Food Experiments: Mozzarella & Mushroom Hoagies | Garden Mushroom-Stuffed Ravioli

Hello my friends! I am back with week three of my food experiment with Hello Fresh. You can read about the other weeks here. Let’s get into it, shall we?

The Cost

This is going to sound like a complete repeat of last weeks breakdown. But first, I need to make a correction. I looked back over our Discover bill and discovered, haha, that I reported the wrong figures for week two. We were charged $55.37 for week two, which breaks down as: $27.68 for each of the meals and $6.92 per person. Sorry for the confusion, but I want to be crystal clear on what this is actually costing us each week. I see so many people promoting Hello Fresh, for good reason, but they never say what it actually costs. Thanks for listening. 😀

So, for our third week the two meals cost us $69.04. Divided by two meals for four people, that works out to $34.52 for each meal or $8.63 per person. Again, we can’t eat at McDonald’s for that price, so we are already winning in my book. I didn’t have to go to the grocery store for either of these meals, and the FedEx lady brought it to my front door. Even better.

However, we usually don’t eat at McDonald’s twice a week either, so you have to factor that in to the weekly cost.

Meal Number 1: Mozzarella & Mushroom Hoagies

This was our favorite meal, I believe, so far. These were delicious. I will definitely be making these again. I need to experiment and find out what they put in their fry seasoning. It was really great on the roasted potato wedges. That’s the one downfall of just using Hello Fresh’s recipes alone. When they send you your meals, they send you everything that you would need to make it. You can always substitute veggie stock for veggie stock, but “fry seasoning” is pretty vague.

This meal was SO filling. It was almost too much for one sitting, but there were no leftovers.

Meal Number 2: Garden Mushroom-Stuffed Ravioli

The Garden Mushroom Stuffed Ravioli was another hit at our house. It was very tasty and filling. Liv loves zucchini, but wasn’t a fan of the ribbons. She would have preferred that the zucchini was chopped, but that’s just a texture issue, not a taste one. It looked very pretty even though you can’t tell from my photo.

This is another recipe that I’ll have to do a substitution with, because I’ve never seen mushroom ravioli at my grocery stores. But I definitely want to make this one again. It was delicious.

Question: Do you call scallions green onions? We do. That was a staple in my Mama and Daddy’s garden every year. Now I need to find some green onion seed or sets……

My Final Thoughts

Our third week taught us all that we now have two new recipes to add to our meal planning repertoire. The cost is still perplexing to me. I have no idea how Hello Fresh calculates what they charge. And I’m pretty certain from what I can see in the breakdown that I’m not receiving free shipping like they advertised. The price each week is still falling into what I would budget for all four of us to eat out with, so I’m looking forward to what the remaining weeks of our trial has to offer.

If you would like to try Hello Fresh for yourself, you can use this link to get $100.00 off. This will also give me $10.00 off too, so thanks in advance!

Have you tried Hello Fresh? What did you think? Did you find the value in the food or the learning experience? I need all the details, and if you have a favorite meal from them, I would love to try that too!

Food Experiments: Beef & Veggie Bibimbap | Crunchy Curried Chickpea Bowls

Hello my friends! I am back with week two of my food experiment with Hello Fresh. You can read about the first week here. Let’s get into it, shall we?

The Cost

For our second week the two meals cost us $69.04. Divided by two meals for four people, that works out to $34.52 for each meal or $8.63 per person. We can’t eat at McDonald’s for that price, so we are already winning in my book. I didn’t have to go to the grocery store for either of these meals, and the FedEx lady brought it to my front door. Even better.

However, we usually don’t eat at McDonald’s twice a week either, so you have to factor that in.

Meal Number 1: Beef & Veggie Bibimbap

Beef and Veggie Bibimbap was hands down a keeper. We will definitely be making this again. I told you in my What’s for Supper post yesterday that we have close friends that are from South Korea. After I mentioned that we had tried Bibimbap with Hello Fresh, he immediately called home and had his MIL whip up a batch for their supper that night and brought over a huge portion for us to compare to.

You have to remember that my main reason for wanting to try this food experiment was to try new things that I know are supposed to taste like what they actually are. Kim ran a Korean restaurant for decades and I’m telling you it was very, very close to what she made us for dinner. She is an AMAZING cook and what I made was very comparable.

Another thing that I love about Hello Fresh is the portion sizes. They send you EXACTLY the amount of everything that you need to cook the meal (with the exception of olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, etc) and the portions are spot on. We had extra beef because I fried Liv some tofu to go with her bowl (she doesn’t eat meat), so her portion was left over. I had thought that I would just divide it between the three of us, but I seriously did not need it. It was perfect the way they intended and it was extremely filling. We loved this meal!

Meal Number 2: Crunchy Curried Chickpea Bowls

Crunchy Curried Chickpea Bowls was another matter. I’m calling this a fail. Not because the meal was bad, but because apparently none of us are ready for curry in our culinary journey.

I can’t actually say that with any authority, because none of us had ever had curry before. I don’t know if it was the curry or just the mixture of SO many things in this bowl that we don’t normally eat together. It had jasmine rice with carrots, fried kale, pickled cabbage, crunchy chickpeas – which Liv and I love, I make them quite often – with raisins sprinkled over the top and a drizzle of the curry, sour cream mixture over the top of everything. It was A LOT of flavors mixed together.

We should definitely try curry again, but I think I will try to find something a little more – simple – next time.

My Final Thoughts

Our first weeks meals broke down to $5.28 per person, per meal. Our second weeks meals were $8.63 per person, per meal. As I said the first week, I don’t know how Hello Fresh does their math, so I’m still waiting to see what the rest of the weeks break down like.

It is still very worth it to us as a family because Number One: we can afford to pay the cost each week, and Number Two: it’s doing exactly what I wanted this experiment to do, which is get us out of our comfort zone, to try new things, and eat more veggies in our diet. If you are in a financial place where the cost would make this experiment prohibitive for your family, I would HIGHLY recommend that you search their recipes and make it yourself. So far their recipes have been quite simple and easy to follow and the meals taste delicious. If you overlook the fact that we are apparently not very adventurous when it comes to curry. 🙂

If you would like to try Hello Fresh for yourself, you can use this link to get $100.00 off. This will also give me $10.00 off too, so thanks in advance!

Category: Food Experiments