Three Weeks with Blue Apron

After my initial experiment with food subscription boxes, I got a discount on three more weeks of Blue Apron, so I was able to learn some additional new recipes.

Week one, recipe one was Seared Chicken in Coconut-Peach Broth with Bok Choy & Jasmine Rice. It took almost exactly an hour to make and yielded three portions.

I'd never cooked with bok choy or fresh ginger or sambal olek before. The recipe said to add as much sambal olek as you liked depending on how spicy you wanted your dish. I smelled it, and I decided that I could handle it, so I added it all. THIS WAS A BAD DECISION. Overall, the taste of this dish was pretty disappointing. Even without spiciness, the ginger and garlic and coconut milk and peach and vinegar together would have just been too much

Week one, recipe two was Cavatelli & Shrimp with Summer Vegetables. This recipe took 35 minutes to make and gave me not two, not three, but four portions.

I'd only heard of mascarpone in desserts; I was curious about its role in this pasta. I'd also never had cavatelli. It has the thicker consistency of gnocchi, though it's made of wheat, not potato. Mixed with the cavatelli was shrimp, tomatoes, and zucchini. It was all delicious! If there's one thing food subscription boxes have taught me, it's that it doesn't take a ton of dairy and oil to make a delicious pasta sauce; Blue Apron provided only a smidgen of Parmesan cheese that was somehow enough for all four servings.

Week two, recipe one was called Seared Steaks & Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Summer Vegetables. It took about 50 minutes to make and had three modest servings.

When I opened the bag, I discovered that a tiny bottle of sherry vinegar had gotten all over everything! I had enough left over to make the recipe, and nothing was inedible, but it wasn't a nice surprise. These cuts of steak were nowhere near as good as the last Blue Apron steak I had—partly because of paranoia that I would overcook the steak. Which led me to under-cook the steak. Ah well. The garlic mashed potatoes were all right, though not as good as the restaurant-style recipe I usually make. The caper butter didn't taste like much (besides, well, capers in butter). Surprisingly, the real star of this meal was the summer vegetables. ("Summer vegetables" is apparently just code for "zucchini and tomatoes.") I'm planning to someday pair the veggies from this recipe with the steaks from my first Blue Apron steak recipe. They can replace the kale I didn't love.

Speaking of kale, week two, recipe two was Barramundi & Caper-Butter Sauce with Kale & Lentils. It took about 50 minutes to make and lasted for two meals. (I could have stretched it longer if I wanted to, but I didn't this time.)

I'd only had lentils one time before this: in a Moroccan restaurant in Epcot. They weren't black like these lentils, though, but a vague brownish color. I'd never had barramundi before, period. I'd frozen the shrimp from the last box and thawed them successfully, so this time I again ended up freezing the fish and thawing it later in the week. It thawed pretty well, with only a small portion that turned out chewy and tasteless. I had really high hopes for this meal, but they were disappointed. The ras el hanout spice wasn't bad, but overall I found I just didn't like the flavors of the fish, the lime, the butter, the capers, the seasoning, the onions, the lentils, and the kale together. Not my food aesthetic.

Week three, recipe one was a weird one called Cajun Shrimp & Corn Pancakes with Sautéed Summer Vegetables. To the best of my memory, it took about 50 minutes and produced three servings.

In this case, "summer vegetables" actually ended up being corn with a poblano pepper and tomatoes. I'd never prepared ears of corn before except to be boiled at my parents' house, so that was a new experience. The shucked corn went both into the pancakes and on the side. The pancakes were fun, but kind of weird. The best part by far was the shrimp, which was perfectly spiced and perfectly cooked. Good one, Blue Apron. As usual, I was chagrined that they had me put green onions on top for no reason. Nooooo.

Week three, recipe two was also a weird one called Spicy Pork & Rice Cakes with Bok Choy. If I'm recalling correctly (I stopped taking good notes in the second week), this one also took around 50 minutes and provided three meals for me.

This one included lots of ingredients that were new to me: soy glaze, black bean sauce, and gochujang. And the rice cakes, of course. The recipe told me to put in as much gochujang as I wanted for spiciness. I learned my lesson from the sambal olek and only put in half. Another new ingredient was crème fraîche, which Blue Apron said they added to take some of the heat out of the gochujang. Good call. Finally, of course, there were the rice cakes. These were a delight. They had exactly the taste and texture that I was expecting, and they were a delightful alternative to pasta. Overall, it was a very good dish! For some reason, it tasted a bit like a fancy, Asian-inspired version of a Hamburger Helper mix I liked as a teen.