"I Don't Cook," I said, while casually throwing various ingredients above my head and mincing them midair.

The following post was sponsored by Blue Apron, a dinner delivery service that delivers ingredients and recipes for healthy family eating TO YOUR HOUSE so all you have to do is open your door, open a box, pull the ingredients out of the box and cook the food with the recipe included. 

This is kind of a follow-up to Tuesdays post in a way because, last week, I cooked four entire majorly serious time-consuming meals. Not because I wanted to (I do not love cooking, you guys. The apple falls very fall from the tree in that respect) but because Blue Apron (see info on free meal offer, below) gave me no choice. Which is, perhaps, the greatest review I could possibly give such a service. 

I'm the same way with gyms. I will get a membership and go never. Because:

A. I don't have time. 

B. It's too much work.

C. It overwhelms me just thinking about being in that space.
D. I do not like gyms.

I like to go on walks. I like to dance. And stretch. I like to fly my kids on my airplane legs. Other than that, I am not a fan of working out. 

Same goes for cooking gourmet meals for my family. Hal and I usually trade off with our go-tos that we KNOW the kids will eat and love, while sporadically introducing them to new foods that we hope they will eat and love. We have our (chicken) taco night and my chicken breast night. We do pasta once a week and pizza once a week... a breakfast for dinner... We serve fresh veggies and fruits with every meal and include a protein... whether it be an egg on the side or a handful of almonds. Bo will eat absolutely everything while Archer is super picky on the vegetable tip and Revi doesn't eat meat and Fable cannot so much as LOOK at an egg without feeling revolted.

"THE SMELL, MOM! THE SMELL!"

AKA... there are very few combinations that all four kids will eat. No meat on this plate, no eggs on that plate... carrots for 3/4... etc etc... 

Which is why I was like, "Okay, Blue Apron. You want to work together on a post? Let's do this. Let's do this and see what happens.

Because if I have no choice but to cook, I will cook. And both times those boxes arrived, I mentally rolled up my sleeves.

I went to the gym, you guys. I stopped dragging my feet and went for it...

The first box arrived with two recipes + the ingredients for said recipes and I got super excited because it felt really fun unpacking everything and being like OH LOOK, CARROTS! AND GINGER! AND A BAG OF KNICK KNACKS!

The first meal I cooked was a the Winter Chicken Ramen. ALL SIX OF US ATE IT ALL UP (mine and Revi's were sans chicken) which whoa. That never happens. (Leave it to soup, folks! Leave it to soup.)

(Pardon the pictures. It was dark when I took them.) 

The Quinoa & Tofu "Fried Rice" was my favorite BECAUSE QUINOA, OBVS. Unfortunately, 3/4 of the kids were not as into it I was so I had to supplement with some scrambled eggs.

(Bo was the 1/4, btw.)
***

The Fish & Sweet Potato Chips was sort of popular. The fish fell apart and the spinach with the apples was not our particular jam but the sweet potatoes were incredible. And the tartar sauce was damn good, too.

The Lemongrass Turkey Burgers were SUPER popular with everyone. (Except for me who does not eat Turkey.) I had never cooked burgers before and will be doing it now because ground turkey is much easier for me to handle than raw breasts, for example. I also added extra veggies to the ground meat mix because I am sneaky.

Anyway, I learned more about cooking for six in two weeks than I did in ten years and here's why. When you have no choice but to cook certain things, you do it. And if the kids are like I DON'T LIKE THIS then you deal with it... The thing is? I would never cooked ramen or made turkey burgers without this little Blue Apron experiment so we now have two new meals to add to our rotation which is awesome. Also, for all four of these meals we ALL sat together and ate them as a family which, hey, full circle on the posts this week. High five.

For those interested in checking out the Blue Apron family plan, it costs $8.74 per meal or 69.92 per 8 serving delivery. (Which, in our case = 12 meals.) ED: With this plan you can opt to receive one or two deliveries per week, each delivery consisting of two meals to be served family-style. This is great for a family of four eating full portions, or a family with three or four younger kids eating smaller portions - or any combination of less people looking for leftovers. (And for the vegetarians in the house, they DO have veggie subscriptions but only for their two-person plans.)

Blue Apron is offering the first 50 readers to receive two free Blue Apron meals off their first order. (Click here to get in on that action.) 

Thanks again to Blue Apron for sponsoring this post. For more on Blue Apron's family (and table for two) plans go, here. Happy food...y... ing, all! 

GGC