Hello Fresh- Recipes to your Door!

I do enjoy cooking but sometimes it's hard to make the effort during the week, especially when you're only cooking for one.

Last week I used a £25 gift voucher I had to trial Hello Fresh, a meal delivery service.

Hello Fresh delivers great recipes and fresh ingredients to your home each week, enabling you to cook fast healthy recipes designed by nutritionists and chefs.

Hello Fresh website

My box was delivered late on Monday evening (9:30pm), and Tuesday I was out at the Teach First Run The River race, so I didn't get around to cracking out the pots and pans until Wednesday.

The meat is quite short dated, as it's designed to be used that week, so if you're not able to then I recommend freezing it to stop it going to waste, and then cook the meals in order of whichever is the shortest date.

Smoked Salmon Fishcakes with a Citrus Salad

My first recipe was making salmon fishcakes from scratch.

These were a little fiddly and made a lot of pans and plates dirty! You cooked potatoes, peas and salmon separately, then combined with a few other ingredients to form the fishcakes, before dipping in sour cream and panko breadcrumbs to finish off. The recipe then told you to fry them to create a crispy outer, before finishing off in the oven.

Ingredients for fishcakes

This is probably more effort than I'd normally go to on a week night but it made a nice change and kept me occupied for a little while, and was a good sense of achievement when they turned out well at the end!

The finished fishcakes!

They were really tasty and I would definitely consider making them again, perhaps with a few simplifications.

Bedouin Chicken with Ginger Rice and Courgettes

On Thursday I made a rather beige chicken recipe, although it did have an interesting yoghurt, ginger and chilli topping. This was my least favourite of the three recipes, mostly because I'm not really a fan of rice.

Ingredients to make chicken and rice

The plate looked a bit dull too- if I was to repeat this recipe I would skip the rice and serve the chicken on a pile of roasted vegetables instead!

The chicken and rice dish

Beef and Mushroom Burger with Potato Wedges

You can't really go wrong with burgers! I've made them before, and this recipe was very simple, and able to be repeated on Friday and Saturday. I simply chilled the second burger patty in the fridge and cooked it the next day, with the other potato to make more wedges.

The ingredients to make burgers

The fried onion and mushrooms were a nice addition, but I'd probably make sweet potato fries next time!

The finish plate!

Summary

Hello Fresh is a great idea if you're short of time to go shopping, or want a quick and easy menu plan for the week. All the little bits and pieces such as coriander seeds, chilli flakes, ginger, garlic cloves, sachets of mustard and tomato ketchup are included in each meal plan, and there is a comprehensive recipe to follow.

It's also good for giving you new ideas of things to make- I tend to get stuck in a rut with tried and tested recipes so it was nice to have a bit of inspiration. I would never have thought of using sour cream and panko breadcrumbs to coat a fishcake! All the recipes are available on the Hello Fresh website which is great too.

I ate the leftovers of the fishcakes and chicken for lunch the next day, and they still tasted as good. As a single person, all meals are designed for 2, so the leftovers work well for lunches. They offer family sized boxes (4-5 people), and vegetarian ones too, and you can swap any of the meals that you don't like the sound of.

Source

It's not something I would do again, purely because of cost- I wouldn't normally spend £40 on food a week- although their comparison with supermarkets suggests it's actually cheaper. I suppose it depends what you normally buy, and I do like that you know the suppliers and where the ingredients have come from.

It was definitely interesting to try out, and I think it would make a nice gift for someone who likes cooking!

Have you ever tried a meal delivery service? How do you mix up your meals, or do you prefer to eat the same things?

Beki x

NB: I wasn't asked to write about Hello Fresh, I just thought it would be interesting to share!