Imperfect Foods Box 3

You can check out my Imperfect Foods Box 1 post to learn more about what Imperfect Foods is, or you can check out their website. This was my third box. It showed up a day late which sucked because I was so exciting about a couple things in the box. They credited me $5.99 for shipping even though I ordered over $60 of stuff so my shipping was already free. I didn't even have to ask for that. I read a post about another person who had a box show up late and they credited her shipping as well without her having to ask. My first box was 30% off because I had a coupon, my second box had $7.00 in credits due to an issue with my first box, and my third box had a $5.00 credit because I told them they had given me a free item in my second box and $5.99 in a shipping credit.

The pick above is how it looked once I opened the box and took off the paper packing material. That silver thing is the insulated pouch they put the meat in. I'll talk more about that later.

This is the bounty on the counter. Just ignore my sink and my cough drops. lol. I really need to clean off the counter or find a place to take these pics. Check out that potato in the front row on the right. It looks like it has a nose. It was rather adorable and weird at the same time. The potatoes were the only thing that looked imperfect. They had some discoloration and some odd shapes, but they still taste fine.

 

This was my dinner last night. It was Smoked Chicken Sausage with left over instant mashed potatoes. The sausage is an Imperfect Foods original and doesn't have an food waste story. It was one of the suggested items for the box. We had talked about not getting more meat because of the wasteful packaging, but we wanted to try this and decided that if we like the sausage, we could get a few packages in one box and then not get meat for awhile. There were five sausages in the package. The plan was to do one for me for dinner and then one each for breakfast and one each for lunch the following day. Since we opened it, we wanted to just use them all up. They are a bit small though. One for my dinner was fine because I wasn't very hungry, but one each for lunch wasn't going to work, so the new plan is two each for lunch today if we end up eating lunch and we had breakfast sausage for breakfast. So the giant foil looking bubble wrap thing on the left is what we get every time we order even one small meat item. Inside that is also a giant drain safe gel freezer pack. We're doing these boxes to save money and to reduce waste. These giant insulated pouches seem to defeat that purpose. I liked the flavor and texture of the sausage. I wasn't sure how the casing would go. There is a bit of snap to it, but I got over it. I would get more in the future, but only if I'm getting more meat. I did try to take the casing off, but all the meat tore off with it so I gave up on that. The instructions say to put an inch of water in a skillet and simmer for 6 minutes on each side. I just put them in boiling water because that's what hubby had said to do before I read the back.

 This was breakfast this morning. The eggs, cheese and sausage were not part of an Imperfect Foods box, but the red potatoes were from this box. I sliced them up, but clearly not very evenly since some burned and some are perfectly cooked. I tossed them with olive oil and garlic salt and put them in our air fryer. I put them in at 400 for 30 minutes, but took them out at 25 minutes since some of them had already turned into potato chips. I learned how to make potato chips! Woot Woot! This air fryer is going to take some time to figure out. 

I got the 65% Chocolate Disks in Imperfect Foods Box 2. My husband didn't like them very much. I was okay with them. I decided to try the 40% this time. We both like them better than the 65%. These are about an inch in diameter. They are fairly thin, but not super thing. They make a nice dessert. We just eat them like candy. 

We got the dark chocolate and sea salt in Imperfect Foods Box 2 and added the milk chocolate and melty caramel for this box. I can't eat them because of the gluten. My husband prefers the dark chocolate and sea salt, but didn't dislike the melty caramel.There are four squares in a package and they are about an inch square. 

  

I was super excited about these organic chocolate peanut butter trees, but I read the ingredients one last time before eating them just for safety since you can never be too safe when you have food issues. I missed the tapioca syrup. I skipped them and gave them to hubby. The are individually wrapped and then put into another bag. They are about an inch tall. He disliked these. The peanut butter was more of a peanut butter goo is how he described it. These are not like a Reese's Peanut Butter tree type thing. I'm going to take them to work and put them in the freebie spot. 

This juice is made out of the rainbow chard, the juice of a lemon(I squeezed it into the class. I didn't put it in the juicer) a couple carrots from this box, a cucumber, part of a pear, and a couple apples from Imperfect Foods Box 2. In the fridge, the colors separate so it's green on the bottom, red in the middle and green on the top. I can't say I'm a big fan of this juice, but I got through it without vomiting. I just don't think I'll be making it again. 

We haven't had the crimson red lentils yet. We still need to do some searching for recipes. 

 I got the dried mango in my Imperfect Foods Box 1. It was super yummy. I loved it and couldn't wait to get more. That was before I realized that they use sulphur dioxide on their dried fruits and I'm apparently part of the 1% of the population that has a negative reaction to it. It took awhile to put it all together, but I was having massive gas problems. A friend of mine said it could be the fruit if they used sulphur dioxide. I confirmed with Imperfect Foods that they use it. I stopped eating their dried fruit and the gas went away. Now I have to try dried mango and/or pineapple without sulphur and see what happens. I know I've had dried mango before with no problems, so I think the sulphur dioxide is the problem.

We haven't had the green lentils yet. We're still looking for recipes to try.   











We haven't had the romaine lettuce, cucumbers, apples, oranges, avocados or watermelon yet. We still have two avocados from the last box, so I think I'll cancel the avocados that are in my next box. I don't know what it is about avocados! The ones that came this week were hard as rocks which is nice since we still have two left.

 Here is a pic of just the potatoes. It gives a better view of the discoloration on it. The cute little nose is still there!








Here is everything I got in the box.

Conventional Apples (1 lb) Conventional Carrots (1 lb) Conventional Avocados (3 ct) Conventional Lemons (2 ct) Conventional Mandarins (1 lb) Imperfect Foods - All Natural Smoked Chicken Sausage - Spinach Feta (12 oz) Imperfect Foods - Crimson Red Lentils (16 oz) Imperfect Foods - Organic Green Lentils (16 oz) Imperfect Foods - Unsweetened Dried Mango (8 oz) Conventional Mini Watermelon (1 ct) Imperfect Foods - 40% Chocolate Discs (7 oz) OCHO Organic Chocolate Peanut Butter Trees (3.5 oz) Michel Et Augustin Cookie Squares Milk Chocolate and Melty Caramel (3 ct) Michel Et Augustin Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies (3 ct) Organic Rainbow Chard (1 ct) Organic Romaine Lettuce (1 ct) Organic Potatoes (1 lb) Organic Cucumber (1 lb)