For the past two years, I have often seen advertisements from Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and so forth for food that is fresh, proportioned and ready to cook.    My friend, Monica, posted pictures on Facebook from Home Chef, and I messaged back and forth with her about it.   I decided to give it a try.

The meals are $9.95 per person which sounds expensive unless you are cooking for two people.    My first week was for five meals and I received $30 off for being a new customer.    Five meals is a bit much.    Live and learn.   The food arrived by Fedex on Wednesday.

The whole purpose of this experiment is (1) make me cook because I hate cooking; and (2) attempt to   eat a bit healthier.

My first dish was the chicken and dumplings which doesn’t really fall into the healthy category.   It was very rainy on Wednesday and it was my first try.    I didn’t care for it and barely touched mine.  I put the leftovers in the frig and Mike said it was so very good the NEXT day.  It was a bit runny on day one — so much so that I ended up putting it in a bowl.

Today I fixed salmon.   It’s one of the only seafoods that I like, and it is heart healthy.    It was Teriyaki Ginger-Glazed Salmon with stir-fried bok choy and carrots.   It turned out pretty well.    I didn’t “plate” if very well, however, and I didn’t attempt to take a good picture.  I hope this does not look like throw up.

I did not sear my salmon properly and it fell apart.   However, in spite of the fact that the presentation stunk, it was good.  Very good.  

In making this dish, all of the ingredients were included except salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Here’s the bok choy.

Confession — I am so unsophisticated that I didn’t know what bok choy was.  Only by process of elimination on the ingredients did I figure it out.  There were also mini containers and plastic bags of ginger, green onions, Fresno chili pepper and garlic.   Here’s what all of the greens and spices looked like together.

Looks kind of pretty, and Mike came in and said “I love watching you cook!”   Honestly, I’d rather clean house than cook.   I love living in Mendota, but I do miss Take Out Taxi, pizza delivery, Chinese food delivery, etc.    Take Out Taxi was the best, because you could have food delivered from any restaurant.   We still eat out a lot even though we live 17 miles from a restaurant (if you don’t count the Rally Mart gas station which is about 11 miles).

I love the cute little containers that Home Chef uses.  Here’s fresh peas in what looks like a 3 oz plastic container that resembles something you’d get at the pharmacy.

I have three more meals to prepare this week.    What was I thinking!!!    Tomorrow it is some type of pork chop dish.   I skipped next week’s order because...because I wanted to!!    Actually, I wanted to try more of the ones I have here before I purchased additional meals.   If I find several dishes that we like that are healthy, I’m going to continue using Home Chef but I believe I’ll drop it down to twice weekly.

Another good thing about this service is that you learn to cook with ingredients you might not otherwise use.   We eat salmon quite often, but for me to eat it and like it, Mike has to grill it.  This is the first time I’ve fixed it indoors and been able to eat it.