>I'm not going to chop everything up front just to realize that the garlic goes in at the last step
This is the concept of "mise en place" and is actually a great habit to get into, I understand the concern about dishes though.
The tradeoff is dishes; sometimes you can get around this by just using a giant cutting board and setting pre-chopped ingredients off to one side of it (instead of in separate bowls).
Just say: chop these 3 things and add them to the same bowl you are going to marinate next
source: frustrated Blue Apron customer :)
I dunno, I've followed many where they explicitly tell you to put in same mixing bowl. Things are written in a more logical order.
> It's not hard to just read the next step
It's not always the next step, sometimes its one of the last as its a raw salad of some sort with a quick marinade or simple dressing.
> Hell, it never even actually says to put things in individual bowls.
On every recipe they provide you it is formatted with picture on left and steps on the right. Every recipe prep shows individual bowls of cut ingredients.
So it may not _say_ to put them in individual bowls but it always shows you you should put them in individual bowls.
It's a minor gripe the original poster had (and I share) you shouldn't have to study the recipe. It's not hard to just say cut up x,y,z and place into same mixing bowl. I want to pull out all the ingredients and start cooking and do my best to meet their advertised time, not spend more time planning their recipe.
I'm sure many people have made the same mistake, pictures speak a 1000 words after all.
It's good to write this yourself since you work it into your head...and also because such instructions could appear a bit batshit if you didn't write them!
I also cleanly distinguish the "shopping list" part of the recipe (which has it's own standard structure organized by pantry, fresh, spices, and unique ingredients) and the "cooking" part, which provides measurements in the cooking text without needing to refer to the ingredient list. It's a small thing, but I really hate scanning ingredient lists every time I need a measurement in the middle of cooking.