The Family Cook – freshly cooked meals your whole family will enjoy

Play & Go Review | The Family Cook

We were lucky enough to sample some of The Family Cook’s delicious family dinners – delivered straight to the door.

We all know those fabulous home cooks, and super-organised types who have a meal plan for every night of the week and who somehow manage to magic up tasty nutritious food for their families without breaking a sweat.

Disclaimer: I am not one of those people.

I can cook a decent Bolognese and I’m a big fan of the “check what’s in the vegetable drawer of the fridge and whip up a stirfry” technique. Talented chef I am not.

Especially now that I have the added challenges of:

• feeding growing boys with enormous appetites who arrive home from sports practice famished – and if you don’t get food into them fast enough the hanger sets in
• a toddler who is prone to deciding that that vegetable she liked yesterday is now poison; and who is also known to attach herself to my leg like a koala while I’m cooking; and
• a puppy who stages raids on the contents of the rubbish bin just as I’m about to start cooking!

With a full house and a busy schedule, I’ve resigned myself to the sad possibility that those days of having time to pore over cookbooks and cook new and exciting mid-week meals are over for me.

Enter “The Family Cook”.

The Family Cook was started by Victoria, an Adelaide mum, after hearing other parents talk in the school playground about what they were going to cook their families for dinner, and the fact that they weren’t enjoying the process of preparing family meals. The Family Cook started off providing freshly cooked meals for parents to collect at school with their child. The business grew organically and they now deliver wholesome meals for busy families across Adelaide.

Once I’d decided what we wanted to try from their weekly menu I sat back and anticipated my meals being delivered between the arranged time of 2:30 and 4:30pm. The meals arrived exactly on time in their brown paper packaging and I safely tucked them into my fridge, ready to serve up when we got back home from the usual back-to-back school sport.

It was a nice change to arrive at school pick-up safe (smug even) in the knowledge that back home there was a healthy and delicious looking meal waiting and that I hadn’t had to shop for the ingredients with the help of my two year old.

We tried the following meals:

• Chicken Mignon with a salad of lettuce, broccoli, avocado, cauliflower, goji berries and pine nuts
• Grass Fed Beef Lasagne – described as “a signature lasagne known for being hearty crowd pleaser. Deep bolognese flavours in layers of delicious pasta, topped with a bechamel sauce”

What our testers thought

We’d like to say a huge thank you to The Family Cook kitchen fairies for two very lovely meals, which were a treat at the end of a long, busy and tiring day.

Day One. The Chicken Mignon was super tasty and the salad was so good we struggled to share it with the kids.

Day Two. The Grain Fed Beef Lasagne was layer upon layer of deliciousness with an especially good béchamel sauce. It passed the clean plate test and had everybody asking for more! We fed the kids their serving of the lasagne and then made it a date night and set the table with candles, and opened a nice bottle of red wine to enjoy our serving.

We thought you could really taste the freshness of the ingredients. It was also really nice to be cooked for and to have a bit of a surprise for our dinner – not knowing exactly what someone else’s cooking would be like. And less dishes than usual meant more time to just hang out together.

We think you’ll enjoy The Family Cook’s meal delivery if:

• You’re in a food rut and would like to have a night or two a week off having to drum up inspiration for your family meals
• You’d like to treat yourself to a beautiful meal without going to the hassle and expense of organising a babysitter
• You’re a bit overcommitted at work or juggling small people and their needs and activities
• You’re a sleep deprived parent – I remember how loved I felt when friends came over with meals when my babies were born. It was a huge help when I didn’t have the energy to cook for myself
• You’d like to enjoy a wholesome, home-cooked meal without the usual mountain of dishes

If this sounds like you then you’ll be happy to hear that The Family Cook have a special offer for Play & Go readers.Get 20% off your first order with the coupon code Play&Go.  

How does The Family Cook work?

Ordering meals is very straightforward – you just go to their website, browse the menu for the week, and then select which meals you’d like to have delivered. The price will depend on the number of servings, eg their beef lasagne would cost $12 for a single serve or $36 for a family size which is designed to serve six people. (Prices as at March 2018)

You then select where you would like to have your meal(s) delivered to. They currently deliver within a 10km radius of Magill for a fee. Or there are several schools that have an arrangement with The Family Cook whereby you can collect your meal(s) when you pick up your child.

Next your meal arrives in a bag and essentially everything you need for that night’s dinner will be there, all ready to go. You may find you need to put the meal together a bit – for instance you may need to cook some pasta, but the sauce itself will be cooked already.

Their menu changes every Thursday and includes some regular items like their poke bowls, which are available every day.

About Susannah: I’m a mum to three boys and a little girl and I am learning to embrace the chaos. I love my morning coffee, exercise, cranking up some good tunes on the stereo, and heading away to new places on holiday. Originally from New Zealand, I now call Adelaide home and I love getting out and about and exploring all the fabulous things for families to do in Adelaide.

For more information and all enquiries please visit The Family Cook website or email The Family Cook here.

At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.

As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post and our review is done completely independently. All photos are by Play & Go/The Family Cook.

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