Blue Apron Goodness in a Box

Original post date on 5/26/15 on Sunday Supper Chronicles Blog

GS: For my birthday, my brother sent this box from Blue Apron. We weren't familiar with the company, but were impressed from the minute we opened it.

You get seasonal recipes created by their culinary team & renowned guest chefs and the recipes never repeat during the same year. Every meal is within 350-700 calories and take only 35 minutes to prepare - if you follow the instructions to a tee!

Every ingredient is individually packaged and labeled and also perfectly pre-measured so there’s no waste. The recipes are easy to read, easy to do and delicious! The first box was a gift from my brother but we were so sold with the first box, we joined the service and we have really enjoyed making the dishes.

There are some minor cons to Blue Apron. The biggest one being that once you've joined, you have to be diligent about going online to your account to cancel meals you don't want, otherwise they'll send you a box each week. They also only give you a month's worth of recipes to review, which is great but you can't cancel any further than that. The plan we signed up for, which is three meals made for a couple costs $60. When you do the math, it's $10 a person per meal. Meh, not bad for a monthly treat to ourselves. It's certainly cheaper than going out to eat! Since we can't afford this luxury every week I have to remind myself to jump online and cancel. I forgot to do that this week, which was fine because as far as timing was concerned, it did save me a trip to the grocery store and the first meal we cooked from this most recent box was delicious!

After initially receiving two boxes of great meals, I became very concerned with the sheer amount of waste involved with the packaging. There's the box itself and all the individual plastic bags and bottles that every ingredient comes in, which I knew were recyclable. It was, however, the large ice packs that I wondered about. I wondered if there was a service that allowed us to return the large ice packs back to Blue Apron. I jumped online and found out, much to our surprise, that packs are filled with a non-toxic gel. To recycle them completely we have to cut them open and dispose of the gel, then recycle the exterior packaging. After reading this info, I felt so much better about the whole process.

DOUBLE CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE MORE FOOD PHOTOS

Majority of the meals are fantastic and we have repeated the one pictured to the left already, in fact it was the first recipe we tried with Blue Apron (It's crispy catfish and cracked freekeh with kumquat, thai basil an chile glaze) and there's definitely others too that we will also cook up again.

And then there's some that won't be repeats - not because they weren't good, but it's more a preferential thing. For instance, I'm not a fan of plantains, so smooshing them up and serving them like mashed potatoes reminded me of baby food with every bite. We have also worked with ingredients we wouldn't have typically bought on our own. For instance, I've seen and eaten watermelon radish before, but I have never personally used it to cook ourselves. I was in love after my first knife cut into this vegetable, it was so stunningly beautiful! The red rice salad served with the chile-blackened cod was so nutty and crunchy, it was delicious that I can't wait to buy red rice on my own. Thanks to Blue Apron, I forgot how good snap peas are and am now growing them in my garden. I also love how the dishes we are making are from all over the world; the Middle East, Africa, France, Asia, and so on.

I think Blue Apron meals make a great gift and I can't wait to gift this to other people like my brother did for me. Don't you think this would be a great idea to send to someone on a stay-cation, or gift to a foodie couple on their honeymoon locale that has a kitchen? One of their tag lines is: Give the Gift of Home Cooking. Indeed!

Oscar Worthy

Original Post date 2/25/15 on Sunday Supper Chronicles Blog

GS: One birthday during my teens, I decided to be adventurous and order a waiter's recommendation of the evening's special - rack of lamb. I remember feeling so extravagant to be ordering the special and being so proud of myself for trying something new. I also remember hating it. Per the recommendation of the waiter I was to eat it with the side of mint jelly. The combination was disgusting and from that point on, I decided I hated lamb. It must be really foul if it needs to be paired with a spread that tasted like chewing gum. After that incident I also became a tremendous creature of habit, fearful of ordering something new and being disappointed.

Fast forward to now and learning that with age comes some wisdom. Still very much a creature of habit on certain things, I have managed to broaden my horizons and I do actually like lamb, so why not try to cook it?

