Fresh Prep (Product Review) - Healthy Home-cooked Meal in Minutes

Fresh Prep is a local company that reached out to me to try their innovative, healthy product/ delivery service. They deliver perfectly prepped and portion controlled raw ingredients to your door so you can cook a healthy delicious meal in minutes. 

 You can choose from 12 recipes (10 are constant, and 2 are seasonal) on their website and one serving costs around $10-12. Not bad when you take into account the fact that they buy, prep, and deliver everything to your door.

Honestly, all of their recipes looked ridiculously delicious on their website so it took me forever to choose what I wanted. After much contemplation, I ended up choosing the Honey Dijon Chicken Thighs with Root Vegetable Hash.

With each delivery, they provide a physical recipe card with everything you need to know. Ingredients in the box, nutritional information, and even hashtag suggestions for when you Instagram your creations! :P

 This is what the back looks like. It was super simple for me to follow the instructions and I had the meal cooked and ready to go in about 25 minutes.

One of the reasons why I chose this recipe was the fact that it had a vegetable hash and I don't have to do any of the prep work. It came with perfectly diced red peppers, mushrooms, butternut squash, yukon gold potatoes, and onions/thyme. The raw pieces of chicken were wrapped in brown butcher paper tied with red and white yarn. How adorable does that look?!

They try to use locally grown ingredients whenever they can and I really appreciate that fact having watched food related documentaries like Forks over Knives, Food Inc., The Cove, and Fed Up. The reasons behind sourcing food locally and eating whole foods instead of processed ones don't hit close to home until you watch a documentary like Forks Over Knives or Food Inc. If you're at all interested, I highly recommend giving them a watch one night. It may change the way you eat for the rest of your life.

All I really had to do was dump all the vegetable ingredients in my pan and stir stir stir. :) So easy!

Ta-da!!! I don't know about you but I felt like a seasoned chef after creating this little masterpiece. This took the guessing out of what I was going to prepare, purchasing any of the ingredients, and cutting and chopping for an hour before actually getting to cook. I will definitely be ordering from them again, especially during those busy work days when I don't feel like going out, or cooking from scratch at home.

You have to order a minimum of 2 servings to purchase a meal so I cooked for both Meta Knight and I. He gobbled it up in no time and thought it was delicious. He didn't even mind the absence of rice or pasta. 

All in all, I think Fresh Prep is a wonderful delivery service that can benefit a lot of busy working professionals who don't have the time to always prepare a home cooked meal, but still want to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Happy Eating! 


                      Tasting my own creation is like

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Organic Matcha Hemp Protein Pancake Recipe

Recently I watched a Blogilates video on protein pancakes and decided it was my time to give it a try!

I used her recipe as a guideline but changed up some of the ingredients to give it a bit more flavour and pazazz.

 Organic Matcha Hemp Protein Pancake (Rich in Protein, Low Carb, Rich in Fiber)

Ingredients
1 scoop of Whey Protein (I used Vanilla North Coast Natural Hemp Protein Powder)
1/2 cup of unprocessed oats
1 whole egg
2 tbsp almond milk
1 tbsp fat free greek yogurt
dash of cinnamon
2 Tbsp of matcha powder (I used Organic Matcha)
1/2 tbsp of baking powder

Hemp Protein is good choice for vegans (not that I'm a vegan) because it not only is high in fiber but it also contains immune enhancing properties and kidney-protective effects.

1) Grind the oats in a Magic Bullet or normal blender until it's smooth like powder. You just made simple oat flour!

It looks like this when it's all grounded.

2) Add the protein powder, egg, cinnamon, almond milk, baking powder, and greek yogurt.

 3) Mix, mix, mix... and it'll look something like this!

Bring your pan to a medium high heat and spray a bit of oil on it. I was able to make four large protein pancakes with this batter.

Once the edges turn a little brown and you see a few bubbles pop on top, that's when you know it's good to flip.

Ta-da!

To top my pancakes with a bit of sweetness, I heated up a tablespoon of Coca Almond Spread from Trader Joes and a handful of fresh raspberries.

 Boy was this yummy. Not only do you get to eat pancakes for brunch, it's completely void of butter, white processed flour, and white sugar! It's a win win situation.

Happy Eating!

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Easy Health-fied Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe

Am I the only one who has never once ordered Carbonara at a spaghetti joint? I once heard how heavy and fatty it was and I've never dared order it, fearing of a cream, egg, bacon, and cheese overload.

One day I was watching my favourite Youtube channel, "Cooking with Dog" and they had an interesting recipe video on Japanese style Spaghetti Carbonara. It didn't look too heavy so I decided to give it a shot. It's actually super easy and I even made a few tweaks to it myself!

