The lovely people at Gousto asked if I would review one of their “recipe boxes”. So, let me just think about that – one less shopping trip, one less “what can I do with this selection of ingredients that have jumped into my trolley unaided” moment. Durrrr – yes please.
So, the box arrived on time – they give you a delivery date and it turns up as planned – and it was like a rather old-school Christmas morning. No nuts and tangerines, but all the bits and bobs to make three lovely meals, together with an idiot’s guide step-by-step-instructions how to make them.
The idea is simple, you choose the recipes you want to have delivered and they measure it all out and deliver it to you. Cuts down on trips to the supermarket and cuts down on food waste.
A light cautionary tale here: some of the ingredients were a tad delicate and suffered in transit. It might make sense to not send eggs and put “needs two eggs” on the recipe. Though I guess that would detract slightly from the “It is all delivered” angle. It did make me chuckle that the potato was in a paper bag with “you say potato I say potarto” on the sticker.
The tiny pots (capers, Japanese rice wine etc) all meant we could do this recipe properly though. You know, buying a jar of capers for just one dish seems slightly wasteful as we don’t cook with them, so that was a dilemma avoided: “buy a jar and waste a lot, or leave them out of the recipe?” Our fridge is full of half bottles of this and that, so I’ve started chucking the leftovers into random dishes, just to create space in the fridge. Lime pickle jelly, anyone?
The meat was fresh and tasty and the fish cakes even got a dinosaur’s seal of approval, so the chef can’t have made too much of a mess of them, despite slicing his thumb open on a vinegar bottle (don’t ask!) and bleeding profusely just next to the mixing bowl. It’s ok though – dinosaurs have poor eyesight and almost no-one noticed.
Their version of the recipe and ours were slightly different in that theirs had chopped chard, a poached egg and a lovely salad dressing (very healthy and yummy no doubt), and ours had chip shop chips and mushy peas (perhaps not quite so healthy but still yummy).
The basil and mint penne was also pretty much idiot-proof and lovely, more of a light meal than the fish cakes, although the chip shop chips may be at fault there. Neither of us had thought of putting mint in with basil – I know you can get “mint basil” but I’ve never dared cook with that in case I mess it up – but it was a really nice combination.
It was so nice in fact that we forgot to take pictures of it before scoffing the lot. Sorry about that, but our penne dish looked just like the one on the recipe card, honest.
So all in all it was a lovely treat to have 3 dinners delivered with no “oh, I’ve forgotten the paprika” moments (once I went out shopping for Paprika chicken and forgot the paprika, chicken and crème fraiche, which is basically the entire recipe, but I did remember wine, so that’s all right) and the instructions took some of the cooking panic out of it all, which was good for me, Mr B and the dinosaur.
With prices from under £4 a meal it would be rude not to really! And you won’t get bored as new recipes are added every week and can easily be adapted for more mouths!