In my quest to eat more food at home that doesn’t consist of chicken nuggets and french fries (the chick fil a drive thru guy knows me too well), I bought my first week of meals from Hello Fresh. Hello Fresh is a meal kit delivery service that provides pre-measured ingredients in order to cook creative recipes for 2-4 people per week. I’ve wanted to try out the service since I’ve grown tired of rotating between fast food and Yoshida sauce chicken. While I love making my own meals, shopping for ingredients can be costly and I always end up throwing out wasted produce and proteins after I neglected them. I want to cook new recipes, but I’m never truly inspired by the dishes I find. That’s where Hello Fresh comes in. After I selected the three dinners I wanted to cook for the week, the company sends me a box full of carefully measured ingredients and recipe cards in a large insulated box. The plan I chose feeds 2 people three meals (so I can have leftovers throughout the week!) for $60, which is approximately $10 per serving. Considering how much money I spend at Panera and on Sic Em Delivery, $10 seemed like a steal!
For my first meal, I made the sliced steak tagliata with sweet potatoes, green beans, and tomato vinaigrette. I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes or balsamic vinegar in general, but I wanted to be adventurous and I thought I could swap out the potatoes for rice if I hated them! I started by cutting up the sweet potatoes in random pieces and placed them on a baking sheet before drizzling them with olive oil. I sprinkled rosemary, salt, pepper, and garlic on top and roasted them for 20 minutes at 450 degrees, rotating them at the 10 minute mark. While I waited for the potatoes to soften, I covered my two steaks with salt and pepper and cooked them in a pan for 90 seconds per side. When they were medium-medium rare, I placed them in a covered container to rest until I was done cooking the rest of the ingredients. I cut the green beans in half and tossed them into a medium bowl with a splash of water. Adding salt, pepper, and garlic powder to the bowl, I mixed the beans and covered them with plastic wrap before heating them in the microwave for 5 minutes. When they were finished, I added a hint of butter and what the hell they were delicious! Who knew 5 minutes in the microwave (and a shit ton of sodium) would create the most perfect and tender green beans? In order to make the vinaigrette sauce, I halved a bunch of cherry tomatoes and put them in the steak pan with olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic, and rosemary to soften for 2 minutes. I added the balsamic vinegar, beef stock, and one teaspoon of sugar to the tomatoes and let it reduce until the sauce thickened. After slicing my steaks and plating the vegetables, I topped the meat with my tomatoe vinaigrette. Within 45 minutes, I had a healthy-ish delicious dinner with another serving for tomorrow! I’ll definitely continue my Hello Fresh orders as the food tastes amazing, the recipes are easy to follow, and it saves me money each week!
