Cooking fresh and healthy meals just got easier

HelloFresh came right to the door with ingredients and recipes

I don't know about you, but every night it is a hassle to think about what to cook the family for dinner. I work from home, have two young kids and I am busy running my girls to extracurricular activities after school, so making a healthy meal sometimes gets put on the back burner.

I have been trying to get my meals for the week planned out on Sunday and make them ahead of time, but that doesn't happen too often. What frustrates me is sometimes is trying to find the ingredients for some of the recipes. I also overbuy the amount of food I need and end up sometimes wasting food.

I have seen advertisements for meals that get delivered to your home are already prepared and some you make. I decided to try out a company called HelloFresh. They deliver all the ingredients for healthy meals to your door and you prepare them. I also a coupon for the company, so why not try it out. 

Randi at All Children's Fit4Allkids
cooking classes

Last year my 11-year-old daughter Randi, took the AllChildren's Fit4Allkids cooking classes and learned the basics for cooking. I decided this might be fun for her to do since she loves to cook.

You get to pick how many meals you want for the week and the day you want the food delivered, so I chose three meals and a Monday delivery, so we could have the meals during the week. I couldn't wait for the package, because I was excited to have healthy meals at my fingertips. When the box arrived, I was very impressed. Each meal had it's own separate box labeled with the ingredients inside. The meats were separate. The package also included a card with each recipe including photos. This made it easy for Randi since everything was laid out and she could follow along with the photos and now what the meal should look like when she finished.

Randi made the first recipe, which was sausage and broccolini orecchiette with pesto. She washed all the vegetables, cut them up, boiled water and cooked the vegetable and sausage. I helped her a little with the pasta, but other than that she did everything. The whole meal took about an hour. The card said 25 minutes, but since we were doing this the first time it took us a little longer.

Randi's apricot-glazed chicken

What was impressive to me and my husband was her presentation of the meal on the plate. It looked just liked the photos. And it tasted fabulous.  Even my other daughter, Graci age 10 who is a little picky when it comes to food, liked it.

She was so happy how everything turned out and so proud of what she accomplished, she couldn't wait to cook the next day.  The next meal was apricot-glazed chicken. This meal was even better and her presentation on this one was outstanding.

I enjoyed helping oversee the process, but overall she was able to make the meals on her own. I look back at the wonderful impact the All Children's Fit4Allkids family cooking classes had on Randi and am thankful for it. What's amazing is it is the classes are free and offered to kids throughout Pinellas County. Click here to enroll for a free class or call 727.898.7451. 

Overall, this was a pleasant surprise to my cooking dilemma. I have everything delivered right to my door and it's fresh. I don't have to look for ingredients at the store and I don't waste food. It's awesome! I found something my 11-year-old can cook, and it is a great way to learn and share the cooking experience. The whole family benefited from these wonderful healthy meals.

If you would like to receive $40 off your first order of HelloFresh put in the code X7TYB3.

***I did the math and the regular cost for a family of four with three ready to make meals including the meats and shipping  is $105. Since I had the $40 coupon, it was $65. This is a service you sign up for and the food can get delivered weekly, monthly or whatever you want and on the day you want it delivered.  It works out to be about $8.75 per person per meal if you buy for a family of four three meals a week without any discounts. With the $40 off the fist box it ended up being $5.41 per person per person per meal. You can also do for a family of two.

Click here for my previous story about All Children's Fit4Allkids.