Mindful Chef family recipe box product test – Feedback thread!

[MaddyMumsnet]

This thread is ONLY for Mumsnetters who are taking part in this product test.

Hi Mindful Chef testers,

Welcome to your Mindful Chef product test, we’re so excited to have you all here! 🍽️✨

Over the next couple of weeks, you’ll be putting Mindful Chef’s family recipe boxes to the test at home, and this thread is where we’d love you to share your experience as you go along.

We’re really interested in how the meals work in real family life – from busy weeknight dinners to getting everyone around the table – so the more detail you can share, the better.

To get things started, here are a few things you might want to tell us about:
Getting started

• How did you find the ordering process?
• How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer?
• What made you pick the recipes you went for?
• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel?

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook?
• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?
• Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested?
• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all?
• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals?
• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀
• Did the portions work well for your household?
• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients?
• Has anything surprised you so far?
• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking?
• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals?

Photos are encouraged if you’re happy to share, we love seeing the meals (and real-life kitchen moments!) 📸

Please make sure you’re updating this thread regularly across the full 2-week testing period - we’re looking to hear from you throughout, not just at the end.

Thanks again for being part of this, we can’t wait to hear how you get on, and we’ll be checking in here along the way too.

MNHQ x

We made our first meal tonight - Sticky Hoisin Salmon Traybake. It was four lovely looking pieces of salmon, more broccoli than you can shake a stick at (three heads!), peppers and onion, seasoned and baked then mixed with noodles and a hoisin-tamarin sauce. Finished with roasted peanuts and served.

It was a very simple recipe to follow, littlest DC helped with the veg prep (which she loves to do and helps gain her buy-in on the finished product), the noodles needed to be boiled separately which I do think is a shame as otherwise it’d be a ‘one pot (tray)’ meal. The total time from grabbing the bag of ingredients to fork in mouth was 50 mins - rather than the promised 40 but it could be done in 40 if your sous chef is a little more capable than mine (and you remember to preheat the oven). Once prepped it doesn’t need much attention so was fine for a mid-week meal for us.

Oldest DC doesn’t like broccoli, he eats nearly all other veg though so I just held some back and added extra pepper and baby corn instead which worked out fine. Both kids ate it all, as did DH and I. The portion size was generous for us, we ate all the salmon but had a small amount of veg and noodles leftover.

All the ingredients were good quality and fresh and I appreciated the reduced mental load of having a complete meal ready to go with no real planning/shopping. I think DH and DS would get on really well with this format, they both get stressed if an ingredient isn’t available (whereas I’m comfortable subbing) and both a bit prone to forgetting to add something if they haven’t got it out of the cupboard - hopefully they will both have a go at cooking a box soon. For me as a more accomplished chef I appreciated the new ideas, and I did appreciate having everything ready and to had without thinking about it but I could never justify paying £25 for salmon, veg and noodles. Which is a shame because I did enjoy the process. I could justify it for DS though as he is still learning to cook and this could be a good motivator to try new things.

So made our first meal...5 spice sticky beef. Firstly, there is no way the ingredients would have fed 4. Not with two strapping teens and a husband. I substituted the mince as no one wanted it and had steak instead. It didn't turn out sticky - would have needed more honey and more eggs for the egg fried rice.
However, it was tasty and everyone enjoyed it.

I prepared our second meal on Tuesday evening, which was the pork and apple patties.

I will admit when I read the recipe instructions for this one, I wasn't relishing preparing it (in fact, I was supposed to cook it on Monday evening, but felt I couldn't be bothered with the faff and had a takeaway instead).

I think perhaps I did think that the point of these recipe boxes was to provide healthy meals that are quick and easy to make, but I don't think this recipe was particularly easy (and I am a competent cook).

The recipe took 50 minutes to prepare and cook from start to finish. I think sweet potato takes longer than 30 minutes to cook imo, but I like it a bit blackened and "smushy".

I made the patties, but found it messy, and found them difficult to fry and was having to be very careful with them to ensure they didn't fall apart. Also, the grating of the apple, and sieving it was a pain. Having to fry and then oven cook just seemed like an additional faff. (Did I say I found this recipe a faff 😀).

I supplemented extra sweet potatoes because I didn't think there was enough for us. We also probably would have more salad with our meals.

