Weekend Foodie Warriors – Take 47! *HelloFresh Edition*
Hello hello, again, Foodie Friends 🙂 Hope you had a great weekend! For this edition of Foodie Adventures, check out our #HelloFreshUnboxing, and the four amazing meals we made over the course of last week!
HelloFresh – Meal Kit Background
Greenville, SC
So Jamie and I absolutely love to mix things up for dinners! We love experimenting with new foods and cuisines, so trying something like a HelloFresh box once in a while is great, fairly inexpensive way to do so.
These subscription-based meal kits typically cost the same amount per meal that it would to eat out at a restaurant (about $7-12 a plate), while also cutting some of the prep-work involved in cooking a bigger meal. You can also usually get awesome coupons to try these kits for less than normal for the first couple boxes and can cancel anytime, so it makes it really easy/tempting to try a bunch of different brands!
Only downside to these are no leftovers most of the time! 😭 Coming from a serial meal-prepper like myself, this is one of my biggest critiques of meal kits in general.
Some of the ones that we’ve tried so far are HelloFresh, Martha & Marley Spoon (created by Martha Stewart & owned by Amazon last time I checked), Gobble (now owned by Walmart), and SunBasket. Each meal kit company has it own spin on what makes them unique and has varying degrees of difficulty depending on how novice or expert of a home cook you are! There’s definitely something for everyone (see this list from Epicurious for a more extensive set of brands). 🙂 Now let’s get to cooking!
Veggie Bibimbap Rice Bowls
w/Sweet Sesame Sauce & a Fried Egg 🍳
www.hellofresh.com/recipes/brown-rice-bibimbap-5e2b57378a298c02e10f0853?q=korean
I absolutely love Korean fried rice, or Bibimbap, as it’s more commonly called. Traditionally, the rice and veggie mixture is brought out in a hot cast iron or stone bowl, where the outside of the rice continues to cook and crisp up, and the remainder of the rice inside the bowl stays piping hot! 🍲
For this box, we got four meals, and wanted to have two of them be vegetarian to mix things up a bit (minus the egg in here of course, as most vegetarians I know at least don’t eat eggs). This was an easy dinner meal for us the first night we got this last week!
After the prep work was done, we started cooking the rice and creating the sauce to drizzle over the rice and veggies once they were sautéed. The first bowl below also had a quick pickled spring onion in there to garnish the final dish.
Here’s the finished product! 🤗 It was absolutely delish and would recommend anyone try this recipe who is a Chinese food lover or a big fried rice fan!
Charred Pineapple Chicken Tacos
w/Smoky Red Pepper Crema 🌮
www.hellofresh.com/recipes/charred-pineapple-chicken-tacos-5ed50715997bd0092179f37a?q=tacos
This recipe was a great lunch option! I had a couple days off last week so Jaime and I were able to make this one during the day together.
The prep work for this was super simple – just cutting up the veggies for the tacos and the pineapple salsa. I caramelized the pineapples first to add a little more texture and flavor dimension to the salsa like they called for – absolutely loved the bright colors of this too!
I loved this recipe because of how easy it was and how vibrant the colors turned out, such a pretty taco!
BBQ Cheddar Pork Burgers
w/Chipotle Aioli & Potato Wedges 🍔
www.hellofresh.com/recipes/bbq-cheddar-pork-burgers-5e46e47b80cd486d3e50d6f0?q=pork+burger
We love a good burger at my house! Also a big fan of southern inspired food, so this recipe really piqued our interest.
Jamie was stuck in meetings so I was the burger master today! They actually sent us Monterrey jack instead of cheddar, but we like that cheese just as much so it didn’t matter a lot to us.
I started out by cutting up the onions and throwing the spice mix together for the burgers, and mixing those together to form the patties. I set those aside in the fridge as it was now time to make texas style fries!
These wedge fries were savory, spicy, and salty – a perfect combination for the bigger wedge style to absorb that flavor.
To complete the burgers, first you layered the chipotle mayo on one half of the potato bun and the BBQ sauce on the other bun. Next came the caramelized BBQ-sauced onions, and finally the burger!
Here it is completed! Definitely a sweet and spicy combination, if you love those kinds of flavor pairings, this burger is for you!
Gorgeous Greens Farro Bowl
w/Roasted Zucchini & Asparagus 🍲
www.hellofresh.com/recipes/gorgeous-greens-farro-bowl-5ed50b3df2e2ff77e334f05d?q=farro
So this one was a little different from the other three we tried. Like the bibimbap, this one was also vegetarian, however, we ended up treating this as a side dish, like you would a risotto, with grilled shrimp as our main entree (not included with the HelloFresh version).
First, of course, was prepping all the veggies, which included garlic, onions, zucchini, lemons, and asparagus, and sauteing the garlic until fragrant.
Next came cooking the farro! It’s a little heartier of a grain than rice, more along the lines of if quinoa and brown rice had a baby. This was cooked in a vegetable stock instead of water to help impart more flavor.
Once the veggies were done cooking, it was time to add the rice back into the saute pan. After that, it was simply stirring in the toppings – the lemon juice, nuts, and cheese – and you’re done!
I don’t think I would choose this over a quinoa, regular rice, or risotto if given a choice, wasn’t really my favorite, but the dish made a great side!
If you wanted to try this dish out, add some grilled chicken or shrimp to give it the oomph it needs!
So how was your weekend Foodie Friends? Have you ever tried subscription-based meal kits before? What’s been your favorite brand to use or dish you’ve made? Sound out in the comments below to let us know your suggestions of what dishes to make or places we should visit next. As always, feel free to like, comment, & share 🤗
