Last week we tried a couple more Blue Apron dinners but didn’t have time to review them.  Alex mostl made the first one: Italian Meatloaf with Cauliflower and Fregola Sarda Pasta, because Max was at soccer practice. And Max mostly made the second one, Za’atar Chicken Souvlaki with Tahini-Yogurt Sauce & Roasted Potatoes, because Alex was at soccer practice.  (We say mostly because these were school nights so mom had to help out alittle.) Both recipes were pretty good but unfortunately were missing we some ingredients so we had to improvise.  Also (and sorry to say this Blue Apron) but some of the red onion for the Chicken Souvlaki was rotten.  We love your recipes but you got get your logistics in order!! Come on, missing ingredients and rotten onions??

Italian Meatloaf: So this was a pretty straight forward recipe: mix ground beef, onions, tomatoes for a meatloaf (reserving some of the tomato sauce to put on top).  The only problem was that instead of putting it in a loaf pan to cook, Blue Apron wanted us to wrap it in foil and bake.  Certainly a good idea if you don’t have a loaf pan. But how are you supposed to check to see if it is done?  You have to peel back REALLY HOT tin foil to check it.  Yikes! Get a loaf pan…also it’s hard to see if the meatloaf is actually done because it steams in the foil (and sticks to it:).  Also we were really excited about the Fregola Sarda Pasta, which the recipe said to cook with roasted cauliflower.  The pasta looked a little like pearl couscous in the directions but we never actually saw it because it wasn’t in our Blue APron box.  So we substituted regular dry spaghetti and roasted the cauliflower as a side dish.  Still delish, but we still want to try that Fregola Sarda Pasta! PS: LOVED the roasted cauliflower by itself, even though that wasn’t exactly how we were supposed to cook it.

Za’atar Chicken Souvlaki: We were so excited to try this recipe because we went to Greece two summers ago and one of our favorite dishes was chicken souvlaki.  The recipe sounded terrific and was pretty straight forward: roast potatoes; chop onions and chicken and sautee them together; mix with spices (Za’atar); mix yogurt with tahini; serve on pita bread with lettuce.  Unfortunately:1) we were missing the main spice for the chicken: Za’atar; 2) the onion was partially rotten; and 3) the tahini for the yogurt sauce was also missing.  We managed to pull it off, however, by mixing some cumin with the chicken instead of Za’atar; only using half the onion; and adding cucumbers and scallions to the yogurt sauce.  Frankly, since every souvlaki we had in Greece had cucumber and tomatoes (as well as lettuce), it was a no brainer to add cucumbers to the yogurt sauce.  And then since we were improvising anyway, we added some sliced ripe tomatoes.  The meal was so good!! But we worry that if you weren’t used to cooking, and you were missing all those ingredients, it might not have turned out so well. Plus tomatoes are so essential to souvlaki that we were surprised they weren’t included.  Also, in Greece, the put french fries in the souvlaki so we put the roasted potatoes in ours.

And just so you know we aren’t making this up: here’s the rotten onion:(