This is my second recipe from Purple Carrot.  We had a bumpy road with Purple Carrot with the quality of the veg and with missing (and this time extra) ingredients.  I ended up canceling this service but wanted to do a review on the recipes since I had them.  I decided to continue with GreenChef and I highly recommend them.

Today I'm reviewing the White Beanball Sub with a salad.  I ended up with all my ingredients, however I had double of the flaxseed flour, which makes me wonder if someone was missing theirs??

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Hubby prepped the onion and the peppers for this recipe while I prepped the bean ball ingredients.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 In the processor we added the beans, a clove of garlic, nutritional yeast, the flaxseed flour and salt.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 I used an ice cream scoop to make the balls and then just patted them round and added them to the pan.  Looking back, these were way too big. I would probably make 8 balls instead of six out of this much bean mixture.  Also the instructions said to "coat the balls in oil"  I had no idea how to do that so I just put oil on the pan.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Next we cooked up the onions and the peppers and then added the sauce.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 They had this mixture of panko, fresh parsley and a "lemony salt" mixture that was included in the package.  It was ok.  I think they were going for something that looked like Parmesan cheese on the top of the sub.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 Over all the meal was ok.  The salad was dressed with lemon juice and salt.  Pretty simple. The beanballs desperately needed flavor.  Maybe some more garlic or oregano and basil in the mixture. Something to give it a little life.  I did appreciate the fact that this recipe taught me how to make these "balls" so I can easily now make my own black bean burgers or even sub sandwiches using this method.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Next week we're reviewing the final recipe from Purple Carrot.

If you've been following along you know that I am testing out several home delivery meal services. For the next three posts I'll be looking at Purple Carrot.  My big challenge living out in rural NC is I don't have a lot of choices for food that is good for you.  Everything here is deep fried, loaded with fat and sugar or just plain bad for you.  Being Vegan makes this a much more desperate situation. I literally have one restaurant I can eat at because it has a salad bar and I can choose items that normally wouldn't have animal products in them.  So these home delivery deals with Vegan options are really important for me.  I tried Blue Apron originally but they didn't have a Vegan option.  Next I tried GreenChef, which I still have  because they have really awesome recipes.  They only deliver 3 meals and ideally I would like six different meals a week.  So I added Purple Carrot to see how it was.  My next three posts will review the meals they sent me on flavor, ease of preparation and quality of the ingredients.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 You can see here the onion and the greens for another meal.  Wet, wilty and just nasty.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 One of my spice packets was just dust.  As you can see below there's really nothing in this. Luckily I had some Turmeric on hand to replace it.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 Hubby prepped the veg while I prepared the pancake batter and the dressing.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 The dressing came in four little bottles which I combined in a bowl.  It was really heavy on the sesame oil.  It was very similar to a Bimibap sauce.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 Hubby started the veg in the frying pan.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 The pancake batter was water, rice flour and turmeric. It said add a bit of salt and pepper which I did, but it was still very very bland.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 The salad consisted of shoots and some mixed greens.  I had to toss out the greens they sent because they were so bad.  I did have some salad in the frig, so I added that to the dish.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 The finished pancake was a soggy mess.  It had zero flavor and was just awful. I took this photo, one bite and then tossed it in the trash.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

This week I'm reviewing GreenChef's Unstuffed Enmoladas.  This is by far one of the best dishes I have had with any of the delivery services.  It was really good.  I omitted the onions in mine because I just don't like them.  But this is what is how we did it.

The produce was really fresh.  I did however find that the tortillas were a bit crumbly.  A couple of them tore as I was trying to prepare them.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

The Salsa was really good.  I made the mistake of substituting the coconut oil for olive oil.  You don't want to do that.  Because coconut oil solidifies as a lower temperature my salsa seized up. I had to set it in a bowl of warm water, like you would a double boiler to make where I could stir it again. Over all it was really tasty.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 I added my avocado to the salsa after taking hubby's portion out. He's allergic.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 Next we had to cook the tortillas for 30 seconds on each side.  I found them to be a little oily. But over all while I was working on the mole sauce they dried nicely.  You then just put them in the mole to coat them and serve.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

This was my finished dish. It turned out to look pretty attractive. Mine doesn't have the onions on top but otherwise picture perfect.  As I said, this was my favorite dish so far.  I highly recommend checking out GreenChef.  For the price it is a great way to get restaurant quality dishes to your home, completely vegan and completely organic.  I love it.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

For the last three weeks I've shared the meals I had from Blue Apron.  This week I'm going to start with GreenChef.  The first complaint I hear about these deliveries is the packaging.  Both Blue Apron and GreenChef (and probably all of them) offer a recycling program.  The main reason I switched to GreenChef was because they offered Vegan options.

Today I'm reviewing another Blue Apron dish for A Witch's View.  We're looking at Falafel Pitas with Roasted Sweet Potato & Yogurt Sauce. Blue Apron offers fresh non-GMO, sustainable seafood and meats with no hormones or antibiotics.  They don't however, offer dairy free.  That is why ultimately I switched from Blue Apron to GreenChef.  Over the next 3 weeks, I'll share my meals that I picked up from there and compare them to Blue Apron.

Everything comes in the exact measurements that you need to complete the dish.  Before you freak out about waste, Blue Apron offers a recycling program.


