I was super excited when Blue Apron contacted me to see if I will review their product! I don’t do a lot of product reviews like this on my blog; but I really liked the concept behind Blue Apron. Every week, they send their subscribers recipes for the week, and a box filled with ALL the ingredients you need to make those recipes. No grocery shopping, no guess work.

I tried the Ligurian chard with pine nuts and feta. It tasted delicious and was really easy to make! I love all kinds of green vegetables, so this was the perfect recipe for me. And Blue Apron has lots of vegetarian recipes – take a look at some other Blue Apron vegetarian recipes around the web..

Win a Blue Apron box!

With everything you need to make a week’s worth of vegetarian dinners!

Blue Apron is giving away one free Blue Apron box each to two lucky Veggie Belly readers! The winner will get everything they need to make a week’s worth of vegetarian dinners (6 meals) - recipes and all ingredients!

To enter
1. Go to the Blue Apron recipe page and check out their recipes.
2. Then come back here and leave a comment telling me what your favorite recipe was.

Before you enter, take a look at their delivery regions here http://www.blueapron.com/pages/learn-more – scroll down to ‘Convenient Delivery’ and click on ‘See our map’ and make sure you live in their delivery area first!
Contest ends Nov 13th at midnight. Two lucky winners will be announced on this page on Nov 14th.
Make sure you entered your email id when commenting so I can contact you if you won!

—————————–

This giveaway is over. The winners are comment #52, and 47!

————————————–

This is the Blue Apron box I received. It has 3 recipes (2 servings each) and all the ingredients needed to make them.

Veggie Belly reader special – get 30% off your first box!

Ligurian Chard with Pine Nuts, Feta and Quinoa Recipe

The original recipe is by Blue Apron, this is my slightly different version.
Serves about 2

Ingredients
1 Cup Quinoa
1 Bunch Swiss Chard
3 Cloves Garlic, chopped
1 Small Onion, thinly sliced
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
⅛ Teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
¼ Cup Golden Raisins
1 Cup Vegetable Broth
2 tablespoons Feta Cheese
1 Tablespoon Pine Nuts, toasted on low heat
8-10 Kalamata Olives, sliced
1 Lemon, cut into wedges

Method
1. Place quinoa and 2 cups water in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Then reduce heat, and simmer covered till the water is all absorbed and quinoa is cooked – about 12 minutes. Fluff the cooked quinoa with a fork.

1. While quinoa is cooking, wash and chop the swiss chard into thin ribbons. Also thinly slice the onion and garlic. Set aside.

3. Heat some olive oil in a large pan, add the onions and garlic and red pepper flakes and cook on medium-high till the onion is soft. Then add the chard and stir till its wilted.

4. Pour in the vegetable stock and the raisins and simmer for another 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper (keeping in mind the feta and the olives you’ll be adding later are also salty).

5. To serve, place the quinoa on a plate, and spoon the swiss chard and any liquid on top of the quinoa. Sprinkle feta cheese, pine nuts and olive on top. Serve lemon wedges on the side.

A typical Italian rollatini or rolatini has ricotta, parmesan and other cheeses and sometimes the eggplants are dipped in egg before pan frying. I cut out the dairy and eggs in this recipe to keep this rollatini vegan. Not using cheese also lightens this dish up considerably. Instead of the cheese, I stuffed the rollatini with a delicious toasted pine nut couscous that Near East sent me to sample.

Take 2 medium eggplants. Cut off the stem end. Slice the eggplant lengthwise into 1/4th inch thick pieces. Discard the two end slices which have too much skin. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the slices

Pan fry the eggplant pieces in a skillet with a little olive oil, till they are golden (sorry, no photo!). Then place the slices on a work surface. Place a spoon of cooked pine nut couscous on one end of the eggplant.

Roll. Repeat.

Place the stuffed and rolled eggplant onto a baking dish that has been spread with margarine or olive oil. Place any extra couscous in the center of the baking dish and inbetween the eggplant rolls. Sprinkle chopped parsley or basil.

