I feel like my domestic cooking career has been through many stages so far in this life. When I moved into my first house with my boyfriend I was in the trial and error stage, desperately trying to fake my way through recipes and act like I actually knew what I was doing in the kitchen. This stage included a lot of burnt dishes, band-aids, and an emergency pizza delivery number on hand.
The next stage was when I finally had a foundation of a few dishes I could solidly make, and I felt comfortable experimenting with harder dishes. At this stage I was able to host dinner parties, and contribute something better than meatballs at potluck dinners.
Then I had a baby, and I entered a good six months of take out food. Cooking sort of started up again around that six-month mark, but I didn’t realize then there was an even harder challenge coming up! When I went back to work there was another stretch where those take-out menus got a good work out, and then I started to get into fast and quick meals. It’s so stressful to get home from work and need to get dinner on the table ASAP, plus to have it not suck.
It seems like the only time I can actually create a meaningful dish is on the weekend when I am not working, and usually my weekends are spent with family and friends at restaurants. I can’t believe I am going to say this, but sometimes I actually miss cooking a good meal!
This week I tried an AMAZING solution. I ordered a meal from a company called Fresh Canteen in Toronto.
The process for ordering a meal is super easy. First of all you should enter your postal code into the website to see if you are in their delivery range. If you aren’t yet, don’t stress because they are expanding their reach right now. If you are in range, consider yourself lucky!
Next up take a look at that weeks recipes to see what you would like.
You need to chose which recipes you would like and the number of servings, and then Fresh Canteen will deliver the recipe and ingredients straight to your door.
They use a refrigerated box so you don’t even need to be home for the delivery.
All boxes are delivered on Tuesdays between 12pm and 6pm. The refrigerated box I received contained insulated packaging with a gel pack which kept my food fresh.
When I opened my first box I found all of the ingredients I would need to make my chosen recipe, which was Honey Glazed Chicken with Watermelon, Feta & Mint Salad and Potatoes.
There were a couple things I needed out of my pantry like salt, pepper, a bowl, a pot, and a dish to use in the oven, but otherwise everything else was provided. That was amazing news to me because I had a box of Cherios and a loaf of bread in the pantry at the time, so I wasn’t really prepared to add anything significant to the meal based on what I already had on hand.
Included in the box were step-by-step instructions complete with photos to explain how to prepare the meal. I LOVE recipes with photos because I really need a visual to see what dinner is ACTUALLY supposed to look like.
So basically Fresh Canteen does all of the shopping for you, and they send you the ingredients with a quick and easy recipe to follow. My meal only took 40 minutes to complete which solved my time issue, along with the fact that the shopping and meal idea was sent right to my house. It doesn’t get much easer than that. The produce was super fresh as well! Fresh Canteen source their ingredients locally whenever possible, and everything was already measured out so I could just chop a few things up and add them to the mix. All of the nutritional information is included as well if you are watching what you are eating carefully.
You are able to choose how many portions of each meal you would like, and Fresh Canteen charges $12.50 per serving.
Fresh Canteen sends you almost everything you need to make any of their meals, but you may need a few things out of your own kitchen. They suggest you keep on hand a ladle, locking tongs, spatula, chef’s knife, grater, serrated bread knife, y-shaped vegetable peeler, colander, skillet or frying pan, pot, baking tray and cookie sheet. You will note that Cherios and bread were NOT on this list, but if they were I would have totally been prepared.
I absolutely loved this service! I loved that all of the shopping was done for me, and that I was able to create this quick and healthy meal without needing to do much other than some herb chopping. It felt good to create something in the kitchen so easily. The instructions were so easy to follow, and it really was time saver to have everything measured and ready to go.
Check out Fresh Canteen at www.FreshCanteen.com – but only if you are interested in saving time, eating healthy, and want to look like you have mastered the whole “cooking” thing.
