Foodland's Calabash Meal Kits

Complimentary meal kits were provided by our sponsor. All opinions are my own.

Eating out is great - it doesn't involve going to the grocery store, prepping ingredients, setting tables, cooking, washing dishes, wiping stoves/counter tops, etc. However, it can get expensive, and often times it's nice to enjoy a tasty meal in the comforts of your own home without having to get dressed or leave the house. 

I enjoy cooking at home. However, I'm not particularly good at it, and that's where Calabash meal kits from Foodland comes to my rescue.

These meal kits are currently only available at Foodland Farms Ala Moana, and come in five different main courses, and five different sides. All kits are developed by Foodland's in-house chefs and are designed to be prepared in about 30 minutes or less. They come with virtually everything you need ingredient-wise, minus staples such as oil, salt, and pepper, and if you don't have those things, you can buy them right at Foodland!

I recently took a stab at making the Pipikaula Fried Rice and Skillet-Braised Pork Shops. Here's how it all went down:

First, the fried rice..

The kit came with all of the ingredients all portioned out. 

The prep required was 1) rinsing and chopping the green onions, and 2) cutting the pipikaula into small cubes.

Then I heated some oil in my frying pan and started browning the pipikaula.

Next came the rice, which was the hardest part of this recipe. It took a lot of elbow grease to break apart the rice which was in a vacuum-sealed package.

Once the rice was broken up and softened, I added the peas and carrots.

Then I added the shoyu/sesame oil mixture and continued to stir-fry. That's it!  

After I prepared the fried rice, I moved on to the Skillet-Braised Pork Chops.

This meal kit involved a little more prep than the fried rice.

I washed all the produce, peeled and chopped the ginger, sliced the onions and apple, and removed the leaves from the Rosemary stems.

After heating some oil in my frying pan, I seasoned the pork chops and put them in the frying pan.

After browning both sides, I removed the pork chops and cooked the onions and apples in the juice leftover from the pork chops ...

and added the mixtures that were in the three plastic cups (I think those were Dijon mustard, Balsamic vinegar, and maybe some chicken broth?), put the pork chops back in the pan with the Rosemary leaves, covered the pan, and let it cook for another 10 minutes or so.

That's it! Check out my restaurant-quality dinner for two!

The main courses and sides change periodically, so what you see here may not be available when you visit the store, but with five sides and five entrees to choose from, you're guaranteed to find something to your liking.  And don't feel like you have to choose one entree and one side. You can mix and match however you want!

Follow @EatCalabash to see what's for dinner!