Why we love Mindful Chef (who like us want to make healthy EASY!)…

OK so I have a passion that in life, we should focus on our strengths rather than our weaknesses. Sometimes sure, it helps to improve our weaknesses but sometimes, it’s better to put them to one side and forget them and give all your energy to what you’re good at.

I’m not a good cook. There I said it. I can put amazing salads together, I’m brilliant with lots of snacky foods (if you came to my house for a party you’d be blown away by my buffet), but actually cooking something, following a recipe etc, not for me!

So when I heard about Mindful Chef meal delivery boxes (and I was attracted to their brand because they stand for the same things I do – organic, low to no wheat/dairy/refined carbs/sugar etc) and they offered me a 3 day supply to try, I was more than happy to accept.

And so the food arrived (in very lovely recycled packaging I might add) and then I realized that you had to cook the bloody things! I thought they just delivered healthy meals. They do kind of, but in the form of recipes and ingredients that you put together. Uh-oh!   (I soon discovered that their official offering is being THE HEALTHY RECIPE BOX COMPANY with good-for-you ingredients to create delicious recipes, delivered to your door).

But I said I’d trial it and so I thought I’d better get stuck in. Now I’m a single Mum of 7 year old twins and a 5 month old baby, so evenings can be a challenge to say the least, with getting everyone fed, bathed and ready for bed. I often don’t sit down until 9pm and that’s usually where I’ll grab a salad or some soup and have a glass of wine.

I’m not going to lie, I thought it was a bit of a faff to have to chop and peel things yourself, ‘why couldn’t they chop it for you?’ I thought. But as I’m telling my client all the time, when you chop things up too much in advance you damage the nutritional quality. So as my clients huff when I say ‘set your alarm 5 minutes earlier to get your veg ready for your juicing’, I now know how it feels! I am right with the advice I give my clients and Mindful Chef are right with theirs. And this is what I love about this company, it really is about health.

So I set to it and on day one of my Mindful Chef trial, it was Mediterranean lentil with artichokes and brazil nut pesto for dinner (I went for the Vegan meal option) and I got my twins to help me read the recipe with me chopping and peeling before bath time…

 

And as soon as they went to bed, I got stuck in, followed a recipe card for the first time in years and the results really blew me away… a truly delicious meal that I never would have found, sourced and cooked myself right in front of my eyes!

 

Over the next couple of days I chopped, prepared & cooked up Chinese five spice tofu & lettuce wraps with peanut & lime dip…

 

    

And Lentil and sweet potato dahl with almonds and cauliflower rice…

  

 

I even had enough for left overs too, so lunch was taken care of as well as dinner on most days!

And these are the main things I learned about having Mindful Chef boxes:

• It made me realize that when someone comes up with a recipe, sends me the ingredients and instructions, I really LOVE cooking! I think my resistance has always been time and faffing around with working out what to eat. Mindful Chef really do this spectacularly for you.
•  It got my kids reading more and asking more questions about food as I was using ingredients and cooking things they had never seen. Brilliant! They also tried tofu, cauliflower rice, lentils and things they would normally go ‘yuk’ at, I think because they had everything in front of them and could get involved.

• Many people want the quick fix for everything and as you’ll know I’m always telling people you can’t cheat health. But Mindful Chef really is a way of helping people who want to be as healthy as possible in the quickest way possible, be just that, WITHOUT compromising anything. It was so refreshing to see a real health food delivery service instead of things that are advertised as healthy that are pre-packaged and pre-cooked and heaven forbid instructed to be chucked into a microwave. Bravo Mindful Chef!
• I got soooooooo many ideas from just three days of Mindful Chef meals, learning how to put simple things together that are healthy and taste great. The way they put their recipes together is done to make it easy and enjoyable for you, the chef (!) and if nothing else a few meals a week for a month would inspire you on so many levels!
• I threw less food away. I am a bung-together / mish-mash eater but I do find that sometimes, esp as I get my food shop delivered once a week, that things go out of date and get thrown out. It was great to have such tasty meals, a tidy fridge and no wastage. And the recipes I tried could definitely be adapted to use any left overs I had by having some staple ingredients. Like I say there was often enough for me to have lunch the next day with some steamed spinach or salad leaves, brilliant.

Mindful Chef really tap into mindfulness as a whole too (which is another reason I rate them so much!). They encourage mindful eating, mindful packaging, sourcing of the best organic ingredients etc and unlike many other food delivery box companies, these guys share all their recipes on their FAB blog too! Like me with my clients, they genuinely want to inspire people to be healthier.

They have also given me a very generous discount code for all my clients / followers!  If you’re an MTE client or follower, you can get 25% off your first two boxes!

(Please contact the office for the code or visit the Making Thing Easy FB page or my Janey Holliday Instagram account and look for my weekly Mindful Chef meal pictures!)

Go to www.mindfulchef.com and you can choose between meat and vegan meals, opt in for 1, 2 or 4 people and can order as many or as little days as you like. Plus you get to see what recipes/meals are up next – they change them weekly and there is so much variety. It works out from just £4.50 a meal too, which is brilliant value and they deliver all over the UK.

The team over at Mindful Chef are professional, passionate and friendly so if you have any further questions, please drop them a line and don’t forget to follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @mindfulchefuk

All that’s left for me now is to place my order for some more Mindful Chef meals for myself next week when my kids go back to school – I need my week to be as easy and nutrient-packed as possible!

ENJOY…

Janey 🙂