Would you like to test a Gousto recipe box? £300 voucher to be won for feedback NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

Gousto has asked us to find 100 Mumsnetters to test one of their recipe boxes. Testers will be sent a family box of four meals (for four people) to try out with their family and will then be asked to leave feedback on a thread on Mumsnet. Two of the four meals selected will be recipes from a new family-friendly range launched in partnership with Annabel Karmel.

Here’s what Timo Boldt, CEO and Founder of Gousto says: “For people who want to cook and enjoy good food together but don’t always have the time, ingredients or know-how to do it well, Gousto delivers simple ways to (re) discover the joys of cooking, so you can choose what you want, cook it with confidence and enjoy sharing it with others.

Taking the hassle out of planning, shopping and cooking, Gousto delivers up to 4 meals for the week with the ingredients and recipe ready to make, so there’s no more ‘what’s for dinner’ panic.

This month, we’ve launched a 3-month partnership with family cooking expert, Annabel Karmel to introduce 20 additional family-friendly recipes to our menu. Supporting busy families with tried-and-tested, nutritionally balanced meals, proven to suit fussy eaters, including Heavenly Hidden Veg Bolognese and Mouthwatering Veggie Mac & Cheese – the new recipes will allow you to enjoy cooking dishes which suit everyone around the dinner table.

Each recipe uses Gousto’s fresh, quality ingredients – including 100% British meat, sustainable fish and free-range eggs from trusted suppliers – allowing you to know what’s in every meal and feel confident you’re feeding your family well.”

If selected, you’ll be given a unique discount code to place an order for a box (free of charge). Gousto is a subscription service, so testers will be required to create an account. However, Gousto’s customer care team will prevent the subscription from continuing automatically. You’ll then need to test the recipe box as a part of your daily routine and give your feedback on a thread on Mumsnet.

Testing will be for orders placed on the Gousto website on 10th October or 23rd October, with deliveries taking place between the 14th or 27th October. Please only sign up if you’re available to test at this time.

Please click here to apply.

All selected testers who give the required feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

[DeloresJaneUmbridge]

Yep...not impressed with Gousto.

Am not updating payment details and as the unordered box sat in my neighbours living room until this evening I suspect the meat won’t be okay,

They are apparently supposed to email you three days before delivery to check you don’t wish to make changes. I had no email even telling me at had apparently ordered.....if I had received that I could have sorted it out but I didn’t.

I’ve asked them to remove all my details from their system now and said I won’t ever order from them again. Have also informed them that I’ve been part of a product trial and would update m6 feedback based upon this latest issue.

[DavinaAddict]

I’ve also had a second charge and a second box delivered that I hadn’t ordered at all - haven’t reviewd the website since my initial order other than to check the recipes I’d ordered for the first box! (I also hadn’t realised I’d also been charged for the first ‘free’ box ). I reported to MNHQ on Monday and still haven’t heard anything back from them! MNHQ please can you sort this out? I really didn’t want to fork out over £90 for a free product trial!

[DeloresJaneUmbridge]

They want £29.99 from me. Bonkers....I didn’t confirm it.

[QOFE]

I've cancelled my account myself now but it said the box would still arrive tomorrow

Also it says in my account that the box is free and I definitely haven't paid for it.

[DeloresJaneUmbridge]

QOFE the same has happened here. I’ve emailed them and to,d them not to deliver it as we are not even here for the next few days. I started choosing recipes...chose three but hadn’t got as far as confirming it when I got confirmation of a family event. Bit perplexed that they are sending it and ask8 g for updated bank details for an order I didn’t get all the way through finishing. Not that impressed tbh....think they are trying it on.

Surely if you make an order you have to confirm and pay for it before it is sent? Or am I being naive?

[QOFE]

I've just had an email saying a second box has been dispatched to me??? I haven't paid for it (have just checked my bank account) but it appears my account hasn't been cancelled. Reading this thread through I think this might be because I didn't sign up with the email I put on the form originally but it wouldn't accept that email as it said there was already an account using it (I've never had a gousto box before so I don't know why it said that but I was in a rush as it was the evening of the deadline so I just used my other email address instead). But it looks like my teenager picked recipes for both weeks before asking us which ones we would prefer and now they're sending this week's choices too?

