Margarita Chicken

In August, I took on a side-gig. No worries, I didn’t take the job because I lost my career position. I wanted the new experience, it’s exactly the kind of work I love, and I’m truly enjoying it. But there’s a kitchen down-side: I have less time to cook, and less time to THINK about cooking.

I began investigating meal delivery services when a friend experienced a family health situation and Hubby and I wanted to offer a helpful gift. I asked colleagues and friends for company recommendations, compared online reviews, and looked at meal prep difficulty & portion sizes from a variety of services.

I had been operating on an idea (born of nothing, zero facts) that meal delivery companies were: astronomically expensive, not-delicious, and required massive commitments. My peeps set me right: I reached out and got zero bad reviews from the half dozen people I spoke with about them.

So, I was surfing for my friend’s family and fantasizing about what it would be like if meals were delivered to MY house. I saw pictures of squash and green beans and zucchini and sweet potatoes. I’m not a vegetarian but wow, I kept seeing these meal kits with hearty servings of de-licious looking vegetables. It was really appealing. When I realized that the first week’s service for most of them would cost less than $50 total for three meals for two (with the Internet-wide discount of $15-20 off each week for four weeks), including delivery, I got Hubby involved.

At first, he shared my unfounded concerns. But I walked him through the service options of my top choice: Home Chef. He thawed, and then grew excited. What did we have to lose? In our community, any and all delivered restaurant food would cost $50 for the two of us. We decided to give it a go, and we decided to do the cooking together: y’know, a couples thing.

I’ll talk more about the options we have with Home Chef and hence, why we chose them, in future posts. Let me get down to a review of the first meal we tried: Margarita Chicken.

This one had the zucchini and red pepper pre-chopped (Judge me not, faire chef readers! I’d put in a 12 1/2 hour day.).

The veggies were fresh and crisp and I mixed them with olive oil and garlic salt and placed them in the provided, recyclable baking dish. Along with that, I placed the two perfectly legit sized chicken breasts that I had rubbed with the pre-portioned container of a wonderfully seasoned, tomato-based sauce (better than any store-bought sauce I’ve tried. It is not an exaggeration to call it restaurant-quality). When the meat and veggies had finished baking, I smothered them in the generous mozzarella provided, sprinkled on parmesan and bread crumbs, and popped it back in the oven for the cheeses to melt. Finally, I topped the chicken off with basil pesto.

The meal had, all told, eleven ingredients (my Wisconsin-ite Hubby appreciated the attention to detail of the two kinds of cheese), and took an hour to prepare because of cooking time. It truly met Home Chef’s label of “Easy,” which is exactly what I was counting on.

As we took our first bites, Hubby commented on how good the zucchini was. It was not over-cooked for the first time in my adult life. I never knew how to prepare it properly before now! BAKED zucchini? Who’d ever heard of such a thing? For years I sliced it, drowned it in oil, and sauteéd it until it was mush. I finally quit preparing it altogether. I do know how to cook, but I don’t know how to cook everything. Home Chef lived up to one of our hopes right out of the gate: it brought new things into the house.

The Margarita Chicken dish was delicious. Not just “my expectations were low” delicious, but downright tasty. The flavors were layered and complex. The seasoning was just right. We have a cherry wood spice cabinet (handmade by Hubby’s best man as our wedding gift) filled with Penzey’s. I am no stranger to spice combinations that enhance foods. And I’m telling you, they nailed it with this one.

More reviews to follow!