Yes, Sparkles can cook!
Part of being funemployed means that I get to cook again! I've always enjoyed cooking but my previous jobs didn't allow me to cook daily because I'd get home from work too late. So I was happy to be getting back into the cookin' game!
The issue though, is that I've mostly cooked Asian-styled meals, so with the absence of the Asian ingredients I'm so used to, I started feeling a bit lost about what to cook, and finding something new to cook everyday was a real challenge.
That was until we discovered Blue Apron.
Seriously, Blue Apron is the bomb. You can order up to three meals each week, and they deliver all the ingredients and recipes every Sunday. The best part of this it that the ingredients come in the exact portions that you'll need for whatever dishes you'll be preparing for the week! It's basically idiot-proof! I just have to pull out the right ingredients at every meal, follow the instructions on the recipe sheet - they tell you everything from processing and prepping the food, to cooking, and finally how to serve, but you can get creative with that last part.
I don't always obey the instructions to "season with salt and pepper" because I find that American food tends to be SUPER salty, so I never ever add any salt into our meals, and they mostly turn out tasting good because the juices from the ingredients contribute all the flavors anyway.
Here are a few of the dishes I've cooked!
It's also great to be cooking with the exact portions because it drastically reduces wastage. When we do our own cooking, we end up buying ingredients in portions that are sold at the supermarkets, and a lot of times, those portions exceed what we really need, and when we don't consume the extras, they go bad and we end up disposing of them. So I really appreciate Blue Apron for that.
One grouse I have is that once in a while, the vegetables we get look a bit withered or may not be in their best state. For a company that boasts "Incredible Ingredients", this bit falls short of expectations.
Just this week, I got a cabbage that had its first 2-3 layers looking quite wilted. Last week, I had a bunch of sage that had half-wilted leaves, so I could essentially only use half the amount of sage for my dish. On several other occasions, I've also had half-wilted cilantro, half-wilted parsley, and over-ripened tomatoes.
It's not actually a big deal, but I can't help but notice little things like that especially because we're fussy about vegetables (they have to be fresh!!), and I notice that the way they box the ingredients seems a bit haphazard - the softer/smallers ingredients have individual packages but everything else is just thrown in - so I wonder if more precautions can be taken when boxing ingredients? I'm sure they move around a lot while they're travelling, and there's a need for Blue Apron to keep their costs down wherever possible, but I feel that ensuring the safe delivery of fresh ingredients is also important!
The other grouse I kinda have is regarding the layout of the recipe sheet. It's currently presented in chunky paragraphs and I think it would be a lot easier to read and follow if it was broken down to point form. I'm not sure if they've thought of it - they must have, right? - but I'm guessing it's another cost-saving maneuver to keep everything on a single page?
The front page of the recipe sheet looks nice though. I have no beef with it.
We're signed up for the 2-Person Plan that costs $9.99 per serving, bringing the weekly total to $59.94 for 3 recipes, which is the maximum we can do on this plan. They also have a Family Plan for 4 people. We can log in and select our meals every week, and even choose to skip a week if we're not around or if we're just not feeling it.
We're generally satisfied with Blue Apron mostly because of the convenience it provides, and the low wastage, so we would definitely recommend it to anyone living in the US!