Meal prep kit thread

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Lipitor

Lipitor

huh?
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
Has anyone seen these new Meal Prep Kits advertised all over the internet? Companies like Hello Fresh, Blue Apron and Home Chef will send you a box including all your ingredients for 3 or so meals. They seem to come with instructions and ingredients. Seemingly the point of this is going to the grocery store is too hard and time consuming. Has anyone tried any of these services? Are they actually affordable, convenient, of comparable quality to the grocery fresh ingredients? Or are they merely paid cooking lessons for spoiled Millennials who never learned to cook or do anything for themselves?

I'm no Gordan Ramsey, but it seems easy to take an hour outside your day each week and gather ingredients for simple meals (even if you are cheating and using internet recipes). It also seems like it would be much cheaper. However, I have never used such a services, so I was interested to see if any Kiwis here had used one, and what their thoughts were. Did it somehow live up to expectations and vastly upgrade your quality of life? Or did you end up going back to the grocery store?

I first noticed cuz CWC tries Blue Apron back in March
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Blue_apron.jpeg
https://sonichu.com/cwcki/March_2017_Facebook_Posts#Blue_Apron
TBF she had to prepare it in Barb's kitchen
 
HomeAloneTwo said:
Well when you know how to professionally garnish a plate, it's going to look like that. Blue Apron users probably don't know the first thing about being a real chef, hense Blue Apron.
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I assumed that was sort of the appeal of these services is they baby step you with easy recipes, but easy to plate and present well. I thought it was suppose to cater to the millenial taste in caring more what their food looks like on instagram more than what it actually eats like. And more instagram photos means more free marketing for the meal prep companies. That's why companies like Applebees are doing so poorly with millenials, because their affordable dinner doesn't look as cool as $18 avocado toast does on the gram.

Although all things considered I guess she did an okay job. The chicken is missing it's soy glaze, and looks a bit dry (could have intentionally withheld the sauce though out of a personal preference). The noodles/vegs look a bit soggy, but not ruined. All things considered they were able to put together a decent meal... seems like they made this course. https://www.blueapron.com/recipes/soy-glazed-chicken-with-soba-noodles-broccoli-cashews

It doesn't look horrible. Although, I feel like my lunch was p similar today, where I just cooked up some ramen (the good kind not the cheap stuff), along with some frozen peas and carrots. Then on another skillet heated up some beef strips i had marinating, adding in some garlic and bean sprouts to saute while that was going on.. Whole prep time was probably 10 mins and cost about $3-$3.50 max. Seems p similar to what you get with B Apron. That said, they give you specific portions, so if food waste is a problem for you (and it adds up when cooking and shopping for 1), than this service could have value.
 
I think the point is just to teach you recipes for the future and give you everything you need so you don't have to fuck around at the grocery store or have to scrounge your fridge for ingredients, only to find that your missing 1/4 cup of grains at the last minute or whatever.

I had that problem when I was first learning how to cook. It could've been nice to have something like this.
 
I was under the impression that finding a recipe online and buying the ingredients was more affordable compared to the meal boxes, although I will admit that having a basically pre-made meal shipped to my door does seem appealing to my inner couch potato.
 
Chris’s meal doesn’t look terrible. He didn’t have the glaze and his lights are regular warm dim house stuff. The poster cow for bad blue apron is Wu who regularly burns things. Frank can’t gelp but scream in pain.
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Here’s a hideous drag queen and a fat weirdo making a meal and it looks pretty good (a minute in). But according to the schpeal it’s about $7.50 a serving which isn’t feasible for a family.
Have I tried it? Not personally. Did I steal a copy of their cookbook? Yeah. It’s not the best but it’s not the worst.
 
Mrs Bass did this before she learned to cook.

It's a great concept, the problem is two fold, people live off it and don't advance. Now forgive power leveling because it's made to get people hooked and it's comically pricy.

For my thoughts please forgive my own personal experiences, I'm trying to cover the model and it's idea.

I'm a saver (says the man with a half dozen cars.... ) she's not. She never learned to cook, I cook myself. I've had to cook for myself since I was a teen, I really like it, I grew up eating at home, culture is a big part of this, her like many families didn't. I'll spare the rant, so even when she was broke and in school, you think food costs a lot because you "have to" go out to get it, and when purse strings are tight you go on ramen for a bit.

She knew she had to stop wasting money and knew how damn well she ate with me when we didn't go out, I don't mean I'm the best cook, I'm handy and good enough. I don't mean to toot my own horn. So I showed her how crazy easy and cheap it is to do well at home. She's busy, so she gave this stuff a shot.

It's fool proof, aside cows here because, well cows. But it's almost as expensive as going out ffs. The other problem is for lots of little things like say, thyme, not all cooks need a lot of having one sprig on hand for a meal is great. And seems cheaper than buying a thing you use once or twice and chuck or sits around for year. That happens to all cooks, you need say, balsamic vinegar for something, even a spot or to, to buy it isn't cheap and some people will skip the entire recipe because of it, or substitute something when really maybe or maybe not this is doable.

So while we lived apart she did this and I gave her more and more little things to build her kitchen we spent some time where I'd just watch or instruct. Her first step was getting brave enough to alter things a touch. It all goes down hill from there.

