Tag: #notsponsored

Southern Roots Reunion Review 🐷

Hello again, Foodie Friends πŸ™‚ Hope you’ve had a great week so far! For this special edition of Foodie Adventures, I’m giving you a behind-the-scenes tour and review of the Southern Roots Reunion event from Saturday, April 30th, featuring barbeque from around the state, drinks, music, vendors, and much more, all in support of a great cause! πŸ™Œ

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Meal Prep Tuesday!

In the next few weeks, I’ll be updating my blog with meal prep ideas from HelloFresh, as my friend gifted us a discount and I’m taking you on my meal kit journey with me (#notsponsored #notanad)! I won’t be posting the recipes from these as they’re already written for us, so check out the pictures tab for the full recipe and more in-depth cooking shots.

Mediterranean Salmon

As (I think) I’ve mentioned before, I’m originally from New England, and I absolutely love seafood, so this salmon dish really caught my eye in the weekly meal lineup.

A long time ago, my parents introduced me to Middle Eastern food, and this Mediterranean salmon reminded me of the times we would go visit this little Lebanese restaurant in Pennsylvania on the way to see family. HelloFresh made it easier to recreate the flavors of some of my favorite food with this recipe!

With every HelloFresh meal kit, it gives you all the ingredients – Minus salt, pepper, and usually some sort of oil or butter. It also wants you to go fetch a few different pans or utensils that you may or may not have to complete the recipe.

For the first part of the recipe, it called for zesting and cutting a lemon into wedges, and taking the dill fronds off of the stems and finally chopping. In the meantime, I boiled about 1/2 cup of water and 1 tbls. of butter in a pan before I threw in the couscous and quickly took it off the stove. It absorbed the water in the next 10 minutes as it rested.

Next was getting that crispy salmon skin!

I salt and peppered the salmon on both sides and put it skin side down in a pan with vegetable oil. It took about 5 minutes on the skin side* and another 2 to 4 minutes to cook the salmon all the way through on the back.

While the salmon cooked, I made the creamy dill sauce, with a combination of the two sour cream packets, half the lemon zest, the juice of two lemon wedges, and a tablespoon of our chopped dill. I salt and peppered that to taste as well!

I also fluffed the couscous with a fork and added the remaining lemon zest, some salt, pepper, and half of the zaatar spice, and stirred until fully combined.

Next was cooking the green beans, which took about three minutes in a steaming bag in the microwave.

Once those came out of the microwave, they went in a bowl tossed with butter, salt, and pepper, to taste.

The only thing left was to Plate it Up! πŸ€—πŸ½

I was having lunch catered in the office yesterday, so luckily I only needed four lunches for this week, or else I would have needed to include more vegetables, couscous, and salmon to extend the recipe.** The directions suggested the couscous go down first, followed by the green beans, salmon, and top it with the creamy dill sauce, the remaining dill, and the rest of the zaatar spices.

  • Notes:
    • *One of the tips it suggested for getting really crispy skin was to press down with a spatula while it was skin side down to get the best surface contact while it was touching the pan.
    • **The recipe only says it contains two servings, however, if you have a bigger appetite than I do at lunch or weren’t trying to meal prep, this definitely wouldn’t last you as long as it will for me.
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HelloFresh Un-boxing! #notsponsored

Our first box!

I must admit, on this rainy day, getting this box made me feel like a little kid on Christmas morning. My friends and I got a gift card for a discount on boxes in the mail (#notsponsored #notanad) and decided to try it for a few weeks and make meals together!

The foil and bubble-wrapped liners contained all the meals we ordered in individually wrapped bags with everything but the proteins in the bundles.

Everything else was hiding under the gigantic ice bag, which was as long as my forearm – no joke!

All three of our meals with their proteins laid out, with recipe cards below!

I’m so excited to share these with you in the next couple weeks. I’ll be using this as meal prep and comparing how easy or hard the recipes are, based on what’s listed on the cards. If I add anything while cooking, I’ll note it here too!

Have you ever tried out HelloFresh or any other meal kit service? What did you think? Shout out in the comments down below, and stay tuned for more πŸ™‚

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