Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

Hello Fresh Week 37 Delivery review

laelene Posted in reviews, subscriptions,Tags: , , , , , , ,
1

Towards the beginning of last month, I finally got around to trying the Hello Fresh deal I’d gotten on LivingSocial. The delivery came one day when Panda was still out on a business trip, so I saved everything and hoped it would all last in the fridge. Lesson learned: next time freeze the meats right away. I was pretty surprised when it showed up on my doorstep because it wasn’t due until the next day. When it comes to planning for cooking, sometimes that can make a big difference so I sure hope that doesn’t happen all the time. They were right in the middle of changing up their shipping schedule though, so I’ll let this one slide.

Watch the unboxing if you’re interested! (Interested in trying Hello Fresh? Use my referral code to get $20 off your first order: 9CAMJS)

Hello Fresh is just under $70 per box and comes with 3 meals of 2 servings each. That’s less than $12 per meal serving. Boxes are sent weekly unless you choose to skip (which is very easy to do). They offer a referral code that gives $20 off to both the person you referred and for your next order.

hello fresh large cardboard box

It’s a pretty large box!

hello fresh box interior with insulation padding on all sides

The inside is well-insulated with a ton of frozen packs to keep things chilled.

hello fresh welcome letter and large black recipe cards

I got a nice welcome card, the three recipe cards, and a promo card from one of their partners.

hello fresh chili rubbed chicken with barley avocado salad ingredients

The ingredients for the chicken dish.

hello fresh garlic skillet meatballs and baby new potatoes ingredients

The ingredients for the beef dish.

hello fresh lemon pepper shrimp scampi and roasted pepper over linguine ingredients

The ingredients for the shrimp dish.

collage of hello fresh chili rubbed chicken with barley avocado salad recipe card

The first dish we decided to cook was the Chili Rubbed Chicken.

collage of hello fresh chili rubbed chicken ingredients and meal being cooked

It was fun to cook chicken for the first time – I never knew it cooks so fast!

collage of hello fresh barley avocado salad ingredients and meal being made

The salad was something I never would have thought to piece together myself.

hello fresh chili rubbed chicken with barley avocado salad dish finished product

The final product! Pretty good, eh?

collage of hello fresh garlic skillet meatballs and new potatoes recipe card

The next night we went for the meatball recipe.

collage of hello fresh garlic skillet meatballs and new potatoes ingredients and meal being cooked

All kinds of stuff I like to eat!

hello fresh garlic skillet meatballs and baby new potatoes finished product

And the end result with a nice mix of veggies and meat.

collage of hello fresh lemon-pepper shrimp scampi with roasted pepper over linguine recipe card

And finally, it’s shrimp and pasta time!

collage of hello fresh lemon-pepper shrimp scampi with roasted pepper over linguine ingredients and meal being cooked

Oh yum. My first time making pasta with more than just tomato sauce!

hello fresh lemon-pepper shrimp scampi with roasted pepper over linguine finished product

I really enjoyed this dish, though I’d probably sub spinach for the peppers next time.

Overall I found all the dishes pretty easy to make, though the instructions assumed a bit more knowledge about cooking than we had. 😛 I enjoyed the shrimp dish the best, partially because I’m a seafood lover and partially because it was the least adventurous dish. While it was cool to try something like the barley avocado salad, I don’t know if I’d ever really look to make it again. I do like that I have more experience under my belt and got to a try a variety of dishes. I’ll definitely get Hello Fresh again, but maybe only once a month or so. Thankfully, they make it really easy to manage deliveries within your account so it’ll be smooth sailing from here.

[This post contains affiliate codes. Signing up through them helps support my subscription and I’d be ever so grateful. 🙂 All opinions are my own and I received no compensation for this review. I just purchased this box and wanted to share what I got!]

