Earlier this year, it became clear that busy schedules and an active toddler don't allow us to plan our meals as well as we'd like. We ended up trying a couple of meal prep services and they were fine but we weren't in love and we found ourselves struggling to consume all the meals before the next delivery.
As many of you know, during my busiest markets (spring and fall) I am hardly ever home for dinner and it makes it tough to stay motivated to eat well and cook at home. This year though, we had a really good reason to force ourselves to cook great meals: Rudy! We kept thinking that this is the time when she's learning to try different foods and developing her palate so we really want her to experience different foods and spices from the start!
We discovered Chef's Plate after some research and have been boring our friends at parties by talking about how great it is for a couple of months now. Each week, we choose from six meal options, which include prep time (all under 35 minutes) and difficulty level. Then, once a week, we have an insulated box of ingredients (often portioned) and recipe cards dropped at our door.
While we still need to invest the time in preparing the meals, we look forward to our delivery each week. We save all the recipe cards and often go back to make our favourites over and over. So far, those favourites are often the fish dishes (consistently amazing) and the butter chicken tacos.
On nights when I'm working, Corey often has a mouth-watering dinner ready when I get home and on nights when I'm around, we get to cook together and drink wine while we talk about our days. It's really fun and sort of reminds me of when we were dating and first started cooking together.
I didn't have the highest expectations when we started our subscription but the recipes are actually really amazing. I was surprised to find that they actually tasted good. Like, really and truly good and not just I-made-this-so-I'm-going-to-choke-it-down-and-pretend-it's-good good.
We tend to be lazy cooks and I'm so glad that we've subscribed because it's the kick in the pants we need to prepare real food for Rudy and ourselves. Honestly, before we started making Chef's Plate meals, there were a lot (too many to count) of nights when we just threw some something from each food group on a plate and told Rudy to have at it. Now, that only happens once a week, max! ;)
Anyway, when I find a really great service, I have to shout it from the rooftops and I can't praise Chef's Plate highly enough! If you like to cook but don't really know how to make more than a handful of dishes, this will up your cooking game BIG TIME! As silly as it sounds, (and it DOES sound silly) we both feel so much more accomplished now that we have joined the ranks of people who make their own gnocchi from scratch. Makes us feel fancy.
How do you handle meal prep with kids? Have you tried Chef's Plate yet? If you're interested in trying it, use code #3platesFromFreshCoatOfPaint - You will get 3 free meals with your subscription and I think we also get 2. Win-Win! Let me know what you think?
