Prepped Organics - Organic Meal Delivery Service

I love cooking and meal planning and take great pride it nourishing myself and Corbin each week. With that being said, there is something really nice about having people cook for you! So when the lovely team at Prepped Organics reached out to me about sending dinner over one night, I jumped at the opportunity!

Prepped Organics provides delicious, nourishing and organic meal delivery in Toronto. You choose from their menu of dinners each week and they provide delivery Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I love that they have gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian and vegan options for 1-5 people to cover a variety of preferences and lifestyles!

They have a unique menu each week and you can choose the option best suited to your tastes and dietary preferences. The meals come fully prepared with instructions on assembly and heating.

The week they sent us dinner, I had to go for the Greek grilled chicken with rice pilaf and Greek salad with a local sheep milk feta. I noted that I was gluten free and dairy free and everything was easily accommodated! They even made me a special dairy free tzatziki to enjoy with my chicken which was a really lovely touch!

I was super impressed with the team hand delivered my package to me and explained everything that was inside. They even included some special raw, gluten free peanut butter cookies as an extra special treat - nice touch!!

The preparation instructions were easy to follow and everything came together in less than 15 minutes, including heating everything up. 

The meal was delicious. I was especially impressed with how moist the chicken was, even after we heated it up. Greek food is some of my very favourite food, so this was a great meal! The portion for 2 people was very generous and we were able to enjoy leftovers of salad and rice the following day.

I loved using their service and will definitely keep it in mind when things get crazy in the future - it's so nice to have an expertly prepared meal that takes the guess work out of shopping, preparing and cooking with organic ingredients. Chef Anna & the team makes the food with care and it shows in the preparation and level of detail of everything included.

If awesome organic food, delivered to your door sounds like it would be helpful (and awesome!) for you, the team at Prepped Organics have a promotion running where you can use the code WELCOME25 to receive 25% off your first order.  Enjoy!!

That time Spinzo saved me and paid for my groceries

A couple weeks ago this happened
 

So let's back up a little bit... it started when I saw some tweets to a new company called Spinzo and joined in the fun of their #SpinzoSavesTO contest

From Spinzo: Spinzo is a smart-buying company dedicated to offering great experiences at affordable prices, that aren't the typical 50-90% deals. Spinzo cares about merchants and is dedicated to Savings! The #SpinzoSavesTO contest was started to create awareness of Spinzo's presence in Toronto. In advance of offering smart-buy deals, Spinzo is giving out what people really want: cash savings of anything! All contestants have to do is tweet at @spinzotoronto or post on our Facebook page their requests and we draw winners weekly who receive cash savings in person from the Spinzo team. 

While shoes and clothes are fun, I was trying to be practical and tweeted about saving money on groceries. Spinzo made mention of lots of expensive cheese and when I said I didn't eat cheese, the hashtag #dufflebagfullofkalechips was created, which was definitely much more up my alley! I ended up being selected as one of the first winners, which was awesome!! It was even better when they gave me 100% of my grocery bill back in cash.

Fruits and veggies, stuff for juicing, coconut water, almond milk, almond butter, yummy raw granola, tahini, tamari and a whole lotta kale were all part of my haul - it was all very exciting!!

I want to disclose that I'm writing this blog post to say thank you to Spinzo - it wasn't required as part of my win. It was really cool to have my groceries taken care of and I was definitely smiling when I was making dinner the night I won! I'd also like to see more people win and since the #SpinzoSavesTO contest is happening until September 10, you've still got time! Go tweet. Or head over to their facebook page. I'm curious to see what Spinzo has in store for Toronto down the road!

If you could, what would you save money on?

Sunny St. Patrick’s Day With Kate, Kale and Cruda Cafe

I can hardly believe that yesterday was March 17 as the weather in Toronto was absolutely glorious!!

