Relish! review and giveaway

If you know me (for these purposes, through the Internet counts), try to imagine my reaction when I read this review offer:


Meal planning just got a million percent easier. And cheaper.

Until we can all afford our own personal chefs, the next best thing is easily Relish!, a truly cool meal-planning service for busy parents. www.relishrelish.com.

This easy to use (really), mom-run website helps you prepare healthy, creative meals every week! You pick from a ton of excellent tested recipes, a very cleverly organized grocery list is automatically created, then all you do is hit the store for five days worth of home-cooked meals--not one of which takes more than 30 minutes to prepare.

You'll find a whole lot to choose from including freezer meals, vegetarian menus, super-quick and slow cooker recipes. And you’ll find tons of kid’s faves that don't include the word "nugget."

For subscriptions at $7 a month, you'll end up with five complete dinners for a family of four running you less than $95. Between the money savings and the anxiety savings, you’re coming out way ahead.

So, nuggets don't count as cooking? What if you go the extra mile and get the ones that are dinosaur shaped?

Actually, it's not that I haven't been interested in preparing more interesting and healthy meals for my family--I've just been daunted. Having grown up in the microwave generation and currently raising a toddler who regards most foods as mere decoration rank high among my long list of excuses for mostly sticking to directions-on-the-box fare.

But it turns out the above message in my inbox was just the nudge I needed.

After about a month of "getting to it," I logged on to my trial account at Relish! and quickly created my first weekly menu. Although I was disheartened that the cuisine itself did not appear with a click of a mouse, printing out an instant shopping list and six easy to follow recipes was the next best thing.

Bound by reality, I picked just two meals to shop for and prepare at first: Slow cooker chunky minestrone with corn spoon bread and the honey glazed chicken with roasted sesame asparagus.

I spent about an hour (mostly searching for cannellini beans) and $50 ($20 of which went to stocking my spice cabinet--an investment that should last several months) gathering ingredients.

The ensuing meal prep was so easy I can't believe I've hidden from the kitchen so long. Between the two meals, I used the crock pot (a wedding gift that had been still in the basement for six years) and my oven's broiler (so that drawer does something?!) for the first time and mostly felt like I knew what I was doing.

Head over here for photos of my creations and family members' reactions. I think you'll be impressed!

GIVEAWAY TIME
Now enough about me. It's your turn to enter to win a free one-year subscription to this amazing site--a $58 value.

To enter, just leave me a comment describing how you think Relish! will help you and your family. For additional entries, do one or more of the following and let me know in a separate comment:

• Become a follower of Spawnocalypse Reviews through Google Friend Connect (let me know if you already are)
  
• Become a Facebook fan of Spawnocalypse (let me know if you already are)
  
• Tweet about the contest (send me the link)

Please be sure to include your email address in your entries. Entry deadline is 11 p.m. Eastern on November 25. The winner, selected through Random.org's random number generator, will be announced on Thanksgiving Day.

Good luck!