Let’s imagine for a second you’re a working parent, or just a busy human in general.

You crack a solid workday, and then comes one of life’s daily dilemmas – what’s for dinner? There’s the expectation that you’ll magically come up with some delicious new dinner recipe, head out on the Great Grocery Journey, and endure the frustration of long queues and finding parking.

Then there are all the unnecessary spontaneous purchases to throw into the mix, and the added ‘fun factor’ of not being able to find everything on your shopping list.

Hauling the goods home has had to take the place of your exercise regime (because who has the time for that?), and you haven’t even started cooking yet.

My blood pressure is escalating just thinking about it. Thankfully, there are people out there who understand that struggle down to a T, which is where Daily Dish comes in.

Just ask co-owner Diane de Villiers, who started the business back in 2012:

I used to work 12-hour days in a high-pressure corporate job. I loved to cook but I just didn’t have the time or the energy to go through the process required to get the food together. I tried some ready-made food options and shortcuts, but they really didn’t taste good and were full of preservatives. My son complained, a lot! I thought – there must be an easier way to feed my family tasty, nutritious food. Turns out – there was. I just had to create it.

Basically, Daily Dish removes all the pre-cooking ‘slog’ for you – leaving you with only the fun part to enjoy and master. Diane explains:

Every week we come up with a new set of delicious recipes for six different menus from Classic meat and veggies, to Banting, Vegan and Pork-Free.

Each set menu has four meals for either two or four people per week. We source the highest quality, wholesome and fresh ingredients including meat, veggies, rice, pasta, spices and condiments. We pre-package and measure everything for you to eliminate wastage. If a recipe needs a teaspoon of sesame oil or five grams of fresh mint, we pack it in the box for you.

They do, and the box that arrives each Monday acts as a mini-fridge, keeping the ingredients fresh and ready for action.

How do we know? Because we decided to take them for a spin, and I was the office guinea pig tasked with trying to make the meals resemble the pictures on the recipe cards, which lay out exactly how to prepare your dinner, from scratch, in around 30 minutes.

Here’s the truth – if I can make this happen, with my ‘culinary skills’, then anyone with the most basic grasp of how to cook food will be just fine.

Here’s another tasty nugget – if you sign up here, you’ll get R250 off your first Daily Dish dinner box order. Try it out for a week and, if you’re not won over, just cancel.

There’s no long-term contract, so you can start and stop whenever you like, or switch from one menu to another.

Shall we take a look at some of my efforts? Please, no sniggering.

Steak and Spring Salad – Juicy steak slices, served with a salad topped with hard cheese, pea shoots and chopped almonds:

Salchicha and Salad – Beef sausages and salad, topped with toasted sunflower seeds, served with roast potatoes on the side:

Corn and Bacon Pasta – Fusilli pasta topped with bacon, sweetcorn kernels, courgettes and fresh herbs:

Pork and Potato Bake – Tender gammon steaks served with cheesy potato gratin and green beans on the side.

This potato bake deserves to have songs written about it:

Meatball Linguine – Meatballs covered in a tomato sauce, served with linguine and topped with fresh basil.

Think of it like how you used to make meatballs, but better:

Sweet Chilli Beef – Sirloin, carrot and courgettes sauteed in honey, chilli and fresh ginger. Served with jasmine rice, cashew nuts and fresh basil.

I was so stoked with this one effort below that I decided to lay down a tablecloth. No, you’re being fancy:

Trout Shakshuka – Eggs in a bed of baby spinach topped with a dollop of gremolata, crumbled feta, sumac, spring onions and slices of trout, served with a side of wholewheat pitas.

Chances of me having ever cooked this? Zero. The feeling of nailing a new recipe? Pretty, pretty good.

I’ll be honest – cooking isn’t for everyone, and I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to grabbing unhealthy takeaway food because I’m too lazy to cook. Take away the hassle, though, and all of a sudden there’s something to be said for flexing one’s guns in the kitchen.

Dinner shouldn’t be a dirty word, good people.

Have a snoop around what Daily Dish have to offer, score R250 off your first order, and see if you can make the magic happen.

See the rest of you suckers at the shops after work – not.