Take-out Tonight

With all the preparations involved with hosting Thanksgiving dinner this week, the last thing I want to think about is preparing dinner ahead of time. Fortunately, we have two take home meal stores in town so I decided this was a great time to try them out.

Local Baskit is located at 10 Ferry Street, Concord. They started out as an online only store, but earlier this year opened a storefront where you can stop in and order or pick up your meal kits. While in the store I noticed that they also have a cooler of craft beers. If you are familiar with on-line meal kits, you know that they provide are all or most of your ingredients, proportionately-sized, along with a recipe card. At Local Baskit you can sign-up for weekly meal subscriptions with a $6 delivery charge, or you can order ahead and pick up at one of their locations across the state. I did not order ahead, but was still able to stop in the store and pickup a Spinach Ravioli kit for two.  This meal was great because the raviolis had already been made, so all I had to prepare was the sauce.

Spinach Ravioli Meal kit from Local Baskit

The kit came almost complete with all the ingredients - all I had to provide were oil, butter, salt and pepper. The recipe card had clear photos and easy to follow instructions.

Preparation was a breeze, and for the cost of not much more than going out for fast food, we had a tasty and healthy meal at home with half the effort. The final result looking almost like the photo on the recipe card, and my husband and I both agreed that it was delicious.

Finished spinach ravioli with pistachio lemon cream sauce

When you don't even have time to prepare a meal from take home ingredients, yet want to eat healthy without dining at a restaurant, Concord has another option - The Clean Take, at Capital Two Plaza, conveniently located next to the Durgin Block parking garage.

The Clean Take's meals are already prepared for you and come in reheat-able containers. Like Local Baskit, Clean Take uses fresh and local ingredients whenever possible. Last night we picked up eggplant "meatballs" over rice with a tossed salad. After just twenty minutes in the oven we had a satisfying vegetarian meal which I would definitely order again.

Eggplant meatballs over a bed of rice with fresh salad greens

The Capital Region is fortunate to have two such high quality take-home meal service locations. Check out their websites and if you live in the area, do not hesitate to stop in and chat with the owners about their philosophies on the importance of healthy eating and how they can make meal preparation both simple and enjoyable.