I spend a lot of my time eating out or picking up take aways. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of but by the time the day is done I have zero creativity left to come up with something for dinner. Many of my friends who live alone follow a similar path because purchasing a stack of groceries inevitably means, at some point, they end up going off. One person just cannot get through an entire head of lettuce in such a short space of time!
Enter Daily Dish.
It’s an idea that started in Cape Town and is now available in Johannesburg. You go online and place an order for a weekly “box”. The box arrives with 4 recipes and all the necessary individual ingredients (packed in their portions) to make 4 delicious and healthy meals. You’re able to choose between class meals, low carb ones or vegetarian options. You can either get meals for 2 or 4.
The website (www.dailydish.co.za) allows you to get an idea of what to expect in your box and the types of meals you should expect.
I was skeptical. For starters, the pricing seemed a bit steep. For a week’s worth of Classic Dishes (4 meals, two servings each) it costs R590. On first look I thought that was a bit much. But is it really? You’re roughly looking at 8 meals with each meal costing R74 per person. That price of R590 also includes your delivery cost. Actually? Not so bad.
Low carb options work out to R620 for the week (that’s R78 per person per meal).
The serving sizes were extremely generous, so I ended up having lunch for the next day as well.
Everything arrived neatly packed.. though with all that plastic it will be necessary to ensure you do your bit and recycle!
I’m not the world’s greatest cook. So I was a bit nervous about the recipes but they were extremely easy to follow. I like that you can also save them for future reference. They come in the order Daily Dish suggests you make them – that way the ingredients don’t go off.
All the ingredients supplied are fresh and delicious. I was extremely impressed with the quality of meat and veggies delivered. I didn’t get pictures of what I cooked (because I ate it all way too fast) but here’s a teaser of my week of meals:
All the means were delicious and there was definitely more than enough to feed two people (plus leftovers for lunch the next day). Daily Dish sends me a weekly mail as to what I can expect in the various boxes as well as a reminder to order. Meals take around 30 minutes to prep. It’s possibly the easiest way to get dinner ready. Minimal stress or fuss.
You also hardly ever deal with other humans unless you’re sharing comments on the recipes on the site (love this idea, building a Daily Dish community).
There’s no contracts or minimum sign ups. You basically order for the week and stop when you’re going away or the like. Other than the huge amount of plastic from the packaging I can’t fault the clever online order system from Daily Dish.
Dinner will never be the same.
