Hello Fresh Review & Giveaway (closed)!
I am going to start off by saying...I do not know how to cook. Yes, I know you can learn how to cook on Pinterest in the matter of minutes but sadly some of the directions are not as detailed as I would like. For example, I grew up in a house that never cooked red meat. I then married a man that wanted me to make him tacos one night. I was 23 years old and never cooked tacos, nor red meat. To make the long story short, I ended up throwing the meat in the pan with the plastic still on it. It was a melted mess.
So when my friend offered me a FREE week of Hello Fresh I figured I would give it a try. If you do not know what Hello Fresh is, it is basically a food subscription service that delivers fresh ingredients and healthy recipes straight to your doorstep each week. They have a a few plans you can choose from and such. If you want to get more details head over to their site HERE.
(use code 2ANSMS and you can get $40 off your first box)
So on to my review.
For my free box I chose the Classic Box which feeds 2 people for 3 meals and is originally priced at $69...
In the free box I received a Salmon meal, a chicken meal, and a steak meal.
Below are pictures of the booklet they send you in the box. In the booklet they provide a picture of what each meal is suppose to look like when you are done...and the recipes.
As a person that never cooks, some of the cooking lingo I had to look up, like the word shallots...haha.
So, if you are not a cooker, like me, you might need the help of google, like I did, to understand some of the directions.
When you order a box you can choose the day you want it delivered on. I chose a Friday and sure enough it showed up right on time. So, I was impressed by that.
In the box all the items are surrounded by ice packs and padding. The meat was at the bottom under another ice pack. Nothing was frozen when I received it. Below is a picture of the packing.
Anyways, back to the food.
This is what came in the box.
So, that is what I did.
Here is what came in the Salmon meal.
It was crushed on one side and was already turning a little brown. And it was not wrapped in anything, which might be fine, but for me I just found that a little gross for some reason. It just looked like it was touched a lot haha.
Yum.
With this meal, and the others, I did learn some things and tried some foods I never had before. Now, you have to understand my husband and I are not used to eating this healthy anymore and our tastes buds were not used to it. So, this was good for us. Unfortunately we did not like it. We ate it and we were feed for the night, but we would never eat it again. The spices used for the fish I did not care for and the type of greens for the salad was also not for us. We did like the citrus in the salad but that was about it. The couscous was easy to prepare but was bland even with the added items to it. I would probably eat couscous again if it was seasoned differently.
This is how it came out for us.
Just too bad it didn't taste as good as it looked.
Even though this was not for my husband and I, it might be something your family might love.
I only got a picture of the chicken meal.
The whole experience with the other 2 meals went a lot like the fish one did. I learned some and we didn't like some. My husband liked the chicken and steak meals more than the fish but he still had a hard time wrapping his head around how much healthier they were than Wendy's. haha.
Here is the chicken meal.
For the steak my husband liked it but I don't like steak. I did enjoy the rice though.
Final thoughts...
I would say that these recipes did teach me a lot of new things and made me realize I should probably have certain items on hand if I ever want to cook haha. It also helped me see how much food I actually needed for one meal to feed my husband and I. Also, with these meals you don't really have any left overs. We did have some of the sides left over after our meals but that was mostly because we did not like them haha. If we liked them we would have eaten more with our meals.
Honestly at the price of $69 a week I would want leftovers. Each meal also took longer than expected for me to prepare, which is probably just me because I never cook so a 30 minute meal for me takes at least an hour...
But still, with that amount of time I would want left overs because usually we eat dinner leftovers for lunch the next day...but with this we had to actually make lunch haha.
If I could do it again I probably would have picked the Family box option since they say they have more family friendly recipes, so, things kids pallets would prefer, which is probably more along the lines of what we would have preferred.
Am I going to continue this subscription?
No.
It just isn't for my husband and I. I can see it working great for other families, especially if you lived far from a grocery store or just did not have time to go shopping, or you just enjoy trying new meals. But for the price I can get more food at my local grocery store that is just 2 miles from my house. I also was a little disappointed that some of the vegetables that came in my meals did not look fresh. Besides the celery in my fish meal, there was also a tomato that didn't look good either.
Because this is a subscription service they do give you options to get a box each week, or to space it out, pause your subscription, or cancel it.
It is easy to cancel.
**CLOSED**
Winners have been contacted over facebook!
You can see the list of winner HERE.
Want to try HelloFresh for FREE?!
So, if you want a free box all you have to do is....
FollowLaura's Hideaway on Instagram
Like Shop for Less with Laura on Facebook
and follow this blog on Bloglovin!
I will pick 3 winners on October 22 and you have to order by the end of day on the 23rd. (I will message you over facebook if you are one of the winners so make sure you like the facebook page!)
You must do all 3 to get a box!
This is only for those that have not signed up for Hello Fresh before and live in the US.
**This is a subscription box so once you claim your free box and it is delivered to you, you will need to go cancel it if that is what you decide or else it will keep charging you!**