I’m a few years away from being 30 and my cooking skills are as embarrassing as my ability to put staples in my work stapler (it took three people to figure it out!) When it comes to deciding what kind of meal to cook, I’m stumped on where to begin. Should I try baking a steak? Frying a vegetable?
And that’s why I appreciate things like Fresh Prep, a meal delivery service based in Vancouver. It’s easier being told what to cook rather than me sifting through the internet deciding what’s easy/simple/and not expensive. (Vegetables are getting pricier these days, right?!)
The concept of Fresh Prep is delivering healthy meal kits, with pre-measured ingredients, and you can cook your meal in 30 minutes. Depending where you live, the kits arrive once a week at a time period. The ingredients come in an insulated cooler bag so if you aren’t home to accept it, the proteins and such would not go bad. The meats are in sealed bags and all the vegetables, seasonings, spices are cut or measured ahead of time so you have exactly what you need. You also get a text message when your food is on the way – and they are very on time once you get your message!! Definitely appreciate that.
In January and February, boyfriend and I did two weeks of Fresh Prep delivery. Each delivery comes with 2 portions of 2 different meals (worth $44 – $11/portion), so that’s two days of dinner!
The first Fresh Prep delivery we ever had was the Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs with Chopped Ricotta Salad. The turkey did arrive pretty frozen (I’m glad it was though, cause SAFETY FIRST,) so the overall time to cook the meal was a bit of over 30 minutes as we had to do some defrosting. You can see below how the ingredients look when they come. Everything is already pre-portioned and in containers or sealed plastic.
The Red Curry Poached Cod with Gingered Rice was my favourite of the four meals as I LOVE the idea of gingered rice (we will re-make this again!) and red curry is delicious if you like spicy plus it’s easy to make. As an Asian, I can’t believe I never tried putting ginger in rice; but I’ve mixed ginger and onion sauce IN rice. I would’ve preferred another protein but this was a soul warming meal that was super simple. The choice of veggies – zucchini and peppers, paired will with the sauce.
Our next 2 plates of meals in February was the Miso Glazed Salmon with Seasoned Sticky Rice and Bok Choy, and Chicken in Coconut Pan Sauce with Curried Couscous and Basil Lime Roasted Cauliflower. I didn’t know miso glaze was so easy to make until I tried out this recipe; we just wished the salmon was bigger! Cooking salmon is way easier than I thought though, which is nice. I like how simple this meal was – one vegetable. one carb, and one protein and they complemented each other very well!
The roasted cauliflowers were excellent with the Chicken in Coconut Pan Sauce with Curried Couscous – but I felt like the proteins didn’t mix well with the couscous? I would’ve maybe preferred rice or vermicelli but to each and their own. The curry sauce was yummy, but mang was it hard to plate this meal!
Ungh my cooking photos are so subpar compared to beauty product photos. (But I got a new camera now so I’m hoping for better photos in the future!) The experience of Fresh Prep was pretty fun, as I got to make things I’ve never tried before and the instructions were simple to follow. The portions for some items were a bit small (such as the salmon.) Each plate of food/portion is $11 which is comparable to quite a few of restaurants in Vancouver. But it is great if you come home at night and want to eat something healthy and simple – Fresh Prep is a great way to step into that (and learn a few cooking techniques too!) From Fresh Prep, I got to make meatballs, zest a lime, and glaze a salmon.
If you want to try Fresh Prep Vancouver, you can use code MACARONSFRESH18 for $33 off signing up – that’s 3 free plates! You can order your first plates online here!
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Disclaimer: Complementary meal kits provided, all opinions are my own.
