Say My Name

We have a tradition of giving voice to the names of those murdered by hatred, a voice to those who were robbed of it by violence and ignorance. Each year on Yom HaShoah we gather together to speak the names of those massacred in the Holocaust. There is no possible way to say all 6,000,000+ names in 24 hours, but uttering a fraction of those sacrificed is our way of acknowledging their humanity. They will not be ignored, forgotten, rewritten, or erased.

And so, while the rest of the country seems content to focus on the monster, I refuse to give more time to the end of their lives than the lives themselves. 

Rose Mallinger's welcoming hug holds a community together.
Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz is a friend and healer.
Cecil & David Rosenthal epitomize brotherly love.
Bernice & Syl Simon made their marriage last a lifetime.
Daniel Stein is a proud grandfather.
Melvin Wax can be counted on for the perfect joke.
Joyce Fienberg is a mother, grandmother, and community volunteer.
Dr. Richard Gottfried believes dental care is necessary, no matter the ability to pay.
Faith and family are Irving Younger's greatest passions.

Please pray for those still suffering from the bullets that tore through their flesh and their souls. May this deadly bloodbath take no more lives.

Amen.

Get BIG BEN - but not until Thursday

He'll teach her how to play, but can she handle the game?

When Jillian Welch learns that golf courses have become the new singles scene, she convinces her editor to let her research the phenomenon for her Dating Diva column -- never mentioning what she really wants to do is fan an old flame.

There's something wildly enchanting about the columnist who arrives at Ben Cannon's golf resort. Ben's felt this magnetic pull only once before, for a bespectacled brunette who was nothing like this platinum blonde from New York. Confident, poised . . . and hitting on him like crazy--is she really interested in him, or merely after clickbait for her sexy column?


DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! It will be FREE during #Shameless18, and it'll piss you off to pay for a book only to see it FREE on Thursday! #KU friends, download away! #budgetbooks https://amzn.to/2CMDo1X 

Step Up To The Plate : Plated, round 3

You know what sounded fun? An Iron Chef style competition where the boy and I each made a meal and everyone got to choose the best one at dinner. You know what's not fun? Rancid pineapple, Chinese broccoli, and losing.

Blue Apron's Orange Shrimp and Broccoli soundly stomped Plated's Sticky Pineapple Chicken that was not in fact sticky. The fresh pineapple they sent had taken a turn, so I replaced it with some from the pantry. The chicken was cooked, and then sliced, which seemed so odd for a stir-fry type dish and tasted even stranger. The sauce was more of a seasoning than anything. Turns out we all dislike Chinese broccoli, even though we love broccoli and broccolini. Total dinner fail. Thank goodness we had the yummy orange shrimp to console ourselves with.



We ordered the Hoisin Duck Buns because duck and Chinese buns. The buns and duck patties were a hit. The carrot fires? A mushy miss. I loved the ginger slaw, the kids did not. They did however love the buns themselves. Luckily the recipe leaves a few leftover for straight up munching.

Baked Calamari with Garlic Breadcrumbs and Papas Bravas. Now that is one long recipe title! I tend to think of calamari as an Italian dish. Our whole family can clear two plates of the stuff in under five minutes. But making it at home felt daunting and I loathe to fry just about anything. But this was baked, and while I remained skeptical, worth a shot.

This was AMAZING. Like whoa, we must recreate this amazing. Creamy fingerling potatoes are roasted until golden, calamari is tossed with breadcrumbs and baked, spinach wilts over the hot potatoes, and a creamy-smoky sauce is drizzled over with lemon and parsley and OH MY WOW. If you see it on Plated, you have to order it.

This is the issue with Plated. Some dishes are garbage-worthy, others knock your socks off. When the ingredients are on, they're fantastic. And other times your pineapple is rotten and stuff is growing on the garlic.

*This post has three recipes because I got my stuff mixed up on week one. Not that it matters, really. I paid for this experiment myself. Plated doesn't know me and neither does Blue Apron. They should, I'm a delight.

For more of our Plated journey...

If you want to try Plated, here's a link to a free box...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

We Tried Plated : Round Two

Our first meal kit delivery from Plated covered all the bases - delicious, meh, and toss that in the garbage right now! Full of hope and memories of curried lamb tacos, we tried again. This time with Honey Soy Pork with noodles and Lamb Kofta with tzatziki. Both sounded fantastic, and were things I didn't think my family would try if it didn't come from a service.

