Blue Apron

10 years ago

I've heard several here mention that they have used the Blue Apron service. Well as a birthday gift for me, my wife signed up for the service, and the first delivery was promised "before 8:00" on Friday. Yeah, not so much. Tonight just after finishing cooking dinner, around 8:30, I happened to look out the front window and saw the Blue Apron box left sitting on the porch, and given that the motion detector porch light was on it must have just been placed there.

I brought it in and opened the box and opened the insulating bag inside. It didn't seem anything like cold, so I placed the probe from a digital thermometer in the insulating bag and closed it. It read 82 deg F.

The box contained the ingredients for three different recipes: Fresh herbs, vegetables, lemons, a head of garlic, orzo, faro (whatever that it), gnocchi, oyster mushrooms, an egg, and at the bottom between two completely melted ice packs two salmon filets.

The recipes they provided seem -- interesting -- although one features eggplant, and my rule of thumb is "There is no recipe containing eggplant that cannot be made better by not including eggplant". Another recipe calls for Maitake mushrooms, but the box only included oyster mushrooms.

I placed everything in the fridge, and am trying to figure out what must be discarded and what might still be usable. The orzo, the faro, the lemons, the corn, the tomatoes, the cucumbers, the reviled eggplant, the shallots, the green beans, the garlic and the pita breads are probably fine. The swiss chard and the fresh herbs seemed a little wilted and worse-for-the-wear, but are probably fine. I'm unsure of the gnocchi, the mushrooms, the egg, and the parmesan cheese. I'm pretty sure the butter, sour cream, and the beautiful salmon filets have to go. and I have no idea what labnah cheese is.

The "best" part is when I went out on the porch to get the box I heard some crashing or crunching noise at the end of the driveway, and saw headlights shining on the fence across the street. After unpacking the box I went to the end of the driveway to make sure the crunch wasn't the horse fence being knocked down. I found that someone, probably the delivery driver, had knocked the drivers side mirror off their vehicle on a pine tree at the edge of the driveway. So the driver is a mirror short and a day late.

Featured Answer

User

10 years ago

That's not usual for BA. Call and insist on getting a replacement.

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Comments (13)

Chi
10 years ago
Yeah I would call and see what happened. I've used them for a year now and everything is always good quality. Plated and Hello Fresh are also good. The fish I've received is always mostly thawed so I just put it in the fridge and make that dish first. Also you can choose which meals to get so there's no reason to order one that you don't like.
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We just started Blue Apron. We have done a few weeks now. What I find is that it plans the meal for me, a big plus. Does the grocery shopping and sends fresh ready to cook ingredients (like ripe avocado, we don't find those in the store), very nice. The recipes haven't always been home runs for my tastes, the only down side. I love to cook, but finding the time to plan out an entire meal, shop for it, prep and live our busy lives hasn't been happening. I view this as an easy way to get 3 home cooked meals on the table a week without having to do too much other work. It has also exposed us to new foods which I like. For instance Lingonberry jam was part of a recipe the other week. I'd never heard of it, but it was yummy and worked perfectly with the dish it was paired with. A side note, we have been ordering 2 meals for 2 adults and 2 kids, if I throw in a bag of veggies it feeds us all without leftovers. We are going to try 4 meals in an upcoming week. You can only order in increments of 2, so I'm not sure if your daughter wants leftovers of everything once she is back to school.
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I'd think it looked pretty if it weren't for meat! haha. Looks like they did a good job. Wonder how long it took. I use Blue Apron sometimes. I also like Plated and Hello Fresh. I usually go through the menus and see which appeal to me.
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I would say it makes four servings, but that won't necessarily serve four people. With the rice, and with my vegetables rather than their sliced peppers, each serving is a lot bigger than 1/4 cup. I made the dish in the photograph today, using mushrooms, onion, zucchini, and some leftover broccoli, along with a 14-oz. package of tofu. My daughter-in-law and I were very hungry, and we both had seconds. Then her 2-year-old had a little. One very large or two medium servings remained. Fran, I hadn't thought about how those delivered meals must be packaged. Oy. As if we didn't already have more than enough stuff to dispose of.
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Well, I received my HelloFresh box yesterday. (I canceled my subscription but I'd already paid for the first week of three choices) I haven't made any of the meals but here are a few of my first impressions.. Rory, I believe you signed up in the same week I did so I'll be curious to hear what you thought. I chose three meals-- a shrimp and asparagus risotto with meyer lemon, a spicy apricot chicken with green beans and couscous and a steak with tomato vinaigrette. Two were under 600 calories, one was at 630. That's a caloric range I am comfortable with... still, I feel the menus are wayyyy too light on veggies. Even more so when I opened one of the meal boxes. The quantity of asparagus was very small-- about the size (or even a bit less) than what I'd use for one serving. I am not completely anti-carb but I will often double up on veggies over carbs. the packaging was simple and the instruction cards were clear and seem to be complete. They are definitely worthy of saving for to make another time though I wish they were much smaller. I won't likely keep them. The quality of the proteins looks pretty good-- I'll know better when I prepare the dishes. I will say that given the initial week cost only $29, I don't think I'd have been able to shop for these meals on my own for the price... but then had I shopped on my own, I'd probably have ditched at least 1 of the carb side dishes (cheap) and added veggies/salad makings (more expensive). Petalique, I think you are right on target. I need to come up with my own ideas for "kits" and shop based on them. A number of the dishes across services are things I either already make or could easily make. I just need to be motivated to stick with the shopping. On a side note: I have decided to try the every other day fasting-- 500 calories one day, eat what you want the next day. This will require that I keep up with shopping so that I have good, fresh produce for the 500 calorie days. I am just going to have to get better about planning and going to the market. I don't plan on pigging out on the "eat what you want" days but I am going to want some variety on those days since the 500 calorie days aren't likely to have much variation.
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Fun2BHere
10 years ago
You absolutely should call them and ask for a replacement or a refund.
sushipup1
10 years ago
Could it have been delivered to the wrong address? Then that person wasn't home, and the box sat on their doorstep until today when they dropped it off at your house? It happens all the time.

