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“Final” Blue Apron Review Series – Smoky Chicken & Brown Butter-Orange Sauce

This month we are reviewing the meal order service Blue Apron! Each week we’re going to review a new recipe, and in the last installment we’ll look at the service as a whole. Each week we’ll score on three key points: Quality of Ingredients, Ease of Instructions, and Taste. Each will have a five-point scale: 1-Poor, 2-Could be Better, 3-Okay, 4-Good, and 5-Excellent.

This week’s, and the final, recipe we tried from Blue Apron was the Smoky Chicken & Brown Butter-Orange Sauce with Sautéed Cabbage & Mashed Potatoes.

Quality of Ingredients: All of the ingredients for this recipe were very good. The produce was fresh and in good condition. The honey and butter were of great quality individually packaged in the correct amounts. The portions also seemed very appropriate.

Ease of Instructions: The instructions for this recipe were the most complicated yet. With multiple steps and times occurring simultaneously, things did get confusing. I ended up keeping the chicken in a little too long, but thankfully it wasn’t overdone.

Taste: The flavor of this recipe was excellent. I really enjoyed the spice blend with the sauce on the chicken. There was a great depth of flavor with the spice, fat and acid of the sauce with the brightness and sweet flavor of the orange. The potatoes and cabbage were simple but also paired well with the sauce and chicken.

Overall: Blue Apron overall provided great recipes with good quality ingredients. The recipes were sometimes confusing, but reading them through once or twice before beginning helped with that. The service was prompt with email alerts and an app to help you order and track your meals. I found this convenient. All orders ship at the beginning of the month, so you can’t simply order a meal at any point, which wasn’t a problem for me. However, due to inclement weather the first delivery was delayed a day. This just meant I needed to plan around it. The flavor of all the recipes were excellent. The attention to detail with the combination of ingredients is really amazing. Especially when there are so few ingredients in each one. I love the cards they give for each recipe as well. I’ll definitely hold on to these and make them again. Overall I’d give Blue Apron a 4.5/5. It’s a great service!

February 21, 2019
Blue Apron Review Series – Hoisin Chicken Steam Buns

This month we are reviewing the meal order service Blue Apron! Each week we’re going to review a new recipe, and in the last installment we’ll look at the service as a whole. Each week we’ll score on three key points: Quality of Ingredients, Ease of Instructions, and Taste. Each will have a five-point scale: 1-Poor, 2-Could be Better, 3-Okay, 4-Good, and 5-Excellent.

This week are reviewing some Hoisin Chicken Steam Buns with Marinated Carrots and Miso Cabbage Slaw.

Quality of Ingredients: The ingredients for this recipe were all very good. The produce was fresh and clean, with no blemishes. The chicken had no excess fat and was already cut, which was fantastic. I loved the “bao” buns. They were very pillowy and steamed up well without sticking.

Ease of Instructions: There is a lot going on in this recipe. But the instructions were broken down very clear. The only problem I had was that the chicken is the second out of five steps, and although the instructions include covering to keep warm, it still ended up cooling down a bit.

Taste: The flavor here was great. A little heat, sweetness and sourness. The carrots added a nice fresh and acidic component. The buns were great and had the perfect chew to them. The slaw was also very good, but a little one-note, even with the miso dressing. Overall very good mouth-feel and flavor.

February 8, 2019
Blue Apron Review Series – Tandoori Style Chicken

This month we are reviewing the meal order service Blue Apron! Each week we’re going to review a new recipe, and in the last installment we’ll look at the service as a whole. Each week we’ll score on three key points: Quality of Ingredients, Ease of Instructions, and Taste. Each will have a five-point scale: 1-Poor, 2-Could be Better, 3-Okay, 4-Good, and 5-Excellent.

The first recipe I tried was the Tandoori-Style Roasted Chicken. Each meal comes with all of the ingredients pre-packaged. It also comes with a recipe card and nutritional information. This was nice to have, especially if you like the recipe and want to make it again.

