Hello Fresh 12th Delivery & $40 Coupon

Jamie's Tasty Grilled Chicken with Warm Green Bean Salad

Ingredients

Juicy Lucy Burger with Tomato Onion Jam & Baby Gem Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Dijon Pork Chops with Crispy Potato Cakes (substituted rice) & Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients

This is a review of our 12th shipment from Hello Fresh which is a weekly food subscription box for $69 including shipping. They offer the choice of 3-5 recipes per week for 2-4 people and the choices are: classic, vegetarian and family. The vegetarian box is $59 for two people. The family box includes three meals for four people for $105. We always order the classic box for two people. This week I gave two recipes three out of five stars and one recipe one star. 

Jamie's Tasty Grilled Chicken with Warm Green Bean Salad

I made this recipe for a late lunch on a day Hubby was out of town. This is a Jamie Oliver recipe and Hello Fresh features one of his recipes each week. You may have seen one of his many TV shows. I gave this recipe three out of five stars. While it was enjoyable, it just seemed like too much work for the amount of flavor. It was suppose to take forty-five minutes, but it took me an hour. I didn't read the recipe until it was time to make it which is a shame because he stated that it would taste best if marinated overnight. It would have been nice if Hello Fresh had sent an email stating that. The marinade just wasn't strong enough after marinating for only twenty minutes. The chicken breasts were very small. The chicken was cut down the center and flattened out, so in the photo above it looks twice the size than it was originally. The Green Bean Salad was delicious and I'm not a big fan of green beans. The dressing was made with 2 tsp. olive oil, juice of half a lemon and 1/2 tsp whole grain mustard. Very simple yet it improves the blandness of the green beans and tomatoes greatly. The recipe was a bit confusing regarding the lemon. In the photo it shows him using the entire lemon but in the ingredient list it says half of a lemon and the instructions say to use half in one part and half in the other. So I think they wrote the ingredient list incorrectly. This is a healthy, low calorie recipe with only 529 calories. It was filling but I needed a snack a few hours later. If it had been a larger piece of chicken I wouldn't have been hungry so quickly. They use to send much larger chicken breasts, so I hope this isn't the new norm.

Juicy Lucy Burger with Tomato Onion Jam & Baby Gem Lettuce Salad

Who doesn't love a good burger! Sometimes it's nice to make a fancy one, but I wouldn't repeat this one. It was too much work making the tomato onion jam especially since just placing a tomato slice and some red onion slices on the burger would have been more flavorful and so much faster and easier. I made this on a day Hubby was out of town and it took me a little less than an hour while the recipe says it takes forty-five minutes. Placing the shredded cheddar cheese in the center of the burger was just a waste of time and frustrating. Hubby had tried it previously and we find the two pieces of burger that you shape around the cheese just don't stay together during the cooking process. I felt the cheese flavor wasn't as strong as a simple slice or two on the burger would have been. The salad didn't have any toppings!?! I was in total disbelief and had to reread the recipe over to make sure. They supplied us with tomatoes, onions and cheese, so why couldn't they had added some of those on top! Just balsamic dressing made with mayo, balsamic vinegar, garlic paste and olive oil was awful. It had a brown color which was unappetizing and it was tart. I like that they supplied us with my favorite brand of ketchup, Sir Kensington's, which features healthy ingredients. If you haven't tried that brand and are looking for a healthy alternative, you can find it at Whole Foods along with their mayo and mustard. Their mayo is the best you can find! This recipe had 825 calories which seems like a lot considering the ingredients.

Dijon Pork Chops with Crispy Potato Cakes & Roasted Asparagus

We gave this recipe one out of five stars since the asparagus was in rough shape and so narrow and the potatoes both had so many brown spots on them. The potatoes couldn't be used so Hubby substituted some jasmine rice. The asparagus was so stringy and tough to eat, so I just threw it away. The dijon shallot sauce on the pork chops wasn't tasty. It really needed some apple! The two pork chops were different sizes so they were more difficult to cook and then someone was left with a smaller portion. This recipe took fifteen minutes longer than the forty-five minutes it called for. This is a low calorie recipe with 529 calories.

One of my complaints with Hello Fresh is that they are too few ingredients. This weeks recipes were examples of that. While this saves them money, it causes many of the recipes to lack flavor which is why we have ordered the least amount of shipments from them and have now cancelled a second time. We are taking a week off of food shipments and the following week I ordered from another subscription service called Plated. On April 13th, we are expecting the following from Plated:

1. Crispy Salmon (wild caught) with Coconut Stir Fried Vegetables
2. Mac & Cheese with Gruyère, Peas & Pea Shoots
3. Thai Pork Larb with Pineapple & Charred Haricots Verts 

Be sure to check out my Hello Fresh Pinterest Board to see the thirty other recipes we have made. Click on the photo of the dish that interests you and it will take you to the matching blog post to learn more. Also, check out my Plated Pinterest Board, Blue Apron Pinterest Board and my Home Chef Pinterest Board. In addition, check out my Food Subscription Box Comparison Chart to learn about the differences between Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Home Chef and Plated.

If you haven't tried Hello Fresh yet, be sure to use my coupon "YVWF79" for $40 off your first box which makes it only $29 for 6 dinners! Who doesn't love free food! What's your favorite food subscription service?

Bargain Alert:
   
Hello Fresh - $40 off your first box, use coupon code "YVWF79", one Jamie Oliver recipe per week. 
Home Chef - $30 off your 1st box, click here, delivering to the west coast this spring.

Share this blog post with your friends via Twitter & Facebook: Tweet

Have a PEACEful Day!