A colleague of T’s is a loyal HelloFresh customer and offered us a free week’s trial. “Sure,” we thought. “A week’s worth of free food. What could possibly go wrong?”
We signed up for their "Pronto Plan" and selected the four available non-seafood meals. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any place to indicate allergies, so we had to hope seafood, onions, apples or mushrooms didn't feature too heavily in any of the dishes (allergies and/or VERY PASSIONATE AND SIGNIFICANT dislikes).
Our box was scheduled for delivery on Monday, and whereas we work during business hours and they couldn’t guarantee when between 8am and 8pm it would be delivered, having it shipped to work was out. We had them drop it at the back door, since leaving a big box of food out on the front step all day seemed like a bad idea (we love our neighbours, but...). As it turned out, T happened to be home that day, and it was delivered relatively early in the morning.
The big ass box was fairly heavy and contained four paper bags and some ice packs - not a bad idea. T put them in the fridge to await J’s return home - he’s the “household chef” (a term used VERY lightly).
Day 1: Homemade Vegetable-Packed Calzone
J got home after work and decided to give it a whirl. Of course, the calzone was the LAST thing he wanted to make since it involved the most work, but the recipe cards had a disclaimer saying it needed to be made first. So be it.
The bags boast that everything needed was in the bag “Exactly what you need inside.” That was mostly true, although we were a little concerned to see that we needed to have parchment paper in order to bake the calzones. Fortunately, we were able to find some. Also, olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper were not supplied. So, it had most but not all of the required supplies.
We diced the red pepper then sliced open the leeks - only to quickly figure out that leeks are part of the onion family. No bueno.
The instructions said to cut the puff pastry in half, but it wasn’t quite clear which way it needed to be cut...until we figured out it was a square, so it didn’t matter.
As per the instructions, we divided the red peppers and put them onto each half of the pastry. We did the same with the Italian seasoning, the tomato sauce and the cheese, then folded the pastry in half, pinched the edges, folded the edges up and popped them into the oven. They looked like 2.5” raviolis.
It wasn’t until we started making the salad that we noticed the error of our ways. As it turned out, we misunderstood the instructions and were meant to save half of the red pepper and half of the Italian seasoning for the salad and its dressing. Oops. Thankfully, we had some tomato and some Italian seasoning on hand, so we were ok. Still, we felt a little silly. As we waited for the calzones to bake, we mixed the vinaigrette, which made maybe 3 tsp to coat a very generous quantity of greens.
After 26 minutes, the calzones were done and puffed to about 4”. The salad was ok - nothing special, just some leafy greens with a light vinaigrette. The pastry was light and flaky, and the calzone innards fairly tasty. Though, to be honest, a little pepperoni or sausage would have gone a long way.
All in all, it was a fair amount of work but despite a couple of hiccups, it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant experience and the meal was decent. But really, isn’t using the term “Homemade” in the title a little superfluous?
Day 2: Lemon Chicken and Goat Cheese
In truth, this meal didn’t sound all that filling - chicken, arugula, walnuts, pear, potato, goat cheese and a tiny bit of vinaigrette - but we gave it a shot and it ended up ok.
Everything was going according to plan until it told us to “Zest, then juice half the lemon.” Based on what happened yesterday, we weren’t sure whether to zest the whole lemon, or just half of it. We’re still not sure. But thankfully, we had a zester. That had never been used. So, there’s that.
This was another exercise in fast and furiously trying to follow the instructions and taking longer than expected, but at least there were no major mistakes this time. The potatoes kind of stuck to the baking pan (so maybe more than 1 tsp of oil would have helped), and it was damn near impossible to get the goat cheese out of the pouch gracefully, but it all came together, and it was a reasonably tasty dish.
Day 3: Beef Tagine and Butternut Squash Couscous
Being fans of ethnic cuisine, we had high hopes for this dish. It was fairly straightforward to make, and the only casualty was the tab on the can of diced tomatoes (imported from Italia - how fancy!), which snapped off instantaneously. That is, unless you count the shallot, to which T is allergic, so we substituted it with diced celery (as we do with most recipes requiring onions).
When it was all said and done, the squash wasn’t nearly cooked enough and the whole production was quite a bit more bland than one would expect for Moroccan food with a fair amount of spices added. Aside from a little zip, a nice touch would have been to add raisins to the couscous. We also didn't really understand why they suggested the couscous be made first, as it was pretty cool by the time we completed the rest of the meal.
Day 4: Thai 'Pad Krapow Moo'
We love us some Thai food, so this was the dish we saved for last. Though, we'd never heard of Pad Krapow Moo...which we think means "Basil Pork." (Then why wasn't it called "Krapow Oink"? We'll show ourselves out now...).
This meal also came with a shallot, so out it went and in came the diced celery instead. It was another fast-and-furious cooking session that dirtied more dishes than usual, and it, too, required some "zesting," but we finally got the hang of reading ahead, so it didn't take as long to prepare this meal.
It wasn't as tasty as other more popular Thai dishes (Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, Massaman Curry), but it was still quite good. The Thai basil gave it kind of a black licorice flavour, which was kinda weird at first but really worked in the end. We both agreed that a couple of cashews would probably have bumped the dish from "quite good" to "really good."
Final Thoughts
Of the four meals, we both liked the Thai dish the best. J preferred the Calzone over the Lemon Chicken and Tagine, while T preferred the Lemon Chicken and Tagine over the Calzone. More importantly, everything was edible, and there were no major culinary disasters.We noticed that HelloFresh meals - at least these ones - seem to require a fair amount of kitchen gadgets and culinary savvy - despite the step-by-step instructions, if you don’t know how to zest, or don’t have a garlic press, or if you’re not great at reading ahead and multitasking in the kitchen, you’re probably going to have a difficult time and you won't stand a hope in hell of finishing in the specified time frame. That, and it generates a heck of a lot more dirty dishes - and packaging - than we’re used to!
What a service like this does offer is taking some of the guess-work out of meal planning and grocery shopping, and it also exposes you to new things that you can customize and try to make again on your own if you so choose (as long as you pick up your own ingredients). So, as long as you (or the people you’re feeding) aren’t too picky or have too many food allergies, and lack time or motivation in the kitchen, we could see how this kind of thing could work for you.
One last thing: Maybe we missed it, but the lack of a way to indicate your allergies (or major dislikes) seems like something they should rectify.
So, are we going to continue paying for this service? Probably not. This box would have cost us approx. $100, which is more than we'd usually spend on four home-cooked meals. However, we haven't deactivated our account, so it's possible we might give it another try sometime down the road.
Especially if they decide to offer us another free week in exchange for another unbiased and honest review...