Recipe Card and Ingredients

First up is Quality of Ingredients. The ingredients for this meal were fairly simple, with the more complicated flavors already combined in a tomato chutney. I only had a problem with the freshness of two pieces of produce, the Cabbage and the Poblano Pepper. They weren’t unusable, but the cabbage started to spot and half of the pepper was very soft (almost mushy). For the cabbage I just had to peel a few extra layers off. With the poblano I discarded the top, and as I had a green bell pepper on hand, I subbed in a little of that.

The Ease of Instructions were good. Although thorough, they were complex for only having seven ingredients. Each needed to be prepared separately and cooking times varied between the Farro, Vegetables and Chicken. Overall, if you read the whole card in advance (maybe twice) there shouldn’t be any issues.

This recipe takes home the gold on flavor. The yogurt-tomato chutney covered chicken was very flavorful, with a good combination of acid, sourness and spice. The Farro/Vegetable mixture was simple, yet had a nice complex flavor from roasting the cabbage and pepper.

February 1, 2019
Cranberry Cereal Wreaths

Zoe’s Take:

5.5/10

These looked really promising in the cookbook… however, I definitely had some doubts. First of all, it’s a whole lot of sugary sweetness in one cookie. White chocolate is very sweet, and paired with dried fruit (also very sweet), cornflakes, almonds and marshmallows, it was just way too much. Don’t get me wrong, I like sweet things. But these were just way too sweet for me. Then there’s the fact that actually making them is a very messy process. I used a very large mixing bowl, and ingredients still kept coming out while I was mixing it. Also, it’s a little bit impossible to mix cornflakes gently. Finally, actually shaping the wreaths was a PAIN. I was smart and used gloves, but I don’t think most home cooks keep gloves for cooking in their pantry. They didn’t want to stick together and making the hole in the center was even more frustrating. They took about 15 minutes to cool down and dry and THEN they stuck together pretty well. I do like that they are very good for decorating.

Eric’s Take:

6/10

This was a disappointment for me. I felt the same way Zoe did. Everything started out well. The ingredients were easy to find and put together. Everything changed when it came time to form the wreathes. The batter was very sticky, but as I made the holes and formed the wreathes as instructed, they started to fall apart. I can give the recipe the benefit of the doubt though. For this recipe I believe timing is critical. Once the white chocolate begins to cool it’s more difficult for the mix to keep a shape. The ones that made it hardened and were easy to decorate and transfer to a plate, which I was worried about. They second major problem…again, much like Zoe I felt they were too sweet. I don’t like super sweet things, so these made me cringe a bit. I think they would be great paired with other treats though, and would make a lovely addition to a cookie plate.

December 12, 2018
Bob’s Burgers Burger Book Final Review

Texas Chainsaw Massa-curd Burger

A habanero stuffed patty slathered in melty cheese curds and homemade ginger-ketchup.

Be careful! This burger is hot!

Zoe’s Take:

9/10

I really liked this burger, but I also really like hot peppers. If you don’t love hotness, you probably won’t love this one as much as I did. There are 4 (yes you read that right) habaneros peppers diced up in the patty. Paired with the melty cheese curds, and the sweetness of the homemade ketchup, I think it was a pretty perfect burger. I give it a 9 because I think it’s probably too hot for a lot of people.

Eric’s Take:

9/10

This burger was fantastic. Habaneros are my favorite pepper by far. Once you get past the heat they have a great and unique flavor. I was cautious about the amount of heat I was adding, and the habaneros I had were pretty big so I only used two. I also grilled burgers. This may have caused the oils from the peppers to leak out of the burger. I say this because I didn’t feel it was spicy at all, but all the flavor of the habaneros was there. The cheese curds also added a great flavor and texture, which was great. The home made ginger-ketchup was really good too. However, I halved the amount of recommended ginger and it was still a lot. I gave this burger a 9 because it was a great burger and was easy enough to make, however, the proportions of ingredients seemed to be a little off.