But then again, she's motivated, and has time,drive,help to push her skills. If you are swamped with time, it can be an excuse and you pay to not go out, but also not do basic shopping or thinking for meals. Frankly we all love that one last minute dinner once or so a month when you clean the fridge out.

Neither of us are big people (active both sub 150lbs) we found the portions to be lacking.

They aren't bad, I will admit we had them a few times, it can get you brave but so many people are scared to waste/risk/lose money so they never get bolder and say I like this idea I'll go to the store and copy or change. Also some people are tight on time but still if you know how to build a menu, and list you just buy stuff it's still easier and cheaper.

But that's how this works as a company model, it makes you feel independent, like you are saving and healthy. So the next step is no training wheels (at least they don't want you to think so) So you're trapped. You read how a pro chef from some fancy hotel made this pork chop it makes you feel meek towards kicking it on your own.

I think it has a niche, of helping people ease into cooking, but so many people don't want to do that big more and it is less than eating out. So you get people stuck on this balancing act and "did enough" feeling. So they never quit the service.
 
This sounds like something that could work for people who live really far from a supermarket and want to eat something other than stuff that's feasible to bring home from your once-a-month Walmart trip, but I kinda doubt you can get Blue Apron in those parts of the country. As opposed to Brianna Wu, who could've gone to the Star Market and picked up a ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken for 7 bucks.

Also, don't supermarkets already deliver? They do here. I guess if you're really bad at being decisive about ingredients this would be an improvement over that.
 
They are crazy expensive and involve a lot of packaging. Every little thing has its own baggie or container. I've looked over some of the recipes on the various sites and some are written in an inefficient manner. I guess that's ok for a beginner but at some point, learning how to consolidate tasks or a better order should come about.
 
My sister-in-law works crazy hours at a high-stakes job. She used to do paint-by-numbers and Perler kits to unwind at the end of the day, but those finished projects were nothing but clutter. Now she subscribes to Blue Apron because she finds the step-by-step instructions relaxing, and when you finish a meal, it's gone. She's also eating a heck of a lot better than she was before.

It's not something I'd splash out for myself, but I can see the appeal.
 
I've seen this ad a number of times for Hello Fresh, using what looks to be a SnapChat perspective to appeal to the young and hip.


Crunchy Leaf said:
As opposed to Brianna Wu, who could've gone to the Star Market and picked up a ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken for 7 bucks.
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Funny you mention Brianna Wu. In her thread, she spent time using Blue Apron and (possibly?) plugging it on her Twitter. Her end results that she posted appeared a bit :horrifying: at times.

Bassomatic said:
It's a great concept, the problem is two fold, people live off it and don't advance. Now forgive power leveling because it's made to get people hooked and it's comically pricy.
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I think you're right that it caters to people that either don't want to cook or simply don't know how. As for costing more than making meals one's self, it seems these companies' collective marketing strategy is, "You don't want to cook? Use our kits. Of course, you'll pay more for the convenience."
 
adorable bitch said:
I think the point is just to teach you recipes for the future and give you everything you need so you don't have to fuck around at the grocery store or have to scrounge your fridge for ingredients, only to find that your missing 1/4 cup of grains at the last minute or whatever.

I had that problem when I was first learning how to cook. It could've been nice to have something like this.
Click to expand...

No, they sell a years supply and advertise based on the difficulty of going to the store to buy ingredients that you have to prep. I've seen enough of their ads and youtubers reading scripts to understand that at least.

Cutting veggies isn't hard and if you're an especially lazy fuck you can use a blender. Buying them is pretty easy if you buy in advance with recipe in hand. Some companies like Blue Apron even have it so that you have to cut the ingredients yourself or literally send you cans that you could get for 50 cents.
 
I looked in to this because we live a bit far from town, so it can be quite a drive to get to the good grocery store. But the prices are a bit high for what they offer, It just didn't seem worth it when I did the math.
 
The LootCrate of cooking. It's overpriced shit and a good way to make your delivery driver hate you.

Although not as much as the people who order dog food online.
 
I can see the appeal of meal kits, but not at the prices they cost. I mean sure, it'd be nice to have a pre-set plan of what I'm cooking, and to know that I have all of the ingredients that I'll need, without ending up with extra ingredients that I'd then have to figure out what to do with.

But for special occasions and/or when I'm wanting something different, I can get a recipe and do the shopping myself; for nights when I don't feel like figuring out what to have or doing too much, there's always easy and quick stuff like mac & cheese or spaghetti. I pretty much always have ground beef and/or chicken breasts, hot dogs, eggs, potatoes, onions, rice, cheese, pasta, a decent spice rack and some hot sauces, ramen packages and kits for mac & cheese or hamburger helper, usually some frozen and/or canned veggies... there's quite a bit of variety of meals that you can do with those basic components.

As far as the expectation/reality shots, it looks like the noodles and broccoli got overcooked just a bit (and just to be fair, it's really easy to overcook soba noodles), and I'm confused as to what even happened to the sauce (did they just not like the smell/taste and leave it out?). But all in all, I'm sure it was probably tasty.
 
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