Yeah, call and complain.
User
10 years ago
sushipup1-do you mean that BA dropped it off at another address where it sat for a day until BA retrieved it and drove it to bob's house?

I just can't see that happening, but I might be reading your post wrong.
sushipup1
10 years ago
I can't imagine that BA does their own deliveries. Probably FedEx, UPS, USPS. I get neighbors' mail often enough, have had my things delivered to other houses.
bob_cville
Original Author
10 years ago
My wife already e-mailed them late Friday evening. They responded Saturday morning apologizing and saying they would be sending another box, and that if the original box did show up to not use it.
User
10 years ago
That's great, bob. Here's a thread that discusses some of our experiences, with pics!

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3698739/first-blue-apron-delivery
Kathsgrdn
10 years ago
You get a choice of what dishes you want them to send you. So, not sure why you got one with eggplant that you don't like.
fran1523
10 years ago
My daughter used to get Blue Apron and the food was always fresh and or frozen solid. What I didn't like was disposing of those heavy ice packs. Have to agree with you about the eggplant. Gross stuff.
sunnydj23
10 years ago
My daughter also uses Blue Apron, quite a bit and has never had a problem with any of the food...She had also gotten it for me but it's just too much food....But, for sure, you have to call and tell them...Whether it was left next door or not, they have to know......
bob_cville
Original Author
10 years ago
We decided to try making one of the recipes from that box, since the ingredients for it were probably fine. The recipe was the one involving eggplant. With oven roasted slices of eggplant placed on pita bread with a few other ingredients to make eggplant pita sandwiches. Plus a side dish of cooked "faro" with tomatoes and diced cucumbers. The recipe was fairly easy to follow, and fairly logically organized, and in the end the result was actually edible :-)

I did peel the purple skin off of the eggplant, even though the recipe did not specify to do so. I find the peel can be tough and bitter and mostly I don't like the color.
bob_cville
Original Author
10 years ago
The second weeks box arrived as scheduled, and this week three meals were all quite good even though in reading them I had doubts how their elements would work together.

I chose to make Chinese five-spice chicken over rice noodles first since we had a guest, and I already had a third chicken breast filet. I also subbed wide rice noodles for the rice vermicelli they included since I had more of them. My only complaint is I didn't cook my rice noodles long enough, and many stuck together.

The next meal was Beef and "Shishito" pepper open faces sandwiches. The sandwiches were really tasty, but were too tall to actually eat like a sandwich. Their salad accompaniment was mediocre. After a summer of home-grown, picked-ripe, heirloom tomatoes, their tomato which crunched like a cucumber when you bit into a piece was laughable.

Tonight I made the third one, Pan cooked Catfish, with Kale-Farro Salad. I was most skeptical of this one since my efforts with Catfish in the past have been so-so, plus this one called for a topping of cooked grapes and rosemary. I couldn't picture how all the tastes would come together, but I have to give this recipe a thumbs up as well.

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