In another life I cooked fairly often, three or four days out of the week. The thing about that is, I only liked to cook for one person, my husband, Christopher Neil, who was exceptionally expressive in his appreciation and complimentary of all that came out of the kitchen, a far cry from my previous experiences. I was always far ahead of trends and never felt that kind of acceptance when I was preparing vegan and vegetarian food 25 years ago, and baking moussaka when few were interested in world cuisines or eating lamb. My brother and sisters, after visits to my apartment, would claim I was trying to kill them.

After Chris died in April 2013, I pretty much stopped cooking. I have used my kitchen only three or four times in the past year, two of them potluck occasions that forced my hand.

Part of it was grocery store avoidance. I can’t walk into one without thinking of him because we always had so much fun exploring the aisles, plotting meals and assembling ingredients, excited by the anticipation of the meal to come.

It took something of a miracle to get me in the kitchen again, and it happened with Fresh Box.

Fresh Box is a meal kit subscription startup from Will Chen, formerly chef de cuisine at the Moana Surfrider hotel. If you can read a recipe and have a modicum of experience in the kitchen, Fresh Box allows you to cook up a gourmet, restaurant-quality meal at home with ease. His recipes have all the qualities many look for today: creative, nutritionally balanced and incorporating farm-fresh ingredients.

It puts an end to that daily dilemma, "What’s for dinner?"

For beginners, it’s a learning experience. Even more experienced cooks have the opportunity to step out of comfort zones and try ingredients they’ve never used before. For those who want to impress a date with cooking skills, this is a no-fail option. And those short on time will find it easy to have all the ingredients delivered, in the right portions, so there’s no waste or spoilage.

One box comes with three meals for two, at $72 for members with free delivery, which works out to $24 for a meal for two, about the same cost of shopping for a meal for two on your own. For singles it amounts to dinner six nights a week.

Each recipe comes with pre-measured ingredients, an 8 1/2-by-11-inch "recipe card" with a photo of the finished dish, and step-by-step photos to guide you in the cooking journey. The only things you need from your pantry are salt, pepper and cooking oil. Chen claims you can prepare the meals in 30 minutes or less, but that’s a pro talking. For us civilians it will take 30 to 45 minutes.

I have to admit I was a bit intimidated when I opened the box last Tuesday and started reading the instructions. What? I have to roast potatoes and grill chicken? I don’t have an indoor grill top. I have to chop vegetables?

For some reason, I expected the vegetables to be chopped because that kind of prep is the most time-consuming aspect of cooking. I panicked because I had a 7 p.m. deadline. My kitchen has bad lighting, so I needed to finish in half an hour in order to take photos of my finished dish with the last sunlight outside.

I took a deep breath and started with the most perishable of the three dishes that could be made from one box, cornmeal-crusted fish. It called for chopping tomatoes, baby greens and garlic, and slicing bacon first. Easy enough because Chen’s photos showed a rough chop. Normally, I’d take my time and get everything fine, even and perfect.

The next step was seasoning the fish with salt and pepper, and coating it with cornmeal. His picture showed laying the fish flat on a board and coating it with a thin layer of cornmeal. I used the less messy shake-and-bake method of throwing it all in a bag. As a result, my finished fish looked a lot crustier than his picture showed.

This dish was served with white beans, the most interesting part of the process for me because I had never prepared beans in this way before. I learned something new with each of the three recipes I tried, and they turned out beautifully with minimal difficulty.

I actually had my doubts that the beans would taste as good as they did. The recipe called for sauteeing bacon and garlic in a pot, adding white beans and following with water, baby greens and tomatoes, them simmering until the fish was ready. The beans ended up with wonderful smoky bacon flavor, and was a perfect savory accompaniment for the crusty fish.

Then I had a dilemma: The next time I would be home to cook was Saturday — would my ingredients still be fresh four days later? With the chicken and steak well sealed, and most of the vegetables hardy enough to stay fresh, four days later both meals turned out fine — chicken and peach salad, and steak with balsamic onions.

The chicken dish took the longest at an hour, though 10 minutes of that involved stopping and washing my hands for photos. This recipe involved slicing and roasting potatoes, making a tomato vinaigrette and grilling chicken and peaches. The grill puts nice hash marks on the finished dish, but that’s just for show. In his introduction to the dish, Chen wrote, "No grill? No problem. A saute pan will work well too." So that’s what I did and the chicken turned out wonderful. The peaches could have been juicier. I wish I had roasted those as well.

The steak dish involved preparing carrots laced with sumac, something I’d never used before but which will be familiar to all. It’s one of the ingredients that gives li hing mui its signature flavor.

I thought the entire experience was wonderful. I was able to reconnect with the feeling of Zen that comes from being in the kitchen, and might start spending more time there.

Fresh Box membership is $10 monthly, plus $72 per box of six meals (an introductory price). Nonmember price is $15 per meal ($90 per box). Visit www.hifreshbox.com. See the "Take a Bite" blog at www.honolulupulse.com/takeabite for more photos and an interview with Chen.