Rating: 💋 💋 💋
Back on the HelloFresh grind, this time so I can see how their meat dishes compare to their vegetarian dishes. It was a very fun investigation to participate in. My order arrived by noon on its scheduled delivery day, all the ingredients were in tact, and I was super excited to get started.
There are two things I love about HelloFresh that are not entirely food-related:
1. They are very devoted to being eco-friendly. By providing perfectly portioned ingredients, their entire business model is geared towards eliminating food waste. They offer four vegetarian meals a week in their effort to encourage customers to make even one day meatless, which helps reduce waste from the meat industry. Also, nearly all of their packaging is recyclable. It is super cool.
2. They offer freebies with every order! They are fast-tracking their way to my heart shamelessly with that. My first order gave me $100 wine voucher, and now I have that case of white wines from Naked Wines. Hello? That's amazing. My second order they gifted me a serving of 'chocolate' whey protein. I mean, I'm not exactly what you would call 'swole,' nor am I trying to be; however, I should probably get more protein. It tasted pretty decent. This week, I got a free trial of a razor, shaving cream, and a travel caddy for the razor. Everyone knows men's razors are better (except they always cut me so we are kind of at an impasse) so I am eager to receive mine. Also, I have never used shaving cream before. Could be fun. Plus, they gave me a coupon to send flowers to someone, which is very cute.
Anyway, back to the star of the show: The Food.
Creamy Dill Chicken with Roasted Potatoes and Asparagus
The major thing about this dish is that the entire time I prepared it, I could not escape the powerful scent of dill. It was everywhere. As far as my sensory memory goes, dill is the smell of the lobster rolls my family makes sometimes in the summer. I do not care for lobster very much. I flat-out don't like mayonnaise. Yet, somehow, when you mix them up with dill and stuff them into a potato roll, I am a huge fan. Those lobster rolls are so good. I missed dinner a lot during the summers because I was either pulling a shift at a restaurant or busy taking care of the kids I nannied, but I have such lovely memories of getting home from work anytime between 9:30 and 11:00, crazy hungry, and finding the makings for lobster rolls waiting in the fridge for me. It made a truly delicious welcome home.
Now, that is a lot of pressure to put on this dill chicken, but it did pretty well for itself, considering the circumstances.
Cons: I do not love how HelloFresh mapped out the timing of this recipe. It was impossible to take the chicken off the stove to rest, cook the sauce in the chicken pan, take the vegetables out of the oven, and assemble the plates without the chicken and asparagus getting lukewarm. I considered eating them as is for about half a minute, but I just could not do it. I wanted to enjoy my dinner. This means I nuked my plate for forty-five minutes the first time around as well as had to microwave the leftovers the second night. Such a bummer! I look forward to the fresh serving, and here I had to microwave it anyway. It bordered on blasphemy. Also, my plate did not look as pretty as I would have liked because my sauce was not drizzly enough. I should have added just a drop more water, I suppose. I am not proud of this presentation, but oh well. Life goes on. On another note, I do not think the asparagus needed to be in the oven for quite so long as the recipe said. Limp asparagus is not my thing.
Pros: The chicken tasted gorgeous. Sealed in olive oil and sautéed to a beautiful golden color, the meat was super juicy and flavorful. In response to that spice-rubbed chicken recipe that hated on salt-and-pepper chicken breast, this dish is laughing its way to the bank. Simple chicken breast can be just as yummy, and all the bites that were missing the dill sauce proved it. Asparagus season prevails and it tastes just as fresh at the end of spring as it did when I wrote about it a month ago. The potatoes, though, were something else. Oh my gosh. They were crispy little peppery pockets of heat and joy and love. I was crazy about them. Finally - loved the sauce!! It tasted similar to a chipotle mayo, but with a little more lift. I would make it again with the potatoes, or even homemade french fries, and use it as a dipping sauce. Also, I am sure it would melt beautifully into salmon. I almost do not regret that I did not add the water for the drizzle factor, because the flavors of the chicken stock, sour cream, butter, and dill were all at their perfect level - slightly salty with a refreshing twist is how I would describe it. I would not want water to dilute that glory.
Conclusion: It was a nice, light dinner that went perfectly with the sunny Sunday evening on which I prepared it. Also, as much as it was a light dinner, it was very satisfying, and I did not find myself in search of food later on. I was good to go, and very pleased with my dining experience. Everything was very straightforward, and the recipe was built around the sauce. That was the special part, mixed into this simple but satisfying meal. Works for me.
Chipotle Chicken & Rice Bowls with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Salsa Fresca
I was super excited for these. On the day of, rain showers were flooding Brooklyn, and this seemed like the perfect comfort food to get me through the storm.
Cons: There was something bitter about the dish that I did not enjoy. Was it the lime zest? The roasted onions? It was mixed up so much I could not discern what ingredient caused the problem. I do know that the lime flavor went into overkill for me. In fact, this dish made me learn something about myself: I only like lime in small doses. When you squeeze it onto the salsa and rice, plus add its zest to the rice as well, it all gets to be too much. So if you are a lime fanatic, this is the dish for you. I will be keeping my distance though. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had drank a Corona with it. (Too soon?) In other news, the chicken took longer to cook than the recipe anticipated. I don't like cooked to Gobi Desert-level of dryness meat, but when I first took the chicken off after the five minutes per side saute instructions, I cut the breast open to reveal a strip of pink. I also don't like to eat a chicken that is still squawking. Back into the pan it went. It did not take too much longer, but by the time the chicken was ready, the roasted veggies had gone lukewarm.
