Hello Fresh saved my week

Hello Fresh saved my week that started pretty sh!t!

Sundays are usually the day I do our meal planning and prep.

They’re also usually the day I get to laze in bed while my husband gets the kids up. You can only ever really say usually with kids can’t you? Always doesn’t seem to be a word I can use.

This week, the husband and I switched mornings (football tipping comp break up… I’m not a football fan!).

Sunday morning I woke up to my big boy screaming in pain. He was crying and crying saying his neck hurt and he couldn’t move.

CUE MUMMA FREAK OUT.

The backstory to this is he came home from daycare the Wednesday before with a temp and slept the whole of Thursday apart from a doc visit where she suspected he had the flu.

Thankfully our GP is open on weekends so I just had to countdown the minutes to 8.30am while monitoring him VERY closely. He just dozed in and out of sleep but when he’d wake he’d cry in agony.

Every time I turned a corner driving to the doc he screamed.

She had his results - confirmed Influenza A. Given that the day before, he’d been feeling a lot better and now he was totally miserable with a sore neck, she sent us off to emergency. But, because he couldn’t sit in his carseat without screaming in agony, off we went in an ambulance. Yes I was totally freaking out but strangely calm too.

Within an hour they’d ruled out meningitis (phew!) but still had no idea why he was in so much pain. All the tests came back clear so they wanted to keep us in overnight for observation. I wasn’t keen on that. I’m no doctor but I was confident that I could monitor him myself and have him back there in an instant should anything change (thankfully we didn’t return and he's on the mend). Just on a side note - how lucky are we to have access to medical services so quickly and easily?

So after a long day, home we went a 5pm.

To no meal plan. To nothing prepped.

If you're interested in meal planning - you might want to check out this post.

By some miracle, the universe knew that I was going to need a bit of extra help this week because on Saturday afternoon my trial box from Hello Fresh had arrived.

Far out was I grateful.

I had four meals, planned out, with recipes (step-by-step with pictures so they’re husband-proof) and all the ingredients I needed. I didn’t even have to think about dividing it all out because the ingredients were already portioned into a different bag for each meal.

What did we eat?

The first night we had crumbed chicken and sweet potato mash. I’ve never crumbed anything without using an egg-wash before but this was sooo good. I just brushed the fillets in a bit of oil then tossed them in the crumbs. Sure it’s not a thick crumb but it gave it a nice crunch.

Next it was sweet mustard chicken and baked rice which I’m going to admit I had none of because the damn flu hit me and I wasn’t one big hungry.

I got my appetite back a bit on Tuesday though and cooked up Cheesy Baked Mexican Pie and the last meal was sweet and soy pork noodles.

What I liked about Hello Fresh:

• Delicious
• Easy to make
• Wholefood ingredients
• Reasonably quick to make
• Fresh, local produce (the meat is labelled with where it came from)
• No meal planning - no decision making

The downside:

Quite a few people asked me if they do an organic option but no not at this stage. They do say that they base their recipes on seasonal, farm-fresh produce and I can definitely say the quality was excellent. I prefer organic yes, but, it ticks all my other food requirements and it's not something we would personally do every night of every week (although maybe if they had an organic option I could be swayed).

The unexpected bonus:

One bonus I hadn’t been expecting was the excitement of trying some new recipes. Don’t get me wrong, I love trying new recipes, but around here, it’s usually a weekend thing where I’ve got a bit of extra time and can go and get the extra ingredients.

Would I do it again?

We're actually thinking about it. It was so nice to have some new meals thrown into the mix but that's not something I would do on my own at the moment (too much time and thinking involved). The husband is VERY keen. I'm not sure if I should be offended or not?

If you'd like to give them a go, Home Fresh is offering $35 off your first order.

Here's to next week being a healthier one right? I so hope you've escaped the nasty flu this year!

This post was sponsored by Hello Fresh.