Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have heard of the plethora of recipe boxes on the market. Those who once subscribed to magazines and beauty boxes now get their meals via subscription services instead. They’ve come a long way – meals on wheels, this is not.
I am a self-confessed uninterested chef. I love food. But I do not cook (apart from the odd Victoria Sponge). I just can’t be arsed and I find the whole debacle quite stressful. Until now!
I recently plumped for Gousto boxes.
*they don’t look like this, box wouldn’t close if they did, would it?!
Usual format – sign up online, pick some recipes and each week a big red box arrives with perfectly measured out ingredients and very easy to follow recipe cards. I wanted to give this a go to get my new resolution at being vegetarian* off to a good start, and this seemed like a good way to get some recipes in our arsenal. Also I hate food shopping.
I know what you’re thinking, because I was too:
- Isn’t this a bit of a waste of money?
Economically speaking – yes, it’s a little extravagant if you’re good at food shopping. But dear reader, I am not. Brad did (un)helpfully point out that most of the herbs, spices and store cupboard ingredients we probably already had, but if your kitchen isn’t initially well stocked, you’re going to be using ingredients that you wouldn’t have to hand.
- I bet there’s loads of packaging.
Alright Greta, fair point. I’ve heard that it used to be much worse. Gousto are on a real eco-kick and pledged to halve their packaging. Nearly all of it was recyclable and all the veg was all loose. So far, so good. There’s an ice pack in the box when it’s delivered, which it suggest you let melt then use to water the plants, and the insulation packaging can be put on the compost heap or in the food waste. Added bonus – you use everything in the box, so no food waste. Tick.
- Will it be enough food for us?
Portion sizes were bang on for two people, we haven’t felt hard done by at all. You can of course select the number of people, or the recipe cards show you where you can double up if you’re unexpectedly faced with extra guests. It has also shown me that we massively over buy ingredients (admittedly sometimes you’re forced to if you shop in Aldi and only want 2 carrots and you have to buy a bag of 10).
The recipes were super easy to follow and the food was great quality. Definitely recommended! Here are some of the dishes we had:
Beany chilli with avocado & lime:
Spinach & paneer curry with cardamom rice:
Spiced lentil stew & chilli-peanut crumb
Now I’m going to make this sound like a sponsored post (not an “influencer” yet, sadly) by offering a lovely little money saver if anyone is interested in trying Gousto – hit me up in the comments/Insta/Twitter and I’ll send you my referral code.
Mary xx
*this isn’t going to now be a solely veggie food blog. I live with a keen carnivore and haven’t necessarily ruled out meat forever! Have been thinking about pork pies for about a fortnight TBH.
Cooks and Eats 