This post is brought to you by a Healthy Slice of Life sponsor.
Growing up I have fond memories of helping my mom make chocolate chip cookies. She joked that she could only have two kids because she only had two beaters to share among us. No one remind her there is also a spatula involved that is the real prize. Looking back, I wish I would have helped out more often beyond cookies because the kitchen is now my happy place.
The kitchen really is the heart of the home, isn’t it? I love nothing more than an aromatic, noisy kitchen filled with conversation, flowing wine and giggles from little ones. Something about preparing food brings people together in a convivial fashion, which makes for my favorite kind of memories.
However nowadays, many of us are so busy that the idea of the family creating a meal together feels far fetched. There are meals to plan, ingredients to go buy and spending a luxurious couple hours in the kitchen just isn’t feasible. My mom and I often joke about ‘if only making dinner was more like a cooking show.’ You know, how everything on TV is set out and ready to go so the host can just do the fun part, cooking it!
This past week I had the opportunity to try Blue Apron, and my mom and I laughed that our wish had finally been granted.
Cooking show in a box? Score! Let me explain.
Have you heard of Blue Apron? Blue Apron is a service that delivers fresh ingredients right to your door, along with detailed menu cards outlining the simple steps necessary to create delicious chef-designed recipes at home.
I loved how each ingredient was clearly labeled and was pleasantly surprised that they did, indeed, arrive fresh, even the herbs.
Blue Apron offers two options. There is a two-person meal plan which sets you up with three (two-person) meals a week for $9.99 a meal. They also offer a family plan, which I chose, that includes two (four-person) meals to be served family style for $8.74 per meal. Shipping is always free and there is a wide selection of recipes, with new ones being added every week.
The real treat is that we all could be involved, making the process of making dinner a lot of fun.
The meal we made was Chinese Five Spice Shrimp with Coconut Rice. Sounds delicious right?? Since Asian dishes intimidate me, I was really looking forward to trying a completely different kind of meal than I was used to. Exploring the ingredients was fun. I couldn’t stop sniffing the Chinese Five Spice while Hailey was into sampling everything.
In fact, we almost didn’t have enough pineapple left to put into the dish!
But that is what made it amusing. Without stressing if we had everything we needed or how long dinner would take (all recipes are ready in less than 40 minutes), we were able to focus on just being together. There may or may not have been dancing involved (no worries mom, I left that picture out!)
Hailey loved helping. There were so many steps she could do on her own and I reveled in watching her explore the new tastes and smells. She really was so into it.
Being so intricately involved in the process, she was excited to try the final product.
Though she worked around the bok choy, she enjoyed her meal, and she wasn’t the only one…
We all sat together to enjoy the fruits of our labor, which mom and I both felt were restaurant quality.
The experience was truly wonderful. Having all the details taken care of by Blue Apron, we were able to focus solely on the together time.
I hope that one day when my girls are grown, they’ll have many fond memories of us all being together in the kitchen. I certainly have plenty of mental snapshots that I know I’ll always treasure of these times we’ve spent together cooking.
I look forward to more Blue Apron meals in our future because I’d love to try the Farro Jambalaya with Crispy Maitake Mushrooms or the Lamb Gyros with Roasted Cauliflower Salad. Mmm….
Are you interested in trying it for yourself? Blue Apron is offering the first 50 readers TWO FREE MEALS off their Blue Apron order.
Click here to take advantage of the offer!
This post is sponsored by Blue Apron.
Did you help in the kitchen growing up?
Do you enjoy a bustling kitchen?
What is your favorite thing to make with your friends/husband/kids?
Jessica says
I’ve seen Blue Apron on SO many blogs in the past few months and this is by far the best post/review of it. Kudos for doing a great job on a sponsored post. <3
Brittany Dixon says
Thank you! That means a lot. I know avid blog readers have certainly heard of Blue Apron right now but I truly did enjoy the experience of getting to use the service to have fun with the fam! I will be using it again on my own dime for sure. Thank you for your comment!
