Noms alert: Snap Kitchen

Happy Wednesday, friends!

I, Tolly, am currently in New York, but the blogging shall go on in absentia. Today we are lucky to have Austin Eavesdropper guest blogger - and also my my dear friend - Breanna. She is a food writer, and she is lovely.

So recently, a new food shop in town, Snap Kitchen, got in touch with Breanna and I to see if we would like to sample their local, organic, healthy menu - for free, for three weeks. What a perplexing decision! We said yes, absolutely, and today, Breanna is going to give you an intro of sorts to this cool new local business. I'm going to post my thoughts later on, and tell you how it's going for me.

In the meantime, here's Breanna!:

There are some days when you just can’t possibly eat another burger/taco/Quizno’s sub (hey, don’t judge). You need something different. Healthy, even. And you would kindly like it prepared by someone else.

That is why I'm sampling Snap Kitchen, Austin's newest contribution to our growing cadre of food vendors. Situated in two locations, one at the Triangle at Guadalupe and Lamar, and the other on 6th and Lamar, their "pre-packaged, never-frozen meals" are – dare I say it – a step above the prepared foods at Central Market or Whole Foods. Really? you say. Yes, I say. REALLY.

Por ejemplo: For breakfast, you can try an asparagus and egg white strata, or if you prefer sweet, blueberry almond pancakes with agave nectar syrup.  Lunch options include hearty options like chicken and garlic pesto pasta, and dinner, might be citrus marinated flank steak. Pictured right are some SERIOUS noms, the spinach and beet salad with chicken, pecans and blue cheese, and if you like you like to customize things a bit, you can also stop in and build your own salad right there in the store.

(If you're wondering why these dishes sound so downright fancy, that's because Ethan Holmes designed the menu - former executive chef at La Taverna, and now Snap Kitchen's very own).

Here's another cool thing about Snap Kitchen: They’re way into local. As in, the chefs mosey over to the Triangle Farmer’s Market each week to pick up produce, and use that to create their dishes. The meats they use are high quality, and they incorporate organic foods whenever possible.

For our peeps who are gluten intolerant or have diabetes, Snap Kitchen’s got you covered there, too. The shop/restaurant offers several gluten-free and diabetic-friendly dishes, and each meal is nutritionally balanced with appropriate amounts of fat, carbohydrates, and protein. The full menu is online and shows you all the nutritional info, or you can even talk to their lovely on-site dietitian, Andrea Hinsdale, about your needs. She generously offered to let me taste-test some of Snap Kitchen’s meals gratis, and they were delish: buffalo quinoa hash and the flank steak lettuce wraps, anyone? Seriously. Good.

After all this, you would think Snap Kitchen would be pricey, but it’s not – none of the meals cost more than $11.

If you’re the highly motivated type  - i.e. the opposite of me - you can do the 21-day "Snap Commit" program. You get a 3-week meal plan from Andrea, and access to a local boot camp to whip your bootie into shape at the same time.

Tolly will have more posts on Snap Kitchen later, but if you'll excuse me, there's some baba ghanoush and whole wheat pita chips calling my name.