Hello Fresh

Maybe you’ve heard of Hello Fresh.

An exciting box to find on your front step!

They deliver food.

To your door.

Fresh food.

To you!

Now I am someone who does my grocery shopping online because it saves me the money and calories of the impulse buys.  I’m also someone who gets home from the market only to realize I forgot a key ingredient…. Back out I go.  Hello Fresh takes that away!!!

How Does It Work?

Sign up for the service – select  what you want: Classic or Vegetarian.

They will shop for you and send everything you need. (You will need to provide your own olive oil, butter, salt/pepper.)

Each Monday a box will be delivered to your door with super fresh ingredients, and clearly detailed recipe cards.

Cook.  Eat.  Enjoy!

My First Delivery

I got my first delivery this morning.  Picked the box off my porch at 11:45.  Put groceries away, prepared my lunch, ate and cleaned up before 1:00.  Saving time already.  (And quite honestly without the shipment I would have probably eaten nachos and salsa for lunch – so win all around!)

All three meals, packaged safely and snuggly!

I was immediately impressed with the care taken to package my food    I honestly had visions of vegetables, fruits, and items just rolling around in the box    Not at all – every meal comes in its own

Ice packs keep all shipments fresh.

box, the boxes are placed on a divider and under that divider is packets of ice to keep everything cold and fresh.

Each meal comes with a detailed, easy-to-follow, easy-to-prepare recipe. The recipes are easy to modify if you don’t like a particular item or if you have a food allergy.  The Hello Fresh website and app will also list all food allergies associated with a meal so you can be sure.

But no worries, because you actually know every ingredient you’re using.  Nothing processed!

OK….On to the meals:

I wish you could taste this through your screen!

Whole Roasted Carrot Salad with dates, yogurt, and baby kale

I didn’t have overly high expectations for this salad.  First, I’m not a big fan of kale.  Second, I don’t care for dates.  I

All the ingredients you need.

wanted to make the recipe exactly as called for because I wanted to give a fair review.

Let me just say, I was wrong.  Wow!  The kale was so fresh it wasn’t bitter.  The dates added a great texture to the salad that I found myself wishing I had more.  The dressing was perfect, and the carrots … Oh, man, the carrots.  Yes please again and again!

Because I am the only one who will be eating most of these meals, I ordered the vegetarian meal plan for 2 people (they don’t yet have an individual plan – but that’s OK because I like having left overs for lunch).  I ate a full lunch, two others ate lunch that day, and I had some left for lunch the next day!   Hello Fresh, I think you sent me the wrong size, but I won’t tell!

Peach and Nectarine Orzo Salad

Orzo replaced with Gluten Free Pasta

This becomes that.

I can’t eat Orzo, so I substituted Wegman’s gluten free pasta.  This was easy to cook.   I was making dinner for the parents the night I made this and wasn’t sure if we’d have enough.  Spoiler alert: they both ate a full meal and there was another meal left for left overs.  I enjoyed this one with the fresh taste of peanuts and feta, but it wasn’t my favorite.  I heard the orzo was excellent!  Two others asked for a copy of the recipe, so that’s a sign that it was a success!

My mouth is watering just looking at this again!

Vegetarian Bibimap

This was my favorite of this week’s three meals.  It was probably most involved in making, but it

Look at those mushroom!

was well worth it.  So fresh.  So tasty.  Didn’t want to stop eating (but as you can expect, it was well more than 2 meals worth!).  Even the soy sauce that was included was naturally gluten free (and came in the most adorable packaging ever!).   I would have never thought to add hot sauce to this, but was so glad I did.  I could imagine that not everyone would want to include hot sauce, and it would be just as good without it.   The egg on top was a suggestion (not provided by Hello Fresh) that I was glad they made!

Is this NOT the cutest way to deliver soy sauce?!

Next week’s meals are not all gluten free, so I decided to skip it.  I’ve also skipped the one the following week because I will be away.  I love that Hello Fresh offers the opportunity to skip … and that they let you know what’s coming so that you can decide.  If you order the classic package (with meat) you choose 3 out of 5 options, but the vegetarian package doesn’t yet give you a choice.

If you want to try Hello Fresh, here’s a link for $40 off your first order.  That’s 9 meals (plus left overs!) for $20 or $30 …. You’ve got nothing to lose!

Have you tried Hello Fresh?   What meals have been your favorite?  Let me know!