Help MNHQ? I'm going to cancel the account myself now but will that be enough to stop the box?

[Oblomov17]

But all my food was very very tasty.

So thank you very much indeed. For being selected to review.

[2014newme]

Did the pork chilli it was tasty and quick.
3 of the 4 recipes have had Chipotle paste going to buy some of that

[PeasAndHarmony]

Did the chicken and sweet corn soup today. Was nice but took way longer than the predicted 30 mins to cook and omg so much chopping and prepping. Not what I needed at 6pm after a manic day at work!!

[Oblomov17]

Final 4th of 4.
Palak paneer and cardamom rice. Still lots of chopping, different pans.

Apparently 25 minutes. yeah, dream on.

clearly this website has never seen like a Jamie Oliver program of 5 ingredients or 15 minute meals because of this whole week has been absolute disaster.

All very well, cooking for a special occasion having 2 1/2 hours to cook but on average night and I need a quick easy meal and these boxes have not worked for me at all.

today I was at home all day and amongst all the ironing I prepared this meal, it was ok, so that is totally different.

but a lot of the meals are just not appropriate for people coming home from work. Some people can afford it. and are coming home from work and want a meal relatively quickly prepared. some of the menu cards state 70 minutes.

yeah? really? it took me 2 1/2 hours and even then it wasn’t properly prepared. so no that doesn’t work for me at all. On a school night.

Plus the very high carbs. very high calories. a very high carbs doesn’t work for me as a type one diabetic at all.

[Oblomov17]

Peas, that’s clearly where I’m going wrong.
Splash of wine in pan.... glug of wine in the glass ....... oh look, the bottles gone. How did that happen?

yes, yes, I will try that as my cooking technique!!

[PeasAndHarmony]

oblomov we had the AK fish tonight and I completely agree with you.

At one point I had 3 different pans of stuff cooking at the same time whilst trying to make the stock/ sauce. I was so stressed by everything needing to be done at once I managed to drink half a bottle of wine whilst I was doing it 😰

I hate fish but ate it because it didn't taste of fish!

[muminthecity]

I placed my order yesterday and have had the full amount removed from my bank account. Hope they refund it asap as it's left me really short, I have no money for the weekend now.

[2014newme]

The fish does not taste like fish so Perhaps that's why you liked it if you aren't a fish fan. It tastes of cotton wool.
Don't Google that fish whatever you do.

[Oblomov17]

Meal 3: the dreaded AK vile fish. Ha ha.

How funny. The fish was Absolutely delicious and I’m not even that keen a fish eater so I was quite surprised.

Once again, involved a lot of chopping, 3 different pans, numerous bowls for flour/egg/pano. was a lot of hard work.

the sauce was completely overpowering, so much so that I had to drive it, rinse it and put it back into the frying pan, it was that strong and I like strong sources, so.....

Certainly wouldn’t order again. much too much like hard work. But tasty.

[PeasAndHarmony]

I did brown it for longer than the 5 mins it said in the recipe then cooked it in the liquid / sauce for about 20 mins.

It is really nice quality mince, lovely texture and seemed perfectly cooked after 20 mins.

[2014newme]

@PeasAndHarmony the chilli says 15 mins cooking time, I normally cook mine for minimum an hour, it seems too short?

[Oblomov17]

Just sounding off here. Please ignore whole of this post. I just needed to have a moan. Well, I’ve had a nightmare.

And I’m using this thread to post all my thoughts, will then condense for comments/feedback thread.

Right, so, after the easy and delicious lamb biryani as meal 1, I move into mozzarella and portobello mushroom burger, meal 2.

1.5 hours of awfulness.
I started at 4pm. I worked continuously and never stopped, chopped and cooked and chopped and re-arranged 4 trays in the oven. It was Probably the most effort that I’ve put into a Meal for a long long time I didn’t even taste that good and at 5:15pm we had to eat and I ate my mushroom partly cooked in order to leave at 5:30 to take DS2 to football.

I’m cooking for 4, so you know I’m doubling everything up.

