Friday, September 13, 2019

Try HelloFresh at a discount with a discount code...

#DaveRamsey, #TriumphRadio, #HelloFresh

Hi!  I tried Hello Fresh after hearing about it on Triumph radio MANY times.  My blog is tiny and insignificant and no one has ever paid me to post about anything, so here is an unbiased, un-paid for review.  I have no problem with people who do get paid to review things, as long as they are transparent about it.  I just want to be clear that mine is not being sought out or paid for.

Hello fresh is meal service that delivers a box of food to your house once a week according to your choices from their website.  The first thing I experienced was their web site, and I was did not like that I had to pay for the first week before I could see the menu choices or recipes or anything.  It felt like "buy it to see what is in it".  However, I found out later that my daughter could go see the menu options without signing up.  I guess it was because she did not click a link to buy it, she just went to their home page.  If you want to look everything over, go to the home page and navigate from there. There is a drop-down on the upper left side of the home page that lets you see everything.

One of the most important questions is whether this is WORTH it.  Well, it totally depends on your budget and your family.  If your family has 4 or less people, if your budget is not rice and beans/beans and rice, if you eat out too much and need to cut the cost of that, if you work out side the home and still try to cook and homeschool your kids, then I say YES!  This is worth it.  The per serving cost runs about $7.49 per person if you buy for 4 people, a little more per person if you buy for 2. The servings are adequate, we did not feel like we had skimpy meals.  However, during the initial discounted offer, with adding the shipping and everything, my per person cost is about $5.35 person and that is WAY better cost than almost any fast-food meal for our family.   And yes, we eat out too much.

What does Hello Fresh offer our family?  It is pre-planned, pre-bought, pre-selected and provided recipes.  We can cook, we just aren't strong in the planning stage which would make things work better.  We are working to get out of debt, so this is a way to get us home more often for 1/2 the cost of other eating-out options.  This is a win-win for us.  However, it is NOT cheap, especially considering that someone still has to cook it. Feel free to comment or message me fore more specific details for your family.  I am happy to answer any questions.

We chose to make the Sesame Beef Tacos first.  (see photo above) The ingredients are fresh and everything was in good shape.  One cucumber was a little less than perfect, but still usable with a little trimming.  The recipe showed how to make pickled veggies (one of my favorite things ever!) and now I know how to do it on my own.  WIN!    The taco filling was easy to prepare, the cabbage was already shredded. I picked out a couple pieces of cabbage stalk, but that was MUCH easier than cutting and shredding it on my own.  WIN!   The girls helped with a couple smaller tasks like making a creama and heating the soft taco wrappers.  Dinner was served!  This meal definitely will be ordered again.

Ruby made this yummy dinner while I made the sauce.



The second meal was Cherry Balsamic Porkchops with herb infused couscous and roasted broccoli.  This was a simple basic meal.  Protein plus carbs plus veggies.  We would have made this for ourselves here at home from scratch, but I learned how to make a balsamic reduction and we used shallots which are something I never get unless my CSA basket has one in it.  My pickiest eater enjoyed everything, even the couscous and was able to leave off the shallots from her porkchop so she was happy.  The rest of us (Camille and I) loved the whole meal as it was intended.







YUM!  Camille made dinner.

We enjoyed Camille's homemade offering, Maple Mustard Baked chicken with potato wedges and roasted carrots.  The maple mustard drizzle was AMAZING and we drizzled it on our potatoes as well as our chicken.  The drizzle recipe made PLENTY to layer on the chicken as well as the potatoes and we still have a little bit left over.  Yay!  This chicken looks like it was fried, but in reality it just has a layer of panco herb breadcrumbs onto of the maple mustard drizzle.  This was YUMMY as well as less carb-heavy than I imagined form the picture.

We enjoyed all three meals form our Hello Fresh box and we look forward to the next one arriving.  The experience of cooking meals together and from scratch reminded us how nice it is to have home cooked meals as well as saving us money.  Tonight we went to Sonny's BBQ after the swim meet and I paid $40+ for 3 of us to eat.  :(  See what I mean?

Final thoughts on Hello Fresh:  When you get the recipe cards, they are specific to the box, but you can go out and purchase the ingredients and make the same meal again and again.  So now I also have 3 new recipes that I can add to my repertoire and I will have 12 before this trial is over.  Good recipes that work are always a good thing, and my kids are familiar with these now which makes them more likely to make them and eat them.  Including picky eaters in food prep gives them ownership over meals and that can be a good way to get them trying new things. #parentingHack

I hope this helps someone make up their mind about trying Hello Fresh.  If you want to try it, let me know and I can provide a discount code.  These are limited from me, but many radio talk show programs offer  discount codes that you can look up online so that you don't have to use my discount code.










1 comment:

Smash Ogre said...

It looks yummy. I am looking forward to left-overs after my Dallas trip!