I also think the salad was slightly passed its best on the Tuesday (got the box on Friday). I don't think this is Mindful Chefs fault - I think if I was to order a dish with salad in the future, I would just make sure I cooked it earlier in the week.

The meal was very tasty though. Me and my husband very much enjoyed it. However, one teenager hardly ate it, and the other ate everything bar the sweet potatoes.

So this first box has been a mixed bag! Picked a gnocchi bake for next week, and another sticky beef dish.

I am surprised how little I knew about the dishes until I got the recipe book. I think if I had seen the recipe book before hand I would have made different choices. It occurred to me then than Mindful Chef don't give much away in the description of the dish (for example I didn't know the pork and apple patties would have a lot of mustard in the recipe in different parts - if I had known I wouldn't have chosen it as my children don't like mustard).

Here is a picture of Tuesday's dinner

We had our first 2 meals over the weekend. It was great to not have to think about what to cook or go shopping for ingredients! I also like that everything came ready portioned in easy to open packets, so no buying random ingredients that then sit in the cupboard for months because you never use them again. Although nice, the meals weren’t anything amazing taste wise. We had a pulled pork meal and then turkey chow mein. There was more than enough food for the four of us, with even some left over for lunch / dinner the following day. I do think that £60+ for 2 meals for 4 is quite expensive, given that you still need to eat for 5 other nights which you obviously need to shop for. We could do a whole week’s shopping for the price of 2 of these meals! All of the ingredients were fresh and lasted well in the fridge from delivery to being used (I didn’t take anything out of the brown bags). We are looking forward to this week’s delivery and hoping the meals have a bit more of a wow factor.

• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel? Everything looked great - I loved that the paper bags could just go straight into the fridge

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook?
• today I cooked the Korean style sticky beef, and it was a definite hit with me, my two older kids and my husband! Everyone wanted seconds!! It was very easy to cook and straightforward to follow along
• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?
• it did feel manageable - prob took a bit longer than it said but that was me being slow! I have just noticed it has 2 chillis as the spicy indicator- I am terrible with spice and prob wouldn’t have picked this if I’d realised it was meant to be spiced, however it only had a very slight tinge, and the others in the house who love spicy food didn’t find it spicy at all. Point being, if I’d picked it expecting it to be spicy I may have been disappointed
• Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested?
• a little bit more
• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all?
• yes, my 11year old made the sauce! He found it very easy to follow the recipe
• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?
• this one was delicious!

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals?
• Yup
• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀
• yes, and had seconds!
• Did the portions work well for your household?
• they did for us
• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine

For me it probably took slightly longer than I’d want, as it took about 30 mins. I noticed you have 20 min recipes and I prob would have picked from those, if I’d had free choice

We tried our second meal tonight - chicken curry. I liked the children friendly suggestions again of leaving the veg as crudites on the side, though we did add the tomatoes to the sauce and it was delicious.

The only problem was that the sauce took such a long time to reduce down that my husband resorted to using some peanut butter to thicken it! He's convinced he only added the amount of water specified in the recipe but the sauce was initially very thin. It did ultimately taste delicious, though the longer sauce cooking time did make the chicken tougher. I did find boiling the broccoli odd, as surely it's healthier to steam it?

The portion size was good for four of us and I appreciated the brown rather than white rice. Mindful Chef would definitely be a luxury for us - something to have in a holiday cottage and save the hassle of taking / buying spices etc.

Answering for the second meal we cooked last weekend which was Turkey Chow Mein with Brown Rice Noodles & Rainbow Veg

How easy were the recipes to cook?
Extremely easy to follow receipe by following the provided method in the receipe book given.

How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine?
This receipe we cooked together as a family my 9 year especially enjoyed helping to prep the items and stir the noodles.

Did they feel manageable on a weeknight? This receipe did it was quicker than the first one so could easily be done on a busy weeknight and we all got stuck in which made prep and cooking time quicker.

Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested? Same time suggested.

Did your children get involved in the cooking at all? Yes my son loved prepping the veg and stiring the noodles in the pan.

Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?
Our favourite was our second choice was empty plates all round and we all said we would 100% love to have this meal again it was so tasty.