Started off my day with some banana soft serve and fruit I honestly felt like I was eating ice cream for breakfast and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it!! It was so smooth and creamy and the perfect way to start my day. We have a new roommate here at the house Miss Iris!! I’m delighted that she is with me and having fun watching her get settled into her new digs. Other roommates are less excited… Judas was camped outside my door for most of the day, waiting for an opportunity to greet the new inhabitant. He was unsuccessful, but something tells me this won’t be the last I see of him trying to sneak a peek. We’re trying to avoid World War 3 by introducing them to one another slowly…

I decided that it would be brilliant to spend the morning at St. Lawrence Market as I had not been in quite some time. I had mentioned this idea to Kate when I ran into her on the streetcar on Tuesday and she said she had been thinking the same thing, so off we went! Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market has been around for more than 200 years and has been heralded as one of the 25 best food markets by Food and Wine magazine. There are a wide variety of vendors selling produce, meats, cheeses, housewares, and pretty much anything you can imagine. I scored some great produce including organic purple kale, purple carrots, bok choy, asparagus and blood oranges but there were three other things at the market that made me ULTRA excited… Gluten free grains in bulk at Rube’s! I had just been talking to one of my roommates about teff the other day and was so excited to find it alongside amaranth and other goodies at the market. I grabbed teff and amaranth as well as some millet and sorghum flour. The booth also had amaranth, chickpea and quinoa flours (all well-priced)  plus a variety of lentils, beans and rice noodles so I know I will be going back there again!

Second piece of excitement… Fresh organic sprouts from Uncle George’s Sprouts. I opted for the sunflower sprouts and can’t wait to add them to my salads this week and enjoy the delicious-sprouty-goodness. Last but not least… Cruda Cafe is a raw vegan cafe located in the basement of the North building nestled in amongst the stalls of meat and cheese. I was so excited to try Cruda’s menu of raw delights. After some deliberation I opted for one of the wraps, filled with a pesto and tonnes of colourful veggies and sprouts. It was delicious!! The wrap was flavourful without being overpowering and the pesto was a wonderful compliment to the beets, avocado, carrot, greens and sprouts. There were many other options on the menu that sounded delightful as well as a variety of vegan and/or raw truffles, pies and cupcakes. I hope it does well in the Market as I look forward to going back again. Kate and I declared our market visit a success. I definitely need to visit more often! I celebrated with a delicious stir fry of some of the veggies I had procured. Kale, asparagus, bok choy and tofu with green onions, garlic, ginger, tamari & apple cider vinegar (in Drew’s coveted bowl that I kinda want to steal…) Other than the green-hued sweater I wore, it was the closest I got to sharing in the St. Patrick’s day festivities as I ventured!

How was your St. Patrick’s Day?

Fresh - The Movie

Last night I was one of the many people who came out to Meghan & The Movement's screening of Fresh the Movie. It was fantastic. I highly recommend getting yourself to a screening or acquiring your own copy to show friends or family or anyone else who will watch.

It's funny because (pre-WW & Crohn's) I never used to think about what I was putting into my body. I didn't stop to think where my foods were coming from, what else was in them, in what conditions they were raised. I still have a lot to learn, but I like to think that I've come a long way.

Fresh is about the state of the food industry. The film contains some pretty disturbing images of the treatment of animals on conventional farms, but it isn't anti-meat. Rather than simply focusing on the negative aspects, it shows the viewers what amazing strides organic/natural farmers are taking on their own farms and in their communities.

I loved hearing Joel Salatin talk about the chickens playing their roles on the farm team and the "pig-ness" in allowing the animals to graze and roam in his pastures as nature intended them to do. I want to visit Will Allen and talk about worms. It was a joy to be "a part" of a tour of his amazing greenhouse where the fish help the soil which helps the plants to grow. It's such a simple concept, since it's the way that it used to be, but with all of the mass produced & processed foods that have become part of the North American tradition, we've really gotten away from that.

The film really solidified by desire to eat organic & local whenever possible. It also reinforced my choice to buy natural and organic meat products. I figure if I'm continuing to eat meat, they should be as good as it gets, rather than consume products filled with antibiotics and other such loveliness. The movie has also inspired me to be more adamant about getting to a farmer's market during each week. I often drop by the Withrow Park Market on Saturdays, but I usually miss out on a lot of the produce because I'm unable to get there early due to my meetings. I love the concept of actually meeting the people who grow your food!! It's something that is really missing from your local Loblaws Superstore.

I thought a lot about the movie as I made soup tonight with organic vegetables including some local, organic kale. There is such satisfaction that comes from putting together simple ingredients into something so comforting and nourishing and it made me really happy. I've come to find a lot of joy in food and Fresh really made me appreciate that.

There was something that Will Allen said at the end of the movie that really summed it all up for me:

Food is at the foundation, but it's really about life.

Isn't it though?

Be sure to check out the Fresh website for information on screenings or procuring your own copy to share this beautiful message.