I have been actively trying to cook more at home as an attempt to be more healthy. This is probably my biggest resolution for 2018. Thankfully Fresh Prep is helping me achieve my goal, so YAY! To date, I have received two recipes, each being 2 servings.
There are numerous reviews on FreshPrep already that you can find online, so I will not be reviewing the service, but instead focusing on the individual recipes. I will be also looking at the menus from a nutritional aspect, specifically is it providing me a lot of my daily vegetables.
A quick description of what FreshPrep is. FreshPrep delivers all of the ingredients pre-measured for the selected weekly recipes. The recipes are designed to be simple with prep time being around 30 minutes.
The first recipe was a lovely Yellow Thai Curry with bamboo shoots, tofu, and broccoli over jasmine rice. In my excitement I not only started cooking late in the evening, so the lighting was awful for pictures, but I also completely messed up the recipe. My haste - I blame the hunger and the luscious aroma of the curry - resulted in me making undercooked rice and an inadequately reduced curry. So the curry did not coat my crunchy rice! But hey, it tasted really darn good! As I mentioned earlier, I was unable to get nice pictures because it is getting pitch black half past four every day.
Would I re-order the Yellow Thai Curry? YES
The second recipe I ordered was the Chicken, Avocado and Enoki Mushroom Veggie Bowl with gingery dressing and seasoned rice. This time I FOLLOWED the instructions for cooking the rice. You are supposed to put the rice and water on together! The recipe was simple and easy to execute. Did not require much cooking aside from the rice and chicken. I did not enjoy the flavour of the dressing very much. Missing in the picture is the sliced avocado because I wanted it to ripen more.
Would I re-order the Veggie Bowl? NO
Both recipes do contain veggies, but the rice and protein substantially outweighed the vegetables. I wanted to do both of these dishes according to the recipe as this was my first time using FreshPrep and I just wanted to see if I could recreate the dish. For future recipes, I will most definitely be adding more vegetables. Either including more of the same type or different vegetables that would compliment the flavours.
What I really learned from this experience is that I need to have a plan for pictures prior to cooking. It might also be a good idea for me to reserve one portion because my growling stomach just wants to eat and not focus on taking pictures. After satisfying my ridiculous hunger then focusing on taking pictures.
Lastly, I suck at plating food. I sincerely lack food presentation skills. Chefs make it look so easy, but in reality, it is very difficult and takes a lot of thought and planning. I think it might be time for me to hit up one of my chef friends to give me some tips on how to make your food appetizing and beautiful to look at.
Here is the plan for the next two dishes:
1. Sketch out the plating
2. Plan and set up the area for photographing the dish
3. READ the recipe BEFORE cooking the dish
4. Eat one portion to satisfy Gurly's stomach
5. Photograph the reserve portion ideally in beautiful natural lighting
From both recipes, I got a total of four meals, so that is four less meals I had of take-out so YAY! My next delivery is going to be Chana Masala with oven roasted sweet potato and Lemon Rosemary Salmon with ancient grain risotto. The biggest challenge from those two recipes is going to be the risotto because from watching the Food Network for over 10 years, the biggest thing I have learned is that the chef who attempts to make risotto is absolutely mad and in the words of the glorious Gordon Ramsay, FINESSE. Wish me luck and hopefully not become an "Idiot Sandwich."
If you want 3 free plates from FreshPrep, click HERE.
BYES
Products received as PR samples for review consideration; all opinions are my own. Affiliate codes used.
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