When Sunday rolled around and it happened to be the night of the Oscars, it seemed like a nice tie-in and a good excuse to up the ante and challenge myself with dishes that I found intimidating. So I decided to make a Classic Rack of Lamb. Since that one bad lamb experience, I actually never encountered another piece of lamb that was served with mint so I was hardly going to serve mine with one either.

Amazingly enough, cooking lamb wasn't much of a challenge after all because you can buy the rack of lamb pre "Frenched," meaning it's already been cleaned to expose the bone. The hardest part was making sure I took the already marinating lamb out of the refrigerator at least two hours before I had planned to cook it so it could come to room temperature. I forgot to do that so we actually didn't end up eating two hours later than I had anticipated. The second hardest part was making sure I didn't overcook the lamb, which was also not difficult with a meat thermometer. Fortunately because the lamb took so long, it gave me time to cook my sides.

I've always wanted to make risotto, so I challenged myself with a Mushroom Risotto. Turns out making risotto was a lot harder than cooking the lamb. I don't eat enough of it to know how what the texture is and I know people have very strong beliefs about whether it should be runny, or hold its own. All I know is that mine required much more attention than I was willing to spare and even after 7 cups of chicken broth, it probably could have used more broth. In the future, I think I much rather buy the pre-made frozen version from Trader Joe's. I also decided to use the bounty of fresh chard from my garden and make Sauteed Swiss Chard with Parmesan Cheese. Even this large bunch of chard wilted down to what was barely enough for a decent photo, fortunately it tasted a lot better than it looked. PC who doesn't like chard, actually liked this recipe. Was this meal Oscar worthy? I'd actually say so.

PC: Dessert! Not my forte, but then again I have no true forte. Not wanting to repeat anything I had done prior but knew it had to be Academy Award worthy.. something rich and decadent. So in scavenging through the monthly cookbook, aka Food & Wine & Bon Appetit Magazines, I came across BILLIONAIRE SHORTBREAD. If that doesn't say rich I don't know what does. A three-tier bar that screams cavities and more layers to your waist, or if you are diabetic this dessert may kill you. This is broken down to three preparations: shortbread, caramel, & chocolate ganache.

Upon seeing the finished product, I had to admit it was pretty damn close to the picture.. minus the salt flakes which I substituted with cracked sea salt. The salt added a nice contrast to the sweet richness of the chocolate. The chocolate would work its way on to the palette and suddenly you would be hit with what I called the warmth of the salt. Pat on the back and a fist in the air.. SUCCESS! Where is my damn Oscar?!

My recommendations: MORE CARAMEL...LESS CHOCOLATE! A food processor would probably help keep the shortbread dough more even. I like cutting the bars into long pieces like scones for those who just want to pick it up with their grubby fingers!

What's in the Fridge?

Original Post date 2/17/15 on Sunday Supper Chronicles Blog

PC: Where to go for a recipe…the internet, books, or the pile of Food & Wine magazines that is waiting to be thrown out after GS has given them a thorough once over and yanked out whatever recipe catches her eye?

Rummaging through those magazines with somewhat of an idea of what is in the refrigerator, I settle upon Coq au Riesling by Christopher Israel. It’s one of those meat dishes that has sauce, which ultimately requires some starch, pasta or perhaps rice to sop up the meaty juices.

First obstacle, dammit there isn’t a Riesling in the house. Not that I dislike Rieslings, but we prefer Sauvignon Blancs and Chards. So…Coq au Riesling became Coq au Chardonnay, which also saved me a trip of going to the market. This called for mixed mushrooms; obviously some more less common mushrooms would have been more interesting than the bella and white mushroom combo I used but I’m sticking to what I have and avoiding a trip to the market.

Overall it was tasty, not a difficult dish although it did require some straining and pushing juices through a sieve. I cooked up some penne pasta to go along with this dish to absorb some of the juices and round out the meal. Didn’t use tarragon, but didn’t think anyone missed it either.

GS: Under the same "constraints," ahem, laziness as PC, I didn't want to step out of the house to buy ingredients. Fortunately and to my surprise, flans require very few ingredients (but I'm sure consist of a crapload of calories) and are extremely easy to make. The harder part is making it look good, which mine did not.