Pour a cup of marinara sauce over. Non vegans: sprinkle 3/4 cup of mozzarella cheese at this stage. Bake till bubbling.

Eggplant Rollatini stuffed with Couscous and Pine nuts Recipe

serves about 2

2 medium eggplants
salt and pepper
1/2 cup couscous, uncooked
4 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
2 tablespoons chopped basil or parsley
1 1/2 cups marinara sauce, use more if you like it saucy
2 tablespoons margarine or olive oil + more to cook eggplants

Pre heat oven to 375f.

Cut eggplant lengthwise into 1/4th inch thick strips. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Pan fry the strips on a little olive oil till both sides are golden.

Cook the couscous according to package instructions. Mix in the toasted pine nuts to the couscous.

Place a spoon of the the couscous on one end of an eggplant piece, and roll it. See pictures and instructions above. Repeat with all eggplant strips. Place the stuffed and rolled eggplants onto a baking dish that has been rubbed with a little margarine. Add any left over couscous to the baking dish. Sprinkle basil or parsley on top. Then pour marinara sauce over. Non vegans can add 3/4 cups of shredded mozzarella. Bake till the sauce is bubbly, about 15 minutes.

Note: If you dont want to bother with rolling the eggplants, layer the eggplant, couscous and marinara sauce to make vegan eggplant and couscous lasagna!

eeeks! I misspelled ‘obsession’ But that’s the charm of homemade canned food.

I always use newly opened cans to serve the pasta in. I transfer the contents to another container for use later. (If you are using tomato cans, just use the tomatoes for the sauce recipe)

Ingredients

Pasta – 1 box, I used Penne
Onion – 1 large
Garlic – 6 cloves
Carrots – 2
Celery – 2 stalks
Red Bell Pepper – 2
Tomato – 3
Broccoli – 1 floret
Pine Nuts – 1/4 cup, substitute with cashews or almonds
Olive Oil – 4 tbsp
Water – 3 cups
Marsala Wine – 2 splashes, optional
Basil – 1/2 cup
Parsley – 2 tbsp
Salt – 1 tbsp
Pepper

Finely chop the onions and chop all other vegetables into chunks. Toast the pine nuts in a skillet on low heat untill they turn light brown.

Boil pasta in plenty of salted water, till al dente. If you are not using the pasta immediately, wash it in cold water and set aside.

In a large wok, heat the oil. Add the onions and fry on medium high heat till they turn golden brown – about 5 minutes. Make sure you take the time to caramelize the onions, they add a nice sweetness to the sauce.

When the onions are well browned, add the garlic and saute 1 minute. Then add all chopped vegetables. Saute on medium high for 7 minutes. Then add the salt, and marsala wine and cook till the wine evaporates, about 2 minutes.

Pour in the water and let it boil. Then reduce heat and let the vegetables simmer for about 5 minutes.

Cool the vegetables slightly and place them in a blender. Blend till they are pureed. Return the vegetable puree to the wok. Simmer on low heat. At this point, the sauce will boil and splatter, so cover with a lid of aluminum foil. Let the sauce simmer on low heat for about 12 minutes, stir once or twice. (Now is a good time to start boiling the pasta).

While the sauce is simmering, blend the pine nuts into a smooth puree with a little water. Add the pine nut puree to the vegetable sauce in the last 2 minutes of cooking. You want a thick sauce, like the consistency of marinara. If your sauce is too runny, simmer it longer.

Turn off heat and stir in chopped basil, parsley and cracked pepper.

To serve, spoon the vegetable sauce over the pasta and garnish with basil.

Its very easy to make the cans to serve in. Always use newly opened cans, old ones may rust. Soak tomato or other cans in very hot soapy water for about 1 hour. Peel the labels and let the cans air dry. Print out your own labels and cut them to the can size. Using 3 dots of super glue on one end of the label, stick the label to the can and wrap it around the can firmly. Using 3 more dots of super glue, stick the other end to the can. Warning: Cans may have jagged rims, so be careful.

Did I win Battle Boyardee?