Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

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Swirls
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by Swirls »

It's something local to the Twin Cities that I don't think exists anywhere else, but my wife and I are big fans of Let's Dish! (they have like six locations throughout the Cities, I think). You show up and they have all the food set out in individual prep stations based on each menu item. Proteins are pre-portioned out, but you'll measure most of the other stuff (herbs, salt/pepper, garlic, etc).

You can choose to do either four, eight, or twelve dishes - the cost per dish goes down if you do more. Each dish you prepare makes six servings. There are usually lots of coupons available for various discounts, but it ends up averaging a little over $3/serving (basically $20/dish). By yourself, you can easily make eight dishes in under two hours. They're open seven days a week until like 9pm, so it makes it very flexible to find time to show up and do all your meal work for the entire month.

Everything gets prepped and stored in giant 1 or 2 gallon Ziploc baggies and thrown in the freezer. Thaw it out the night before, possibly spend a few minutes doing some last minute prep stuff (such as tossing the marinated chicken breasts in the bread crumbs) before cooking. Some dishes like enchiladas or lasagnas go directly in the oven from the freezer because they're stored in aluminum baking dishes.

The menu changes each month, and usually has some really tasty stuff. There are always chicken, beef, pork, seafood, vegetarian, and dessert choices. They sometimes have breakfast options, too. Here's the menu for May at the location closest to us (the menus also vary by location): https://www.letsdish.com/menus/Ingredie ... riodId=217

We've been going monthly pretty much since we moved up here towards the end of 2015. We still go to the grocery store for various essentials, but normally spend less than $50 for a week or so.

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stlouie_lipp
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by stlouie_lipp »

I tried BA and liked it. Problem is for a guy who lives alone and doesn't eat leftovers I ended up throwing too much of it away and my meal cost was like $20/per. I wanted to try it, and thought the food was good, but too much waste for me. I tried Freshly which is basically healthy(ier) frozen food. It was just so-so.

Michael
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by Michael »

Hello Fresh sent me codes for one free week of service for friends if anyone is interested. After the first week you have to cancel if you don't want it anymore. I don't get any kickbacks for these sign-ups, so I'm not hustling. Just PM your email addy.

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pioneer98
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by pioneer98 »

I've looked at service like these, and there are a handful of local ones that also look intriguing. My problem is I don't want to "subscribe" to a service forever. If I could sign up to get 1 or 2 per week, or maybe skip a week before going back to it, etc. How flexible are they in regards to that?

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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by Michael »

With BA and HF you can skip weeks, but if you are in for a week you get sent 3 meals. No more no less.

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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by Michael »

Amazon getting in the game:

Amazon is already selling pre-packaged ‘Meal Kits’ as it bites into service from Blue Apron and others
Amazon’s newly-discovered desire to begin offering pre-packaged ingredients for home-cooked meals is already a real thing as a selection of Amazon Meal Kits are available on the company’s website. And one user reached out to GeekWire Monday to share his experience with the service.

It’s the latest move by the Seattle-based tech giant to reimagine how its customers get food items, coming on the heels of Amazon’s bid to acquire the grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Reports of the service sent shares of Blue Apron, the leading meal-kit delivery company that just went public, down more than 11 percent.

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Tim
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by Tim »

Been using Sun Basket as we are trying to cut out gluten and soy. The food is really really tasty. Much better than Blue Apron IMO

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by CardsofSTL »

Tim wrote:Been using Sun Basket as we are trying to cut out gluten and soy. The food is really really tasty. Much better than Blue Apron IMO
Those beers you were guzzling at Busch last week are full of gluten

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Tim
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by Tim »

CardsofSTL wrote:
Tim wrote:Been using Sun Basket as we are trying to cut out gluten and soy. The food is really really tasty. Much better than Blue Apron IMO
Those beers you were guzzling at Busch last week are full of gluten
Shhhhhh!

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pioneer98
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Re: Rave: Hello Fresh/Blue Apron

Post by pioneer98 »

We just started trying Home Chef right now. The first few were really good. I just don't know if I can be on board with this model. The amount of packaging for 6 meals is nuts. I know it's mostly recyclable, but still. Then there is the shipping, which has to be really fast. So overall these services are probably terrible for the environment. And I know I could probably get the ingredients cheaper at the store.

We are just doing 2 servings, 3 meals per week right now. I think I'm going to switch to 4 servings of 2 meals per week to reduce packaging a bit and then have some leftovers when we cook. We'll probably stick with it for a while to get a decent collection of recipes, and then just buy the ingredients at the store after that. It will save a little money and maybe be slightly better for the environment.

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