Zoe’s Take on the Cookbook as a Whole:

10/10

This is one of the coolest cookbooks I’ve ever used. I love burgers so much, and this book is ONLY burgers. So if you’re like me and enjoy burgers, and interesting ones at that, I definitely recommend buying this book. I can’t promise you that all of recipes are going to be 10/10, but that’s just my opinion. For you, it could be all 10/10.

Eric’s Take on the Cookbook as a Whole:

9/10

This was a super fun cookbook. Great layout, fun recipes and easy instructions. The proportions for ingredients were a little off sometimes and some ingredients were very hard to find. If you love burgers this is a MUST have. I look forward to using this book for a long time coming.

October 30, 2018
Bob’s Burgers Burger Book #4

The Jack-O’-Lentil Burger

We’re talking about Over-the-Top the movie–this Hamburger tastes like arm wrestling.

Zoe’s Take

9/10

I absolutely loved this burger. I didn’t think I would because I’m normally not the biggest fan of lentils. But I actually adored every bit of this burger. The lentil mixture was actually amazing. The added sweetness from the honey, plus the hotness of the serrano peppers ACTUALLY worked. I love most things that have goat cheese on them, and this was no exception. The baby spinach provided a nice crunch as well, which is definitely necessary for this burger. There is an earthiness to this burger that I didn’t expect to love, but I do. The reason why I didn’t give this a 10, is because it’s also a very messy burger, because the lentils fall off when you tilt the burger, which is sad.

Eric’s Take

8.5/10

This was my favorite burger yet. The creamy goat cheese and fresh spinach with the sweet and spicy lentil mixture had great texture and depth of flavor. The honey and the serrano pepper did a lot for the lentil mixture. It was certainly a messy burger, but the lentil mixture held up better than I thought it would. This burger lost a point for the complexity. For the average person the multiple steps of this burger may be daunting. Cooking lentils is no easy task if you’ve never done it before. I actually overcooked my first batch. The half a point was lost on difficulty of sourcing ingredients. The “Orange Lentils” were difficult to find. I finally managed to get Red Lentils, which are really the same thing.

October 24, 2018
Review: The Fix Burger Bar
IT’S NATIONAL CHEESEBURGER DAY!!! What better way to celebrate then heading to The Fix Burger Bar! We headed there over the weekend to bring you this review and we’re glad we did. Check out our thoughts below.

The Fix Burger Bar in Worcester, MA is the cities “first true burger bar.” The restaurant is one of many in the area owned by Niche Hospitality. Never having had a bad meal at any of their restaurants, we felt this would be a great “first true restaurant review.” Located in the Northworks building on Grove St. this feel-good burger concept has maintained a steady following of patrons since its start on Shrewsbury St. With good service, casual atmosphere and great food it’s no wonder why.

We first tried to visit The Fix on a Friday afternoon…unfortunately for us, there was a gas leak which closed the kitchen. We knew they’d be very busy the next day, but that didn’t stop us. Of course, we were right. We put our names in for a 30 minute wait, but got a text saying that our table was ready after about 25 minutes. It’s also important to mention there were three of us, so we needed a four-top. We were seated in the very back corner which was a bit quieter than then the main dinning area. On the way to the table we observed every single table filled. They were definitely packed. They also seemed a bit short staffed, so we expected long waits and a bit less than our server’s undivided attention.

The first category we looked at was service. Our server scored major points for starting us off with waters right as we were seated and acknowledging they were exceptionally busy. As crazy as it seemed she was still fairly attentive. We ordered appetizers (Fried Pickles, Quebec Poutine) and our meals (The Crunchy, The Spicy Tuna, and The Mushroom) at the same time, about 10 minutes after being seated. It was only another 10 minutes for the pickles to arrive and about another 5 minutes for the poutine. We got our burgers after about 40 minutes, which was a good pace. We also ordered a dessert (B5 Chocolate Spring Rolls) and coffee, which at most took about 5 minutes.

Our second category was atmosphere. The overall style is New American with a light circus/vaudevillian theme with references to strongmen and acrobats. The lighting is dim, but not too dark to see. The music was at a good level, but blended in with the ambient noise. They generally played upbeat top 40s. The building is beautiful with high ceilings and exposed brick and beams. The dinning room and bathroom were both very clean. The overall vibe plays very well to a younger and more hip crowed. With tasteful decor they achieve their theme well.

