I Found the Answer to my Food Delivery Prayers!

Yes, I finally found a great food delivery service.  Okay, it might sound extreme, but here's why it's so amazing.  I hate cooking.  My kids hate eating.  My husband gets very stressed when he has to cook every night.  We want to remain relatively healthy, non-obese people.  So you can clearly see our dilemma.

Ever since the launch of food services like Blue Apron, I have been in awe.  Brilliant I thought!  I have always wanted a personal chef.  But sadly, none of the "learn to cook" food services met our needs.  I mean I think Blue Apron would have been cool before we had kids or once our kids are older, but right now...I don't need someone to send me recipes and ingredients.  I need ready-to-eat food I can get on the table in between screaming and fighting and all of the other pleasantries that occur at that 5:00 PM hour everyday.  I also want something that doesn't make me want to kill my children when after working on it for 30 minutes and getting it to the table amidst the chaos to hear both of my children say, "Ewww...that's gross.  I don't like that.  I don't know what it is, but I'm sure I don't like it."

So automatically, that narrowed down the field for me.  I wanted prepared dishes that just needed to be heated up - but were a step above frozen dinners.  There are a few out there, but I found they didn't work for us.  Either, it turned out they really did need some additional prep time.  Or we had to order family style, which meant my husband and I constantly had to eat meatloaf (one of the only things our kids agree on).  Or they didn't offer anything I thought I could get my kids to eat.  Or they just didn't taste good.

I was ready to give up.  But then, a little ad came across my Facebook page one day for a service called Freshly.  "Chef prepared, healthy meals delivered weekly."  It looked like it had potential.  So I explored further.  They had 25 meals to choose from each week - that is amazing!  Way more than any other food service I've looked at.  Meals are individual servings, so every member of the family could eat something different each night if you so desired.  But this is great, because I can buy meatloaf for the kids, salmon for me, and pork for my husband and everyone is happy!  The meals are completely prepared - including meat and vegetables.  All you have to do is heat them up for 2 minutes and serve (and all of the meals come in BPA-free containers, so I don't feel bad about microwaving).  My husband (who is always skeptical) was even willing to give it a try.  And so we placed our first order.  Because the real test is the taste.

And the result?  Fan-freaking-tastic!  We have tried the turkey chili, meatloaf, chicken rustica, grilled chicken fajita, coconut lime salmon, Moroccan chicken, BBQ pork chop, the frittata, and the quiche.  It has all been great!  Not a complaint about any of it - and that's microwaving chicken and salmon, which to say the least, is risky.  My husband even commented that the black-eyed peas and collard greens, which he thought would be awful, were one of the best things he had ever tasted.

So how much does it cost?  Well, it's not super cheap, but it's also not super expensive.  Our kids share one meal, which is plenty, so we need 3 meals/day.  We order 9 meals/week, which is $99/week.  If you buy more meals, it gets cheaper.  If we bought food at the grocery store to make 3 meals, we would probably spend $60-70/week.  So it is an increase, but totally worth it.  No stress, no planning, no dishes, and hey, I'm sure we save money by not making impulse purchases in the grocery store!

And why am I promoting Freshly?  Because we love it, and want it to stay in business.  And because it has been a game changer for us at dinner time.  So go try it...now...go...you will love it!:)

Check out Freshly here