What in the WORLD is Blue Apron?!

Before I begin, this is NOT a teaching related post. However, since teachers are always so busy, this is a convenience in that the food just shows up on your door step. You do have to prep and cook it, but no time spent at the grocery store or in the check out line!

If you follow me on instagram you might have seen these photos that I posted over the weekend.

My fiance and I got our first Blue Apron box back in January. Our first box was free-- someone gave us an email link for a box to try. After that we were hooked. We got several boxes back to back in a row. The great thing is you can see the upcoming menu and cancel your box up to 6 days prior to your delivery day (that you've chosen) if you're not interested in the recipes included. They also have many different options for boxes, as quoted from their site:

We currently create 5 menus to best suit a variety of tastes, such as vegetarian, pescetarian, and people who love meat and fish.
We can also accommodate some dietary restrictions such as no shellfish, no red meat, no pork, and no fish.

I snapped some photos a while back while opening one of our boxes. I wanted to share with you the experience of getting a Blue Apron box. I do want to apologize for the lighting in my photos. It's not great. But you'll get the point! :)

The box when it arrives. This one was actually a little beat up at the top. They aren't all like that I promise!

Each box has this super thick insulator in it and a serious ice pack at the bottom. Every time we get a box our ice pack has barely thawed. The week of 4th of July I picked our box up off the step and thought "geez this is so heavy!" Upon opening it I noticed they had not 1, not 2, but 3 ice packs! They were prepared for the heat!

The papers on top are a letter about the 3 meals included in your box. They always having cooking tips included for each meal too so you'll want to make sure you read it! Then under that are the recipe cards. They are great with step by step visuals for the prep!.

When you first open up your box you'll find all the produce and the "knick knack" bags on top. Then under that will be a layer of cardboard and wax paper, then your proteins right on top of the ice packs.

Here is everything that came in this particular box.

For each recipe there is a "knick knack" bag that includes any of the spices/liquids/spreads you might need for that recipe. The first few boxes we got they weren't doing that part this way. I love the change!

I'll be honest, prep time for 1 meal is usually about 1hr. My fiance and I do almost all of the meals together so we both work on the prep and cooking. We really enjoy cooking them together. If you are looking for something to do with your significant other I definitely recommend trying this-- especially if one of you is really into cooking! One short cut we finally started taking was buying a jar of minced garlic! Most recipes use garlic and you have to mince the cloves yourself and/or smash them, which is totally time consuming. Keeping a jar of minced garlic on hand has been super quick and it's super easy to smash if the recipe calls for it!

This is an excellent way to try new recipes or spend more time cooking than you typically would. We've had some really great recipes!

Here is a quick screen shot to show you the options you have while ordering boxes.

You can do meals for 2, 4, or 6 people. Obviously the more people, the more money the box is. You choose your delivery window, whether or not you are a vegetarian, and what you do or do not want included in your box.

So do I have you convinced yet that you NEED to try this?

I want to give you the chance to try one of these boxes out for free! You can enter to win a free box by heading to my facebook page. Leave a comment with your email address on the post with image below. If you leave it on any other post it will not be submitted into the drawing!

**I am not recieving any compensation from Blue Apron for this post. I simply wanted to share about an awesome company/idea!