So far this was my favorite dish from Blue Apron.  I'm a huge Falafel fan but usually eat it drenched in Tzatziki sauce. Since switching to vegan, I have not found a really great way to make the sauce and have since given up on my falafel.  Until now!  This was a really great dish.  Because Blue Apron does not offer dairy free options, I had to use my own yogurt for this dish.  I used So Delicious Coconut Milk Yogurt instead of the Greek Yogurt that came with the basket.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

I started out by draining and washing the chickpeas and washing/peeling the veggies. Mise en place!

Continuing my review of Blue Apron. Today I'm reviewing the Laotian Vegetable Laab with Soy-Glazed Mushrooms and Coconut Rice. The dish is about 720 calories and packed with tons of vitamins as well as flavor.

A few negatives though.  My shipment arrived on Friday and I cooked this dish Monday morning.  My herbs were a bit wilted. They still had flavor but I was sad to see them all limp and soggy in the container.  The coconut milk powder was really hard to reconstitute.  I was whisking until my arm was tired and there was little lumps in the milk.  I would suggest that they just give you a can of coconut milk and be done with it.

Tips for those cooking this - When I started making my carrot marinade that it was too dry.  When you add the sugar and the little bits of lime juice it looks more like a paste.  Don't panic.  Just put the carrots in there and let it do its thing.  The lime juice reacts with the sugar and makes a really nice marinade.  You just need to give it a little bit of time.

Ok, let's get on with the steps for making this dish. Everything comes in the exact measurements that you need to complete the dish.  Before you freak out about waste, Blue Apron offers a recycling program.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

The first thing we do is our mise en place.  Washed, peeled, picked and chopped everything that needed it.

I think started with that coconut milk powder.  Yeah it's ugly.  I whisked and whisked and whisked. When I make this again, I'll just use regular coconut milk and be done with it.  After I whisked a bit more I got this in the post with the rice to cook.  A tip here, when the timer went off, I thought the rice wasn't done yet, as there was some moisture on top. I opened the stop and gave it a stir and the right was fine.  It cooks differently in coconut milk than water.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

I mixed my sugar and lime juice together and added my carrots.  As you can see it looks like, "Umm where's the marinade?"  But the sugar breaks down with the lime juice and creates great flavors.  Also I used very little of the Serrano pepper. I think next time I'll add a bit more of the seeds/ribs to bring up the heat a little bit.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Next I added some olive oil to my pan and started the mushrooms browning.  I cut mine really thin, as I hate mushrooms.  Here's another ingredient that I can't stand but I'm going to try it anyway because that's what this is all about.  Trying new things and challenging my taste buds.

For the next few weeks I'm going to focusing on my diet.  As many of you know I have lost about 65 pounds since last year and I'm trying to refine the way I cook.  To accomplish this I have signed up for a trial of two food delivery companies.  My next three Witch's View posts are going to review Blue Apron.  Then I'll be switching over to GreenChef.

First a little bit about Blue Apron.  Blue Apron offers fresh non-GMO, sustainable seafood and meats with no hormones or antibiotics.  When you create an account with them, you are sent your first meal in about a week.  You can select your delivery days as well as your diet.  Unfortunately, they do not offer a vegan option.  I have an odd diet in that I eat fish but do not eat any other animal products. So some of the recipes required a bit of tweaking for me to eat.  They didn't have a non-dairy option at all and the majority of the vegetarian recipes included dairy.  When I contacted the company about this they apologized and said they did not have this change coming anytime soon. It was at that point I decided to go ahead and try out their first recipes but went on the hunt for something that was more fitting to my diet.  This is where GreenChef comes in.  I'll be talking more about GreenChef next month.

The first recipe was Tangelo & Honey Glazed Salmon with Farro, Apple and Crispy Rosemary.  It took about 30 minutes to prepare and runs about 640 calories.  The recipe was really easy, I was surprised how professional the plate looked at the end.

Everything comes in the exact measurements that you need to complete the dish.  Before you freak out about waste, Blue Apron offers a recycling program.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 The recipe card has a photo of the finished dish on the front and a step by step guide on the back.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

The first step was to cook the rosemary.  I have made rosemary potatoes and such before but I have never fried it.  It actually was really good.  I was surprised.  While the rosemary was toasting, the farro was boiled in a pot of water with salt and pepper.  I had never tried farro before so it was an adventure.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 The next step was to add the apples and the onions to the pan with some olive oil.  I'm not a big onion fan, but I promised myself that I would try the recipes exactly as they were written except for any animal products.  After the farro was finished cooking it was drained and these apples and onions were added to the pot and set aside to wait for the fish.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 Next the pan was wiped out and more olive oil added. I put the fish in the screaming hot pan skin side down and left it alone for 5 minutes.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 I then flipped the fish over and set the timer for another 3 minutes.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 Next, I added the juice from the tangelo, water and this recipe called for 1 tablespoon of honey.  I substituted agave for the honey.  I think if I made this again I would use less water and probably more agave to make the glaze more glaze like.  It was a bit watery.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

 I spooned the juice over the fish and cooked it for the 3 minutes.  At the very end you add some apple cider vinegar to the farro mixture and plate it. The finished dish looked really pretty.  The toasted rosemary and the green tops from the scallions were added to the top for garnish.

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

Over all it was a good dish.  I still don't care for onions. I would probably leave the green onions off the top of the dish.  The farro was tasty with the apples.  I think it needs that extra something to make it not be bland.

Next time we're making Laotian Vegetable Laab!