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Home cooking without shopping
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Thanks to Helena from HelloFresh for inviting me to sample one of their Gourmet 3 meals per week plan ($64) which was suitable for 2 people. The box of ingredients was delivered on a monday night after work which was convenient to be at home to receive. The fresh produce supplied was good quality and recipes were fairly easy to follow for a novice cook like myself. I assumed the Pesto pizza with goat cheese and sundried tomato was the first to be cooked which was simple and quick to do and ended as a tasty result that I'd be happy to cook again. I liked how there wasn't much preparation required and I managed to finish within 30 minutes. I chose to wash the baby spinach leaves just in case there was any grit residue. The amount of ingredients was well portioned with left over baby spinach that I made into a side salad with some dressing I had.
On the second night I made the Lean beef chilli con carne which involved more time in preparation. 345g of beef mince was supplied while the recipe only required 250g leaving plenty as leftovers. Tomato paste was considered a pantry item to be provided by the householder although I think it would have been nice for this to be supplied as well. Time taken to finish was about 50 minutes and I added some grated cheese and a side of corn chips to compliment the dish. I would have liked a bit more spice and chilli hit in the dish so maybe the extra amount of mince used was a factor. I'm not a fan of cooking rice and usually prefer buying those 90 second microwave packs in supermarkets so perhaps one of these could be included instead for lazy cooks like me.
The final dish was Pork and mushroom stir fry with noodles which also involved a bit of preparation time and took around 45 minutes to finish the dish. The generous amount of ingredients provided more than enough. The rice noodles were easier to prepare than rice for me and I also included some left over carrot and capsicum from the previous chilli con carne recipe. I wondered if egg noodles might have been a better match for the dish than rice noodles. With the left over noodles I ended up cooking a couple of Pad Thai dishes the following week with just a premade sauce which worked out well. Olive oil was required from the pantry but perhaps a suitable alternative could be sesame oil or even peanut oil for a more Asian-style flavour. With limited time and a preference for very simple recipes my favourite was the pesto pizza out of all the three recipes.
Thanks to Helena from HelloFresh for inviting me to sample one of their Gourmet 3 meals per week plan ($64) which was suitable for 2 people. The box of ingredients was delivered on a monday night after work which was convenient to be at home to receive. The fresh produce supplied was good quality and recipes were fairly easy to follow for a novice cook like myself. I assumed the Pesto pizza with goat cheese and sundried tomato was the first to be cooked which was simple and quick to do and ended as a tasty result that I'd be happy to cook again. I liked how there wasn't much preparation required and I managed to finish within 30 minutes. I chose to wash the baby spinach leaves just in case there was any grit residue. The amount of ingredients was well portioned with left over baby spinach that I made into a side salad with some dressing I had.
On the second night I made the Lean beef chilli con carne which involved more time in preparation. 345g of beef mince was supplied while the recipe only required 250g leaving plenty as leftovers. Tomato paste was considered a pantry item to be provided by the householder although I think it would have been nice for this to be supplied as well. Time taken to finish was about 50 minutes and I added some grated cheese and a side of corn chips to compliment the dish. I would have liked a bit more spice and chilli hit in the dish so maybe the extra amount of mince used was a factor. I'm not a fan of cooking rice and usually prefer buying those 90 second microwave packs in supermarkets so perhaps one of these could be included instead for lazy cooks like me.
The final dish was Pork and mushroom stir fry with noodles which also involved a bit of preparation time and took around 45 minutes to finish the dish. The generous amount of ingredients provided more than enough. The rice noodles were easier to prepare than rice for me and I also included some left over carrot and capsicum from the previous chilli con carne recipe. I wondered if egg noodles might have been a better match for the dish than rice noodles. With the left over noodles I ended up cooking a couple of Pad Thai dishes the following week with just a premade sauce which worked out well. Olive oil was required from the pantry but perhaps a suitable alternative could be sesame oil or even peanut oil for a more Asian-style flavour. With limited time and a preference for very simple recipes my favourite was the pesto pizza out of all the three recipes.
