Hello Fresh

Recently I signed up for a Hello Fresh box. 

Here's how it works: every week Hello Fresh send you a box full of fresh ingredients along with either 3 or 5 recipes cards (depending on which box you choose). All you have to do is use the stuff provided in the box to cook up these yummy recipes. Apart from some salt and pepper and maybe a little oil, you shouldn't have to purchase any other ingredients yourself.

The box arrived on a Tuesday morning and I was a little bit excited to see what we had got.

Our box came with ingredients to make three different recipes: a chicken and chickpea curry, a luxury fishermans pie and a beef and orange stir-fry. 

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. My boyfriend and I are both big foodies who love to cook. We very rarely make anything out of a jar and you will almost never find a ready meal in our freezer. As a result we like to be quite adventurous with our cooking and these meals seemed a little basic for our liking. However, when I checked online the 5 meal box contained a few slightly more extravagant meals so maybe it was our bad.

On night number one we did the fish pie and I have to say, this was hands down the best fish pie I have ever tasted. Ever. It was creamy and delicious. The sauce was balanced to perfection and the crunchy breadcrumb coating on top of lovely buttery mash finished it amazingly. We served ours with some peas though as I like to always have some sort of veg or salad with my evening meal. On this occasion, I thought the box was a brilliant idea, in that it was much tastier than the fish pie we usually make. The recipe card has been kept and this will most definitely be a regular in our household from now on. There was also way too much for just two people and Ava got a fair few dinners out of this too. She also wolfed it down.

On the second night we did the chicken and chickpea curry. I was pretty suspicious, as I always am, of any curry that can be prepared in only half an hour. And I was right to be. The curry lacked the flavour and depth that can only be achieved by cooking properly for at least an hour or two. There wasn't enough chilli for me (but then I am a bit of spice fiend) and the basic tomato sauce in the curry tasted slightly more like a tagine to me than an actual curry. We pimped this up with some extra spices and a swirl of double cream and it tasted alot better. However if you followed to recipe to the letter, I would say this would come out pretty underwhelming.

On our final night we did the beef and orange stirfry. Once again, I was suspicious. In my opinion beef stirfrys, stroganoffs, etc need to be made using a good cut of meat like fillet tails or else the beef tends to be chewy as hell. Now I appreciate not everyone can afford to eat fillet tails every night. Neither can we. I just think if you are going to do something like this then you may as well do it right. There is nothing worse than it taking an entire episode of Eastenders to chew a mouthful of beef. I was right again. The flank steak was tough and it took a hell of a lot of chewing to get through. The flavours of the stir fry were ok but I think I will stick to my own recipes in future. However the addition of orange juice and zest was a nice touch and one I will probably be borrowing in future.

On a whole, I wasn't that impressed with the box. Especially given that they are not cheap (thanks for the discount code Helen) and I probably wouldn't bother ordering one again.

 However, having thought about it a bit more I've realised these boxes are actually fantastic for people who don't cook a lot but want to. If you are a keen amateur chef who needs a bit more help and guidance to learn some of the basics in the kitchen then these boxes are most definitely for you.