Last night, we made our final Blue Apron meal. There were a couple of reasons for this decision, but the main reason is that I got a job with a competing company. At the end of June, I started working for a company called Dream Dinners and this week I will make my first set of meals with them. I definitely didn't need two meal services, as I do like to cook from scratch and go out to eat, as well. We were not disappointed with the final meal and it definitely inspired me to make pasta with a variety of different vegetables. While I started a pot of water boiling, Mike worked on getting the produce ready. First, I cooked the tomatoes in oil with some seasoning (I ran out of pepper, so I grabbed some random seasoning out of the pantry), cooking them for 2 minutes and setting them aside. Next, I cooked the pepper for about 2 minutes and added in the corn, cooking it another 3 minutes. When the corn and pepper finished cooking, I added them to the tomatoes and set the veggies aside. I cooked the pasta for 3 minutes, separating the strands, and draining it. Then, it was time to make the spinach. I drizzled the pan with oil, added spinach, garlic, and red pepper flakes, cooking until the spinach was wilted. To the spinach, I added pasta, cooked veggies, and half the pasta water. I cooked that about a minute and then turned off the heat. I added in the creme fraiche, half the basil, and a drizzle of olive oil. We plated the pasta, garnishing it with more basil and parmesan cheese. This was a nice light meal on a hot Texas night. I enjoyed the special pasta and the various veggies and plan to keep that in mind when I am doing my menu planning and groccery shopping this summer. I think Blue Apron got us out of our comfort zone and taught us to try new things. I plan on hitting up some farmer's markets and trying out new ingredients in the future.

The New Austonian