Eating Freshly

I tend not to do reviews here - that's why I have a review blog. But in this case, I'm writing about nearly a full week of food that I received from a company called Freshly, so it I decided to post here. because it's food.

Freshly is yet another service that sends you meals. (and if you want to order, there's a discount offered at the very bottom of this post) The difference between Freshly and some (most?) of the others is that Freshly dinners are completely cooked. No chopping, slicing, or cooking needed. You just poke holes in the plastic film on top, pop it in the microwave for one or two minutes to heat it, and serve.

It's like ... um ... TV dinners? Except that this food is fresh rather than frozen.

I'll have to say that the food doesn't look all that fancy when you first open the package. This is the Chicken Rustica, before I cooked it. It was a chicken breast with sauce and a cauliflower mash.

It looks much prettier when it's plated.

For size, that's not a dinner plate. It's a chicken breast, not a turkey breast. I like eating off of small plates, so that's what I usually use for photos. While it's still not the most stunning plate of food I'd ever seen, the flavor was really good, and the chicken breast was really tender and not at all dry. If you wanted to make it more fancy, some parsley, chopped chives, or even a sprinkle of cheese would do a good job dressing it up.

My one quibble here is that my usual meals have a much larger portion of vegetables compared to the protein portion. On a normal day, I'd probably eat half of that chicken and three times as much vegetable. But that's just me.

This was actually one of my favorite meals of the bunch. I was impressed with the chicken, I liked the sauce, and I'll probably make cauliflower mash really soon. It was quite tasty.

Next came the garlic shrimp dinner. I always feel like if something's going to go bad, it's going to be the seafood. So I wanted to eat that quickly and leave the more robust foods for later.

This was good, but I had an urge to serve it with rice or noodles. Even zucchini noodles. For a meat-eater, I really really like my vegetables. With rice, I could have easily made this two full meals or more, but I ate it as-is for one meal. It had good flavor and plenty of shrimp. They weren't the super-giant shrimp, but they were a nice size.

I chose just one of the many breakfast options from Freshly. The green chili and sausage frittata was the only meal that actually looked good in its original packaging. It's warmed up here, but they only difference between heated and unheated was that the cheese was melted after it was heated.

But that didn't stop me from serving it on a plate. You totally don't need plates for these meals because the containers they come in are sturdy, but I prefer eating off of a plate.

This was a nice breakfast, but I'll be honest and say that I ate it for lunch. It made a really nice light lunch.

Next up was the grilled flatiron steak.

I loved the spinach. Yeah, here's me talking about vegetables again. The potato hash was good and had both sweet potatoes and white. I thought the steak was a bit overcooked, but it was still pretty tender. Still, I would have preferred it cooked a bit less. It reminded me more of pot roast than steak, but the flavor was good.

I loved that this came with a large portion of the spinach along with a petite portion of the potatoes. Yeah, I like my vegetables a lot. I'm going to keep saying that. Get used to it.

I didn't mention this before, but all of the packages for the different foods have a nutrition label along with a list of ingredients, so you know what you're getting.

The steak dinner was 510 calories, which seems pretty reasonable, considering you've got creamed spinach. With, you know, cream. Plus a hunk o' beef. I didn't check all the other dinners for their calorie counts, but this one seemed to be one of the heartiest.

Next up was the Chicken Livorno.

This was another one that I thought was a bit light on the vegetables. It had beans with some greens and tomatoes, but I would have loved some broccoli or green beans or something else that had more of a fresh, light flavor. But, that's just me. I'm sure some of you are shaking your heads and saying that you don't really want more vegetables than what you see on that plate.

I had this for lunch and didn't finish it. Actually, I ate about half of it. And then I had a brilliant idea. I cut the remaining chicken into small pieces, then cooked some noodles in a pot with some Better than Bouillon chicken flavored stock mix. I added the leftover chicken and beans and greens to the pot with the noodles just long enough to warm them. Yup, it was soup. And it was pretty good.

So, what does this tell us? You can adapt these meals if you don't want to eat them completely as-is. And you can stretch them, too, but adding more vegetables or a salad. Or, you know, a promise of dessert.

Last was the meatloaf. I was a little skeptical, because meatloaf can be pretty personal. Everyone loves their own meatloaf or their mom's meatloaf, and other meatloaves never measure up.

That said, this meatloaf dinner was my other favorite. The meatloaf was good, and it came with peas and potatoes, so it was a nice balance.

Overall, I liked what I ordered, and I'd be happy to eat any of them again. I think if I was eating these on a regular basis, and if I wasn't someone who liked to cook, I'd stock up on bagged salads and maybe some frozen vegetables. That way I could eat half of the protein with all the vegetables for one meal and then have the rest of the protein with my frozen vegetables on another day. And probably a salad on both days.

