Meal Kits (Making Life Easy)

Aweh, guys!

Since moving to the Netherlands, I would hate to say it, but we have been in a bit of a dinner rut that would make a five year old’s diet seem varied. Back in SA, we never really appreciated how cheap restaurants were and the plentiful supply of great quality beef that graced our tables. Woolworths (I miss you baby) also made deciding what to have for dinner easy as there were plenty of great quality options to choose from… and back then we weren’t on a budget.

So more often than not, we’ve enjoyed pasta with some form of jarred or packet sauces (to be fair, they are really, really good) or we’ve made tacos, a stir fry or occasionally my world famous mushroom risotto… really nothing inspiring (not to brag but my risotto is hecking delicious). We also don’t have a fully stocked kitchen yet so we can’t make any of our favourite slow cooked meals in our much missed cast iron enamel pot… that said, they were all beef dishes (RIP).

Luckily, while perusing Albert Heijn, I came across a meal kit for a Thai green curry. It included everything but the chicken and rice, so we decided to give it a try. For the record, I LOVE SPICY FOOD which has definitely been well missed here so I was really excited for something even marginally hot… even Satan’s toenail was starting to sound appealing.

The ingredients came packaged in a cellophane wrapped box with a paper band listing the ingredients and the recipe. It’s all in Dutch but if you understand Afrikaans or use Google Translate, you should be okay. This recipe included a red onion, a zucchini, a carrot, a huge red paprika, two tomatoes, a chilli, a cute little box of coconut milk, a pouch of curry paste, and most curiously, a cucumber… how odd.

The recipe was easy enough to follow, even in Dutch, and the end result was amazing! It was incredibly flavourful, fragrant and just spicy enough. Funnily enough the cucumber was the star in the dish! It had a refreshing quality, even while piping hot. It is also probably the most flavourful thing we’ve had in the Netherlands so far…

YUM

It also wasn’t overwhelmingly expensive. It was €4.79 for the kit and €2.79 for the chicken. I’ve also seen similar kits at Jumbo and there are many different varieties. It’s also real cooking with real ingredients and everything is perfectly portioned so there is less food waste. I wouldn’t say that we are completely over the dinner rut, but at least we have a new dish to add into the mix to spice things up (literally)!