I know I always say this, but BLUE APRON I MISSED YOU SO MUCH! For real, it seems like every time we take a week off from meal kit deliveries, I feel totally wiped out and ready for someone else to do the thinking and shopping for me again. This time at least I can blame SXSW and spending my weekend volunteering on my feet for the masses. It’s so draining to have entitled tech ~professionals~ (and college kids pretending to be them) yell at you for 6 – 8 hours a day.
Anyway, I survived, with blissfully few horror stories to share. And I finished caulking the bathroom tile project! Woo! So that’s even closer to being done and I am feeling preeetty good about myself. I even baked banana bread muffins to really amp up the domesticity factor this weekend.
But here we are on the other side of that and it’s high time that Blue Apron comes back to the rescue. This week we have a little bit of everything: chicken, pork, and fish, and flavors from home and abroad.
- Smoky Seared Cod with Roasted Potatoes & Dates
- Miso-Butter Chicken with Freekeh and Sauteed Carrots
- Pork & Cabbage Tacos with Pineapple & Pickled Jalapeno Salsa
Enough dilly-dallying; let’s get into it!
Smoky Seared Cod: Cod in the Middle
“Do I like cod?” I asked myself upon opening the box. The answer is, “Sorta?” This recipe had a pretty simple format and approach. You pickle some onions, you season and sear your protein. Bake some potatoes! And it was fine, really. It plated up real nice and felt like a healthy way to finish the day, especially coming from my upside-down yoga class (amazing.)
But was it great? Nah. Not really. The “spice blend” for the cod was actually just paprika and rice flour, so it wasn’t very smoky and fell flat. Cod is such a dense, neutral fish that I found it to be really lacking in this preparation. The thickest pieces (with the smallest amount of seasoning or sauce, relatively speaking) felt extremely “meh.” Oh, and the slices of potato were super awkward to eat. Pretty, but awkward! This is definitely a B- recipe overall, and a little bit of a disappointing return to our friend, Blue Apron.
Paired well with: A glass of 2016 Vinyasa Muscat Canelli from Winc. (PS, Grab a bottle yourself for free by using this link!) My sister gave me this bottle for Christmas and it’s a terrific post-workout wine. It was lovely with the fish and the bright acidity of the salad. I hate to say it, but the wine may have been the best part of the meal!
Miso-Butter Chicken: Getting FREEKEH
I didn’t know what freekeh was, so I was nervous that it would be tough and grainy like some grains Blue Apron has introduced us to. Not so! It’s actually nice and more closely aligned with rice in terms of soft chewiness. It took the flavors of the miso and butter quite well!
The chicken in this dish was a bit of a surprise as well. I’ve NEVER had pre-chopped protein from Blue Apron before (it seems like a very Home Chef thing to do) but this chicken breast arrived chopped up and ready to go. It was kind of nice, honestly, to not have to worry about that prep work on top of the veggie prep. The flavors from this dish SEEM simple, especially during the construction, but their layers add up to more than the sum of their parts. The soy sauce gives an umami depth for the miso and butter to dance upon. It’s very savory and reminiscent of your favorite takeout, but with more exotic textures mixed in.
This is a very solid B+; I wouldn’t make it exactly again or seek out freekeh on my own, but I enjoyed every bite! I’m also now on the hunt for some good miso paste!
Paired well with: a Barre workout because I treated my body like garbage all during SXSW. Actually, just kidding (not about taking a barre class, but), this paired really nicely with some ginger kombucha “soda” that I got for free from work. So try this dish with ginger ale (or ginger beer if you like some kick!) It was a great complement to the miso and soy flavors of the dish.
Pork & Cabbage Tacos: Ta-co? More like TA-GO!
Like any good Texan, I love me some tacos. I saved these for our Thursday dinner (RIVERDALE! Oh wait, jk bc actually The Vampire Diaries ended A WEEK AGO! And the CW has the gall to make us sit through a retrospective after the fact anyway. Instead of giving us the sweet, sweet dose of Riverdale that we crave. Cool. Cool story, CW.) because it was clear that this recipe would be stellar.
And it is! The pork is spicy and tangy, the pineapple “salsa” is awesome, and the marinated cabbage provides zip and crunch. The only issue I can take with this recipe (which was way easy to work through, btw) was the plating. The “salsa” is silly to have if you’re not going to give me chips. So, of course, we just put it on the tacos as soon as I was done taking the picture. It’s okay if there’s no side dish, Blue Apron. ILY anyway. A for the pork & cabbage tacos!
Paired well with: a slightly non-traditional margarita! I picked up some tequila-based almond liqueur ages ago because I’m a sucker for everything almond. I’ve been using it bit by bit for about two years now and I’m ready to see it GONE. I use it in lieu of triple sec in a traditional margarita recipe, as it’s quite sweet, and it gets the job done! Just 2 oz tequila, 1 oz almond liqueur, and the juice of one lime shaken with ice and poured (ice and all!) into a glass. Boom! Makes the pineapple even zippier and neutralizes the jalapeno’s burn.
Up Next… Home Chef!
So there you have it! All of the proteins and none of the fuss. It’s back to Home Chef for a box or two next, especially while I’m alone at the house. No husband to eat with equals a HIGH probability of dinners composed entirely of snacks. Why yes, popcorn, cereal, crackers, and a protein shake DO count as dinner if you eat them over a long enough time period! Xx