Mums “takeaway” the stress of cooking at home

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Two working mums, fed up with the time it was taking to cook healthy family meals, have given up their office jobs to give others a helping hand in the kitchen.

Susie Alderson and Gabby Ellmers are the cooks behind the Natural Kitchen – a new takeaway delivery service catering for busy professionals.

Susie said: “More and more people are too busy to cook healthy meals, they want to but haven’t got the time and sometimes don’t know how to. We’re basically cutting out the foods you shouldn’t be eating and delivering it to your door or office.”

As well as curry and mezze dishes for a weekend takeaway, they offer a three-day meal plan preparing everything for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They’ve been working with a registered dietician to make sure their menus are completely balanced.

They are passionate about using whole foods and don't use preservatives or additives in their cooking.

Gabby said: "We're trying to get the message across that a plant-based way of living is better for you and it's really tasty. It's fine to eat meat, it's fine to eat dairy but everything in moderation, it's not necessary to overload our systems with that all the time."

But as the saying goes - the proof is in the pudding, so they got 70 people to sample their menus ahead of launching them on their new website last week.

Gabby said the feedback has been both really positive and constructive, and they've now taken everything off that their tasters gave less than 4 marks out of 5. She said: “It turns out we’re the only ones who like roasted chickpeas so we’ve taken them off the menu!” 

Running the trials they say has been “the biggest learning experience” and although they are keen to rotate their menus so customers don't get bored, they hope they'll never have to stuff a cabbage leaf again after the time it took them to make pinenut parcels and falafel wraps!

You can find out more about the Natural Kitchen at www.thenaturalkitchen.je