I was raised on hearty homestyle meals like meatloaf and roast chicken. I was a lucky kid for having a mom who doubled as a great cook. She always spent a lot of time and effort on our dinners, which is something I cherished growing up and wanted to emulate when I had my own family. Now, however, is another story. I have kids of my own now and my parents are getting older, so my mom doesn't have the energy or need to cook big meals for just her and my dad. I wanted to help but I didn't know how, until a friend at work recommended I order a HelloFresh box for them to try.

HelloFresh is a meal kit delivery service which delivers pre-portioned ingredients directly to your door, with step by step recipe cards to make a variety of meals throughout the week. With different plans, you can adjust how many meals you want to receive for how many people, so it takes the hassle out of grocery shopping, leftovers, and deciding what's for dinner. It is also a really flexible service, where you can pause, cancel and even choose your own recipes, so you never get anything they don't like. I thought this would be a great idea for my parents, to save them a lot of trouble while encouraging my mom to still cook like she used to.

My mom thought the idea was brilliant; she loved cooking new things, but always found herself in a rush at the grocery store and my dad is pretty picky. However, my mom decided that she wanted to try it and my dad would have to try it too or he was welcome to starve. The first meal my mom cooked was 'Herbed Sirloin Steak over Orzo Pasta Salad.' My mom read the recipe card and whipped it all up like a pro in just 30 minutes. She loved how easy it was to prepare and the fact that she didn't even have to step outside to go to the grocery store on a Sunday. Even though my dad grumbled through dinnertime, he ate every bite on his plate and had no complaints (which is a rare occurrence in our home). Over the next few weeks, they told me they really enjoyed the whole process from choosing which meals to receive to actually preparing the food and eating. They're going to order it every other week from now on, so they still get to have mom's classics, but get to try new things too. The perfect compromise!

Meal kits like HelloFresh are the perfect solution for people who are too tired to make extravagant meals like a standing rib roast, but still love to cook fresh and exciting recipes with little preparation and cleanup. My mom truly loves not going to the store and not thinking of new ideas. It's a homemade taste without the homemade effort. The ordering is all online, but once I walked my parents through the process, they got it. I would wholeheartedly recommend getting HelloFresh for your parents even just once, and see how they like it. If they're anything like mine, it'll quickly become part of their lifestyle! Plus for me, it was so successful, I've started using HelloFresh with my own family, and we all love it.

Update: The folks at HelloFresh are extending a special offer to our readers! Follow this link to get your first 3 meals free!