I was really happy to have been chosen for this product test as it’s my first one, although I’ve been on MN for years. Sadly, I have been mostly disappointed with the results 
, but I’m glad to have the experience and it’s always good to try new things. And it won’t put me off applying for other tests.
1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?
Very easy to order and navigate the website, but struggled a little bit to choose which ones we fancied. The meals were very different to what we are used to eating, but it’s good to have a change. We chose the Easy Lamb Biryani, Chicken Peperonata and Cheesy Potatoes, Annabels Chinese-style Fish Fillets, and Annabel’s Mighty Meatball Pasta Bake. We haven’t yet made the Biryani, as we’ve not had the time, but we have made all the others.
The recipes weren’t difficult to follow, but what looks like an 8 step recipe actually contained multiple steps in each step, so it was quite confusing in places. Plus the timings didn’t always work. For example, the recipe for the Chicken Peperonata and Cheesy Potatoes told me to cook the potatoes, then add the cheese and put back in the oven to finish them off, but if I had done that, they would have been cold by the time the chicken was ready!
The meatballs were tasty, but no need for sugar to be added. Plus the meatballs completely disintegrated, so I recipe somewhat and we had a pasta bolognaise dish instead of the oven baked meatball version. A lot of effort required, even with a 5 year old helping out!
The Chinese fish was ok. A bit bland and the fish needed more seasoning. A bit of salt and pepper just wasn’t enough for the rest of the dish.
The chicken dish was nice, and so far my favourite of the lot. But again, not very special for so much effort. Although it was the easiest dish.
2. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?
I actually feel that we feed our family pretty well, considering some of the calorie content in some of these meals! It was good to get some more rounded use of herbs and different vegetables though, as I wouldn’t have bought some of these ingredients before. Too many recipes had unnecessary sugar I felt, so I left this out. I found that there were elements of dishes I will reuse, like rosemary cheesy potatoes and sticky rice.
The quality of the ingredients was very good though.
3. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?
I think the choice was pretty limiting really, and at odds to the types of meals that we would usually cook. You only get a certain amount of recipes available at any one time, so if you find one you like, then you can’t reorder it. Given that they are after a subscription service, I think by doing this, they are probably doing themselves out of business eventually, as people will just recreate them at home. Maybe that’s the point, but I’m not really sure what their target market is.
We enjoyed the recipes, although they were a lot of effort compared with what we would normally cook. Neither of us particularly enjoy cooking, so we would normall only spend this amount of time on really special meals, and I was disappointed that the meals weren’t that special for the time they took to prepare. Having said that, they may have taken so long due to the fact that we don’t really enjoy cooking so are less proficient than others that do. We found the timings were out by a good way in some cases (the meatballs especially!). But who has time to strip and chop lots of herbs? 
They were tasty in the main, but just not what I would call luxury meals.
4. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?
I didn’t really find these any different really. I’ve not used Annabel’s recipes before so couldn’t really say what the difference was? The only comment I would make is that meatballs took far too long to make, were a ridiculous amount of calories and portion size for 4 (we got a decent 6 portions out of the recipe), and the meatballs totally fell apart, so it was more of a bolognaise dish.
5. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?
It’s an expensive way of doing things, so I wouldn’t recommend to anyone on a budget. All the small ingredients can be bought much cheaper in a bottle, like sesame oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic bulbs etc. I definitely like the idea from a pp who suggested the option to uncheck the ingredients you already have in your store cupboard. And it seemed a bit hit and miss. They didn’t supply plain flour, but did cornflour? Which was odd to me.
I’m not a particular meal planner (much as I wish I was!), but I already shop online for most of my groceries, so that doesn’t really change with Gousto. Cooking is vastly different, as we spend much less time cooking usually. Whilst we don’t typically eat much by way of ready made meals, we use basic ingredients and still make tasty simple meals that take half the time and effort.
6. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?
I wouldn’t mainly because of the time to take to prepare the meals. Plus the fact that they have such short dates on them - we received ours on Monday and the latest we could cook was Thursday. Although you can freeze the meat and fish, you would have to find another use for the fresh vegetable and herbs.
However another box has turned up this morning! I need to contact MN as I wasn’t expecting it, haven’t ordered anything, and my subscription should have been cancelled! Given the number of errors of people being charged on the first box, and now this, I wouldn’t trust them to get things right going forward, and it’s just hassle that nobody needs to have to sort errors out.