Yeah, I like my salads as much as I like my vegetables.

For people who don't like vegetables as much as I do, these would probably be absolutely perfect as-is.

This particular food box service is geared towards people who don't like to cook, don't want to cook, or don't have time to cook. But who also don't want to bother with all the fuss of going out to dinner. Or people who want a decent lunch at work, as long as there's a microwave to use.

Am I going to order this for myself on an ongoing basis? Probably not. I like to cook, so it's unlikely I'd buy these for all of my meals from now on. But if I knew I had a week coming up where I was going to be crazy busy, this would really work. I mean, seriously, dinner was ready in two minutes. You can't beat that! And it would be great for people who are going through stressful times, people who just moved and haven't unpacked their cooking tools, or people who live in small spaces and don't want to fuss with anything too complicated.

I received this box of food at no cost to me; I've also joined their affiliate program, which means I get a little cash if you order though my link. It won't cost you any extra.

If you're interested in ordering from Freshly, click the link and get yourself a discount:

Chef-prepared, healthy meals delivered weekly. Get 50% Off!

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Roasted Salmon with Fennel, Olives, and Farro - and a review of Blue Apron

Roasted salmon, plated.

I've been curious about services like Blue Apron for a while.

If the name doesn't sound familiar, it's a meal service that ships to customers on a weekly basis. But it's not prepared meals. It's all of the fresh ingredients that you need to make the recipes they give you.

A friend of mine described it as something like restaurant take-out, but without getting soggy from sitting in Styrofoam. In other words, really good food, served fresh.

Since ingredients are pre-measured, it's easier than cooking from a cookbook. And there's no need for shopping. The only things you need to supply are salt, pepper, water, and oil. Every other thing was included, from a pat of butter to a small amount of heavy cream, to a handful of olives.

Just like cooking from a cookbook, you need to do some work, and you do need some basic cooking equipment. This isn't dump-and-stir. If there are vegetables to be peeled and chopped, you will peel and chop them. If there's cheese to be grated, you will be grating it.

I ordered a the two-person box, which included three meals (at no cost to me, for reviewing). When ordering, I was asked some basic questions about food preferences. Vegetarian? Fish? I selected the omnivore option, and received one seafood meal, one chicken meal, and one beef meal.

It came in an insulated box with cooling packs, with the really small ingredients in bags to keep them contained.

A box of ingredients.

The instructions suggested that since fish is most perishable, that should be cooked first, so I tackled the Roasted Salmon, Fennel & Castelvetrano Olives with Cara Cara Oranges, Farro, and Salsa Verde. It sounds complicated, but the instructions were pretty simple and there were photos for the steps to make it a little easier.

Recipe cards from Blue Apron

The other two meals we got were Spicy Thai Chicken Noodle Soup with Red Curry and Mushrooms, and Short Rib Burgers on Pretzel Buns with Hoppy Cheddar Sauce and Roasted Sweet Potato Rounds.

The recipe cards are printed on a glossy stock, so if you splash something on them, you can wipe them off. They're not indestructible, but you can have one sitting on the counter, right next to where you're cooking.

My husband and I were really happy with the results of all the meals, and there was plenty of food. The salmon was a reasonable portion, and the vegetables and farro made the salmon meal pretty substantial.

The soup was really filling, and we ended up with sufficient leftovers for a few lunches. We also had some leftovers from the burger dinner. Hungrier folks might have finished it all, but I don't think anyone would consider the portions skimpy.

Here's the salmon recipe, which is also available on the Blue Apron site. The recipes that you see online are formatted just like the recipe cards, complete with photos. Since their recipes seldom repeat, this gives you a chance to try recipes you missed, and you can recreate the ones that you did get, if you happen to lose the recipe cards..

Roasted Salmon, Fennel & Castelvetrano Olives
Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron

Salmon, ready to roast, on a bed of onions, fennel and olives.

2 Skinless Salmon Fillets
2/3 Cup Pearled Farro
1 Fennel Bulb With Fronds
1 Cara Cara Orange
1 Clove Garlic
1 Red Onion
1 Large Bunch Parsley
2 Ounces Castelvetrano Olives
3 Tablespoons Sliced Almonds
1 Tablespoon Capers
1/4 Teaspoon Fennel Pollen

1 Prepare the ingredients:
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Wash and dry the fresh produce. Heat a medium pot of salted water to boiling on high. Remove the salmon from the refrigerator to bring to room temperature. Pick off and reserve some of the fennel fronds; thinly slice the fennel stems and bulb. Using a peeler, remove the rind of the orange, avoiding the pith; mince to get 2 teaspoons of zest (or use a zester). Cut off and discard the remaining orange rind and pith; medium dice the orange. Peel and mince the garlic; smash with the side of your knife until it resembles a paste. Peel and thinly slice the onion. Pick the parsley leaves off the stems; discard the stems and finely chop the leaves. Finely chop the almonds. Roughly chop the capers.

