Busy home cooks find relief with Da Chefs Box

As the pandemic goes on and we’re increasingly doing more for ourselves, food businesses are getting more creative with their offerings. I’m guessing Y. Hata’s and Chef Zone’s new Da Chefs Box was created as a way to get their products into the hands of consumers, since fewer orders are coming in from the restaurants they service.

Every week, you can check out the latest box full of prepared foods and other miscellaneous fresh produce on Da Chefs Box website. Each box is $135 and you have the option of picking it up, or having it delivered to you.

ChefZone sent me, and others, a box to try. My box was comprised of
Prepared Foods (4 portions of each):
Jamaican jerk pork chops
Barbecue chicken
Garlic mashed potatoes
Korean purple rice
Vegetarian soup
Guava barbecue sauce
Mango chutney
Fresh Baked:
Whole wheat loaf
Chocolate tartlets
Fresh ingredients:
Day Boat Fresh Fish (4 portions)
Local Fruits & Vegetables from Aloun Farms
Oahu Fresh Eggs from Eggs Hawaii (1 dz.)

I appreciated that the enclosed flyer provided cooking instructions, and the various proteins and sides were great for mixing and matching. As it turned out, I got my box on a pretty busy week, and didn’t have time to cook, much less think. I saw the lovely, colorful variations on meals that other media people made with their box that same week, but I had no time to think outside of the box. Da Chefs Box, that is.

So here’s what the prepared foods looked like, literally warmed up and plated out of the box. I paired the pork chops with mango chutney and garlic mashed potatoes, and the chicken with guava barbecue sauce with the Korean purple rice.

The chicken was moist and didn’t need the sauce. Paired with the purple rice, this would have been a great bento on the go. The pork chop looked questionable to me, as pork can be rather dry, but this was so moist and tasty that I forgot to actually eat it with the chutney!

The soup was vegetarian, which was fine, but I wanted to make it more hearty, so I prepared the fish as directed and then added it to the soup.

There’s no question that the food would be good, as Da Chefs Box is the brainchild of chef Moumen el Hajji, who has catered for TV crews like Hawaii Five-0 and even for royalty.

Da Chefs Box is great for working parents (or, just parents) who are busy and don’t have a lot of time to plan, shop and cook. As I quickly pulled these meals together, I thought of my mom, who was busy with her full time job and raising four kids. I’m sure it was quite a challenge to make sure that dinner was always something different.

And as you’ve probably figured out, it’s a great way to get food on the table without having to shop in a store during the pandemic.

I did cook with the other ingredients once the week got back to normal. So in the next posts, I’ll show you a couple of easy recipes using items from my Da Chefs Box.

For more information on this week’s Da Chefs Box, visit their website, here.