I used a Jose Andres Flan recipe from an article in Bon Appetit magazine that talks about how Chef Andres doesn't mind eating gross-looking flans, he just won't make one. Well, I guess then he'd eat mine, because under his perfectionist thumb, mine would probably qualify!

My first issue was that I didn't caramelize the syrup to the golden brown it needed to be. I was using an organic sugar that was already brown so I couldn't tell when it was carmelizing in the pan! I had already exceeded the time limit to caramelize so I figured it was ok. Wrong. I knew as soon as I began to pour it into the ramekin. That stuff hardens quickly so it was either move on, or start over. Remember, lazy day, so I moved on.

To avoid bubbles, you're supposed to run it through a sieve, which I did, but apparently my sieve was not fine enough because I got bubbles all along the sides. Chef Andres would be disappointed.

To remove the flan from the ramekin, you run a knife along the sides, put a plate on top of the ramekin and flip. Surprisingly, it came out really easy. I served the nicer-looking flans to my guests and left the not-so-great looking one to myself and didn't remember to take a picture of the better-looking ones before serving so I have this poor photo of mine. All I can say is, it tasted better than it looked and warrants another try - when I'm willing to eat that amount of calories again.

Dinner on a Sheet Pan

Original Post date 1/12/15 on Sunday Supper Chronicles Blog

GS: Dinner on a Sheet Pan, a Bon Appetit article I've been saving since March 2012 said, "Fast, easy, fresh. Take a hands-off approach on weeknights and let your oven do the work." I'm in.

I only do recipes with photos because I want to know what the finished results are supposed to look like and this one looked tasty. There's a few recipes to this BA article, but I thought I'd start with Parmesan Chicken with Ceasar Roasted Romaine. As usual I did do certain things differently - I used chicken thigh meat as opposed to breasts for fear that I would dry out the chicken. I didn't use one type of cheese, I used a mixture of all the recommended cheeses - Parmesan, Pecorino and Asiago. I also didn't add the olive oil into the panko mix, I drizzled it on top instead and because I had a box of mushrooms I threw that onto the baking sheet to roast as well. End result? This really was fast and easy! I got a tasty, crunchy topping on moist chicken (that got cold super quick on a cold plate). Verdict, however, on the romaine was not as great. I'm just not a fan of wilted lettuce no matter how much texture or salt (anchovy) you put on it.

The following weekend I wanted to try another twist on a recipe in the same article, a wasabi salmon with bok choy, but I didn't read through the recipe until the day of cooking and was sorely disappointed with it. I bake salmon all the time and this recipe was almost no different from how I would typically make mine. The "wasabi" was just a blend of wasabi and mayo and was meant to be used as a dipping sauce on the side. How is this a challenge? This was no similar to a meal we would make on a weekday. Annoyed, I made my salmon, but instead spread a siracha mayo sauce on top of the salmon and baked it with the bok choy and shiitake mushrooms as they had instructed.

For dessert, PC literally whipped a blackberry souffle just as quickly as I made dinner.

PC: Strolling through the 99 cent store I came upon some blackberries. Automatically I'm thinking souffle so with two packages in tow that was to be dessert. I can't remember the exact recipe, but I ended up cutting down on the volume of sugar. I imagine someone can substitute some other sweetener, but I opted for some granular sugar and ground it down with the hand blender to get it to a more fine state. One boo boo, which would have made this dessert better was if I used a fine strainer to push the blackberry puree through in order to eliminate the seeds, pesky seeds. Souffle rose as it should, could have probably gone slightly longer to firm it up but live and learn, right? Overall not bad.. I give myself a B+.

New Year, New Outlook in 2015

This blog entry was originally posted on Sunday Supper Chronicles in January 2015. We have since moved all posts from that point on to our personal blog since they no longer included the rest of the group

GS:The last Sunday Supper blog posting was in March 2014 and although we had three Sunday Suppers after (Secret Ingredient: Chocolate, Microwave, and Sweet Tooth), the write-ups were incomplete, which meant no posts. Sunday Supper dinner with the four of us came to a complete halt by late spring of 2014.

