Blue Apron - Cornmeal-Crusted Catfish

I've seen blogs that had posts about Blue Apron but I never tried it until recently.  My sister ordered her first shipment a couple of months ago and raved about it.  She sent photos of her food and it looked tasty.  After receiving a couple of shipments, she got three free shipments to send to friends or family who might be interested.  I was the recipient of a free box.

You can choose a 2-person plan or a family plan.  I chose the 2-person plan and got three meals for two people (six meals total).  Each box costs about $60 and that includes shipping and nearly everything you need to make the meal.  The only items not included are olive oil, salt, and pepper.

The first meal I prepared was cornmeal-crusted catfish.

This photo shows how the food arrives.  Each meal includes a bag of "knick knacks."  For this meal, the knick knacks were vinegar, mayonnaise, mustard, pickle relish, and cornmeal.

The recipe card includes step-by-step instructions and photos.  I appreciate that the recipes tell you to prep everything before beginning.  This is how I cook even when I'm not using the Blue Apron recipes.

The recipes take about thirty or thirty-five minutes to prepare and are around 600 to 700 calories each.  This is a little high, but the food is fresh and doesn't have preservatives, so I can overlook the slightly high calories.

One of my favorite parts of the meal prep is actually plating the food.  I've never really made an effort to make my plate pretty, but I do when I'm cooking the Blue Apron meals.

These two photos show the recipe cards.

Because I'm only cooking for myself I have enough food for two meals each time I prepare something.  I had the catfish on Sunday night a couple of weeks ago and ate leftovers the next night.  It's kind of fun to prepare two meals at once and then be able to eat a decent meal that isn't fast food two nights in a row.

I've been pretty pleased with the food this far.  There are a few meals I enjoyed more than others, but overall, everything has been quite tasty.

I post photos of my meals to Instagram and tag them with #blueapron.  It's so much fun to see all of the other photos of the same meal to see how yours looks when compared to others.  Pretty plating makes a big difference!