Dinner Helper

Prepared foods are abundant at grocery stores, but greasy chicken and crusty mac ‘n’ cheese aren’t exactly the healthiest or tastiest options. ParTake Kitchen, a new Medina meal prep service, shakes up the model with 300 healthy chef-driven dishes that rotate weekly and are ready to eat — all you have to do is heat them.

“Our mission is to provide well-made food for families,” says owner Laura Kanieski. “I believe how food is prepared is the most important thing.”

She is passionate about making each meal from scratch with fresh local ingredients, like corn from Szalay’s Farm & Market in Peninsula or chicken from Gerber’s Amish Farm in Kidron. “Ninety-nine percent of our food is considered clean — we don’t use anything that’s fake or jarred,” she says. 

Kanieski is experienced in crafting seasonal dishes — she has a culinary degree from the prestigious Johnson & Wales University and has catered farm-fresh meals for Mustard Seed Market & Cafe. She has also catered for a Sandusky banquet hall her parents owned, so she’s comfortable preparing 800 to 1,000 meals for ParTake weekly. That gourmet approach has helped her build a strong following since opening last fall and garnered regular customers who love to take home her meatloaf and cheddar-crusted biscuit pot pie.

Many also turn to ParTake for meals that follow dietary restrictions, such as gluten-, dairy-, nut- and sugar-free. There are even menu items for those with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

“Our turmeric chicken noodle soup has gained a lot of popularity, especially now that people are trying to boost their immune systems. It’s good if you follow a keto, anti-inflammatory or paleo diet  — and it’s gluten-free,” she says. That soup (pictured lower right)starts with roasting chicken with turmeric and other spices and cooking carrots and onions to make a nutrient-rich bone broth. She finishes it with gluten-free zucchini noodles, lemon and garlic.

The portions are big, so it’s enough to feed families — with custom mix-and-match options so parents can get different dishes for each person and order enough for the whole week. “You can order something for your picky kid that just wants chicken nuggets or meat and potatoes for your mom,”  she says.

Kanieski’s favorite feedback is that she’s made it easier for busy families to gather around the dinner table for a home-cooked meal — that’s been her hope all along.

“I wanted to create a business where it would be easy to make everybody happy at dinnertime,” she says. “Good food brings us together.”