110 Record High and Still Harvesting, Review Hello Fresh Meals

110 Record High & Still Harvesting-
Yesterday was an all-time record high of 110! It's just SO HOT there's no way around that. I'm working every day on keeping the chickens cooler by giving them cool snacks and treats, running the mister, watering the coop/run area well. We're both watering the gardens, trees and grass. We're still harvesting as things are picking up production in the garden. We got a couple of really big zucchinis, more tomatoes, 2 kinds of peppers. We're getting more cucumbers as well, slicing and Lemon-

Almost Pesto time!

Herbs growing like crazy!

The chickens are still laying, but not that much. We get one egg every day or two. The smoke from the forest fires combined, with the heat, that is a bit much. My allergies are crazy! Today I woke up and there was a little bit of clouds in the sky, hoping that would move some of the smoke out. It's 10 degrees cooler today, only 98! Terrible smoke still. I'm ready for Autumn!

Hawaiian Poke Bowl

Review Hello Fresh Meals
Last week I showed some photos of the Hello Fresh two dinners/for two people package that I got.
Hello Fresh Delivery They did a great job packaging everything and here's my review of the actual meals themselves.

With the Hawaiian Poke Bowl there was a little bit of dishonest advertising on their photo. It showed shaved coconut but in reality the coconut I received was almost like a granular coconut. Very small.

One thing about these meal, you use a lot of bowls to prep! Maybe it's just the way I cook, but I don't usually use 5 bowls to make one meal. The directions were pretty clear and instructions definitely made for novices. After I put all of the ingredients together, cooked the chicken and assemble the meal here's my verdict. I'm not that familiar with traditional Hawaiian foods and so maybe it's supposed to be pretty bland, but it was. I think I would have added a lot more ginger and maybe even some garlic? I don't know if that's traditional would have given it a lot more flavor. It looked better than it tasted, although the lime rice was great! I can see doing this homemade, basically making a large batch of rice, meat, nuts, and seasoned raw vegetables and then assembling for several meals. It is definitely not something I would make again as far as their recipe.

The second recipe was the Pork Poblano Tacos which I made last night. Sorry no photos. The ingredients were fine, everything all listed, but they forgot the poblano pepper! Pretty funny since it's supposed to be a poblano tacos. Since that was missing I used one large Italian pepper, wasn't quite the same. I also added a sweet Gypsy pepper. I had a feeling it was going to be really bland so I added maybe half a teaspoon, or less, of Chipotle powder. I was kind of surprised that the kiwi salsa recipe did not include a jalapeno pepper? Since I had our own home-grown right tomato I did use ours instead of theirs. One of the other things I noticed was that the kiwi they shipped was definitely not ripe. Probably shipping some of these kinds of produce you're going to have under ripe fruits or vegetables. Again the directions were clear, but the meal was basically pretty bland. Considering how many ingredients were in it, it didn't have much flavor. I did email Hello Fresh right away and said- "Hey, no poblano pepper, really?" They emailed me back within an hour and said they would give me $1.35 credit. Since I've already closed my account it can just sit there.

So my review is- Overall very well organized, well marked and shipped well. Lot's of menus to choose from. Maybe their general menu mode is to go for blander/middle of road flavors,without the punch. The addition of something with more flavor to the Poke Bowl would have made a huge difference, and the tacos as well. So if shopping is an issues, you're learning to cook, or you're experimenting, you could give it a try it. For me, I'll pass. I'll keep the menus and make again, with more flavorful ingredients, and save a lot by shopping locally. And less bowls too!