Blue Apron!

My gals at Bar Lubitsch set me up with Blue Apron for two weeks for Christmas while I was back home in Wisconsin.  It was a great gift, thank you so much Ladies!  Knowing how picky my Dad is with food (he's your typical Wisconsin Dad, meat and potatoes, pizza, burgers, and whiskey) I decided to start using it when I was in LA and could hopefully share it with some friends!

The process of picking out each week's meals was really simple.  I'm not a huge pork fan so I kept that out of the three meals that were sent, and made sure I had at least one vegetarian option each week since it was during Lent and I couldn't eat meat on Fridays.  The meals served two people and were surprisingly simple to put together.  Nothing took much longer than 30 minutes and some were even less.  I felt like I was making restaurant quality meals, well worth the price, and they tasted AMAZING!  What was even better was the easy to use recipe cards that listed the ingredients and gave step-by-step instructions including pictures that I kept so that I can continue to make some of my favorite recipes.

Catfish, Steak, Salmon, and Gnocchi all made thanks to Blue Apron!

My first meal was Alsatian Spiced Chicken with Yukon Gold mashed potatoes and glazed red cabbage.  I loved this meal; the spices worked well together and the cabbage was incredible.  It would be the only way I would ever make cabbage again!  Next up was Catfish Meuniere with collard greens & lentils and I had Courtney over to enjoy it with me.  The fish was a little fishy on this one but the lentils and the meal as a whole felt really healthy and there was plenty of food.  Adam joined me for steak night and it was the first time I had ever made a steak.  It turned out perfectly medium rare and the garlic kale side served with it was seriously delicious.  This was definitely one of my favorites of all the dishes and I was very excited to execute it to perfection!  

On my second week I started out with Adobo-Style Chicken with bok choy and jasmine rice.  I was really surprised at how flavorful the chicken dishes were and will definitely make both again.  I made the seared Salmon with spinach-walnut pesto for Lunch after a great acting class and was excited to have the leftovers for Dinner that night at Bar Lubitsch.  It was by far the prettiest of all the meals I made and also felt super healthy, on top of it being one of my favorites!  I was sad when it was time to make my final Blue Apron meal which was brown butter gnocchi with lemon and brussels sprouts.  Acquah joined me and we paired this one with a Chardonnay I had (the only time I drank with the meals because I had been on anti-biotics for a couple weeks).  Having a glass of wine with the meal was a nice addition (duh).  The meal was so good that I wanted more and this was the only one that I felt like the portion was a little small and I was hungry almost immediately after.

I would definitely recommend Blue Apron to anyone who enjoys cooking.  All the ingredients are mailed to your doorstep and ready to be made.  There is prep for each meal but the instructions make all of that a breeze.  I would say that you need to have basic kitchen/cooking knowledge since time management is key when trying to do a couple things at once.  I felt confident after making the first meal!  I'll definitely get more Blue Apron orders in the future :)