New kind of grocery store w/pre-portioned recipe kits

[noodleoo]

That sounds awesome! I'd check it out. Great way to try new recipes and get inspired. Although they are usually super overpriced, I guess it could be worth it for the convenience.

Has anyone tried Blue Apron or similar? I'm curious how good it is.

[drloretta]

noodleoo, I have a few friends who have tried Blue Apron and Dream Dinners. I've heard mostly good reports. They like how customizable they can be.

[les]

J and I walk past the storefront a lot (it's right near his apartment). I like the wine and beer pairing idea. I'm still not sure how I feel about these services in general. I like the idea of having pre-portioned ingredients with each recipe. However, when I want a convenient meal, I usually am not interested having to cook. I might give it a try depending on pricing and recipes.

[LoveTrains]

Jun 9, 2015 12:42:14 GMT -5 drloretta said:

noodleoo, I have a few friends who have tried Blue Apron and Dream Dinners. I've heard mostly good reports. They like how customizable they can be.

i have done both Blue Apron and Dream Dinners.

dream dinners is where you go and prepare a month's worth of meals at once. So I take the ingredients, toss it into a casserole, or take the ingredients for a chicken marinade and toss them into a bag with the chicken breasts. Then when I go home, everything gets put into my freezer and I pull them out and put them in the fridge to defrost. obviously the negatives are this generally doesn't include vegetables so its just an entree.

I did Blue apron twice. The first time, I got three free meals for two (so one week's worth). Two of the meals were awesome, one was just so-so. But - and this is my big negative - they easily took over an hour to prepare and there was SO MUCH CHOPPING. Like it wanted me to take a watermelon radish and make it into matchsticks, which H did. We don't even like watermelon radishes and then it was just a garnish and we were like ugh....

The second time I ordered three dishes (again, a week's worth of meals) and I only made two because they just took so long to prepare. Again, one was pretty good and then one was really bland.

The nice thing with blue apron is that the dish comes with the vegetables/sides for a complete meal but the calorie counts were pretty high. Like 700 calories for dinner is too much for me. 

Blue apron isn't really customizable at all. Dream dinners is pretty customized but you are using sysco ketchup and spices when you are preparing the food and the meat isn't of the highest quality.