Sometimes, cooking is fun. Most of the time - when I am hungry, when I am tired, when the weather is beautiful and I don't want to come inside - it is not. Inevitably, I end up eating a lot of pasta, pizza, and take-out because I just can't bring myself to plan and prepare meals ahead of time.
Recently, though, I pushed myself to cook for real. Colin's grandfather subscribed to a service (Blue Apron) that sends you fresh ingredients for three recipes each week; when he joined, he could send one free week of meals to anyone he wanted, and he chose Colin. Colin kept his subscription active for a few weeks, and he sent me a free week of meals. My meal box came last Thursday.
The key to this service is that you have limited ability to pick your recipes. When you sign up, they ask you (1) if you want the vegetarian or meat box, and (2) if there are types of meat you don't eat. That's it. The box they send includes everything you need to prepare the meal except olive oil, salt, and pepper.
I scheduled my delivery for Thursday, and because it was the week of St. Patrick's Day, they included corned beef-spiced flank steaks with braised cabbage and buttered red potatoes. They also included Tom Yum-style shrimp and noodles with gai lan (Chinese broccoli) and Thai basil, and turkey chili with avocado and cheddar cheese. Along with the ingredients, the box includes nice color-photo recipe pages so you could (theoretically) make the recipes again with your own ingredients.
Overall, I was pleased. The corned beef and shrimp noodles were great. The turkey chili was, well, normal chili, and the cabbage had perhaps a little too much vinegar, but those were my main complaints. Well, except that the estimated cooking time for each recipe was WAY off. They condensed "wash and prepare fresh produce" into a single step, but for each recipe, that step took at least 20 minutes. I'm not sure if their estimates included prep time as well as cooking time, but every recipe took me more than twice as long as they indicated.
Either I wash and chop vegetables super slowly, or their math is unrealistic. I would like to see someone rinse/peel and chop an onion, four cloves of garlic, three stalks of celery, an avocado, and a lime in five minutes. Plus drain and rinse a can of beans, and pick cilantro leaves off the stems, and grate two ounces of cheddar cheese. Because I could not. That step seriously took me half an hour.
And that is why I generally stick to pasta and pizza. My motto is "if it takes more than two pots or more than 30 minutes, I'm not doing it." Except maybe on weekends or when I have a friend over.
Anyway, it's nice to know that I *can* cook, if and when I want to.
Here are the finished products (bon appetit!):
Recently, though, I pushed myself to cook for real. Colin's grandfather subscribed to a service (Blue Apron) that sends you fresh ingredients for three recipes each week; when he joined, he could send one free week of meals to anyone he wanted, and he chose Colin. Colin kept his subscription active for a few weeks, and he sent me a free week of meals. My meal box came last Thursday.
The key to this service is that you have limited ability to pick your recipes. When you sign up, they ask you (1) if you want the vegetarian or meat box, and (2) if there are types of meat you don't eat. That's it. The box they send includes everything you need to prepare the meal except olive oil, salt, and pepper.
I scheduled my delivery for Thursday, and because it was the week of St. Patrick's Day, they included corned beef-spiced flank steaks with braised cabbage and buttered red potatoes. They also included Tom Yum-style shrimp and noodles with gai lan (Chinese broccoli) and Thai basil, and turkey chili with avocado and cheddar cheese. Along with the ingredients, the box includes nice color-photo recipe pages so you could (theoretically) make the recipes again with your own ingredients.
Overall, I was pleased. The corned beef and shrimp noodles were great. The turkey chili was, well, normal chili, and the cabbage had perhaps a little too much vinegar, but those were my main complaints. Well, except that the estimated cooking time for each recipe was WAY off. They condensed "wash and prepare fresh produce" into a single step, but for each recipe, that step took at least 20 minutes. I'm not sure if their estimates included prep time as well as cooking time, but every recipe took me more than twice as long as they indicated.
Either I wash and chop vegetables super slowly, or their math is unrealistic. I would like to see someone rinse/peel and chop an onion, four cloves of garlic, three stalks of celery, an avocado, and a lime in five minutes. Plus drain and rinse a can of beans, and pick cilantro leaves off the stems, and grate two ounces of cheddar cheese. Because I could not. That step seriously took me half an hour.
And that is why I generally stick to pasta and pizza. My motto is "if it takes more than two pots or more than 30 minutes, I'm not doing it." Except maybe on weekends or when I have a friend over.
Anyway, it's nice to know that I *can* cook, if and when I want to.
Here are the finished products (bon appetit!):
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| Tom Yum-style shrimp and noodles with gai lan, Thai basil, and peanuts |
 |
| Turkey chili with avocado, cheddar cheese, and lime |
 |
| Corned beef-spiced flank steak with braised cabbage and buttered red potatoes |
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