365great Day 192: dumplings

laelene Posted in 365great,Tags: , , ,
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365great challenge day 192: dumplingsOne of the few things I can cook are dumplings. It’s one of those things that I slowly learned as a child, helping my mom prepare various parts of it over the years. Sometimes it was as simple as getting water so she could easily pinch together the skin and have it stick. Other times it would be helping with the folding, where I almost always tried to overstuff each skin with filling. From the boiling of the water and pushing the dumplings around so to keep them from clumping to the mixing of the meat and veggies, I eventually got to try it all. So, when it came time to try to make food for myself, one dish I was always comfortable with was dumplings. Granted, my pinching skills are still not very good and my dumplings look nowhere near as pretty as these, but I get the job done. And then I love the eating part because each one is like a little treat, so it feels like eating a bunch of snacks rather than a full on meal. I’m also a sucker for dipping things in my own soy sauce, black vinegar, and sesame oil blend – which dumplings are amazing for. A dish that can be an appetizer or entree, and one that I can cook easily? That’s great.

365great Day 187: cooking

laelene Posted in 365great,Tags: , , , , , , ,
2

Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 187: cookingPanda and I have been cooking a bit together* and I’ve really enjoyed it. Not only are we spending time together, getting a chance to chat and catch up, we’re producing results that we get to enjoy at the end. There’s something very rewarding about getting a product that is useful after all that effort. Then we get to sit down and eat together and spend even more time together! Oh, and of course cooking is nice because you can make things taste just how you want and you don’t have to leave a tip. 😉 You save time and money (usually) and you are more active too. We really should do it more often, but it’s so easy to slip into laziness and order out or just go out. That’s why I’m exploring options to make it easier for us, like this Hello Fresh meal that was pre-planned for us. I won’t delve into it too much since I’ll feature them another time, but suffice it to say that cooking at home can be a great experience.

 

*More like I’m doing the cooking and he’s doing the cleaning up, but hey we’re working together and that’s what matters.

365great Day 120: shin ramyun

laelene Posted in 365great,Tags: , , , ,
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Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 120: shin ramyunI think every college student has had to subsist on Top Ramen at some point or another. I wish I had also known about this other type of instant ramen noodle back then! It’s a nice way to spice things up (literally and figuratively) with a less starchy, more slippery type of noodle, freeze dried veggies for more oomph, and a spicy powder for that extra kick. The texture of these noodles is something like mixing ramen with udon. It still has the fun curly noodles that I like (which also makes it easier to eat since it’s less likely to slip from your chopsticks or fork). It’s the perfect thing to keep a stock of in your pantry when you need a quick, cheap meal that also tastes great.

365great Day 31: freshly baked

laelene Posted in 365great,Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 31: freshly bakedDon’t you just love the smell of something baking in the oven? Whether it’s bread, cookies, brownies, cake, a pot pie, a pizza, or whatever your favorite may be, a wonderful smell starts wafting up in the air and then you get to pull out a hot, delicious, steaming tray of food to eat. As the food cools down, you can dig in and enjoy the sensory experience of tasting and smelling it, as well as enjoying the lovely soft texture while it’s sill moist. It’s one of the simple things that is oh so satisfying. Totally great!

365great Day 24: Korean BBQ

laelene Posted in 365great,Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1

Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 24: korean bbqAfter a fantastic dinner tonight, I just had to make Korean BBQ today’s 365great. My all-time favorite place to go is Tahoe Galbi because of their delicious salad, sauces, and rice paper. KBBQ in general is awesome for many reasons: first of all, it’s all you can eat (ok, usually)! Secondly, they have wonderful side dishes to go with all the meat you’ll be having. Then there’s the really tasty meats they provide, along with sauces and whatnot to ensure you get the most flavor possible. Plus, it’s pretty fun to grill things up yourself and enjoy the cooking and eating process all in one. Not only are you enjoying a meal, it’s an entire experience. It also helps that you can stuff yourself until you can’t move, if you choose to do so. Between all the wonderful flavors and the fun times, Korean BBQ is the type of dining experience you don’t want to miss – and that’s what makes it great.

