What's On Your Plate?

I like to cook.
I hate to shop for groceries.
(Unless it’s a Farmers’ Market…)
Blue Apron has been filling the bill nicely for us for over two yers.

Tonight’s meal is Fontina Stuffed Pork Chops, courtesy of Blue Apron. Son-in-Law Jim subscribed to Blue Apron when Dana went back to work a couple of years ago and nobody had time to plan menus or go grocery shopping. He told us about it…our first week trial run was free.

Blue apron dinners are delivered in a box to our front porch once a week. The box contains all the premeasured ingredients needed for three meals for two people…and a LOT of packaging. The detailed instructions (see extra) are aimed at a novice cook who owns only one frying pan and a LOT of bowls of all sizes.  With a little practice, (or years of cooking experience) one can learn how to eliminate the need for a lot of these bowls. OilMan and I often cook together, which is a much better and more companionable way to spend the evening than watching the news.

We have some choice about what foods we want…vegetarian, no fish, etc. We have to be organized enough to notify them two weeks in advance if we want to change the menus or cancel them altogether. We do that occasionally when we decide we need a break. I would rather get just two meals a week, but that isn’t an option. 

Blue Apron rarely repeat a meal, although a sort of pattern begins to emerge after awhile. They have a lot of ethnic dishes…I really like the Asian noodles. The beauty of getting all the pre measured ingredients is that we don’t have to have all the spices (zata’ar,  many different spice mixes) and exotic ingredients (miso paste, fresh udon noodles, gochujang) on hand all the time.

The nights we don’t feel like cooking and the nights we have a Blue Apron meal available don’t always coincide, and the time they sent us kale quesadillas caused me to invent something else to do with the ingredients. We have eliminated all fish because I don’t like catfish and we can get excellent just caught resh fish at Santa Rosa Seafood. They try to send seasonal foods, which means a lot of kale in the winter…

All in all, OilMan and Jim have both become proficient cooks, Dana and I get a break, the ingredients are excellent quality, if sometimes a bit lacking in veggies. My mother always taught me that if there are lots of different colors on a plate, the meal is more likely to be well balanced and more appetizing. Tonight’s meal lacked anything green, so we added some asparagus.


Interestingly, the same fellow who delivers our Blue Apron box also delivers our Nespresso capsules….