The world of meal kits have always intrigued me. I liked the idea of not having to think of what to cook daily, and also having pre-measured ingredients to work with. I’ve often had to buy a whole head of cabbage while only really needing a tiny portion (I like making Hong Kong style borscht!). But given the price of meal delivery kits, I’ve always been hesitant.

My friend C sent me a coupon for 4 free meals from Cook It, a Quebec-founded meal delivery service. How could I say no!?

The Cook It procédure was pretty simple. I signed up online, chose the appropriate meal plan (4 meals a week), and inputted my payment info. Then I was allowed to choose which recipes I’d like to receive for the following week, as well as my preferred delivery schedule.

There was a nice variety of dishes I could choose from. There were about 12 recipes, and I only needed 4. I went for ones outside my usual comfort zone—after all, if I would’ve bought it myself at the grocery store, it defeats the purpose of me trying out new stuff via meal kit.

Ultimately, I chose:

• Chicken tostadas
• Indian-style haddock
• Pork tenderloin gyros
• Mango dahl

I was pretty excited for the dahl—it has been a long time since I’ve had dahl. My childhood best friend’s mom used to make it for me whenever I visited! But I’ve never tried to recreate the dish myself. The rest of the recipes were fine. I chose them since they seemed good, but nothing really stood out to me.

We chose to get our meals delivered on a Sunday so that we’d be good to go all through to Wednesday. And would not have to look out for it’s arrival during a work day. It came at around noon (our delivery window was from 10AM-6PM). I received a text message about an hour prior to it arriving at our door.

The meals were well packed. Everything you’d need for a single meal came in a separate bag, except for the meat components—which was at the bottom of the cardboard box with 3 ice packs to keep them cool. We moved everything into the fridge ASAP.

What stood out to me was that there was an awful lot of packaging. However, the booklet that came with the Cook It box told us everything was biodegradable or recyclable, so that’s a relief. They also have an option for a “sustainable kit” where you pay a deposit and your kits’ packaging will instead use reusable dishes and containers.

Meal 1: Indian-style Haddock

Cook It recommends that you cook the seafood-based meals earlier on in the week. The ingredients in this bag smelled wonderful due to the spices! I’ve also actually never used fresh mint leaves in my cooking, so it was nice to get a few sprigs in this kit.

Growing up in a pretty traditional Asian household, the tiny bag of basmati rice bemused me. But overall, the meal tasted quite wonderful. The spices went very well with the rice, and the sauce was great with the fish.

The overall prep and cooking time took 40-45 minutes. The recipe card had estimated 25 minutes. It was relatively straightforward to make though! And the ingredients was plentiful, yielding us 3 big plates in the end. That meant we had enough to save for lunch the next day!

Meal 2: Pork Tenderloin Gyros

I haven’t had Greek food in so long! This was a welcomed meal since I’ve missed Greek yogurt-based sauces in general. And I got to make my own tzatziki sauce the way I liked it—without dill!

This was so delicious. Again, there was some food leftover since the portions are pretty big. We ended up saving a small Tupperware of baked potatoes and a few slices of pork that didn’t fit in our gyros.

Meal 3: Mango Dahl

This was the recipe I was most curious about and was looking forward to make. I love that the tomato paste came in a tiny little jar! Unfortunately…they forgot to give us the spice pack. Which is pretty essential to a dish like this.

We substituted the missing spices with some red curry paste we had in our fridge, but it would’ve sucked for anyone who might not have had that handy. The mango is super sour, but goes well with the final dish! I liked this, but wonder how it would have tasted with the proper spices.

Meal 4: Chicken Tostadas

I’ve never loved Mexican food because of cilantro. It’s always chopped in to their various dishes and quite prominent. But since we’re making this at home, I could omit anything I didn’t want!

Tostadas are a mess to eat. But there were so many flavours mixing together it’s really interesting!

All in all, Cook It’s meal kits were a fun experience! I really liked that it allowed the boyfriend and I to try out different recipes, without having to buy huge portions of ingredients ourselves. Of course, it’s also nice to have everything delivered to you right at your home. It also saves you the headache of figuring out what to cook after a long day at work.

Right now, as my boyfriend and I are still trying to practice social distancing and restaurants are relatively inaccessible (delivery/pickup only), it makes for a nice activity for us to do while substituting eating out.

I will likely be trying meal kits again in the future! I quite liked Cook It, but it might be worth exploring what other options there are too. I’m wondering if there’s a meal kit with more Asian food as options? Will keep everyone updated with future experiences!

If you’d like to try Cook It too, feel free to use this coupon to get 50% off your first two orders: KARENL840 🙂