I will say this again: Tacos are almost always a good idea.  And banh-mi tacos?  Yes, please!  These were so good!! Not too spicy for the kids, and they tasted so fresh and different than the average tacos.  I loved the spicy mayo combined with the pickled cucumber--delicious!

Prep on these was easy--only took a few minutes.  Dinner was on the table in less than 30 minutes--my kind of meal!!  I don't think you could recreate these super easily--it came with a packet of sauce with unknown ingredients to cook the chicken in.  But, if you can order it, do it!

Ratings: 
Me: 8
Husband: 8
Son: 8
Daughter: 8.5

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There are a couple of meals that always remind me of my childhood: tuna casserole, Hamburger Helper and meatloaf.  My mom was not a gourmet cook by any stretch, and her version of meatloaf was a recipe that included hamburger, bread crumbs, an egg, salt & pepper, mixed together with some ketchup spread on the top.  She put it in a loaf pan and  remember it swimming in grease--she was not known to cook with low-fat meats.  Everything was salted before it was tasted--is that a 70's thing, or just our household?  Maybe that's why I rarely make meatloaf myself.

In any event, this meatloaf is a much fancier and yummier version of the one I remember.  The McCormick's seasoning used added a nice flavor, and I liked how the grated apple added to the flavor of the pork.  Potatoes were plain, but good.  My only problem was the green beans.  Why did they turn so brown?   They started turning color in just a few minutes after they started baking.  The flavor was meh.  (Although I am not a huge fan of roasted green beans, generally.)  --If I ordered this again, I would cook them another way.  I cooked them a few minutes less than instructed, because I tend to prefer them a little crisper.  The recipe card rated this one as "hard" to prepare, but I didn't find it that challenging.  I was surprised to see that, actually, because I would have put it in the "easy" category--so don't let that fool you!

My husband liked this one, and my kids thought it was fairly good.  They wouldn't beg me to make this again, I suspect, but it was a decent meal.  I wouldn't enthusiastically recommend this one, but it was good.

Here's the recipe, if you want to try and recreate--all of the meatloaf ingredients are ones that are pretty readily available:
www.hellofresh.com/recipes/grill-mates-pork-meatloaves-5f7dcf7a8220af61bc7d7531?subscriptionId=6713743&week=2020-W47

Ratings:
Me: 7
Husband: 7.25
Daughter: 7
Son: 7

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I'm not sure why it's taken us so long to put the HelloFresh "Hall of Fame" meals at the top of our list.  For whatever reason, we've picked a few of them lately, and they have all been excellent!  (Note to self: try more of the Hall of Fame recipes!) This bulgogi pork tenderloin meal was delicious--lots of flavor, and tasted reasonably healthy.  It's not a low calorie meal (760 calories), but not as high as many of the HelloFresh meals--my biggest complaint with HelloFresh is that I wish there were more lower calorie meals that appealed to me...

This dinner was easy to pull together--very little chopping, and really, it was just browning the tenderloin, making some rice, and roasting everything.  My kind of meal prep!  Pork is not my #1 choice when it comes to a main dish, but I ended up enjoying this one a lot more than I expected.  Not sure it would be super easy to reproduce, since it came with a packet of Bulgogi sauce--I've never seen that in my local grocery store, and not sure what the ingredients were.  But, I would definitely order this one again.  Give it a try!

Ratings:
Me: 8
Husband: 8.25
Son: 7.5 (He is always the toughest critic! --He ate the whole meal with no complaints...he just has high standards!)
Daughter: 8

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Excuse the horrible photo here--we were in a bit of a hurry trying to get this on the table before baseball practice.  I almost forgot to take a picture altogether!

If there is one meal that my family would describe as "HelloFresh," it's some combination of chicken, rice, and a sour cream sauce.  There are so many HelloFresh meals that are a variation of this!  This Southwest Chicken & Rice Skillet was good, but I knew when I ordered it that the common comment I would get would be "this tastes very HelloFresh."  I was not wrong.

