Eating Outside the Box

As we are spending most of our evenings at home these days, food delivery has taken on a new meaning. There are so many well-assembled boxes available now to help us out, but which ones are the best? I have tried my hand at several of the meal delivery kits, such as Hello Fresh, Home Chef, and Blue Apron, writing about them here in some detail. If only I had known about consumersadvocate.org, I could have possibly saved money (and most definitely time) to see how these boxes stack up first! While I am a great believer in experiencing things for oneself, consumersadvocate.org provides a handy, thorough guideline to cooking, out of these boxes: Hello Fresh, Home Chef, Sun Basket, Every Plate, Freshly, Plated, and Blue Apron.

Click here for their "Best Meal Delivery Services" to get their comprehensive guide based on convience, shipping and delivery, cost, quality of ingredients and the variety of cuisines offered.

In the meantime, here's a recipe I featured from Blue Apron for Lemongrass Shrimp, peppered with my comments.

A peek into what's inside the boxes!



Do enjoy and thanks to consumersadvocate.org!

Zucchini Tahini Dip

This is quite simple--and I believe it's even vegan! Everything is tossed into a blender and should amply serve a reasonable number of guests, depending on their voraciousness.

Zucchini Tahini Dip
Makes about two cups

Ingredients
An admirably sized zucchini, chopped--or 10 oz frozen vegetables of your liking, thawed. I found a great zucchini and summer squash frozen mix

1 cup tahini
Juice from one whole lime
1 cup roughly chopped red onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tsps paprika
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps mustard seeds or powder
1 tsp salt perhaps, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3/4 cup good olive oil

Method
Throw everything except for the olive oil into a blender and push play. Then drizzle the olive oil in as well while the motor is still running. Place in an attractive vessel and let sit for a few hours in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature and suggest that your guests spread the dip on crackers, such as Ryvita wholegrain rye crispbreads topped with pumpkin seeds. Perfect for the season--do enjoy!