Do you or someone in your family LOVE cooking gourmet meals from scratch? Do you love to cook but don’t always have the time to do it? Or do you love cooking but hate braving the stores to buy all those must-have ingredients for a fresh, gourmet meal? Then today’s post is definitely for you! This month my family and I had the opportunity to cook fresh gourmet style meals at home with Chef’d! Chef’d is a service that delivers fresh ingredients right to your door, helping you to make delicious meals that your family loves.
When you visit their website, you will have access to over 300 recipes! Then just select the recipes you wish to purchase, along with the date when you’d like for your meal plans to be delivered, and voila, you will receive an awesome box filled with everything you need to make those delicious meals. One thing I loved about Chef’d is that they had great variety of meals; they have recipes for a variety of dietary restrictions (vegan, gluten-free, etc.) And they have a lot of fancy, gourmet foods to fit anyone’s tastes. But they also had a number of simple, family friendly meals, which is what I love to cook! Let me tell you a little bit about my experience with the company.
When you order from Chef’d, your items will come to your door in this big orange box. The box is nicely lined and packed to keep your items cold, fresh, and in tact. And I was pleased to see that the meats I ordered were actually still frozen. The meats are also vacuum packed, so they will stay fresh in your refrigerator for days without freezing. And when you first open your box, you will see your recipe cards, complete with a full list of ingredients and written instructions (as well as some directions in photos).
As you take the top liner out of the box, you can see that all your ingredients are nicely packaged. In my case, we ordered 2 meals and a dessert, and each recipe’s ingredients were placed in separate bagged packages.
Here are the bagged ingredients out of the box. These bags include all your dry goods, vegetables, and seasonings. It’s basically everything except the eggs, which come in boxes of 2, and of course, your meats, which are at the bottom of the box, on top of ice packs.
And here are the meat packages. Again, they are vacuum packed, so if you don’t get a chance to make your meal immediately, that’s fine. I got stuff for fish and chips, and then I also got a meatloaf dinner, and I didn’t make my meals for several days, and they were still completely fresh.
I also want to say something about the portion size. When I first saw the meats, I have to admit, I thought they looked a little small for a dinner for two, but when I actually went through the process and cooked the meals, I found that they were actually perfectly portioned. It was the perfect amount of fish for my husband and me. And when I made the mini meatloaves, I actually found that it was more than we could eat. So that was a nice surprise!
Now let’s unpack a meal! One great thing about Chef’d is that all of your seasonings and dry goods are pre-measured and packaged. It takes all the guess work out of the cooking process. And then, you are also given step by step instructions.
And if you follow those step by step instructions, everything will literally come out perfectly! (I literally put the chips in the oven when it said to, and I had just enough time (about 15 minutes) to make my fish tenders and then place them in the oven so that both items were able to come out at the same time.)
And here’s the finished meal of Fish and Chips with homemade tartar sauce! This was so delicious! I was so thrilled with the way it turned out, and it’s definitely a meal I would make again!
I’d definitely recommend Chef’d to anyone who lives in a big city and can’t just run out to the store at a moment’s notice when they feel like cooking (or when they’ve forgotten that must-have ingredient). This is also a great service for beginning cooks or for anyone who loves gourmet cooking but may be overwhelmed with the ingredient choices in the store and needs a more simplified process. Finally, I believe this is a fantastic service for anyone who loves to throw dinner parties. If you have a dinner party coming up, you can just go over to Chef’d and select the meal(s) you’d like to prepare for your party and order enough for all of your guests.
Giveaway! One Simply Sweet Home reader will win a $25 Chef’d Gift Card!
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The stuffed chicken breast wioth lemon artichoke pesto!