The sausage included with this one was good--I forget the name of the brand.  But if you were making this on your own, there are several chicken sausage brands that would work.  This was easy to pull together--the skillet meals always seem so low-maintenance and simple--which works for me!

We had a ton of leftovers--I would say about 3 servings left over for lunch.  It re-heated well, though, and it was just as good the next day!  Give it a try or make it on your own!

Here's the recipe from the HelloFresh website:
www.hellofresh.com/recipes/southwest-chicken-sausage-rice-skillet-5f7354fb1fb61746b267b1b7?subscriptionId=6713743&week=2020-W46

Ratings:
Me: 7.75
Husband 7.75 or 8
Son: 7.5
​Daughter: 7.5

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When I was a kid, my mom never did a ton of cooking.  She had four kids and a full time job, and a lot of the time she would end up just making one meal and we all helped ourselves to it whenever we got home.  There weren't many meals where we all sat around the table, which is one tradition I'm really proud that we have in my family.  My mom had a few (non-gourmet) meals in her rotation--Tuna Helper, Hamburger Helper, and Sloppy Joe's made with a can of Manwich.  Sometimes it was just a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese--so many processed foods!  It's been years since I've had any of that, and while I don't think I've ever served my family Manwich Sloppy Joe's, I do love a good Sloppy Joe recipe once in a while.  Something so simple and easy about it.

This recipe was a nice twist on Sloppy Joe's--the Ancho seasoning gave it a little bit different flavor, but it still tasted reminiscent of the Sloppy Joe's I had as a kid--only better!  The potatoes were just just OK, but not much to it.  This was a pretty quick and easy meal to put together--and very family friendly.  While no one raved about it, we all enjoyed it and I would recommend.

Ratings:
Me: 7.75 
Husband: 7.75
Son: 8
Daughter: 8

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If I am looking for a dinner to appeal to my somewhat picky eating son, I almost always gravitate to something with meatballs.  In fact, I think he has loved every single HelloFresh meatball meal that we've ordered.  Frankly, I normally find them all to be a fairly similar version of the same thing.  They are very good, but I can't order it too often without it feeling repetitive.  It seems like the same basic recipe with a different sauce.  We had just had the beef bulgogi meatballs the week before, so not sure I was quite ready for this one, but my son loved it.  I thought it was very good, and we all really liked the coconut sauce--it had a nice amount of sweet/savory flavor.

My husband and my son teamed up to make this one, and they did a great job!  My only critique was the green beans were a little over cooked--but, that's easy to do with this recipe.  Still, the entire meal came together pretty quickly.  Oh and one more thing...this meal has more calories than I like on a weeknight--940 calories per serving--maybe save it for a day when you've had a nice workout? :-)

We had a few meatballs left over--almost enough for one person for lunch.  I would order it again, but not sure I would go to the effort of trying to re-create it myself.

Ratings:
Me: 8
Husband: 8.25
Son: 8
Daughter: 8

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Enchiladas say comfort food to me--something about this dish feels homey and delicious.  So, even though these enchiladas were vegetarian (fine for me, but not my husband's first choice), I had to try.  Plus, they are one of the HelloFresh "Hall of Fame" recipes, and all of those I have tried have been good.  These black bean enchiladas were delicious!

I made these on a night where we didn't have a lot of time to put dinner on the table before my son had to head out the door.  So, I enlisted my husband to help.  The recipe card said 35 minutes to prepare, but the two of us managed to finish this one in under 20 minutes!  Granted, we were rushing, but still...

We really liked the green salsa, and the creama was a nice compliment.  My son, who is not a fan of spicy foods, had no complaints on this one--it was just the right amount of heat for him.  You could probably recreate this one, but not sure what kind of salsa they used--you could probably use most any green salsa and it would be good.  This was a very easy recipe to pull together and would be great for beginner cooks.

Overall, thumbs up!

Ratings:
me: 7.5
husband: 7.5
son: 7
daughter: 7.5

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