Meals made easy - Culiniste

We get quite a lot of pitches at Kids in the Capital but when this one landed in my inbox I was particularly excited. The opportunity was to try out a service called Culiniste with a family-sized box. They describe themselves as a better way to cook with fresh ingredients and delicious recipes delivered to your door weekly.

How it works

Ingredients came sorted by recipe and really well insulated.

Every week you get the recipes and ingredients delivered to your door for three recipes (you can choose if it's enough for two people or for four.) You then receive a box with all the ingredients in just the right proportions delivered to your door on Tuesday in a very well insulated and refrigerated box. Each recipe comes with step by step instructions to walk you through cooking each meal. I was also particularly impressed with how green the company is, including instructions on how each part of the package is recyclable and how to deal with them.

What did I think?

There are so many things about this service that I loved.

- The ingredients were fresh and high quality

Just the right amount of each ingredient

- The ingredients came in just the right proportions. So often I want to make a recipe and only need two tablespoons of something I don't have. I end up buying an entire bottle of something, forgetting I have it, and then buying another bottle of it the next time a recipe calls for that ingredient. They send you everything you need (except olive oil) which I loved and found so convenient.

- The food was tasty and for the most part my kids liked it (admittedly, they wouldn't eat the kale). We had balsamic chicken, swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and steak salad with baguette. The meals for four definitely had enough for our family of five with kids who don't have huge appetites.

- I liked that there was a good variety in the dishes available to choose from. Spicy, mild, vegetarian, and a mix of kinds of meats to choose from.

There are a few reasons that I wouldn't choose to have this service on a regular basis for my family though. It was a bit more work intensive than I expected. For example, the day we had meatballs I didn't expect I would have to make the meatballs from scratch. The shortest time I spent on the meals was about 30 minutes for the steak salad and the balsamic chicken took a full hour in the kitchen with almost constant tasks for me to do.

Who do I think this is good for?

People who love to cook from scratch with fresh ingredients but don't have the time to go out and get the ingredients easily. People who have a hard time coming up with good meal planning ideas or who struggle with not wasting food when they cook (I'm a big culprit in that department by not getting just the right proportions of things.) They definitely had enough kid friendly options to keep my fairly picky kids happy.

I would definitely get it again, just not every week. If you want to try it out, they've shared a discount code for $20 off your first order on their website. Use kidsinthecapital20 at checkout to take advantage and then let me know what you thought! 

Homemade Chocolate Pudding (cornstarch-free)

By Misty

You can't go wrong with pudding! Kids love the smooth, creamy texture, and you'll love how easy pudding is to make at home. Using full fat milk ensures kids are getting a big hit of vitamins and nutrients!

Nothing better than a cute little pudding face!

I adapted this recipe from Martha Stewart's chocolate pudding recipe, and attempted to make it a bit healthier. Some people have a hard time digesting cornstarch, and if you're concerned about genetically-modified foods, many corn-based products come from a GMO source. 

Cornstarch-Free Chocolate Pudding

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup arrowroot flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2.5 cups full fat milk
4 large egg yolks
2 tbsps unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix the sugar, arrowroot flour, salt and cocoa powder in a saucepan off the stove. Very slowly whisk in the milk, little bits at a time to prevent clumps from forming. Whisk in the egg yolks.

2. Cook over medium heat, whisk constantly (yes, constantly! Work those muscles!). As the liquid reaches the boiling point, it will suddenly turn into a solid creamy mass of pudding - kids love this, as it's magic! Reduce heat to low, and cook for 1 minute, while still whisking. 

3. Remove from heat and melt in butter and vanilla extract. Serve warm, or cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 3 hours to cool. Martha suggests placing the plastic wrap right on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming - great tip Martha! :)

Serve plain or with whipped cream. Enjoy!

Weekend Recipe: Hawaiian Meatball Kebabs

We love Hawaiian meatballs - the sweet/sour flavour of the sauce, and fresh pineapple is really popular with my kiddos! I tried making these into kebabs the other day when it was hot enough that I wanted to turn off my oven and turn on the bbq! I made the meatballs ahead of time in the morning when it was cooler, and put the kebabs together later. You could probably cook the meatballs on the bbq too if you had a good pan!

Hawaiian Meatball Kebabs

Meatballs:

1lb ground meat (we used lamb) 1 egg 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1/2 tsp minced fresh garlic (more if you like your meatballs garlicky!) 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl (squishing with a fork works well). Form into 1-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, turning them over halfway through baking.

