Dinner Time – dinner ingredients delivered in Abu Dhabi

Mexican rice salad as per Dinner Time recipe: so yummy!

I don’t know if it is just me, but when I go grocery shopping it is because our fridge is bare.
And I am usually mighty hungry too.
I also tend to make grandiose cooking plans for the week (Sunday: filet mignon, Tuesday: beef wellington, Friday: baked alaska…) and if you pair that with the fact that I tend to overestimate my cooking skills, it is easy to see why a week’s worth of groceries regularly ends up rotting in the fridge.

I really love cooking, but let’s be honest: sometimes it is a bit of a long winded process.
The worst thing? That sudden, horrible realisation, half-way through, that you are missing that one essential ingredient that will ruin the whole thing. (What? No ice cream left?! Goodbye, baked alaska).

Recently, however, I discovered Dinner Time.

Dinner Time is a service that delivers fresh groceries to your door, in enough quantity to cook four dinners (one vegetarian, one meat, one chicken, and one fish) for either two or four people. They also have a gluten-free version, and all the meals are prepared by experts nutritionists so they are healthy and well balanced.
(Here are their FAQ and dinner packages types) (Also: Facebook and Twitter pages)

The main difference with other companies is that they don’t deliver the food already cooked: they give you all the ingredients you need – in the quantity you need – together with four recipes which take less than 30 minutes to cook.

I ordered a 2 people box, which included four dinner meals.
What was delivered to me on the first day was a cardboard box full of vegetables and dry ingredients (plus a complimentary set of measuring spoons, which was a nice touch!), and a cold bag (with two ice packs) with the fresh meat, fish and cheeses.

Vegetables and dry ingredients, plus complementary measuring spoons!

The cold bag with ground beef, chicken, salmon, cream cheese and parmesan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first impression was very good, as all the ingredients delivered were of great quality – even the pasta, for instance, which could have easily been a supermarket brand and I would not have complained, was instead an Italian gourmet brand.

The first meal we cooked was the Mexican rice salad.

The ingredients provided (we only had to use our own rice)

The delicious final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let me tell you: this is the best rice salad we have ever eaten in our life. It was SO nice that we told everyone we knew and passed the recipe to friends and colleagues. And W does not even like rice!!
With a mix of honey-covered hazelnuts, caramelised cherry tomatoes, spring onions, coriander, rocket salad and a squeeze of lime juice, it is basically heaven on a plate. I must confess, we re-cooked it just yesterday!

It mixed a lot of flavours we would have not necessarily though about mixing, but once all together… well, it was mouthwatering.

The second evening’s recipe was Spaghetti Bolognese with chard.

All the ingredients for this recipe were provided.

The final result!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As on the previous day, the recipe was very straight-forward to follow, and the result really healthy and yummy.
W said the sauce was lovely because it was a different take on the classic dish, with more aromatic and fresh notes. It worked well with the spring onions and the mushrooms.

The third evening was time for chicken, paired with a grain we never tried before: bulgur.

All ingredients were once again provided.

The final result!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We loved trying a new kind of grain which we had never really used before: it was very easy to cook, similar to cous-cous, and W loved the combination of cranberries, pumpkin, orange, honey, pumpkin seeds and chicken, for a yummy sweet and savoury combination.

The last evening, we cooked the salmon, mushroom and broccoli soup.

All the ingredients on our kitchen’s counter.

The final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The combination of the fresh vegetables, the fresh salmon and the cream cheese worked really well. They even provided a garlic bread baguette to go with it!

To make a long story short, we just totally loved it. We got to cook new recipes without the hassle of going grocery shopping, we ate really yummy and healthy meals prepared in less than 30 minutes, and … nothing ended up rotting in the fridge, so no waste was made!!

We really loved this service, and we are planning to subscribe regularly. Especially in the summer, when the temperatures rise and we don’t really fancy spending too much time carrying heavy grocery bags, I think this will be a real treat.

Even better, if we subscribe for more than one box, it will cost less, going down to approximately £45 (British Pounds) a week, which considering that it includes 4 complete meals for the two of us, it is not only an easy and yummy solution, it is also very convenient.

Plus, we can check the menu in advance on the website, and if we don’t like what is planned next, we can skip a week and bring our credit forward.

In conclusion, we would totally recommend Dinner Time to anyone who loves eating well and would gladly do without the hassle of grocery shopping!