Can you share your fresh prepared meal delivery/personal chefs? We need help.

[Anonymous]

I spend $250 max a week on groceries and buy exclusively at WF/Relay Foods/Farmer's Markets. That provides a week of breakfasts, work lunches for DH, and 4-5 dinners per week.

We eat almost 100% organic, fresh stuff. Seriously spending more than 3x that amount to get takeout every night is mind-boggling.

Invest what you spend in a personal chef or maybe some cooking lessons. A professional adult should be able to make a pasta or salad or something for their family to eat...

[Anonymous]

I have friends who use Plated. and they love it. It requires being able to get food delivered to your house. There are tons of coupons to try it for a week free, just browse on the web site.

[Anonymous]

If you can read, you can cook. You are just lazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can read, you can cook. You are just lazy.

+1,000,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can read, you can cook. You are just lazy.

No it's not that easy. I mostly taught myself to cook, but it is trial and error. I see my husband struggling with issues that I figured out many years before but that was because I goofed up a lot. You do have to know how to read and follow instructions, but there is more to it than that. Like it's not all that easy figuring out when chicken or steak is actually cooked correctly - not too much and not too little. Heck, I was watching the Chef's on Chopped screw that up this morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Www.healthybitesfood.com has worked great for us. They deliver.

We got a few dinners from them as a gift. I would say this works if you eat bigger portions of grains, pretty big portions of protein, and smaller portions of vegetables. We tend to eat no or small portions of grains and lots of vegetables so didn't really like the dinners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The previous posters suggestions are all great bandaid suggestions. Sign up for one of them. However, you guys need to learn how to cook. Not like gourmet fancy things, but enough to do a stir fry, pasta sauce, Mac and cheese, brownies, baked chicken for your kids. I live in md, so none of my cooking suggestions would be helpful. I hope someone else can recc a place for classes.

I agree but for a different reason.....to be an example for your children. Please try to learn to cook and learn to enjoy cooking a few things so your kids can be part of the cooking process when they are the right age. If they never see you cook, they'll think that's normal and never want to learn. It's a very important life skill.

My husband can't cook anything (well, he can do boxed mac and cheese) and I hate that he can't help now that we have a baby - it's all on me. I would have appreciated his mother teaching him something (even though she's a shitty cook).

It CAN be fun if you don't act defeated out of the gate. Hire a chef to come teach you a few basic things.

we love soupergirl. I've heard good things about healthybites. However, for $3k a month, hire a personal chef and try to learn from them as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With a $3k monthly budget for food, you can definitely afford meal delivery / personal chef.

Most of the money from eating out can go towards the delivery/chef. Also I am not sure how you spend $800/month on groceries when all you make is rice or pasta a few times a month. You must be wasting a lot of food if you are buying that much fruit and veggies.

So by rebudgeting - you can afford to get healthier 'home made meals' without increasing your budget. You might have to shop around a bit to find what person/service best fits your palate and the options you want.

Another good meal delivery services is scratchDC.

You could also do something like Let's Dish now and then where you go and assemble your own meals. You can make a week's worth of dinner's in a couple hours as all the ingredients are prepared and at stations. That way you would also learn a little about food and putting meals together.

OP here. Our grocery bill includes wine and beer from the grocery store.

Last night, I ran to the store to pick up a few items (no alcohol) and the bill was $80. I bought some breakfast items, maybe 10 different fruits, yogurt, milk, eggs, juice. I know this won't last us through the weekend and I will go again later this week. Have no idea what we are going to eat for dinner tonight. We had pasta last night (homemade) and chicken soup from Whole Foods.

Dinner is stressful for everyone! I love to cook and it drives me bonkers to not know what we are having for dinner every night. I can cook for a couple hours on the weekend and have lunch and dinner for the week. I plan everything down to snacks and go grocery shopping once a week. Your 200/week food bill should be enough to make meals for the family, and you can cook for the week in the time it takes you to make your multiple grocery runs.

Why don't you hire a chef to do some cooking, but also to teach you how to cook basic things, or teach you just basic methods to cook? It takes a little time to know why foods don't "taste right" and you won't get there by cooking only once in awhile.

If you want to cook - Mark Bittman's "how to cook everything" has good explanations on very basic stuff. A lot of Six O Clock Scramble's recipes could be managed by children. And even those services like Let's Dish require work - I was going to sign up, but then I saw that stuff came in separate containers, I had to brown things in a skillet, etc, and I thought, what's the point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can read, you can cook. You are just lazy.

OP here. We are not lazy. I'd actually argue that we are very hardworking and diligent. We studied hard, went to top schools and perform well at our careers. Everyone has different talents. Cooking just isn't ours.

[Anonymous]

...are you OK with your children not having this simple life skill?

If so (and that's obviously your call), then don't expend effort learning to cook. If you don't want them to be reliant on others to provide food for them, then you should make an effort.

I don't think it's lazy not to learn how, but think of what else you could do with that money and if you'd feel good providing a few meals a week for your family (aim for "sunday homecooked dinner", maybe).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can read, you can cook. You are just lazy.

OP here. We are not lazy. I'd actually argue that we are very hardworking and diligent. We studied hard, went to top schools and perform well at our careers. Everyone has different talents. Cooking just isn't ours.

Agree with this. I'm exactly the same way, OP. I even took a basic cooking class (cooking for two or something like that) through Groupon but it didn't help. This isn't a life skill I ever learned and now with a toddler running around, I'm not sure how I would (my budget doesn't allow for a personal chef).

[Anonymous]

OP, if you ever get to the point where you want to learn and aren't sure how to begin, the posters on the Food forum are helpful. You can do a lot with some chicken, a crock pot, and some pasta. We can help you with basics.

[Anonymous]

Scratch DC and Plated are both places that deliver the pre-measured/pre-cut ingredients with instructions and you have to cook the meals. OP, this might be a good way for you and DH to try learning how to cook - order from one of these places and follow the instructions so that you can learn some of the basics.

Ignore the nasty PPs who say you're lazy for not knowing how to cook -- I get it. Different folks have different skill sets. You don't cook. I'm terrible at math. Different strokes, people. But I do agree with some of the PPs who said that you and DH should at least learn a couple of simple dishes so that your kids see that cooking can be done.

If you want a place that delivers the meals ready-made, then we like to order Healthy Bites sometimes. You can choose either vegetarian or regular meals for the week. The focus is on healthy food so the portion sizes are reasonable, the grains are usually quinoa or brown rice, and there are a lot of salads.

[Anonymous]

Here is a round-up of meal delivery services in DC:

http://dcist.com/2014/01/the_best_meal_delivery_services_in.php

[Anonymous]

All I can say is WOW. You either drink A LOT of alcohol or you are wasting a lot of food (or eat a lot). My budget for our family of 5 is $800/month and I shop exclusively at WF and the farmer's market and buy as close to organic-only as the offerings allow. That's with tons of fruit and veg!