Kebabs:

1 pepper cut into large chunks (we used red and yellow) 1 fresh pineapple, cut into large chunks Batch of cooked meatballs (see above)

Grab your kebab skewers and alternate a cooked meatball, piece of pepper and piece of pineapple until the skewer is full. Place on a pre-heated grill, and grill just until peppers are soft (I left them on for about 10 minutes - you want to make sure the meatballs don't get dried out!)

Hawaiian Sauce:

Most Hawaiian sauces are really high in sugar. This is because canned pineapple and the juice is used. I've used stock here instead to cut back on the sugar a bit. It's slightly more sour than sweet, but I liked it a lot better!

1.5 cups veggie or beef stock 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce 3 tbsp vinegar 1/4 cup brown sugar or honey 1/2 ground ginger 2 tbsp cornstarch

Whisk all ingredients in a saucepan. Heat until the sauce thickens, usually about 20 minutes.

Take the kebabs off the bbq, and serve with rice. Pour a spoonful of the sauce over the whole place! Bon Appetit!

Strawberries, strawberries, everywhere!

They're falling off the plants, and making their way onto our plates. I LOVE strawberry season. We try our very best not to purchase strawberries from the US, because it's just so lovely waiting for the delicious local strawberries to arrive in season. The flavour is so much better! Last night I scoured my recipe books for a quick strawberry cake I could make for dessert, and came across this one from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons. If you're going for healthy, this is definitely not a good choice :) But, I did cut the sugar back to 3/4 cup, and it was definitely sweet enough!

Cornmeal Strawberry Cake

1 1/3 cups cornmeal 2/3 cup unbleached white flour 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened 1 1/4 cups sugar 4 large eggs, beaten 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 cup buttermilk (or yogurt) 1 cup sliced strawberries

Preheat oven to 350, and grease a 9 in cake pan. In a large bowl mix together cornmeal, flour, salt and baking powder.

In another bowl, mix butter and sugar (don't cream them). Stir in half the beaten eggs and mix. Stir in the rest of the eggs and mix well. Add the vanilla to the buttermilk. Add half the flour mixture to the egg mixture, and stir well (do not beat). Add the buttermilk and stir again. Then add the remaining flour mixture. Fold in the strawberries and pour the batter into the pan.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Serve with ice cream, whipped cream or greek yogurt!

PB & J Energy Bites

I found this recipe on Pinterest the other day. They are such a great idea! Lately our family has been needing more quick snacks that are easy to grab-and-go, take to work, delicious (of course) and pack a nutrition punch. A couple tweeks to suit our family and we're ready to go!

I made a couple modifications, like leaving out the flax seed. Instead I used 1/4 cup chia seeds and 1/4 cup hemp hearts. To make them a bit healthier (this time) I swapped the chocolate chips for organic fruit juice sweetened Dried Cranberries. And now we have the J in PB& J!

These are great for kids too! Using a food processor to break down the oats and dried cranberries make them a lot easier to eat for the wee ones (my son, who’s 1 was able to munch on them, no problem!). You can use Sunflower Seed butter instead of peanut butter and then they are suitable for lunches at school. Or keep them as is and they can be a great after school snack.

Pop all the ingredients in a food processor and these bites come together in minutes!

Per bite: 10g fat | 3g fiber | 2 g sugar | 3g protein

PB & J Energy Bites

1 cup Rolled Oats (gluten-free) 1/2 cup Natural Peanut Butter (smooth or crunchy...I used crunchy) 1/2 cup Dried Cranberries (Organic fruit juice sweetened) 1/2 cup Unsweetened shredded Coconut 1/2 cup Honey 1/4 cup Chia seed 1/4 cup Hemp Hearts 1 tsp Vanilla Extract Option 1: (how I made these) *Toss all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until combined. Roll into balls approximately 1.5".

Option 2: *Use a stand mixer, or bowl & spoon to mix all the ingredients together. Roll into balls approximately 1.5".

Note: This recipe makes about 25 1.5” bites. We devoured them today, so I will definitely be doubling this up from now on!

Eryn is a mom to a cheerful and energetic little 10 month old boy. She is a Registered Holisitic Nutritionist & accepting new clients . When she's not chasing around a baby or talking nutrition, she enjoys quilting, crafting, cooking & everything in between and blogs about those and other adventures at Bringing Back Handmade.