For PC and I, we missed challenging ourselves in the kitchen so we decided to continue them on our own. No more Sunday Supper Chronicle blog posts, I've now transferred them to here.

My motivation came around the holidays when my stepmother made handmade, knife-cut noodles for my father to celebrate his 80th birthday. In the Chinese culture, noodle dishes are a staple for birthdays and Chinese New Year because they signify a long life for whoever is eating them -- as long as the noodles are not cut short. The longer they are, the better. I was so fascinated that I asked her to teach me and was surprised at how easy it was. My knife skills were slow and my noodles didn't come out nearly as good as hers, but it was enough to inspire us.

Our first challenge together was to finally break out the pasta machine purchased a year ago and make fresh pasta.

PC: With a new year brings new culinary challenges, some more so than others. My first endeavor back into the Sunday Supper Challenges may not sound very difficult and for the most part it wasn't. The hard part was actually done by GS - making pasta dough. Why was it hard? Well it came down to getting the right consistency. Something I'm sure seasoned chefs know like the back of their hand. My part was just making the sauce.

I remember an episode of No Reservation where Anthony Bourdain and his chef buddies cooked some basic dishes. One of them being your basic tomato sauce from scratch. Off to the market I went and rounded up some roma tomatoes. Here is where my issues began. Well what does a fresh tomato look like, smell like, feel like, and taste like? Still trying to figure this one out. I peeled the skin off the tomatoes, the peeler worked ok and then i just opted to just use my big knife and slice the skin off, thankfully the knife was still sharp otherwise this was going to get extremely messy. A sharp peeling knife is probably best. After removing the seeds as diligently as I could, I slow cooked those tomatoes. I totally underestimated the number of tomatoes I needed. I can see them breaking down but I definitely needed more. I opted to add some tomato sauce. Yes it was "cheating" but the key to remember is that this is a learning process and at the end of the day, this dish has to be edible. I added enough to give it volume. However the key to giving the sauce flavor is adding olive oil infused with basil, garlic, salt, pepper, and some pepper flakes. I'm sure you can throw in some other herbs in there but this is basic.

We finally put the pasta machine to use. Nope this isn't one of those attachments to a Kitchen Aid mixer, it's the old school cranker. The one perk I give to the Kitchen Aid unit, it gives you both hands free. Since I didn't have an extra hand of my own I borrowed my wife's. Together we rolled out some beautiful spaghetti and fettuccine. It was fun to see a glob of dough become fine strands, which a week later we were still finding in areas of the kitchen. Water boiling and salted, in went the pasta. Time to cook was also another new experience since this wasn't dried pasta and just like some Asian noodles is ready in a jiffy. Well I still used the grab a strand and taste while attempting to minimize burning my fingers and face. When it was nearly done cooking in my novice opinion, out it came and into the sauce. The starch in the pasta helps the sauce adhere to the pasta. Swirl, swirl and swirl and while trying to keep the pasta from flinging against the wall, onto the plate it went. A little basil garnish and voila, fini.

The take away from cooking this are: 1) get fresh tomatoes OR there are some perfectly good canned tomatoes that can be used as well when tomatoes are out of season OR when you are just being damn lazy.. I mean efficient. This is a good opportunity thouhg to visit a farmers market and the the 411 on what is a good tomato and have them slice up one and give you a taste. Supposedly it should have some sweetness but everyone's palette is different. 2)Use one of those baskets to cook your pasta. Its much easier to wrangle the pasta unless you prefer playing go fish for strands which can make a pasta go from al dente to al mushy. Ultimately this is a simple dish but being a simple dish there is no reason to go messing it up and there is plenty of opportunity to do that. Did I say this is a simple dish. I retract that. Its a dish that is a labor of love and that always requires work.

Sunday Supper: Asian Beef Stew with Caramelized Kimchi

This recipe donned the cover of Food & Wine Magazine February 2013 with the headline "Winter Cooking at its Best." It looked delish and seemed perfect on so many levels. It definitely sounded like the hearty meal I wanted to serve to compliment the chilly weather we've been having and it also suited the Asian flair I was looking for to pay tribute to Chinese New Year. This recipe is apparently a riff on the French version of Pot au Feu and well, since we are leaving for France this week, why not?

