Seeking Inspiration for Delicious Meals At Home
At the end of a long day, dreaming up something good for dinner can zap your last ounce of energy, especially if you neglected to stock the pantry or fridge recently.
Local chefs, eateries, and national meal delivery services are acing the job of providing dinner by whatever suits customers best. Heat-and-eat meals can be picked up or delivered, online all-inclusive food kits can be delivered to your door, and a personal chef can transform at-home mealtime into a delicious event.
There are a variety of options worth exploring that will plummet the grocery store rotisserie chicken to the bottom of your go-to list.
Good to Go
Prepared Meals
Selections including Creole surf and turf pasta (plated) and chicken lasagna are on the meal plan menu at Clean Eatz.
One local café burgeoning with the prepared meals option is Clean Eatz. Now a national chain with about 100 locations, the original restaurant on Racine Drive in Wilmington was founded by bodybuilders Don and Evonne Varady.
Each Thursday a menu is posted online for the next week’s order. There are five dinner options and one breakfast item each week to consider. Recent selections included Balsamic Peach Chicken, Boneless Asian Sticky Ribs, Steak Totchos (made with sweet potato tots), Queso Beef Bowl and PB&J French Toast. Each meal sells for approximately $7.60, with slight decreases in price with larger orders.
Clean Eatz manager Sam Hines says the menus change every week and are available to pick up Sunday or Monday. Each fresh meal is sealed and microwaveable, or easily transferred to a pan for oven or stovetop heating.
“They are completely ready to go, no prepping, no cleaning, no grocery shopping,” Hines says. “And there is never any obligation to order each week, you just order online when you want.”
There is a minimum of five meals required to order and increases are done in multiples of five. The Racine Clean Eatz location offers pickup-only service for the weekly meal plan. A delivery option is available with similar meals through the Clean Eatz Kitchen website.
Frozen ready-to-go meal options like Mediterranean skillet chicken are available from LadyFingers at Blue Moon Gifts. Courtesy of Ladyfingers at Blue Moon Gifts.
Another ready-to-go option comes from Raleigh caterers LadyFingers. Their frozen Gourmet to Go items are sold at Blue Moon Gifts and include three-cheese mac and cheese, casseroles, lasagna, soups, chicken enchiladas and more. Dishes come in medium and large quantities. A lasagna to feed 2-4 people sells for about $18 and a whole pie quiche is $22. Dozens of boutique and novelty stores sell their frozen products throughout the Southeast, and direct buying online is also available.
Another local premade meal service with multiple Wilmington pickup locations is Green, Lean, Clean (GLC). It offers a variety of serving sizes and has just added soups and bowls to the health-minded array of offerings.
Each GLC meal provides a lean protein, green vegetable and clean starch, such as quinoa or red potatoes, in equal portions. The meal plans cater to a variety of diet styles, including high protein, vegan, or vegetarian, and will work with customers who have food allergies.
By Christine R. Gonzalez
Wrightsville Beach Magazine
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