Hello! Fresh!

ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠! 𝔽𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕙!

(ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨)

 Meal delivery services are surfacing all over the place these days, from Hello Fresh, and multiple other companies, partnerships with Walmart, even to Martha Stewart throwing her towel in the ring. Everyone wants a piece of this "new" way of making meals. And with all of this buzz and excitement, comes the reviews. 

Unfortunately with all my research, a continuing trend I run into were paid partnerships for reviews of the meals. These can be helpful (For the company mostly) but in all reality they are very one-sided, for obvious reasons, -I am aware of that- but it makes deciding to actually try them, so much harder for me. I am a major skeptic with most things and don't like to spend money on unnecessary products, but when there are never any negative reviews, or any that really seem genuine this makes me even more skeptical and I refuse to waist my time or money on those products. 

So why am I doing this review if I just said that I wouldn't bother with products such as these you might think?

That's a great question.

If you ask Quinn, he would tell you that I did this all without his input, however he and I have discussed trying this for almost a year, but then laugh it off because it sounds so silly to us. Why would we pay a company to send us food and recipes, when that is something we frequently do on our own almost everyday of the week. 

For the last three months I have been so tired of planning and gathering, making dinner each night just seemed so tiresome. We use to love cooking together each night, it really was more like a mini date night for us. It began when we were dating, but after 5 years of marriage and so much life going on, the task fell solely to me, and I didn't want to do it all by myself anymore. So I began to research which meal delivery company I wanted to try, as well as good promo codes that I could use to save a few dollars.

First I would say that Hello Fresh seems to be the most popular, and from what I could gather, they seemed to have been one of the first to really begin doing this in the first place. So I went with them after I had found a promo code through a Podcast I actively listen to. Thus the ordering began!

Meals I ordered:

#1 Hey! Honey Salmon

#2 Lobster Ravioli

#3 Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Tacos

#4 Pork & Cabbage Stir-Fry

The ordering process was very simple and easy to do. The app told me the prep and cook time for each meal, wither it was spicy or not, and the price per meal. My box arrived a week after ordering, but on time.

Now onto the reviews of the meals!

Day #1 Hey! Honey Salmon!

Can you guess which one is the one I made? (Just kidding 😆)

Hey, Honey! Salmon

First, let's discuss the cost of the meal. (Cost of meal individually) is the price for each serving. Personally, this was a reasonable cost for a meal that included salmon. Any restaurant that has salmon on the menu will be at least $4-5 more JUST because there is salmon. Also, if you plan to buy salmon fillets you are looking at a $1-2 increase for JUST the salmon. So we felt comfortable with this price point. (Fist impression)

With all of that being said, we both felt that the amount of salmon we were given was smaller then expected. (.10oz) another quick input, any "restaurant" quality meal always has smaller amounts of salmon then desired. (I love salmon like its steak)

Okay let's move onto the actual recipe. It calls for, 24 oz. of gold potatoes, 1 lemon, 2tbps of fry seasoning, 12 oz. of green beans and 3oz of honey Dijon dressing, with salt and pepper to your liking.

Please remember this is a recipe for two.

Yes, we had enough food for both of us, however we did add a small red pepper from our garden we plucked this last week, which I think helped give flavor and extra density to the food. I am assuming leftovers are obviously NOT a thing, which we are NOT use to, but it's okay since we constantly end up wasting food anyways.

We were generous with the salt, pepper and I added some Cajun seasoning (because we are extra) in almost every step. But overall the food was yummy, the proportions were, in my opinion, subpar. (But to be honest we expected that) There was enough potatoes and greens, but the protein was lacking.

I definitely will keep this recipe in my back pocket, but I do believe I can find more protein for cheaper, and we will definitely be adding seasoning and other veggies to the mix. 

#2 Lobster Ravioli

So first off, this meal wasn't actually considered a "meal" It was labeled as an Extra option. They have all kinds of extras you can add. French bread, extra servings of meat, dessert, the works. 

I came across it and instantly thought I could make a meal out of this easily! If I remember correctly the price for this one was $4.99. Score! Or so I thought...

I decided to add broccoli to the meal, along with our favorite biscuits from Red Lobster ($2.98 from Macey's)

I'd say the overall meal was about $9.00 rounding up. ($4.50 a person)

However the meal I had planned... did not turnout as good as I had hoped. To be fair, this meal was at least 80% put together by me so there is that to consider, but I would almost do everything differently then I did. 

I DON'T think we will ever order the Lobster Ravioli again first off, it was weird. Some bits were fine and really good, others were so fishy I almost couldn't swallow them. I have never had lobster ravioli before so take my judgement how you will, but if I got it again, I think I would do more research as to where I was purchasing from again. Secondly adding broccoli to the meal I think added to the weird "fishy" smell and taste.

 I think if I dare do this again, I'd pick a different veggie, maybe asparagus with lemon, and some onions and peppers to kick the fishiness. Next thing I would do is try a red sauce instead of white. I usually love alfredo sauce pasta and salmon, every time I go to a restaurant I ask for salmon instead of chicken in my alfredo dishes, so I really thought this would be yummy... BOY was I wrong! The good news is the biscuits obviously were delicious!

#3 Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Tacos

So by now you must realize I am not an influencer by any means, so don't judge my photos, but I will try to do a better job next week. Especially in this section my pictures do not do this meal justice, but I promise you this was by far the most delicious meal we had this week. The recipe was perfectly portioned and the food was delicious. 

Could have been a bit spicier for us, and we did add some ranch to it (because again, we are extra, and like the saucy sauces) but it tasted light and fresh. I really have nothing negative about this recipe except for maybe the steps. 

The chicken came precooked which I have never experienced before so that threw us for a loop, I think I would have rather had raw chicken so I could have seasoned it a bit more, but this will definitely be in our favorites! 

And wither we continue to use hello fresh or not, we will definitely be putting this in our monthly rotations for a while to come, even if we have to make it on our own!

#4 Pork and Cabbage Stir-Fry

I'm sorry I don't have a better photo of the food we made, but I honestly forgot to take one before digging in because I was so hungry when we started making this meal, I just went for it! Haha... But the good news is it was as yummy as it looks in the advertisement photo! This is the only meal that we made this week, that had any sort of left overs. It wasn't much, but we were surprised we had any at all. 

The recipe was very simple to follow, which realistically they all have been pretty simple. There was enough of everything (more protein in this recipe then any of the rest) for us to make it successfully, but we added about two teaspoons of teriyaki sauce ( we extra ya'll) but it only benefited the flavor and the moisture of the meal.

Quinn and I both agree this would be an amazing mixture to put in eggrolls and we plan on making some very soon with the recipe! 

💗💙💚💛💜

Well, that's all I have for this week. Next week I will do another review of the recipes and food, and give you me final review! Thanks for reading, for those who did. I do apologize for the length of this post, but I wanted to be thorough enough for anyone who felt the way I did when first learning about Hello Fresh. 

See ya next week!