Of course, the finished result didn't quite look like the photo. Instead of radishes, because I don't like radishes, I used bean sprouts as a garnish to add that crunch. So I lack that punch of red color the cover had.

Would I make this again? Probably not. It was a lot of work with just ok results and 6 lbs. of beef short ribs ain't cheap. What I noticed about these recipes is that they never create enough marinade to cover all of the meat. I doubled the marinade recipe and I let it marinate for two days. I can't imagine allowing it to only marinate for 30 minutes/or overnight as the recipe suggested. Over the past two days, I rotated the meat so it had a chance to soak in the marinade. There's no way the original marinade recipe would have been enough. The marinade called for an Asian pear shredded. I bought one, but forgot to put it in. I honestly don't think it would have made a difference.

I also added only added half of the water that they requested. If I had added the full amount, I think it would have severely watered down the taste of the broth. Which again consisted of a double recipe of the marinade. I also used regular soy sauce and not low sodium soy sauce.

The end result? I did love the subtle kick that the caramelized kimchi added, but overall this recipe could have used more in-depth flavor and seasoning.

Sunday Suppers

If memory serves me right, almost five years ago, we started an informal dinner at our house on Sundays. It involved having my brother-in-law and my husband's best friend over for dinner just prior to watching the CBS show, Amazing Race. Even after the show would end for the season, we continued the tradition of meeting up at our place for dinners on Sunday. At some point, the burden of providing dinner on Sundays started to get heavy not only financially but also the desire to do it. So we proposed that we shared this "task" so it was not so much a burden, but an opportunity for all of us to stretch our culinary prowess, widen our palates and hone our kitchen skills. Surprisingly, everyone was game. Between the four of us, we each rotated Sundays to prepare a meal, hence the tradition of "Sunday Supper."

Sometimes that meal had special guests like someone's "date," or perhaps family or friends that were in town on a Sunday (see photo above). All in all, whether I'm sampling someone else's cooking or doing the cooking myself, it's something to look forward to. If you weren't cooking, you need only provide a bottle of wine and an empty stomach.

At first, my meals were based on whatever was already in the kitchen. Never anything fancy, just something to put on the table that wouldn't kill anyone. But then last year, I decided to challenge myself and take it up a notch. My husband has been subscribing to Food & Wine magazine and Bon Appetit magazine for years. And for years, they would accumulate in stacks until I couldn't stand it anymore and I would throw them out. Why subscribe if we are never going to partake? So last year, I started going through the magazines, bending down corners or sticking post-its to certain recipes.

In order for me to consider cooking a recipe from one of these magazines, here's what I learned about myself:
-- If there was no photo, I was not inclined to cook the meal. I wanted to know what the finished result was supposed to look like and I had to be interested in eating it. Hence, I needed pictures.
-- I never gravitate towards recipes that had seafood. Just was never interested.
-- Most of the recipes I tried came from Bon Appetit magazine.
-- Most of those recipe were because the ingredients didn't sound too far fetched and I never wanted to buy a spice or item that I'd only use once.

If the recipe was successful and I'd consider making it again, I'd tear the recipe out, grease stains and all, and put it in a binder. So far, those recipes include: Dried Fruit Compote with Ginger Syrup, Best-Ever Barbecued Ribs (and truly they are the best ever), Braised Chicken with Capers and Parsley, Wild Mushroom and Blue Cheese Quiche, Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Here's what I learned from cooking those recipes:
-- While knowing that the photographs were probably always pushed for color, etc. and tweaked by a food stylist, the pictures still always looked better than the finished results.
-- Sometimes the picture didn't even MATCH the finished results. I cooked a meat dish once and the cut of the meat was completely different from what was listed as an ingredient.
-- The final recipe is consistently under-seasoned. You really should taste as you go so you can adjust.

So a full year out of upping the ante with "professional" recipes, and my first turn in 2013 rolled around this past Sunday. It was also when I realized, why am I not documenting this experience? So here we go!