HelloFresh Vegetarian Box Review + Coupon – February 2016

Hello Fresh is a meal kit subscription box with complete recipes and ingredients to make 3 meals every week, with each meal feeding either two or four people, depending on the plan you choose.  Though it is a subscription, you can pause your deliveries when needed — whether you are out of town, have other dinner plans, or just aren’t in love with that week’s selections.  The standard subscription provides high-quality meats (free-range chicken, anti-biotic meats, etc.) to use in the recipes.  Though we do eat meat, we cook vegetarian three times a week.  Thankfully, Hello Fresh has a vegetarian subscription option to satisfy both casual and dedicated vegetarians.  This review covers the vegetarian box, which featured a recipe by Jamie Oliver! 

I love that they put the nutritional information on the outside of the box!

Hello Fresh has great instructions, and they are easy to follow even if you are an inexperienced cook.  Each recipe includes several pictures so you maintain a sense of how the dish should look as you go along.  There is also information provided on everything you need to know about the dish — nutrition info, prep time, and even which recipes are best to make first.  The above photo shows the instructions for the recipe created for Hello Fresh by Jaime Oliver, an English celebrity chef and healthier food advocate — it’s written slightly differently (read my notes below on this!).

The  boxes used by Hello Fresh keep all the ingredients for the recipes in order, and they stack nicely in the fridge.   Within each box, everything but the largest vegetables is separately packaged.  Condiments and canned goods are provided in high-end, commercial packaging.  Hello Fresh usually provides spices in their own, pre-measured branded packaging.

Jamie’s Sicilian Spaghetti Alla Norma with Eggplant, Baby Capers, and Basil. 45 mins, level 3, 596 cal.

I’m a Jamie Oliver fan as I’ve said before but he needs to cut down on the title of this recipe!  That’s a mouthful just like this recipe…a yummy mouthful.  The title is also making me curious about Norma, who is she and what’s her story about this recipe.

My husband and I were on vacation which included going on a cruise and then visiting grandkids. So this is my first blog since being back.  It was so nice the see the box delivered.  I was discussing the Hello Fresh dinners we receive and the food eaten on the cruise.  If you’ve ever been on the cruise there’s plenty of food from home cooked recipes to chef inspired.  We think the Hello Fresh are just as good as the chef inspired recipes on board.  I do believe the secret is in the fresh herbs and spices, it makes such a difference!  Who knew?  I certainly didn’t.

Now to the recipe.  I just realized while making this recipe that the Jamie recipe cards are a bit different than that of the others.  Jamie’s has the amount of ingredients to put into the recipe listed at the top; whereas, the other cards have the amount listed in the directions.  Ok, so I didn’t notice this difference until AFTER I put in the whole packet of red pepper flakes and oregano.  It called for only a pinch.  The recipe still turned out very good but it was a tad spicy for me, I drank a lot of water during dinner.  Lesson learned.

This meal was enough to serve 4 if served with a side of bread and/or salad.  

I’m certainly enjoy the flavor of basil, capers and eggplant so I knew this would be a good recipe with some of my favorites in the mix.  This rated an 8.5.

Waad’s Tunisian Freekeh Stew with Crispy Chickpeas and Yogurt. 45 mins, level 1, 649 cal. 

Waad’s Freekeh Stew was Freeken’ good!  he he he  

This recipe, sent to Hello Fresh, from Waad’s family in Tunisia.  Included was a packet of Tunisian Spice Blend of nine spices to use in the recipe.  It had a flavor we hadn’t had before or at least couldn’t identify but it was GOOD.  My husband thought there was something sweet about it.

When it comes to beans, my favorite is garbanzo/chickpea.   So when my baked chickpeas came out of the oven all nice and hot and crunchy with the Tunisian Spice Blend on them, I just couldn’t help but start eating them.  I was lucky there were any left to put into the stew.

I normally plate my new recipe and take pictures, while I’m doing this my husband will plate his own.  So when we’re half way through the meal I’m telling my husband how much I like the way the chickpeas are baked and he realizes he forgot to put them in his bowl.  He liked this stew before but now he is really liking it!

This was a delicious stew and we thoroughly enjoyed the Tunisian Spice Blend.  We’re hoping Hello Fresh will use the blend again in another recipe.  We rated this a 9.

FYI – the ingredients list say the spices consist of caraway, coriander, smoked paprika, turmeric, chili powder, garlic, cayenne, cinnamon, and black pepper!

Mushroom and Caramelized Onion Shepherd’s Pie with Roasted Carrots and Brussels Sprouts. 40 mins, level 1, 470 cal.

I saved this recipe for Valentine’s Day because it looked filling and yummy and that’s what my wonderful husband likes for dinner.

As usual it wasn’t hard to make, just a chop chop here and a bake/cook there, here a salt there a salt everywhere a salt salt, Hello Fresh is on a roll…EVOO!  Ha ha ha, I got a little carried away there!  

I do love my roasted vegetables but I’ll confess, when I put the pie into the oven and looked over at the vegetables, for a second there I thought I might have messed up and was supposed to layer them in the pie!  Whew, good thing I was wrong although that wouldn’t have been a bad thing if they were added into the pie.

There was one direction I did do differently, I didn’t peel the potatoes.  We like our peel, that’s where a lot of good nutrients are so I just scrubbed them and cut them according to the directions.

This made for a great Valentine’s Dinner.   We gave it a 9.5. 

Visit Hello Fresh to select your box for next week!  Take $40 off your first box with coupon code 7UT7K8.