The final meals tasted great, but there were some hiccups along the way. Before the ingredients were completely unboxed we had a rotten cucumber, moldy garlic (which I didn't know could be a thing), and putrid red cabbage. Fun times. There was also a bag of random pine nuts that didn't belong to either recipe.

I had garlic and cucumber on hand, so easily replaced those. I didn't have cabbage, so the red pepper slaw to accompany the kofta was just red peppers. Even with the challenges, both dinners were a hit. Doubly so for the kofta because my kids tried bulgur!

Honey Soy Pork with peanut noodles and bok choy. What's not to love about peanut noodles? These were easy and the hot sauce could be added to taste, which was perfect since our crew runs from no-spice to dare me to eat this spoon of wasabi. The honey in the marinade for the pork caused it to burn, so most of the pork wasn't edible.

Lamb Kofta with tzatziki, bulgar, and red pepper slaw. The slaw was missing the red cabbage, but I think I would prefer it this way. Dinner felt fresh and light and different. The kids dove into the fridge for pitas, but they tried the bulgur, so that was a win.

For more of our Plated journey...

If you want to try Plated, here's a link to a free box...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

Plated: What's For Dinner?

I'm going to be up front about it - Plated is our favorite. Which may seem strange because their meals are hit or miss. Sometimes the fresh produce isn't fresh, or even edible. Sometimes the recipe misses the mark. Others take for-freaking-ever to make. The redeeming factor is the variety and portions. We've tried dishes and ingredients I never would have attempted to sneak by the kids, or even the husband. And more often than not, the 4-portion meal feeds our family of 5.

Plated has twenty dinners to choose from each week, and available a month in advance. Plus two dessert options, which aren't offered by many other services. There are options for vegetarian, family-friendly, stovetop-only.. We opt to see everything they offer and go from there.

Pricing is straightforward - $9.95 per meal for our family plan dinner for four, twice a week. A smidge less than $80 a week. Some of the recipes aren't worth that $40 price tag (I'm looking at you tomato bisque) while others make up for it (i.e. Lamb Merguez).

We ordered an eclectic mix for our first box. Curried Lamb Tacos, Tomato Basic Shrimp & Grits, and Cuban Chicken Empanadas. We loved one, found the other odd, and the third was straight-up disgusting and went in the trash. Yes, that bad.

Curried Lamb Tacos. We love lamb curry. We love tacos. We weren't convinced the two had any business on the same plate until this delightful dish. If this had been a Pinterest recipe, none of the kids would have tried it. Because it came from this novel box meal kit, they were game. And loved it. All of us. This is how our love affair with Plated began, but the course of true love took a few turns...


Tomato Basil Shrimp & Grits. Shrimp is good. Grits can be good. Tomato and basil have a happy marriage. And yet, this didn't work. Maybe because it made enough grits to feed a neighborhood, but only enough flavor for a family. Bland as can be, when they had such promise. The shrimp and tomato mixture would have been better with pasta, or garlic bread, or both.

Cuban Chicken Empanadas. I do not know what was in the spice packet that came in this kit, but it tasted like dirt. Honestly. And these took forever to make. So I spent an hour making and baking only to have two trays of empanadas no one would eat. Good times. I emailed to say I thought something had gone bad in the spice mix, but never heard back.


For more of our Plated journey...

If you want to try Plated, here's a link to a free box...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

Well, Hello Fresh

Save $60 on Hello Fresh lives at the top of my inbox. Even now that I've subscribed, they're still paying Google to plop it on top of my real emails. That's advertising for you, preaching to the choir. 

The kids and I looked over the menu and made our selections. Once we'd made all the meals, we realized the flavor mash-ups weren't our thing. And that produce in Oregon is awesome! What they sent... was not. 

SESAME BEEF TACOS with quick pickled vegetables

Our favorite recipe of the box. I wasn't sure how the kids would react to radishes, but the quick pickling method was a winner. When I unpacked the bag my eldest was against the red cabbage, but it gets cooked up with the sesame beef. He actually like it - the tacos, he's still suspicious of red cabbage. This is one we'd make, or order, again. - loved

SWEET & SMOKY CHICKEN CUTLETS with green beans and pineapple rice

The produce on this one was a let down. The green beans were past their prime - tough and stringy. We all love green beans, but none of us finished these. The tub of fresh pineapple had gone rancid, so we made the rice with a pineapple fruit cup we had in the pantry. The chicken flavor was fine, but really dry. I wound up making grilled cheese sandwiches. This was a miss with us. -blerg

