Hello Nerds,
In the spirit of my test, I wanted to provide you all with an update on the remaining two meals from our HelloFresh order.
Meal #2: Creamy Lemon Butter Chicken with Mozzarella Zucchini Rounds & Scallion Couscous
So I desperately wish I could tell you how long it took to make this meal. I really do. Unfortunately about the time my smoke detector started going off, and then my alarm system started going off, and I was rushing to find my phone to answer so the alarm company didn’t send the fire department, I lost track of time.
Fun Fact: Not all alarm systems have fire alarm monitoring. We opt to pay for a premium version of our service for this feature. This was the first time I had seen it in action and I was impressed. If our home were to catch fire while we were away (knock on wood that never happens), I am confident emergency personnel would arrive quickly given the response time of our provider.
Everything was going swimmingly until Step 5: Broil Zucchini & Make Sauce. It’s the sauce that got me and my kitchen all lit up. I reheated the pan, while the zucchini were broiling, added the ingredients to simmer, then once I added the sour cream and butter to round out the creaminess of the Creamy Lemon Butter Chicken all hell broke loose. It started smoking and it started smoking hard. I was trying to stir it in, but eventually had to run to try to air out the kitchen. Alarms are going off. Phones are ringing. And the sauce, which is supposed to be creamy and golden in color, was now greasy, clumpy. and brown. But if I’ve learned anything in my time on this earth, you move forward and make do with what you’ve got in the situation. I plated that meal up with the offending sauce and you know what? It was still pretty darn good. No photos were taken because I was smoky, stressed, and getting hangry.
Meal #3: Lemony Lobster Ravioli with Zucchini Ribbons & Chili Flakes
This meal was prepared on what was my favorite nerd’s and my 16th anniversary. Fancy, right? After I got off a call with outside counsel, I was rushing to make it in the hour of lunch I had before a 1pm call with a partner. Thankfully, this recipe is billed as a “quick meal” and it lived up to that billing.
Prep: Slicing some scallions, ribboning a zucchini, and cutting a lemon in wedges. Said it would take 10 minutes and honestly it took less time than that. I will say I’m fortunate to own a vegetable peeler. Not everyone owns one of those and I hadn’t noticed it called for that tool when I selected that meal option. Could have been a MacGyver kitchen moment trying to ribbon a zucchini with just a knife. Ok, that’s not super MacGyver-y, but much higher risk of cutting yourself. If you don’t own a vegetable peeler, IKEA sells a potato peeler for $0.99. You don’t need anything fancy.
Cooking: Boil some water, cook the ravioli. Make the sauce (without setting off the smoke detector), cook the ribbons until tender in the sauce, add the ravioli and plate. Easy peasy, done in 20 minutes–exactly as the recipe stated. I will admit I was having a hard time getting the sauce to mix and not look all clumpy like the creamy chicken sauce, BUT once I added the reserved pasta water it all magically came together!
SO what’s the final result of my super informal and not scientific test?
66.6% of the meals were easy to make and didn’t set off my smoke detector
100% of the meals were delicious
The question now is can I afford to continue to use HelloFresh? Presently, yes. There is some uncertainty around the long-term stability of my current employment situation, so I’m working on trying to shore up my personal finances before October. I’ll probably skip weekly deliveries for awhile and consider splurging on a week if there’s something special to celebrate with a more curated meal than what we typically throw together.
There you go. That’s my experience with the meal kit provider HelloFresh. Have you used any of the other services out there? Do you think they are better? Worse? Comparable? Let us know!
Until next time, don’t set your kitchen on fire.
Cheers,
Head Nerd