Tuesday Giveaway- Blue Apron Meals

Goodness, I am super excited to be teaming up with Blue Apron Meals for P+K's first ever giveaway! You may remember me talking about how much I love Blue Apron in this post a few weeks ago. They are an amazing food delivery company that delivers fresh ingredients to your door once a week. You get once per week with the proteins you choose and all the fixins and recipes included. It is THE BEST THING EVER for people who are busy or, shall we say, not super proficient in the art of cooking. Now, Blue Apron is offering all you P+K'ers a free food box which includes three meals for two people.

How do I win this incredible prize, you ask? Easy! First thing would be to check out Blue Apron's site and be sure that you are in their delivery area. If you are, we celebrate, then we get to the contest entering. To enter, leave a comment below telling me your favorite meal to make (mine is smoothies, they are tasty, healthy, and ridiculously easy). To get more cred, you can also do the social media option. Also, did I just use the word cred? I did.

The giveaway is going until Sunday, March 30th and will be announced Monday March 31st!! Ahhh, I cannot wait! Oh, and all these tasty photos you have seen are all the delicious things Blue Apron has been sending us to make. Yes, I am now a chef ;)

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Healthy St. Patrick's Day Recipes

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner and I cannot wait. The hubs and I will be celebrating this Irish holiday for the first time ever, which is a bit ridiculous considering he is part Irish. Even though we will not be home, I do plan on making some fun foods and [at least] looking at some yummy drinks.

Thank goodness there are so many healthy green foods that taste delicious; it makes this St. Patrick's Day food planning so much easier! Of course, we could make guacamole, it's green, right? But let's take these recipes a bit beyond the normal and do some super yummy, somewhat easy, and very Irish for this holiday celebrating one of Ireland's most well known patron saints.

Also, have you decided what green thing you are wearing yet? The hubs said that mint green was out of the question for a real Irish place, so I am now at a loss. Are forest green pants "green" enough? Hopefully.

Matcha Green Tea Pancakes

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Let's starts St. Patrick's Day off right with some super yummy, pretty healthy, and nothing to do with Ireland Matcha Green Tea Pancakes. No, these pancakes are not from a recipe out or Ireland itself and a I kind of doubt that many Irish people will be eating them on the 17th. But, they are green pancakes that I do not have to feel guilty for eating and that is good enough for me!

Kale and Leek Colcannon

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Colcannon is a traditional Irish food that uses potatoes, kale, cabbage, or leeks. At Halloween it is an Irish tradition to make colcannon and hide coins in it for others to find while eating. Although this colcannon does not come with money, it does come with some seriously good superfoods that taste like good ol' comfort food.

Potato-Cabbage Soup

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Yes, another green dish. What can I say, I love the cheeball in this holiday. This potato and cabbage soup is another Irish dish that is surprisingly healthy, green, and yummy. This recipe is also quite simple and quick o make, as far as soups go.

Spicy Tahini Baked Kale Chips

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This recipe is great at any time of the year and I will alsways find an excuse to make it. Kale chips are amazing. They are yummy, healthy, and take care of that pesky potato chip craving that I get like ALL THE TIME. Yes, I am a recovery potato chip addict. Phew, feels good to get that off my chest.

Roasted Lemon Cabbage

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If you are planning on having corned beef and cabbage on St/ Patty's Day, Kalyn recommends this roasted cabbage recipe and I quite agree with her. If I liked cabbage, I would be making this yummy looking dish right now instead of writing about it to you. Thankfully for all cabbage lovers out there, I am not the greatest fan of this super healthy superfood. Grow-up, taste buds so that I can enjoy this fantastic looking dish.

Lucky Leprechaun Dip

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You had me at tahini. Yes, this dip has white beans, tahini, cashews, kale, and parsley. So far, it sounds like the best green dip to ever be created in the history of man. It is also pre-named for St. Patrick's Day so even the cute name creation has been done for us.

Green Mac n' Cheese

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Homemade mac n' cheese just might be my kryptonite. I cannot say no. This mac n' cheese comes in the green variety and is much healthier than our usual carb and fat filled option. The green in this is from fresh spinach that has been pureed.

Guiness Float

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You read that correct. This is a dessert and an Irish drink all in one. It is also the first (and only) thing on our St. Patrick's Day list that is not green. But, it is Guiness and ice cream, so I think I can survive it's lack of proper pigmentation.

Side note: The Guiness float is not exactly what I would call healthy.

The Best Food Delivery Company- Blue Apron vs. Hello Fresh

Food delivery companies seem to be the most genius invention of a service ever. It is wonderful to have recipes and all the fresh ingredients delivered to your door once a week without having to make grocery lists or scour the internet for yummy recipes. We recently did a test run of two food delivery companies that are available in our area to see which we like more and which to keep. If you live in a place like New York, L.A., or San Francisco, you have so many more options, it is ridiculous. But, if you live in a nice, suburban town like me, the options are quite a bit more limited.