Two bags of waxy potatoes, I cut into halves, some of them in half again, in a bag, oil, salt and pepper. Into the oven.

I peel and finely diced 2 red onions, chopped 4 tomatoes, chop the 2 lots of basil, chop 2 lots of olives, chop 2 cloves of garlic, chop 2 bags capers.
In a bag, add oil, and I myself added a little bit of vinegar.

and I kept aside some of the diced onion and garlic to go into the mushroom.

I remove the Stalks from 4 portobello mushrooms chopped them aswell.

chop the 2 mozzarella balls, added the chopped stalks with her remaining diced onion chopped garlic.

I am hacked off with all the chopping at this stage.

put the mushrooms in the oven spray with oil, cook, turn the potatoes over, put the mozzarella mix on.

Partially cut 4 ciabatta, before coking to allow easy opening. In they go to the oven too.

an absolute nightmare. and it was all quite tasty, although the mushroom had no seasoning. Was not tasty at all. with hindsight I should’ve seasoned it.

and it was just such hard work. Cooking rarely stresses me out. But this was just awful. I would not recommend this dish to anybody.

I didn’t eat my ciabatta, but the ds’s wolfed it down, as an extra.
Dh said it tasted ok. But I was mightily unimpressed.

Plus can I just say, the calories of both biryani and mushroom burger are nearly 800 calories and high carb. Not good.

Rant over. As you were!

[PeasAndHarmony]

We had the pork chilli tonight, had mixed views on it.

The apple and celery salsa was lovely and both kids ate it (raw onions and all!). They also loved the bulgar wheat having always hated cous cous of any form!

No one liked the pork chilli though. For me it was far too salty (am thinking there may have been an error on the recipe card as for 2 people it was 1 stock cube and 300ml water and for 4 it was 2 cubes and 400ml water which didn’t sound right? Plus the chipotle was salty too.

Kids said it was too spicy for them (and they do usually like chilli and curry). If making again I’d probably use half the amount of spices, seasoning and stock cubes.

[Holliewantstobehot]

OK so I tried to cook the sticky salmon and my cooker broke down halfway through.
So I tried to finish it in the microwave but it didn't come out very well. Mind you I am not very good at cooking in the microwave, I just usually heat things up in it.
Luckily I had frozen the chicken for the chicken schnitzel so am planning to cook that in the next couple of days when my cooker is sorted. Such a nuisance as I have really enjoyed cooking something different.

[muminthecity]

@JustineBMumsnet Sorry, it's working fine now, ignore previous message!

[muminthecity]

@JustineBMumsnet I have just received my email with the code, gone through the ordering process but when I get to the final payment page it keeps saying an error has occurred. I've entered all of my details correctly. Can you help please?

[listsandbudgets]

Oblomov take heart, the fish wasn't so terrible once breaded and fried and the children loved the accompanying veg and sauce (which for children who usually won't touch either peppers or courgettes was quite an achievement) - just don't put as much sugar in as Annabel suggests or they'll be on a high for the rest of the evening. TWO TABLESPOONS- I actually wondered if it was a misprint and they mean teaspoons (almost hope it was)

[listsandbudgets]

Well I coated the beef with a generous coating of the enclosed spice mix and seared only for DD to reject it the basis it was far too spicy. I had to agree that the spiciness did spoil it - next time I think I'd rather just cook it naked so to speak.

Everyone loved the honey sauce thought i thought it far too salty which was hardly surprising with 2 stock cubes - next time I'd only use one

On the other hand the tabbouleh was much admired and for some reason DD was of the view that the cherry tomatoes were the best she'd ever tasted and as I expected,there is easily enough left over to serve with another meal

[Ilikesweetpeas]

We loved the peri chicken, apple slaw and chips- a definite favourite which we will repeat! The Annabel's glazed salmon with Chinese rice was also tasty. I cut down on the amount of soy sauce as the recipe suggested a lot but it was delicious. Cooked the pulled gammon and creamy mustard sauce tonight- less impressed with that as we didn't feel that the gammon had much flavour however the roasted broccoli was lovely. Still got the halloumi to cook! Is there a feedback thread yet?