Fresh Ingredients and Recipes Delivered Right to Your Door!

Having a hard time fitting hearty, home cooked meals into your busy schedule?   Sometimes you just need a little reprieve.  Constantly dining out can put a dent in your wallet and cooking that quick macaroni and hotdog dish all the time is not the healthiest choice for your family and can adversely affect your weight.  Well, relief is here.

This past week I was given the opportunity to review the fabulous weekly meal delivery service, Relished.  Let me tell you, this is no ordinary meal service.  With Relished you receive chef prepared portioned kits packed with fresh locally sourced food along with instructions on how to prepare each meal!   The ingredients, anything extra you may need (i.e. salt/pepper/oil), calories per serving, drink pairing and a step by step instructions with pictures are all included on the recipe sheet provided for each meal.  The recipe is printed on glossy card-stock and is meant to last but if you happen to lose it or it somehow gets ruined you can visit the Relished site and find it on there!  

With a weekly subscription you can receive up to 5 meals with your choice between 2, 4, or 6 servings.   At $9.95 per serving, Relished can totally fit into any budget, if used as a supplement to your regular meal plans (ordering 2-3 meals a week).   If you find yourself having a hard time fitting this service into your budget after signing up, skipping weeks and canceling is super easy.
 

For my review, I was sent three 2 serving meals.  Totally great considering Little Miss M's picky eater stage.  First we tried the Turkey Burger with Homemade Pickled Onions and Sweet Potatoes.  Preparing this dish was super easy.  After my husbands first bite he asked me about the delicious dressing he was tasting.  Since I did not add any dressing, he took a peak inside and realized that it was just the onions.  I was so excited because I had never pickled onions before and for them to turn out delicious...bonus.  Although, the sweet potatoes fries were not quite crispy enough this meal was super delicious.  I wanted to follow the recipe exactly and was instructed to cook them until tender, but next time I will definitely make them crispier.  This was a huge hit and now that I have the recipe, it will definitely make it into my monthly meal rotation.

Next we tried the Sambal Glazed Salmon with Roasted Bok Choy and Wasabi Whipped Potatoes.  This was another huge hit and will also be a repeat meal.  I was particularly proud of this one because it looked exactly like the chef prepared one shown on the recipe page.   My husband was excited because I do not cook salmon much and he had never tried Wasabi before.  He  loved it so much that he posted pictures on Facebook bragging about how he has the best wife ever!  :)

Lastly, we tried the Wedge Salad.  Preparing was super easy and took all of a few minutes.  This was a new spin on plain salad but at the end of the day its still just a salad and not something I would not make for dinner.   The bacon complemented the dressing and the Gorgonzola cheese nicely.  I also liked the fact that this particular recipe is gluten free.  Knowing how hard it is to eat gluten free, it is nice to see that a few options have made the Relished menu.  My husband liked the Wedge Salad but it was definitely not his favorite out of the three we tried.

Although I love the idea behind this service, it would be nice if given the option to completely customize your own weekly menu.   That being said, Relished has just added 2 extra options to each menu, giving 5 choices total for the week.  This recent change, in my opinion, is a great one and I hope they continue to add options.   Another recent addition to this service is that they now allow you to choose when your meals arrives, giving you even more control.  You can clearly tell that they are working hard to better suit their customers needs; one of the signs of a great company.

Overall, this is a great service and well worth it.  Relished not only does the shopping for you but they guide you through the entire recipe; from prepping all the way to plating the dish to make it look professional.  I appreciate that there is minimal measuring too.   I absolutely love that I did not have to shop for the ingredients…I cannot even begin to count the times  I have forgotten an ingredient or two that has ruined my meal plan for the week.  With these recipes, I prepared restaurant worthy meals.   Coming from someone who doesn’t necessarily enjoy cooking these recipes are super awesome and actually a joy to prepare!  Saving me the trouble of having to plan every single meal, shortening my grocery list, and making my measuring cups nearly obsolete…sign me up!

UPDATE 9/2/2014: Relished has expanded and changed many things along with their name.  They are Home Chef.  

Disclaimer:  I was provided one week (3 meals) of service for the purposes of review.  All opinions are 100% my own and may differ from your own.