There are two food delivery companies that work in our area, Hello Fresh and blue Apron. Both deliver three meals a week with all ingredients for three selected recipes. Both also have the option between meat and vegetarian dishes. But, that is where the similarities end. For use, there was an easy winner, and, it was not the one either of us expected. Since P+K is all about simple ways to be healthier and having healthy food delivered to your door seems like the simplest way, I thought you just might want to know my findings as well. Here goes...

Hello Fresh

Hello Fresh meals average about $11 for meat options and $9 for vegetarian. The meals were pretty good, but most of the vegetarian options were pastas. Since I am not a massive pasta fan, these meals were definitely not my favorite. Although the actual Hello Fresh company is great with extreme transparency on where they get their food, a very simple and easy to understand website, and great customer service, the food and recipe were not exactly what we expected.

There were multiple times that the food in the recipe and the food sent to us were not the same (ex. wheat pasta vs. non-wheat pasta) and the directions for recipes left very much to the imagination. Ha, I can think of quite a few times that both the hubs and I would debate on what the recipe was asking us to do next only to find we definitely did it wrong when we went to eat it. Things did not taste right.

Ingredients were also pre-packaged in those mini to-go type containers and had to be measured before-hand. Usually, measuring would not bother me, but cutting open 10-packets of soy sauce to get the pre-measured amount is where I draw the line. Yes, this food is a bit healthier than Blue Apron. And yes, Hello Fresh does have a better deal for vegetarians. But, we are paying a premium to have meals sent to us; for that, I think we should be spoiled a bit. Having to double check measurements and decipher directions is not my cup of tea.

Here are a few of their recipes :)

Blue Apron

I feel a little bad for Hello Fresh just because of how much the odds were stacked against them. Everything that Hello Fresh did wrong, Blue Apron did right, and then some. The only complaint I had about Blue Apron was that you could only choose meat or vegetarian, and as of last week that was changed. Now, you can opt for chicken, beef, pork, vegetarian, and fish when choosing your weekly meals. This is wonderful for us pescetarians out there who do not fit into that either/or category or for those who do not eat pork, shellfish, or beef.

All meals are about $10 per person no matter what protein you choose. If you are a vegetarian, you will love Blue Apron. Meals mix up where vegetarians are getting their protein from and very few of them have pasta at all.

There are two things that make me want to get everyone I know Blue Apron meals; the first is the packaging and the second is the food. All ingredients come pre-packaged in the exact measurement needed, taking so much of the hassle out of cooking. Ingredients are also neatly labeled and smaller ingredients for each meal are kept together in labeled "knick-knack" bags. This is wonderful for anyone out there who is not a chef but wants to create meals like one. The directions are super easy to understand and nearly impossible to mess up.

So far, we have made Moroccan dishes, Italian dishes with ingredients only available once a year, sushi, and Vietnamese dishes. All of these are things I would never think to make for a simple weekday meal since the ingredients can be so hard to come by. And, all of these would have been waaayy more than $10 per person because of all the random spices that we would only need once but cost an arm and a leg.

Each food order also comes with a description of all the meals and reasons why they were chosen. I have seriously learned so much about food since registering with Blue Apron and also got to eat one of the worlds stinkiest cheeses. It was delicious, albeit, smelly.

For all of these reasons, we decided to go with Blue Apron. Here is their entire cookbook to peruse what meals you might enjoy :) Hehe, can you tell that we like the sushi a bit? It was the first time making sushi that the end result actually tasted like food, let alone, good sushi! Poor Chuu though, he is use to sushi have tuna. Beggar.

Snapguide, Contests, and Tea

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Snapguide has recently released a new maker contest in affiliation with DAVIDsTEA. If you do not know, Snapguide is a user submitted app and website where we can create and look at guides on cooking, DIY projects, workouts (cough, cough, I'm here), and a bit more as well. DAVIDsTEAS is also a pretty fantastic site for all your tea loving needs. This has actually worked out quite splendidly for me since I am currently trying to kick the coffee and add more tea to my life.

Contest winners can win anything from $850 to $250 worth of DAVIDsTEAS products. Best part, there are going to be six winners in this contest! If you are feeling extra creative and super tea loving, enter here. All you need to do is create a guide that uses tea in a not-so-traditional way by March 19th, just in time for my birthday!

Check out How to Make Matcha Facial Mask for Sensitive Skin! by Ruth O. on Snapguide.

Check out How to Cook Whiskey Infused Pu'er Poached Pears by Karen Hoefener on Snapguide.

Although I am not quite sure what my addition will be just yet, I am loving some of the other entries. These are a few of my hands down favorites that I cannot wait to make. Really, who thought of making a green tea whiskey infused poached pear? Kuddos to anyone who has considered that before, it sounds incredible and I want to eat it now.

Check out How to Make Tea Encrusted Scallops by Lisa Marie Ritchat on Snapguide.

Check out How to Make Chocolate Chocolate Rocket Chia Seed Pudding by Sherrie Gao on Snapguide.