By: Sammy Harris
Hello everyone! I want to start off by briefly introducing myself to those of you who may not have read any of my GreenHawks Media content before. My name is Sammy Harris and I am a Junior at Miami University pursuing a co-major in finance and entrepreneurship. In fact, it was the creativity and leadership course I took last spring for entrepreneurship that brought me here. Through a lot of introspection activities and practice, I unraveled who I am at my core, learning to pursue involvement in things that I genuinely am passionate about; food and creative writing are VERY prevalent passions of mine, so it made a lot of sense for me to become a Food Beat Writer for GreenHawks Media, and I have not looked back since! In the last couple of years, I have also become really passionate about mental health, so I shifted my column last semester to ‘MIND FOOD’ and began writing about all things food and mental health, separate and yet extremely interrelated at the same time.
With that said, I am super excited to kick off my first piece of 2021 with my most recent obsession. This spring semester, one of my best friends and I have started doing Hello Fresh for three meals a week. We had always gone back and forth about doing it last semester and never ended up trying it, but when my friend got a killer coupon over J-term, we decided to give it a try for the couple of weeks that the discount lasted for, and DAMN we are obsessed, for many reasons even beyond the deliciousness of each meal we have made thus far.
As I just mentioned, each meal we have made is so so yummy and different from the last. By now, I think we have cooked seven Hello Fresh meals from creamy lemon spinach ricotta ravioli to southwestern shrimp tacos and everything in between, including KILLER salmon. I especially love the variety in meals because I am being forced to cook and prepare items that I never had before this semester. For example, I had never cooked gnocchi, chicken sausage, or even shrimp. Through Hello Fresh, I have realized how simple and quick they are to make; I definitely will cook more meals outside of Hello Fresh with these items that I avoided for so long.
Beyond the actual meals, I have loved that they hold me accountable for slowing down and taking time to be intentional with my cooking/eating. It is a nice break in the day to cook a hearty meal with a best friend; Hello Fresh makes both your mind and tummy super full and content. It has also helped me in terms of limiting my food waste for the week because the meals themselves are perfect portions when you split them between two and they’re delicious, so definitely no food waste there. In addition, my grocery haul is a lot less ambiguous because I have three dinners covered for the week, and dinner is usually the one where I buy groceries I do not end up using as I intended to.
Especially for those of you who might be getting hungry right now reading this, I want to finish off with our favorite Hello Fresh meal that we have had thus far: Chicken Sausage Rigatoni Napoletano. This dish has it all: al dente rigatoni noodles, sautéed bell pepper, and flavorful chicken sausage, all tossed in a mouthwatering, creamy pink sauce. However, due to preferences, we left out the green peas and added mushrooms.
Final tip: if you are convinced, don’t purchase Hello Fresh without using one of the discounts that are available online!
Please feel free to reach out to me (Via my Instagram) and/or GreenHawks Media with any suggestions, requests, questions, etc. I cannot wait to keep sharing my love for intentional cooking/eating, in addition to tips & tricks for our mental health during the current insanity!
Photos courtesy of Sammy Harris.