2 Cook the farro:
Add the farro to the pot of boiling water. Cook 15 to 17 minutes, or until tender. Turn off the heat. Drain thoroughly and return to the pot.

3 Roast the salmon, onion, fennel and olives:
While the farro cooks, pat the salmon fillets dry with paper towels; season with salt and pepper on both sides. Place the fennel stems and bulb, onion and olives on a sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Arrange in a single, even layer; place the seasoned salmon fillets on top. Roast 16 to 18 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the salmon is cooked to your desired degree of doneness.

4 Make the salsa verde:
While the salmon, onion, fennel and olives roast, in a small bowl, combine the garlic paste, parsley, almonds and capers. Stir in enough olive oil to create a rough paste. Season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

5 Dress the farro:
Add the orange and orange zest to the pot of cooked farro. Stir in a drizzle of olive oil; season with salt and pepper to taste.

6 Plate your dish:
Divide the dressed farro and roasted onion, fennel and olives between 2 plates. Top each with a roasted salmon fillet and the salsa verde. Garnish with the fennel fronds and fennel pollen. Enjoy!

Looks good, right? It was!

The photo on the recipe card showed the farro on the bottom, fennel on top, and the salmon on top of that. I decided to plate the fennel and onions on one side of the plate, the farro on the other side of the plate, and the fennel on top.

More about the making of the recipes

It's all pretty clear, right? It sounds simple to do, right? So why not just download the recipes and make them?

Here's the deal. Not only don't you need to shop for the normal ingredients, like the salmon and the onion and the parsley, but you also don't need to go hunting for the ingredients that your store might not have.

I'm pretty sure I could find oranges any time of the year, but I don't know if I could find Cara Cara oranges. Farro isn't the easiest thing to find, either. Some specialty stores have it, and you can buy it online. But could you find it tomorrow? Maybe not. Same with fennel pollen. It's not a spice you'd be likely to find at the grocery store. Olives are easy, but do you think you'd find Castelvetrano olives?

All those ingredients help to make these recipes a little more special. If you like them, you can hunt them down later. If you're not crazy about them - well, you only have enough for one meal, so you're not stuck with extras that you don't have any use for.

All of the ingredients for the salmon meal.

And then, if you don't cook all that often, you might not want to buy a whole jar of capers or a bag of almonds. Parsley always comes in a pretty big bunch, but this recipe didn't need nearly that much.

All three of the recipes I tried had at least a few of those specialty ingredients, including the burgers that were made from ground short rib meat, and the cheese sauce that included hops flowers. When was the last time you saw hops flowers at your grocery store?

How much skill does it take to make these recipes?

My husband, who never cooks, volunteered to make one of the recipes. He tackled the Spicy Thai Chicken Noodle Soup. I hovered nearby to answer questions and make sure things didn't go wrong. I mean, there's fire and sharp knifes and heavy cookware to deal with.

Ingredients for Thai Chicken Soup.

He had a few questions, like the best way to peel ginger (use a spoon) and whether his chopped ginger and garlic were minced finely enough (they weren't.)

Slice, slice, chop, chop.

If I wasn't there, I'm sure he would have figured it out on his own. Seriously, if the ginger wasn't minced completely, it would have been fine. When I asked him what he thought, he said, "I could serve this to a date."

Good luck with that, dear.

But his point was that you could serve this to someone you're trying to impress, whether it's a date, your boss, or your in-laws.

But these are still simple fast and easy enough to serve on a normal night. The salmon dish was the fanciest of the three, while the soup was more casual. The burgers were the most casual of the three, but still a step above a standard burger.

So. Let's talk cost.

The three meals for two that I got would cost $59.94, so that's a tiny bit less than $10 per meal per person. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get a restaurant meal for $10 per person.

There are also two family plan options available. They're both for four people, but the difference is the number of meals per week.

Two meals per week for four people is $69.94, while four meals for four people is $139.88 -  that's about $8.74 per person. Pretty reasonable, right?

And now, I have a deal for you.

I received my meals at no cost so I could do a review, but if you're interested in trying the service, here's a discount code for two free meals with your first Blue Apron box. This is good for the first 50 people who claim it, and it's only good for first-time customers.

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