The most important part is of course the food. We’re rating seven items for this review. The two apps, three burgers, dessert and the coffee.
- Fried Pickles – So often when I get fried pickles they come out soft and soggy. The Fix’s fried pickles were anything but that. The pickles were cooked perfectly with a slight bend, but overall very sturdy feel. This made them very easy to dip in the horseradish sauce; which paired perfectly with the tang from the pickle and wasn’t at all overpowering. The batter coated the pickles well and didn’t break apart while holding. Both the pickles and batter had a great crunch. Of the fried pickles I’ve had these are certainly among the better.
- Quebec Poutine – The poutine at The Fix comes multiple ways. We opted for the more traditional “Quebec” style, but we also added the duck confit. The fries were cooked very well with a crisp exterior and soft interior. The rosemary and black pepper gravy seemed a bit light for the dish and caused some fries to get rather soggy. However, the flavor was great. The Maplebrook Farms’ cheddar cheese curds were melted well and had a great mild flavor. One problem was that the room was cool and the cheese began to clump together after a little while, so it was difficult to separate. The duck confit was sweet and tender, which added a nice dimension to the dish. Overall the flavors all worked very well together and was very good.
- The Crunchy – This is one of my personal favorites. This burger delivers on its name with major crunch. I ordered my burger medium well and it came to order. The sesame bun was nice and soft with a light toast. The patty itself was well seasoned and held together well. The fried prosciutto was more like bacon and added a good saltiness. The parmesan crisp and potato chips likewise added a lot of crunch, but not too much flavor. The good thing about the parmesan crisp was it kept the bottom bun dry. The garlic aioli was light and didn’t have a very strong garlic taste, which could be good or bad depending on preference. I personally like a strong garlic flavor. One component I didn’t care for much was the mustard pickles. I love pickles, and they were as crisp and flavorful as the fried ones from the appetizer. I felt the mustard was just a bit too strong. Everything together worked very well, and despite the strong mustard taste I enjoyed it very much.
- The Spicy Tuna – I only had a taste of this burger, but it was very good. The tuna was ordered medium rare and came out perfect and was well seasoned. The tuna steak was a bit thin, but still held it’s shape and was proportional to the rest of the ingredients. The spicy kimchi and sriracha aioli added a nice heat along with the sweeter and more mild soy sauce. The bun was nice and soft, but the bottom was a bit soggy from absorbing the moisture from the sauce and tuna. Overall it was a good burger and was well composed.
- The Mushroom – As with The Spicy Tuna, I only had a bite of this. The patty again, was cooked to order and was well seasoned. The sautéed onions and mushrooms added a nice sweetness and earthiness. The truffle aioli also added another dimension of earthy flavor. The pepperiness of the arugula went well with the truffle and mushrooms. Finally the sharpness of the swiss cheese rounded out the burger well. Unfortunately, the bottom of the brioche bun was also a bit soggy. Overall this burger has a well thought out flavor profile and great taste.
- B5 Chocolate Spring Rolls – I wasn’t expecting to get dessert, but my god I’m glad I did. These things are magical. Thin crisp wonton wraps are cover an incredibly most cake, which is soft and spongy, yet somehow creamy. The spring rolls also have a semi-sweet chocolate sauce which pairs perfectly with the cake and dipping sauces. The sauces included the ginger strawberry and whipped cream, but also a bourbon caramel. All were nice a sweet, but not too much. I tried many different flavor combinations with the sauces and spring rolls. All were phenomenal. The caramel and ginger strawberry together almost taste like Dr. Pepper, which was a great discovery. This may well be my new favorite dessert.
- House Blend Coffee – I didn’t plan on reviewing the coffee, but man was is good. It is the same house blend Niche serves at their other restaurants, and was brought to the table in a french press. I drink my coffee black, and this was very mellow and smooth. A great way to end a great meal.
September 18, 2018