Food fun

Dinner in a box didn’t used to be anything but KFC and other junk food.

Today we got a delivery from Peach Dish, one of the new online services that offers fresh ingredients and easy recipes brought to your doorstep each week.

There were snafus in the ordering process, so this box was unexpected. I had just gone out and bought groceries, twice in two days, so we weren’t hurting for food. That spoiled a bit of the fun.

The amount of packaging exceeded the amount of food – that’s just an observation, not a criticism. I don’t know how you’d ship fresh food without a lot of packaging. I definitely plan to re-use and recycle all of it.

The box had a woven liner that looked like a small dog, three blocks of ice gel packs, and the meat was in a thermal bubble envelope besides. Even with all that cushion, there was some bruising on the tomatoes, the basil and one peach.

The fresh veggies, cheese, dressing ingredients and edamame were nicely bundled by the meal, in mesh bags with a ribbon tie:

There was even a paper bag with sprigs of fresh basil.

The meal I made tonight was simple: chicken breasts cooked quickly in olive oil, with a fresh lemon-mayo dressing, and a side of mozzarella-tomato-cucumber salad. The ingredients were very high quality – those are heirloom organic tomatoes – and the result was delicious.

Loved the lemon dressing; wouldn’t have occurred to me to use a cold lemon dressing on hot chicken. The side was a lovely combo, lightly dressed so as not to override the taste of the fresh ingredients.

All in all, very refreshing on a hot summer day. Light, and nearly carbohydrate free. And about 30 minutes to make.

As a dessert (or maybe it was a “Welcome” bonus), two chocolate chip cookies and two peaches. Yes, carbs there.

Here’s the main thing: It was fun to cook a box of food that someone else had picked out, shopped for, portioned, and bundled, following a recipe that I had never seen before.

Although a pre-fab meal might seem the opposite of improvisation, it introduced a bit of pizazz that I didn’t have to generate from my overwhelmed brain.

Tomorrow’s meal is a “superfoods” salad. That will be perfect to take with us and eat between the morning doctor appointment and the afternoon physical therapy sessions.

I could get used to this.

Today’s penny is a 2013, the year that PeachDish served up its first meals in boxes. “PeachDish now ships more than 200,000 meals per year to customers all around the United States,” the company’s site says.