Meal of Approval

Easy Five-Step Recipe for a Delicious, Healthy Meal

1. Make farmers market shopping list of organic, fresh ingredients.
2. Get stuck at work, miss farmers market and its organic, fresh ingredients.
3. Run to the supermarket. Find some organic fairly fresh ingredients.
4. Fight traffic en route to second supermarket. Find fresh limp ingredients.
5. Scrap the whole thing and call My Chef.

There are some days when your life is more Dinner: Impossible than Iron Chef. Enter registered dietician Danielle McCauley. Her patients requested tasty, nutritious meals they didn't have time to make themselves, so she enlisted the help of Culinary Institute of the Pacific graduate chef Gida Snyder to start My Chef. The personalized meal program features three weekly menus – health-conscious, carbohydrate-controlled (with 45g of carbs or less) and low-sodium (500mg of salt or less).

Snyder shops at farms and farmers markets, and even uses cheese she makes herself at Naked Cow Dairy, so the ingredients are as local, fresh and organic as possible. The food is packed in reusable plastic containers, delivered right to your door, and can be reheated in the microwave.

The vegetable bolognese with chunks of eggplant and tomato is so bold and hearty, you won't even notice a smaller portion of noodles in the carb-friendly meal. Lemongrass and ginger replace the salt to punch up fresh, local fish. Pair that with the slight crunch of green papaya salad and you can leave the shaker in the pantry with no regrets.

Now that's some Good Eats.

My Chef meal packages cost $135 for a standard 3-meal menu for two, and $185 for a therapeutic 3-meal menu for two. To sign up, visit www.MyChefHawaii.com.