Thanks to our pal Bruce Barker, we got a trial start on a weekly subscription of Good Food. It’s a meal prep service that delivers all of the ingredients you need to make wonderful meals. Only olive oil, salt and pepper aren’t included.
In week one, I made herb-crusted pork chops with kale and pear salad; hot dogs (sausages, really) with bacon, homemade ketchup and romaine salad; and our favourite – Mexican spiced chicken with rice pilaf.
On the back of each recipe page are step-by-step instructions including photos. Each meal takes 15-40 minutes to prepare and they’ve all been very good. My only quibble has been with the romaine salad that accompanied the hot-dogs. Grilled romaine? I’m sorry, no. We had torn romaine like civilized people.
There are several similar services out there. Friends in Toronto rely on theirs to keep them eating well despite their busy lives. I’m going to continue this service once a month and know that I have a week coming up when I won’t have to think about what’s for dinner. Even though it’s a “weekly” service, I can simply skip three weeks in a row each month.
At $75 for three meals-for-two you can almost justify the cost compared to eating out, but not when the other option is cooking at home. Derek’s tastes are pretty simple and steady, making weekly delivery too much for us. He enjoys the food but describes it like “eating at a wedding” for three nights in a row. I get it. We have a semi-regular rotation of dinners with the occasional surprise thrown in, not the other way around.
It’s fast, fresh and thanks to the recipes, I now know how to make homemade ketchup. Not that I will again, probably, but if I ever want to I can!