Hello Fresh

Who’s feeling fresh on this glorious Friday?  ME, ME, ME ME!

For starters, I hit the “hay” way early every night this week!  I LOVE TO SLEEP, I can’t help it.  Sleep does wonders for my skin, my mind and my soul!  Secondly, I boastfully have not had a single sip of wine since Sunday.  Wow, what a difference it makes but that is a whole nuttha post.

I’m feeling spry because despite the Halloween candy bowl glaring at me across the kitchen, I have mostly resisted the sweet temptation!   I mean really, does a miniature box of nerds and 5 hot tamales really count?  If so, sue me!  Otherwise, I have made eggcellent food choices this week.  Here is a narrow list of my weekly food intake:

Scrambled eggs, pretzels, almonds and dried cranberries, grilled chicken, roasted potatoes, green beans, celery and salsa, tortilla soup without cheese, corn tortillas and salsa, oatmeal, Premier protein shake, lemon or blueberry Quest Bars, skim milk with Special K Red Berries.

Now, I want to introduce you to HELLO FRESH, a growing speciality online food service.  It’s a novel concept for people of all ages.  Singles, families, empty nesters or newly weds, this service does not discriminate.   It’s especially awesome for all the folks like me who detest multiple trips to the grocery store!

So this is how it works, you visit the Hello Fresh website and pick a meal plan and browse through the meals. Next, you schedule a delivery date and time, plug-in your info and just like that, a box of food, complete meals arrive at your front door.  Talk about simple and EASY!

Upon arrival, it’s excitng to have a big ol box magically appear at your doorstep.  Even though I knew it was food, I tore into it like a kid at Christmas.  The packaging is extremly eco-friendly and most impressive. Now the fun begins.  If you are a non-cooker like myself, here is where you might draw the line or fake it like I do.

Inside of the big brown box are three smaller boxes appropriately labeled. Each perfectly rectangular box contained the necessary accoutrements for the entire meal. I mean everything…every little detail.  The vegetables, spices, toppings, eggs, milk, produce, and meat. It’s all there. Uniquely bubble wrapped and or iced down to keep it fresh and cold.   All that is you have to do is get busy cooking.  Prep, cook, clean and voila you have a fresh home cooked gourmet meal.

Gourmet to me is a very important key word in this little story.  These meals are fancy. to be more clear, anything that involces, seasoning, cutting, roasting, saute, dicing, dipping, baking, straining, is fancy to me.  Also, the meals are NOT, per say, low fat/low calorie meals.  Hello Fresh prides themselves on meticulously packing all the required specifics for the meal and the freshness of the food…not necessarily the calorie or fat content of the receipe.  So, do NOT be fooled or surprised that the meals are not “healthy”.

Each meal inside the boxes comes with detailed prep time and directions.

My little miss baby girl teenager would no doubt be involved.  Why not make it fun, two is better than one.  Let’s not forget that I hate to cook and I’m not very good at it.  I thought  maybe just maybe if I had all of the ingrediets right at my finger tips and it was delievered right to my door, I might enjoy it or be better at it!    The jury is still out!

Miss Teen Queen chose the breaded chicken with roasted rosemary potatoes and green beans. She passed on the meatball mariner, zesty Mac and Cheese and the shrimp lo mien.

I did not want to eat breaded chicken so we made a compromise.  Baby girl breaded two chicken breasts  and I grilled two pieces with the handy-dandy George Foreman grill.

I followed the directions by the book. The food, as promised was fresh clean and nothing I have tasted has been bad!  CHECK PLUS PLUS!

As I said above, I prepared my portions in a slightly different manner using half of the oil the recipe called for. I grilled my chicken opposed to breading and baking.

Oven mit lady took her time.  I was so proud of her focus.  She had to do some pre-baking for the breaded crumbs.  Then she had to get her fingers dirty and messy.  She had to crack eggs, dip the chicken into the crumbs and parmesan, and mix the honey mustard sauce.  What a kitchen wizard!  We had a great lesson in salmonella and the vital importance of washing your hands and kitchen utensils after preparing raw meat!

My chicken on the Foreman and queen teen’s in the oven.  Now we wait.  After about 45 minutes or so we had ourselves a colorful lovely little cuisine. I felt great about it.  It smelled good and it looked good!  See for yourself!

 

If you are wondering where good o’l Mr. Chicken Fry was during all of this excitement, I can tell you that he missed out.  He was somewhere with a group of his cronies watching the CUBS win the world series!!!!  Congrats to all of the CUBS fans!

I will say, the meals are perfectly proportioned to serve at least four people.  Therefore we graciously had leftovers for his highness.

For me, Hello Fresh is a brilliant idea and one day should I ever mature and host a “real dinner” party I will order from Hello Fresh.  Who am I kidding, I will totally order pizza.  BUT for you foodies and cooks, give this service a try.  I think you will be most impressed and  I think it will save you time and energy.

REPORT BACK!  I want to hear what you think.  Share your experience.

Love, peace and EAT!

Angi

xo