Here are the ingredients:
1 egg or 2 small eggs
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tbsp almond milk
pinch of black pepper and salt

1/2 tbsp EVOO
3 strips of bacon
3 cloves of black garlic

1 spring onion, chopped up
Parmesan cheese, grated
Black pepper

In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients. This will be used later for your sauce.

I try to avoid gluten most of the time so I've had to look for alternatives when it comes to my spaghetti cravings. My favourite alternative is Brown Rice Pasta because it's not grainy like whole wheat spaghetti yet healthier than plain spaghetti made with durum wheat.

I used three cloves of black garlic (made by moi!) and they are MUCH richer in antioxidants than regular garlic. I have a feeling they're the next kale so read up on it here if you want to know more about their health benefits.

Heat up the EVOO on medium heat and add your black garlic and sliced bacon.

Put a pot of water to boil with a few drops of oil and rock salt. Add the spaghetti in. The oil prevents the spaghetti from sticking to each other and the salt adds a bit of flavour to the otherwise bland pasta.

I clearly thought there was not enough bacon, and proceeded to add more.

Once the spaghetti is cooked, put it immediately in your skillet and stir around incorporating all the flavours of garlic and bacon.

I put the egg mixture from the beginning in a larger pot and put the hot pasta in it. STIR QUICKLY! Mix everything together and the heat of the spaghetti should cook the egg without coagulating it. If you need a bit more heat to cook the egg, put the pot on simmer (lowest heat setting) and keep stirring for 30 seconds or more.

Sprinkle on a big of chopped green onion, Parmesan cheese, and you're golden!

If you enjoyed this recipe, please check out my other healthy spaghetti recipes!

Japanese Masago Yakiudon


Spaghetti Alle Vongole (Clams)


Spaghetti Squash with Meatballs in Tomato Sauce


Zucchini Pasta (with Tomato Sauce)


Caulifredo Sauce with Zucchini Pasta


Happy Eating!

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Caulifredo Sauce with Zucchini Pasta Recipe

Everybody nowadays wants to eat a healthier diet with more vegetables, more lean protein, less fat, less calories, and to be frankly honest, I'm one of them. I always scrounge the internet looking for healthy recipes I can make at home for a low cost and I recently found one which seemed super interesting! 

It's a healthy take on the classic Alfredo Sauce which is typically made with butter, flour, cream, and milk, served over pasta. This healthier version is called Caulifredo Sauce which is made of.. guess what, pureed Cauliflower!! To take the health factor up a notch, I decided to serve it over zucchini pasta instead of regular wheat pasta.

Caulifredo Sauce with Zucchini Pasta  (Serves 2-4)

(low in carbohydrates, fat,and calories/ high in fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A, folate)

Ingredients:

1/2 large head of cauliflower, cut into chunks

4 small or 2 large turkey sausages

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella 

3-4 garlic cloves

1 cup of milk

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tbsp olive oil

2 medium zucchini

1 vegetable peeler (that has the options of making twirls and spaghetti strips)

1) First, use your vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into either long linguine style strips or thin spaghetti like strips.

My vegetable peeler had the option of making it into really thing strips so I went with that because it most resembled 'real spaghetti'.

Once you've finished peeling all the zucchini, set it aside. Doesn't it look gorgeous?!

2) Mince garlic and chop cauliflower into smaller florets.

3) In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat and throw in the garlic. Let the garlic release its aromatics and turn slightly brown.

4) Add soy milk, salt, and cauliflower. Add mozzarella and stir throughly.

5) You can omit this if you want a vegetarian dish, but I oven baked some turkey sausages and sliced it up.

6) Be careful not to overheat your milk or else it will curdle!! Cook for about 15 minutes or until cauliflower can be pierced easily with a fork.

7) To cook your 'pasta', blanch the zucchini linguine in hot boiling water for 2-3 minutes to soften it.

8) Turn off the heat and let the cauliflower mixture sit for 10 minutes to cool down. Then toss the mixture into a blender and blend away!

There you have it, Cauli-fredo sauce over zucchini pasta!

This is an extremely healthy and easy recipe to make at home with very little ingredients required. Because I only used a little bit of salt, it tasted a bit bland so for you guys I suggest throwing in some spices before blending it to give it more flavour. OR.. throw in half a cup of delicious Parmesan to make it extra CHEESYY.

All in all, worth a try if you're looking for a healthy alternative to butter based cream and white pasta. :) Let me know how yours turns out!

Happy Eating!

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