I am almost certain that every household with children (and even some without!) would LOVE a personal chef/grocery shopper/meal planner! Two weeks ago MamaSource offered a voucher for 6-months of service at Relish! for $17, a $36 value. I happily signed up!
We have stuck with the program nearly perfectly. The basic idea is that every Thursday Relish! prepares about 15 recipes for you to choose from. You can add these to your Weekly Menu. You can search for other recipes (like vegetarian, kid-friendly, brunch, budget-friendly etc). And add those too. There does not appear to be a limit to how many you can add...but you can mindlessly wait for them to change the menu for you each week and choose from that (which is what I have been doing). They also give you a list of about 10 recipes every month to make ahead and put in the freezer. The first week I made all of my selected freezer recipes in about 2 hours time. So in addition to those 10 recipes we have been making 5-8 recipes from the main menu every week.
The description of the service states that they don't use prepackaged items. For the most part, this is true. I mean, there has been a call for Ro-Tel and frozen pound cake just this week. I can't say this is a major complaint of mine but I do think I will be checking out a few other similar sites to see if they offer more healthy options. I can choose to *search* for all vegetarian, lower calorie etc but really-- if I had the time to search I wouldn't be perusing such services anyway. SO, that is a bit of a downfall for Relish! However, it has been so much fun and such a reduction of my stress that I can't say that I don't recommend this site for just about everyone.
One thing the site does point out is that they hope to inspire us in our meal preparation. I think this is a great thing for them to mention. I have tweaked their recipes several times by substituting quinoa for ground beef, omitting sugar and of course, always purchasing organic when possible. The recipes are simple enough that you really can change them up to make them healthier. However, I still find this to be a bit of a problem because the key feature (for me) is that once you create your menu you get a FULL shopping list adjusted to the amount of servings you designated. So...if I am continually swapping healthier ingredients then my grocery list becomes more complicated. Just yesterday I did not buy "whole milk" and instead, picked up our regular ingredients to make homemade almond milk. The bad part...the whole milk was for a quiche and I'm pretty sure it wont be fluffy without it.
Bottom line- the service is definitely worth the money. It has made our shopping quick and easy (and we have actually spent $40 less each week). The recipes are very good! This isn't the absolute perfect option for a super healthy eating family or a vegetarian family unless they have the time (and desire) to put a little more effort into their meal planning. I'm not lazy but I totally need this to be a service that I can just trust without double-checking things for healthier ingredients.
Give it a try! You definitely wont be disappointed!
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