My first experience with food delivery was with Blue Apron. I posted photos of the recipes on facebook, and to my surprise, many other people were interested in my experience. Here is a summary of my Blue Apron experience:
I found the enrollment process to be straight forward. Once enrolled, you access the delivery schedule, and it is easy to skip weeks or change the recipes to be delivered. For example, I don’t particularly like salmon, so I substituted a vegetarian meal. There are three meat recipes and three vegetarian recipes to choose from each week; however, you cannot select any combination – so if I choose two meat recipes, I only have one vegetarian recipe to choose. The box was waiting for me when I arrived home on the delivery day. I unpacked everything and sorted the ingredients. The meats were in a separate sub-compartment with ice packs.
The recipes are given in a step by step fashion: Do this. While that is cooking, do this. I found it easy to follow, although I had to enlist Andrew’s help on some recipes. I could not fry sweet potatoes, steam buns, and make meat patties at the same time. Andrew is good at making meat patties.
All recipes were flavorful and a joy to eat. What was the most fun was that we were trying recipes we have never heard of, and we liked them! Of course I modified the recipes to make sure we enjoyed them – for example the Bao sliders called for ginger, and I know I don’t like ginger, so I left it out. The sliders could’ve also been a lot spicer, but I kept them on the mild side.
I have two criticisms of Blue Apron. First, I wish more combinations of recipes were possible. I have canceled deliveries on two weeks. One week I canceled because I didn’t think I’d like either the fish (salmon/catfish) recipe or the alternative vegetarian recipe (had multiple types of olives). Another week I canceled because I didn’t think I wanted to pay $10 for an order of gnocchi or fancy grilled cheese sandwiches. It is hard to get excited about the delivery if you are not excited about every recipe. Second, I wish the recipes were a little healthier. The sliders recipe called for fried sweet potatoes as a side. They were delicious, but I probably didn’t need the grease. Of course, I usually don’t eat sweet potatoes, so the fact that I liked them is a plus…
