comes at a
price. If you live in a place where you have
separate rooms for the kitchen, living room, dining room, and foyer, maybe you
would rather buy in bulk, store left overs, and save money. Also, if you live in a place where you have
separate rooms for the kitchen, living room, dining room, and foyer, aren’t you
fancy? Asshole…
Blue Apron also thinks I’m going to cook much more often
than I am. Once a week was my goal, and
thus far I’ve achieved it, but between my schedule and TG’s, we aren’t home
three nights a week to cook and eat, ever, but 3 meals is the minimum you can
order. I did eventually discover that
you can change your Blue Apron delivery schedule, and now we’re slated to
receive a box about once a month, rather than once a week, which means I can
spread those three meals out over more than 7 days. If I know we’re not going to cook
immediately, I toss the meat in the freezer. I've also discovered it’s kind of difficult to cancel once you sign up
for the free delivery, which is sort of a dick move on their part, since you
have to provide your credit card information to register for the free trial. But apparently all it takes is an email to
end your subscription. Still, that
information is kind of hidden on their website, and requires more than just “click
here to make it stop.”
Lastly, while the website indicates the recipes take 35
minutes on average, my experience has been more like 45 minutes to an hour, but
that could be because I’m still getting my feet wet in the food preparation
department. I find listening to This
American Life is a nice way to make the time pass, and I happen to have plenty of time on my hands, since my longest run in this, the last week of my taper, is a whopping 4 miles...
As a whole, though, I recommend Blue Apron. The recipes are easy to follow but without
being overly simple - they still make me feel like more of a chef than I would
otherwise. I’m given exposure to
ingredients I wouldn’t ordinarily use/eat.
At 500-700 calories a pop with a good dose of vegetables in each, these are
on the healthy side. And they allow for
practice at preparing ingredients and cooking, and I can’t overstate how much
this has improved my confidence and in turn, my desire to cook, in just a few
weeks.
Blue Apron hasn’t reached out to me (nor I to them), sponsored
this, or compensated me in any way. I’m
just sharing because I’d like to think I’m not the only 30 year old in a tiny
apartment who hasn’t mastered feeding herself, and Blue Apron helps rectify
that. And if you would like help rectifying
that, you can get a free trial too! Leave
a comment with a funny story about a cooking mishap and I’ll choose someone to
receive a free trial of Blue Apron*
*To receive Blue Apron, you have to live somewhere in here.
Also, based on the website/my experience, you do have to enter a credit card in
order to register for the free trial, but I promise they don’t charge you for
the trial. If you don’t want to keep
paying for it after the trial, email cancellations@blueapron.com
before the weekly cutoff, which will be
6 days before the next automatically scheduled delivery (aka the day after you
receive your trial box).
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