Adventures in cooking

laelene Posted in photo blog,Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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For a period, my cousin and I had to fend for ourselves, so we got into cooking rather than eating out or microwaving. This is what we ate that week…

meal consisting of chicken & snow peas, tomatoes & eggs, rice

Day 1: chicken & snow peas, tomatoes & eggs, rice. The chicken was leftover from my mom’s previous dish.

meal consisting of potato strips, sausage with carrot & snow peas, mung bean jelly, rice

Day 2: potato strips, sausage with carrot & snow peas, mung bean jelly, rice. The jelly is a cold dish.

meal consisting of potato strips, sausage with carrot & peas, tomatoes & eggs, brownie, rice

Day 3: potato strips, sausage with carrot & peas, tomatoes & eggs, brownie, rice. Rice not pictured.

meal consisting of chicken noodle soup, sausage with carrot & spinach, mini quiches, tomatoes & eggs, rice

Day 4: chicken noodle soup, sausage with carrot & spinach, mini quiches, tomatoes & eggs, rice. Soup & quiches from store.

meal consisting of chicken noodle soup, spinach & eggs, mini quiches, rice

Day 5: chicken noodle soup, spinach & eggs, mini quiches, rice. Soup & quiches from store.

The personal chef fantasy

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , ,
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Lately I’ve been daydreaming about having a personal chef at my beck and call, ready to whip up whatever I’m craving when I want it.  I even started an Evernote note listing a bunch of the dishes and types of food I like so my future chef can be prepared for all that I may request.  While my desires aren’t particularly hard to meet since my tastes are simple, it would be so nice to be able to eat exactly what I want without the normal restrictions of either having to cook the dish myself or finding that the restaurant offering that dish is not in the vicinity or is closed.  After all, I’m not a very good cook and unfortunately my favorite dishes are scattered around the country at various restaurants that I usually don’t get to go to except for special occasions.

This all started when a friend was telling me about one time when she had a business meeting with an affluent businessman who she was pitching an idea to.  He met with her at a restaurant that he owned and the chef asked her about the foods that she liked, then went to the kitchen and whipped up what she remembers as one of the best dishes she ever had.  That sort of planted this whole fantasy into my head about a personal chef, since I often crave things that I don’t have access to and/or am unable to make myself.  Most recently I had a lovely Northern Chinese style seaweed dish that is a traditional cold appetizer or side dish, which had a really lovely sauce that I wouldn’t know how to replicate.  I could track down some dried seaweed at an Asian market and mix it up with some of the sauces at home, but it wouldn’t taste anything like what was provided at the restaurant.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone could figure that all out for me?  Much like people with perfect pitch, I’m sure there are those out there who can taste a dish and replicate it almost exactly.  Then I not only save the effort of trying to figure out how to make it taste like that, but I also get to skip the whole preparing and making it process.  I’d definitely need a capable chef who can make close imitations to my favorite dishes in a broad scope of styles, including Northern and Southern Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Ethiopian, Mongolian, Italian, French, British, and American spanning everything from appetizers, soups, salads, side dishes, entrees, and desserts.  Oh, and in just about every cooking method as well… baking, stir frying, broiling, steaming, dehydrating, sizzling on a platter, and who knows what else.

What I wouldn’t want is someone who is too classically-trained, since they’d probably be happier making some weird dishes that are way too classy for me.  I like simple foods – comfort food, finger food, and plain old tasty food.  I’ve never really been into steaks, I don’t like lobster, and I hate caviar.  I don’t go for “weird” body parts (I’m sure that’s all relative) and I generally am perfectly happy eating as a pescetarian, though certain dishes just aren’t the same without meat.  Oh, and I love desserts, so that’s a total must!  With that said… any takers?  😉  Well, I’m sure that one day down the line I’ll make this dream come true to some extent.  I might have to hire a couple of chefs to handle the variety though!

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