With each pregnancy I seem to have lost my mojo for cooking and when Fresh Canten asked me if I’d be interested in giving their foodie service a try, I just couldn’t say no. Fresh Canteen is essentially a food delivery service, of sorts. You pick the recipe, they deliver the ingredients to your house and you follow the detailed instructions to cook up a deliciously adventurous meal. It solves a couple of my issues 1) I don’t have to think too hard about what to cook 2) groceries are done for me 3) I don’t have to leave the comfort of my home to try a gourmet meal. Sweeeeeeeeeet.
So off we went to their website and perused through the six menus on offer (each recipe is live for two weeks so there’s a good rotation of options and something for everyone) and the hubs chose the Barramundi En Papilllote with a toasted almond and dried fig salad. The what you ask? Yeah.. trust me, we had no clue what we were getting except that it was fish. Loved that it was something new to experiment with! That was the extent of the “work” we had to do. Delivery takes place every Tuesday provided you had your orders placed by the previous Friday. Please note that they only deliver in the downtown Toronto core (much to the dismay of my Instagram and Twitter followers living in the GTA and elsewhere!).
Tuesday arrived and our concierge handed us a little box and I piled it with the other boxes that were stcked up in my our living room (it’s been a busy month!). Come 7 p.m. I was about to get cooking and was whining about what we should have for dinner when I remembered that the Fresh Canteen delivery was supposed to have happened that day! I dug out the mail that came in and sure enough.. there it was. Good thing they pack it all up nicely with ice packs! Everything stays fresh.
Every single thing we would need was nicely packaged and all I needed was to supply the pans and a bit of the butter ( was supposed to use oil but I forgot about that!)
The instructions were soooooooo detailed that this would be an awesome way for the hubs to take over cooking on days when I’m either attending events or just plain tired. Even reminded me not to burn the toasted almonds! It really was fool proof and I even learned how to pit an olive. It’s just like with garlic, use the flat side of your knife and slightly smack down on the olive. VOILA! the seed slides out.
The meal was absolutely delicious, even the Little Monkey loved this new type of fish. Barramundi. We plan to hunt that down the next time we’re at the market. Cost wise a recipe for two people (or two meals) is $30 and you have to order a minimum of $60 worth (so technically 4 meals). Any additional meals after that works out to be $20 for each subsequent recipe (each recipe is 2 meals). I know.. I hate math too. Basically you get a $10 discount from your third recipe onwards. I think this is great for couples and families but probably not large families as it can get expensive. That said the quality of the ingredients really makes it worthwhile, especially when it comes to fish and quality red meats. Going to Lawrence market will set you back a pretty penny so it definitely evens out that you can do it all in your PJs!
Highlights for me include trying something new and not having to shop. As you know I’m not very good at following recipes. I always want to add my own twist which is fine but for those of you who keep telling me you can’t cook – give this a try. You WILL be a chef with Fresh Canteen. Invite me for dinner will ya?