Pros: In other news, while cooking I thought I maybe overdid it on the chipotle powder in the crema, but it turned out to be just right. As the game show host exclaims in Slumdog Millionaire - "What a player!" The chipotle crema was the glue that kept this dish together and provided much-needed tastiness and cohesion. It was thick and creamy. As the picture so accurately depicts, I still need to work on my drizzling presentation, but the flavor was top notch. Also, the chicken might have been a bit of a diva during cooking, but it was so juicy and delicious, with a thick crust of Southwestern Spice Blend, that I quickly forgave it for its previous drama. Best of all, the sweet potatoes really saved the day. Whenever I got a particularly bitter bite, I made sure to add them to my next forkful to restore balance. They were crispy and juicy from roasting and I was so happy to have them in my bowl.
So, I do not think I would order this one again. It fell way below the mark for me when taken all together. It is quit a shame too because I love rice bowls, I love Tex-Mex, I love sweet potatoes - this was a shoo-in for the win. Yet, somehow, it choked when it got its big moment. Sad to see it, but I am grateful for the ingredients that redeemed it along the way.
Zucchini & Tomato Flatbreads with Lemon Ricotta, Basil, Honey, and Chili Flakes
Pizza party at my house! I have had some sad experiences with pizza before, but I decided the homemade flatbread variety was well worth the risk. Plus, this flatbread had a ricotta base. I took a cooking class while I studied in Florence, and I remember the chef explaining to us that ricotta does not actually count as cheese because it has such a low fat content. So whether it is a lactose issue or a grease issue that makes pizza give me such painful cramps, I figured the ricotta would swerve right around that. When that proved to be true, I was overwhelmed with joy. Send all the ricotta pizza my way, please!
Cons: There really is not much to complain about regarding this recipe. The packet of honey made it difficult to artfully squeeze it all over the flatbread, so I had to use my own personal bottle of honey to finish the job. That is fine with me. Also, some of the basil was a bit wilted and sad.
Pros: There is a lot to say about why I loved this flatbread. The crust had the perfect density so it was good and chewy. The lovely ricotta made a sweet, slightly lemony bed for the tangy tomatoes and zucchini to lay on. Dancing atop, the fiery chili flakes and sweet honey equalized the whole dish, so every bite was a scrumptious medley of flavors. All the necessary parties were there and, taken as a whole, the flatbread made one big family of happiness. It reminded me how much I enjoy pizza, and how much I have missed eating it. Sighs for days.
Overall, this was one of my favorite HelloFresh meals ever. As I ate it, I reminisced on the pizza I ate in Italy. Gusta pizza in Florence had an amazing, flavorful crust with fun topping varieties. The pesto pizza with the super thick crust I got at a roadside counter in Rome produced a nirvana-like experience it tasted so good. Surprisingly, the pizza I got outside of Naples, in the ancient town of Paestum, was only so-so. Naples might be the founder of the dish, but that does not mean every pie within the radius is the golden child of Italy. All of it was good though. Ugh. I have been watching too many movies where people flit about Europe, I think. I worked and saved up money for years so that when I studied abroad I could see as many places as possible, and I pretty much succeeded. I missed some places I had really wanted to go (Berlin, Switzerland, Morocco), but there was nothing to complain about there because I still saw so many incredible places and countries. I fell in love with the whole continent. I cannot wait to revisit all those places, and to get to new places as well. My semester abroad was one of the greatest privileges of my life, and I am so grateful for it. I miss the adventure of traveling. I miss adventure in general right now though. I just keep reminding myself that all of those things we are missing right now will taste so much sweeter and will mean so much more on the other side of this. Anyway. Wow. Pizza really makes you think.
I liked it so much you get two photos from slightly different angles. Ooh la la.
With my pizza, I opened up this 2019 Arabella Chenin Blanc from South Africa. I had never had this kind of white wine before and I found it to be very dry, which is not necessarily my preference. One thing that I did really like about it though was that as it turned room temperature, it did not get more difficult to drink. I find the warmer a sweeter wine gets, the more impossible it becomes to drink it, so this was a nice change of pace. Not that any of the wines I have had have been super sweet, but this is definitely one of the driest I have ever tried. I do not think I would seek out buying another bottle, but it was not a chore to drink at all, and it had a good, crisp flavor.
All in all, this order gave me enough new recipes and cooking inspiration that I am keeping my HelloFresh subscription. I do not need it every single week, but it really is a great option to have. I also like how special the meals feel. It feels a little bit more like going out to a restaurant, where you survey a menu, pick out your items, and get to taste things you might not otherwise try. I love a good restaurant, but it is kind of fun to get the behind the scenes of how some dishes are made and open up new cooking possibilities for yourself. I very much recommend it.
XX,
MK
P.S. I am currently submitted to a modeling contest to find the Summer Face for Bell Beachwear. You can vote once every 24 hours here and I so appreciate any help you guys are able to give with this! My goal is to be a top ten finalist, and I am currently ranked at thirteen, so I am so close! Thank you guys always for all of your support ❤️
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