Erin @ Her Heartland Soul says
What a great post!! I love the picture of the girls hugging. <3 I hope to have two little girls someday.
Joanna @Makingmine says
How cool! Anything that takes a little bit of the mess and stress out of making dinner gets my vote, haha!
jen says
Ha! My mom was more of a microwave user than a master chef, but we did make cookies and stuff together, and I do hope to do more cooking with my daughter when she’s older.
And that stuff you made looks delicious!
Liz @ I Heart Vegetables says
Alex and I have used Blue Apron and handful of times and I love it! It’s fun to try some new ingredients and recipes that I haven’t thought of before!
Dale says
I’d love it if you could do a post about ways to get your kids involved in the kitchen. I have a four year old and a two year old and they ALWAYS want to help. It’s actually kind of frustrating because the only things I can really think of to let them do is dump stuff into bowls….great if we’re baking something, but when I’m cooking dinner it just seems like everything involves knives or the hot stove. You seem to do such a great job getting Hailey involved! I’d love to hear exactly what “jobs” you give her (and what you had her do when she was younger too!) Thanks!
Brittany Dixon says
What a great idea for a post! I’ll have to get on writing a post about that soon. Thanks!!
Kris M. says
Hate to say, I am tired of all the Blue Apron blogger reviews. Maybe it’s a great convenience, but I’d never order.
Brynn says
I love how you have your daughters help in the kitchen. Growing up I never got into cooking so I had to learn very late in life. OK, I did make cookies, but you can’t survive on cookies. hehe.
Brittany Dixon says
Haha I love it! “you can’t survive on cookies”… my 94 year old grandma is a chocolate chip cookie addict and may beg to differ 😉
Yuliya says
What a fun experience! This service does seem like a fairly inexpensive way to try out some new ingredients and recipes 😉
I love cooking with my mom and grandma, which we don’t get to do so often now that I live in the Netherlands. I’ve been working on getting my son (2.5 years old ish) more involved in the kitchen and he’s been loving it, too! It’s so sweet that you got to cook with your mom and Hailey 🙂
Julia says
I just ordered Blue Apron for the first time this weekend. I am so excited to give the service a try!
Brittany Dixon says
Have you gotten the email yet with what is being sent to you? That was the most exciting part for me! Haha 🙂 Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Julia says
Yes! I did not get the meals I thought I was signing up for since the menu changed by the time I was able to sign up, but I also loved the ability to customize our menu. My husband is a pretty boring eater and not very adventurous, but he was even pleased with the menu. I don’t eat pork and he can’t eat shellfish so our options are somewhat cut down 🙁
Liv @ Healthy Liv says
I LOVED helping in the kitchen when I was younger! When I was little, I’d just pull up a stool and take the stirring spoon out of my mom’s hand– haha! And then I grew to love cooking on my own when I was a little older, maybe 9-10 or so. I’ve always just loved the kitchen 🙂
Christy @TheMuddyApron says
My mom just ordered Blue Apron for her and my dad. She said it’s great because it’s portioned just for them and she gets to try new recipes.
C.
Tanya says
We have used Blue Apron a couple times and we really enjoy it, so far the food has been so delicious…probably better than anything we have ever cooked on our own before. And I love the step by step instructions (Alex has a hard time with recipes hehehe). We accidentally scheduled it last week and I almost offered it to you (so funny) because I thought it might be too difficult to juggle right now, but it actually wasn’t hard at all. I prepped the ingredients during the day when I had small windows of time and then just threw it all together that night. We also worried that we wouldn’t be able to use all the meals because of Alex’s allergy to dairy, but in our experience any dairy they provide with the veggie meals are more of a condiment and can be left out of the dish or I can use on mine and Eleanor’s and can leave off of Alex’s. I thought that might be helpful if any of your readers were interested in knowing. Lastly, for us, a two-person meal plan works perfectly for Eleanor, Alex and myself. Sometimes still with leftovers!