CHIPOTLE PULLED CHICKEN SANDWICHES with carrot-apple slaw

My son chose this one thinking it would be a spicy barbecue. The chicken would have been better as a taco. I loved the carrot-apple slaw, but the kids weren't fans and balked at putting it on their sandwich. My daughter... ate the bun. The apple they sent was mealy, so I used one from our fruit bowl. -meh

Hello Fresh... wasn't fresh. I had to replace much of the produce, and what I used wasn't great. The directions were a bit odd as well because our meals were for four servings and the recipe cards were for two. We figured it out, but I think it could have been an issue if my son had been cooking them alone. Having each meal packaged in a separate bag was a great help keeping things sorted in the fridge.

I hadn't ordered since that original underwhelming box. The website has a six-week lead time on menus, so I check every week. I couldn't find two meals I thought we'd like. For three months! Yes, the site makes it easy to skip weeks and change meals, but that's a long time. Yeah... fingers crossed Hot Honey Chicken & Pork Carnitas Tacos win us over. 

The $60 off code? GMAIL60  Let me know if you want a free week. I can send them out from my account. 

See what we thought of other meal kits.

Tied on a Blue Apron

Blue Apron is one of the more widely recognized meal kit delivery companies around. They recently inked a deal with Costco, which means their meal kit boxes are stocked in store. I picked one up on a whim. I'd been intrigued by the concept, but ut off by the idea of joing a subscription service for something I hadn't tried before.   

I had such a good time making the meal with my son, I wanted to keep doing it. I sold him on the idea of our search for the best meal kit service as cooking classes. I had an ulterior motive as well - he could take over dinner at least once a week if everything was provided for him in a kit. 

I liked the packaging on the Costco kits - everything contained in a recyclable container that could double as a trash bowl while cooking for easy clean-up. Home delivery came in bags, which is fine, but not as cute. Hey, cute matters.

What we tried:

SOUTHWEST CHICKEN TACOS 

The cheesy potato rounds were a hit with the kids. They would've eaten twice as many. The tacos were a bit clunky to eat. The kids weren't fans of slaw on tacos. - liked

GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN

My husband picked this up at Costco. I love a good stir-fry... but this wasn't. Could be the flavor combination - broccoli & pineapple. It might have been better if the broccoli weren't roasted first. The combination didn't work. We all tried it, but no one finished it. - meh

Ordering the meals instead of grabbing what Costco had on offer was fun. There were lots of options, so it was easy to select two meals I thought I could get past the kids. The foil-wrapped insulation kept things cool in the box, but I had hoped for the same efficient packaging as Costco. No dice. Things were individually packed, so I had to sort and toss the meals in their own bag in the fridge.

CHICKEN TACOS & CORN

Not going to front, I ordered this for the elote. I've always wanted to try corn that way, but our summer corn here in Oregon is divine, so I worried about messing it up. For this we made elote with what they sent, and corn from the farmer's market plain so we could dress it with butter or the mayo spread & cheese. 3/5 liked it, but we all had butter on our second ear.

The tacos were good, could have done without cooking the cherry tomatoes. - liked

BEEF UDON

The kids swore they'd never had udon before, so I had to get this one. We wanted there to be twice as many noodles! This is the first dish I might try to recreate, or order again. Where does one buy udon noodles, I wonder? I've never seen them, maybe if I hit up Uwijamaya? My favorite thing about this kit? The beef came in those super thin slices, so no cutting & worrying of pieces were thin enough! Usually noodles are a way to stretch the amount of meat in a meal. Not here - loved

The tiny portions of spices and condiments are adorable. Some will argue the packaging is wasteful, but in our house we too often toss mostly full bottles and jars of items we only used once or twice. The produce was okay, the chicken inconsistent in thickness, and flavors were good overall. Trust your kitchen instincts with this one - I knew better than to add roasted broccoli to a stir-fry!

The Costco meal kits for four were $25, almost half of what it would be online ($44). Costco also sells $100 Blue Apron gift cards for $80. If you're curious about meal kits, grab one at Costco to try out. If you like it, go back for the gift cards.

The website is easy to navigate, and weekly menus go up a month in advance. They have 2-serving and 4-serving options. Unfortunately, I don't often find two meals we'd like. Weeks are easy to skip using the manage delivery option. Next month we're trying Orange Beef with wonton noodles & Seared Chicken with pesto orzo. I'll report back...

See what we thought of other meal kits...