Review Day: Blue Apron

On the recommendation of Annie, Rebecca signed up for a trial of Blue Apron, a service that delivers the fresh ingredients for 3 recipes to your doorstep once a week. The service works out to about $10 per person for each meal, and we quickly cancelled as soon as we got our trial week to avoid auto-renewing subscription hell.

The box contained the ingredients and recipes for 3 separate meals: Shrimp and Pineapple Fried Rice, Chicken and Sage Biscuit Pot Pie, and Italian Beef Grinders (apparently you get new recipes all year long without repeats). Ingredients were individually packaged and measured so there'd be no leftovers after the recipe, and the recipes were full of pictures and easy to follow. They assume that you own pots, baking sheets, oil, salt, and pepper, but provide everything else. With two people cooking together, each meal had an average of about 20 minutes of prep and 20 minutes of cook time.

All three meals were tasty, thanks to fresh ingredients, although Rebecca felt that the Grinders were something we could have just made on our own. Overall, it was a fun little experiment and a nice way to spice up our dinner routine, but too costly and time-consuming to do on a regular basis. I can prepare a good meal with fewer ingredients and effort for about $5 per person (thanks, Costco meat department), so if I'm paying $10 per person, I don't necessarily want to also devote an hour of cooking. 3 meals per week is also a little overwhelming -- I might like a routine of 1 meal every other week better.

Final Grade: B, a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live here