Brittany Dixon says
The dish you made last night looked amazing!! And thanks for the dairy info too- great info for those looking to avoid it.
Danica @ It's Progression says
My brother, sister, and I all love to cook (and bake). My parents though, rarely cooked much when we were kids and when they did it was one of 3-4 meals they rotated through. My siblings and I joke that we love to cook so much now (and are good at it) because if we wanted to eat as kids we had to fend for ourselves 😉
I’m so excited to involve my own kids in the kitchen some day.
Meghan says
I am really curious about that wooden contraption that Hailey is standing on in the kitchen! Looks super helpful. Did you construct it or find it?
Brittany Dixon says
David made it after I showed him some pictures of the learning tower. We use it everyday!!
Belinda says
Aw, I have fond memories of baking with Mum. I got my own mini utensils and apron and would mix up my own cookies. Of course, Mum would always swap it for one of hers so I thought I had created a masterpiece! After my parents divorced, my Dad had to learn how to cook, so we would try all sorts of recipes together every weekend. Some of my best father-daughter moments
Jess C says
What kind of knife is Hailey using in these pictures? Looks great as a first-time knife and I’m looking for something similar that my son can use to help chop up soft veggies and fruits with me.
Thanks!
Brittany Dixon says
We gave her some Curious Chef knives for Christmas (http://curiouschef.com/) and they are sharp enough to cut some things (great for bananas!) but aren’t sharp enough to really hurt. Great learning tool!
Meg says
I always helped my mom bake. I liked to test the ingredients as they went in!
I’ve used Green Chef and have been pleased. They use all organic ingredients and the meals take under 30 minutes:)
Rachel Starr says
I just got a mailer for Blue Apron last week! Not knowing what it was I went to their website and was really really intrigued. I loathe grocery shopping and get sick of making the same rotation of meals so I’m thinking I’ll give this a try 🙂
Kate @KateMovingForward says
What a fun review and what a great service! I love that the food is all fresh and real ingredients! I love cooking with my mom growing up and look forward to passing that on to my daughter. 🙂
Laura @FitMamaLove says
I didn’t grow up helping cook and was alway pretty terrible with what I did attempt, but now I love having my kids help in the kitchen. I’ll admit it was easier when I only had one, though! I love the idea of Blue Apron for making weekday dinners easier to put together!
Helen says
You totally sold me; we are going to get our first Blue Apron box in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see what they send us. Quick question: what kind of knife is your daughter using in the pics above? My daughter loves helping in the kitchen but I haven’t been able to find a good knife for her to use.
Brittany Dixon says
We have a set of three knives from the curious chef that we really love!
http://curiouschef.com/shop/best-sellers/medium-nylon-plastic-knife/
Amanda says
Some of my favorite childhood memories were spending time in the kitchen with my mom and sisters baking. And now, as a mom, it is one of my favorite ways to make memories with my kids. I love watching them explore all kinds of foods with their senses.
Julia @ LordStillLovesMe says
I specifically remember baking with both my mother and father during my childhood, and those truly are some of my most fond memories. I used to devour the batter like it was nobody’s business.
Brittany, your posts always give me the feels!!
fridge freezer sale says
Great article, great review and some really good tips. Look forward to trying them out.
Great Expectations Home health care agency in Annandale, Alexandria (Old Town), Arlington, McLean, Woodbridge, Manassas, Fairfax city and county in VA and Prince George's Cheverly, College Park , Baltimore City/County, Charles County, Bethesda - Chevy Ch says
Complete list of home health care in Mclean, VA with contact info. Compare pricing and quality. Home health, Home care, Home health services, Home care services. Alexandria, Mclean, Arlington, Woodbridge, Lorton, Manassas VA home health care agencies with detailed information about Great Expectations home health care agency. Providing You With Health Care at Home Great Expectations is a Professional, compassionate & Caring, affordable, Certified, eligible, guaranteed with revolutionary low cost, world’s greatest, state-of-the-art, In-Home Health Care Services Agency for children, adult and elderly