A cure for Challenging Dietary Habits delivered right to your Front Door!

Short answer, Challenging Dietary Habits or C.D.H.

Mealtime is the single most difficult task for Singles, seniors, and couples without kids (Double Income No Kids – DINKS).

C. D. H. has prompted me to write this honest encouragement for mealtime; especially for those with smaller families. There really is the perfect response to the daily question; what’s for Dinner?

I have always cooked like my Grandmother taught me, however Lard, bacon grease, and the like are frowned upon these days, meals became really bland while raising our family of seven and once Retirement came…can I just say boring is putting it mildly when discussing our Dietary Habits.

For most people, the phrase “The Nose Knows” is a no brainer. However, for most of my life I have NEVER had a sense of smell. I could taste Strong Flavors, but delicate ones were simply lost on me, but NEVER had I smelled anything really while I was growing up. That is until the birth of my daughter. Her first poopy diaper in the hospital just after she was born was the absolute WORST thing.

Although, I was excited because I could smell it! And then I was like a kid all over again, being able to see something and smell it. Through the years my husband has taught me what different things smell like, just like most do with their children when teaching them about the world around them. All of which has led me to discovering the perfect solution to boring mealtimes for Singles, Seniors, or DINKS!

It’s About Thyme!

Hint: FRESH is the Absolute BEST!

Now that you understand that my sense of smell is a relatively new experience for me. Allow me to share with you the most Amazing Food Service for smaller families, HelloFresh, providing you fresh, high quality food direct to your door. No more trying to pick out the best onion, the best tasting apple, or the leanest cuts of meat. All the shopping and planning part has been done for you.

All you do is follow the step by step recipes and

Create Great Meals in less than an hour!

At first glance, the shipping box was more than strong enough to handle the precious cargo that it contained. And once we opened the box, we were impressed at how carefully it was packaged.

1) There were two levels inside the shipping container.

1. Bottom layer had 4 blocks of ice on top of which sat the Chicken, the beef steak, and the Sausage
2. The top layer contained (4) pristine white boxes with the ingredients needed for our four meals for the week.
3. All of which was wrapped in a Thermal bubble wrap lining to maintain the temperature inside the box while shipping. The shipment originated from a local distributor, which means the longest it was in transit was on Friday evening and arrived early Saturday morning.
4. And everything fits so nicely on the bottom shelf the refrigerator.

And our weekly meals cost us no more than what we spend normally on take out, about $16 - $25 per meal for the two of us. Actually, with saving $40.00 off our first box, each meal only cost us about $11.13 for the two of us/ regular price ~20 bucks per meal for two. And best of all, it is fresh food and we didn’t have to go out and shop for. And it came direct to our door on Saturday morning, perfect for those that work during the week.

Perfect for that Saturday night home cooked meal with that special someone!

Upon opening the shipping box and looking at each individual meal box I noticed that what I was told that I was going to receive as my four meals wasn’t what was sent. As the picture shows, we were told online that our 4 meals would be

1) Chicken Milanese

2) Pan Seared Steak

3) Tuscan Sausage

4) Garlic-Butter Shrimp

What was actually in our box was:

1) Chicken Milanese

2) Pan Seared Steak

3) Tuscan Sausage

4) Jamie’s Sweet Potato (And I was so looking forward to the Garlic-Butter Shrimp)

Score for keeping the customer informed: 75%

Sorry HelloFresh, you lost 25 points for telling me one thing and substituting something else without letting me know ahead of time.

My taste buds were revved up for Garlic-Butter Shrimp and are still waiting!

The step by step instructions are a tremendous guide to these meals. We walked through this recipe step by step and found each step to be informative and helpful with one exception; Cooking the steak.

We followed step 4: Cooking the steak as the pictures show, however, I knew that 4-7 mins per side was going to leave the Cow still mooing (way too rare) for our liking which required me to slice up the partially cooked steak and re-cook it.

But I was trying to following their instructions precisely so that I could help everyone from the novice cook to the professionals at HelloFresh. And this was a very simple fix so we won’t subtract too many points for this issue. (-8 pts.)

*If customers are not experienced in Rare, Med-Rare, Med-Well, and Well-done distinctions of cooked steak, HelloFresh should provide such descriptions when helping to determining doneness.

Preparing this dish was almost a spiritual experience for me. It all started with the parsley and ended with THYME standing still while we enjoyed this meal. Pardon the pun, but this was the most amazing meal. It began with washing, and chopping the parsley that actually smelled slightly sweet and not grassy. Then the spice that came from the thyme as I removed and chopped the leaves. I had never realized what a difference fresh herbs and spices makes until this meal.

HelloFresh has made me a believer in FRESH is BEST!

And as we sat and enjoyed this meal, on the same day that we received our first box of meals and it did seem that time stood still which added to our enjoyment.

Score for Meal One: 92%

Plus there were enough leftovers for one of us to have it for lunch the next day and my Pop Lock dishes are the perfect leftover holders.

This is a tale of two tastes. One very picky and not very willing to try new things and the other, willing to try anything once and twice if she likes it, she says with a smile. But really. That is exactly what happened with this meal substitution made without my knowledge.

Imagine if you will, several radishes, a beet, a granny smith apple, 3 carrots – the card says only one carrot is included, but our box had 3 and I used 2 thinking that I had to use all of them according to the steps. Sound strange? Now consider a picky eater and this variety of tastes, I wasn’t even sure that I was willing to eat it as I stood there grating the vegetables. But I did. But I must confess I had to sample the grated salad before contaminating my sweet potato. It was good, and blended well with the Sweet potato.

(Subtracting 5pts for confusion)

What began as a seemingly strange combination of flavors with a baked sweet potato, this was really an amazing meal. The color was beautiful and festive. The taste of the flavors mingling together was a treat for my taste buds, and a surprise to the brain. I added my own Crusted Chicken Breast Recipe which satisfied the picky eater of this meal.

While there was a lot of grated salad left over, this is NOT fit for human consumption. I tried to eat the leftover salad for lunch the next day, and that was the bitterest combination of food that I have ever placed into my mouth.

The grated salad is only good when it is fresh,

It DOES NOT keep well!

Score for Meal #2: 95%

HelloFresh makes the grade for delivery and the first two meals that we have personally prepared according to the step by step instructions.

There you have it. The perfect cure for C.D.H. especially for smaller families; Singles, Seniors and Dinks alike. Simply order your weekly box of food, and cook like a professional chef right in your own home. With an overall score of 87.3% it is an Excellent Cure for C.D.H. in smaller families. Click here to be directed to HelloFresh’s website with your $40.00 off coupon added to your cart at checkout.