SNAPSHOT REVIEW:
PROS: Saves you time shopping except for having basic pantry items like olive oil, Recipes were quite easy to follow, Ingredients were fresh and decent quality
CONS: You still need to prepare and cook the recipes, Possibly might be cheaper to buy the ingredients yourself, Some recipes took me longer than 30 minutes
MUST TRY: Discovering more pizza topping recipes for home
VERDICT: If you dislike grocery shopping and are happy to cook simple recipes at home then HelloFresh might suit you
50% DISCOUNT OFFER (Valid until 21 Nov 2012)
The kind folks at HelloFresh are offering Simon Food Favourites readers an exclusive 50% discount on their first HelloFresh box. Just enter the voucher code 'HFsimon' upon checkout at HelloFresh. You'll then get a weeks worth of dinners for about $5 per meal and if you don't like HelloFresh, you can cancel straight away. Sounds like a win win situation if you're curious to try. [Note: I do not receive any money or commission if you take up this offer]
VERDICT: If you dislike grocery shopping and are happy to cook simple recipes at home then HelloFresh might suit you
50% DISCOUNT OFFER (Valid until 21 Nov 2012)
The kind folks at HelloFresh are offering Simon Food Favourites readers an exclusive 50% discount on their first HelloFresh box. Just enter the voucher code 'HFsimon' upon checkout at HelloFresh. You'll then get a weeks worth of dinners for about $5 per meal and if you don't like HelloFresh, you can cancel straight away. Sounds like a win win situation if you're curious to try. [Note: I do not receive any money or commission if you take up this offer]
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Well-packaged delivery with reusable foam esky inside for cold products
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| Recipes |
Recipe 1
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| Pesto pizza with goat cheese and sundried tomato |
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| All ingredients supplied except olive oil if you want to drizzle over |
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| Washed the baby spinach but it wasn't mentioned to do on recipe |
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| Left over baby spinach made into a side salad with some salad dressing |
Recipe 2
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| Lean beef chilli con carne |
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| Olive oil and tomato paste required from the pantry |
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| I don't think I made a good job of the rice |
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| I though some corn chips would go well with the dish |
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| A bit of grated cheese on top works well |
Recipe 3
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| Pork and mushroom stir fry with noodles |
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| Only used a quarter of the noodles supplied so plenty left over for other dishes like Pad Thai |
6 comments:
Simon, buy a small rice cooker! Can't believe you haven't got one. Even Woollies sells them these days. :)
Hi Simon,
Thank you for this idea I have never heard of it ! You told there were some left overs that you can keep aside, but do you think the proportions were big enough for each dish ?
Otherwise do you think an unexperienced cook would take longer than the time it took you?
Thanks
What a great idea! All of the meals look delicious :)
I love the concept. I wouldn't use it personally but I think it's great that they are getting more people to cook at home.
We've been using Hello Fresh for about 2 months now and love it! It really takes all the hard work out of the "what shall I cook/shop for tonight?" dilemma. Nothing has been especially tricky or time consuming to make so far. And we are tying things we usually never would....although I still can't get polenta to taste nice. We get the 2 person delivery and it's great value!
hi eccles, i'd love a rice cooker but don't really cook rice often enough to make good use of it, hence why i tend to buy the 90 second packaged ones. also don't have a lot of kitchen space.
hi anonymous, the portions for each dish were definitely more than enough for 2 people. i'd consider myself an unexperienced cook so i reckon the timing would be about the same as I took.
hi nic, the meals are pretty basic ones but nevertheless quite healthy i think. some extra seasoning would work for them though.
hi gaby, definitely a well thought out system for those wanting to cook at home more.
hi anonymous, good to hear its been working well for you guys. i'm hoping you're sharing some food photos of your dishes on their facebook so others can check them out :-)
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