Happy Tuesday, all! I hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was very busy and so, so much fun.  On Saturday, I had the honor or doing a Spring Wedding Makeup Tutorial for Oh, Dandelion.  It will be posted by the end of the month, so stay tuned!

I am not one for attending SXSW events.  I would much rather go into hibernation than mow down a bunch of out-of-towners while trying to snag a table at brunch.  I attended the Self Medicated Film Expo to see The Other Kind, which is a film that was co-produced by my father and his incredibly talented girlfriend.  She also wrote, directed, and edited the film, so I have been looking forward to seeing it for a long time.  The film was amazing!  It also won Best Picture at the Festival, so it was an all-around wonderful night.

On Sunday morning, we decided to dose up on some Vitamin D and took Lollie to Zilker Park.  We watched her play with all the other doggies while an airplane dragging a large Grumpy Cat banner hovered around in the sky.  Keep Austin Weird.  This little sun baby couldn’t get enough lounging around time.The park was surprisingly not very busy for such a beautiful day.  Lollie decided that she did not want to leave and that she would just find a new family who was willing to stay longer.  As we were walking to the car, she planted herself on a new family’s blanket as we walked away.  This was not her first rodeo with “family hopping”.  Eventually, I coerced her back into the car to go home.

My boyfriend and I made a “quick” trip to IKEA to buy a couple pieces of furniture for our office/spare bedroom.  Considering there is no such thing as a quick trip to IKEA on a weekend, we were able to get out of there pretty quickly.  It helps that I know all the shortcuts since my dad and I practically lived there while we were remodeling the condo.  I spent the evening preparing Green Chef Meal #2 (which I will post about tomorrow) while he built the furniture.  We topped the night off with a quick walk to the convenience store for popsicles.  It was definitely a wonderful weekend.

By this point your are probably still wondering what this Green Chef business is all about!  I was looking around on Groupon one day and saw a deal for this service that I couldn’t pass up.  Green Chef delivers fresh, organic meal kits straight to your front door.  They have everything packed neatly in an insulated, ice pack-filled box, so you do not have to worry about being home to accept the delivery.  I was able to view the menu before the box was delivered, so I was very excited to try everything out!

The box arrived at my door this past Wednesday.  Sadly, the delivery man left it on its side, but it was packed so well that none of the contents were harmed.I opened it and saw the recipes neatly laid on the top. The presentation of the recipes is also something I liked about the service.  The front has a mouthwatering picture of the dish along with a list of the ingredients you will need, which are all included in the box.  The back has step-by-step photos and directions on how to create your culinary masterpiece!

After I removed the layer of insulation and about six ice packs, I was able to look through all the lovely, organic, fresh produce! I immediately placed it all into my fridge since I wasn’t going to be able to cook one until Friday.

The first meal that I decided to make was a Sesame Chicken, Quinoa, and Asian Roasted Broccoli dish.  I laid out all of the ingredients and admired the adorable packaging.  This company even makes a bag of raw meat look cute.  Everything they send is also pre-measured for the recipe, which is awesomely convenient.The only ingredients they ask that you have on hand are salt, pepper, olive oil, cooking oil, and tin foil.  They were not kidding.  I love that I did not have to go shopping for anything to make these meals. The first step was to boil water and add the vegetable bullion and quinoa.After cutting the broccoli into bite-sized pieces, I tossed it with some salt, pepper, and olive oil.
I placed it onto a roasting pan to go under the broiler.  By the way, the broiler on a gas stove is TERRIFYING.  I have never had a gas stove, so I am learning how to cook with it.  Seeing the orange glow of flames from the drawer under the stove and wondering if your cabinets can withstand these temperatures makes for a very paranoid experience.  I also have a tiny kitchen so it warmed up quite a bit in there.  At the end of the day, my kitchen did not burn down and my lovely IKEA cabinets survived.  Phew.I would also just like to take a minute to show you how absolutely adorable the packaging for the egg was.  It was a cute little nest for just one little egg.The next step was to whisk the egg and cornstarch together.  Cornstarch is a tricky little substance.
I cut up the chicken into bite-sized pieces and stirred it into the egg mixture.Then I tossed together the roasted broccoli and Asian Sauce.I heated some oil in a skillet and cooked the chicken.  Breading chicken is apparently not my strong point.  It ended up kind of looking like chicken fried rice, minus the rice, of course.  Once the chicken was cooked, I stirred in the Sesame Sauce.Finally, I divided the quinoa onto two plates then topped it with the roasted broccoli and chicken.Voila!  Sesame Chicken!

Y’all, this recipe was SO yummy as well as highly approved by my boyfriend.  I was super excited to try out the other meals as well.  The only downside to attempting to recreate these recipes is the ability to recreate the sauces.  I’m sure Sesame Sauce is easy to find, but “Organic Asian Sauce” may be hard to duplicate.

Going forward, using this service one per week is not in the cards financially.  However,  I would like to try to use this service once per month.  It was really fun to have all the ingredients for a delicious, healthy, organic home-cooked meal pre-measured and ready for cooking.  Plus, it helped us stay in to eat which is something we definitely need to do more.

I have already made the other two recipes, so stay tuned over the next few days for my thoughts on those!

Thanks for stopping by!  See y’all next time…

Marissa