Did the portions work well for your household? Yes plenty of food in both our first meals for a family of 4.

Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine? The Turkey Chow main 100%.

My second box is coming tomorrow and will report back how we get on with those 2 meals.

We tried the hidden veg bolognese and the hoisin sticky salmon.

One big bonus was my husband was happy to cook the meals. He's fine at cooking, but not necessarily great at planning to have the ingredients, so having step by step recipes and quantities sorted was great.

The ordering process was OK once I worked out that Family Portion and Family Friendly meals weren't the same, and as I mentioned previously, I'm not sure how that's been decided, as there were several meals my children would have liked from the wider menu.

The bolognese was not a hit. It was quite bland (perhaps my husband's fault for not adding enough salt/pepper), but the children didn't like the texture of the lentils in the sauce, and even I disliked the wholemeal pasta with this sauce.

However the salmon was a definite winner. We had to leave the onion out for one child, and the peppers out for another, but it went down really well. Portion sizes were generous (two adults, one young teen, one older child). It also felt like a healthy meal, and a "proper" cooked meal, rather than some of the weeknight staples we rely on such as fajitas, jacket potatoes etc.

I couldn't find the recipes at first - I was used to Hello Fresh where you get a card you can put in a binder. Perhaps in the introductory email it could explain where to find the instructions.

Each meal took about 20 mins to prepare, with an extra 20 mins of cooking for the salmon, but this is absolutely reasonable for a weeknight meal.

It would have been useful to know which ingredients expired first - e.g. our beef expired a day before the salmon, so makes sense to have the beef meal first.

We’ve just cooked up our second meal, the mild chicken curry. It was a little disappointing, although the portion was good for two adults, a four year old and a ten month old, it would not have been enough for two adults and two older children. It was nice, but not great, could have been creamier or had a little more depth. We added some mango chutney and it helped lift it a bit. The tomatoes weren’t the best quality, one was definitely off and the others were very soft. Bit disappointed after the great first recipe.

3rd meal tonight, very tasty. Sticky hoisin salmon tray bake, really simple to prepare and cook and the quality of the ingredients was v good. The salmon was delicious, would definitely cook again. Everyone cleared their plates, portions were good. But again lots of single use plastic, I just feel that a company setting themselves up as providers of top quality recipes and ingredients should be able to do better than this. Maybe a service to return CLEAN single use plastics to Mindful Chef rather than outsourcing the recycling to the supermarkets could be explored. If the company is encouraging me to subscribe and quoting on its literature that it is 21% less carbon dioxide per meal than a supermarket shop i dont see that going to a supermarket to recycle single use plastics from that very meal sits well with that statement.

Tonight we made Pork Meatball Gnocchi Bake. We will often have meatballs and pasta with a homemade tomato/veg sauce so I was hopeful this would be a nice variety on that - my eldest turns his nose up at non-ikea meatballs 🙄 and my homemade sauce is a labour of love that I do once every couple of months and freeze in batches, so an alternative would work well for us.

Prep time is stated as ten minutes; chopping the veg, putting it in the dish with oil and seasoning and separately putting broccoli and gnocchi onto an oven tray and oil/seasoning did take me about ten mins. Making, mixing and shaping the meatballs took at least another ten! No way could most people (anyone??) do all that in ten total.

It annoyed me a bit that they suggested making the meatballs first, then chopping the veg, because that seems a messy way round to me. Also the prep said to chop the onions into 8 wedges, which is fine, but my kids wouldn’t eat it like that, they would happily eat it as part of the sauce but not a big wedge - so I chopped smaller. I think a note to this effect/suggesting that the sauce could be blended would be a nice touch - the sauce would work well blended.

The meatballs, gnocchi and veg are cooked in the oven, meanwhile I made the sauce and then sauce and mozzarella goes into the over for the last ten mins - well the instructions actually omit adding the sauce but luckily I spotted that.

The end product looked, smelt and tasted great! I baked some separately for DH (who dislikes cheese) and that was no real hassle. We really enjoyed the roasted broccoli (well 3 out of 4 did) which isn’t how I normally serve it. The meatballs were a lot of work for a week night really, I probably wouldn’t want to be doing that normally. But maybe I’d make the meatballs ahead or sub for sausages or shop bought meatballs - the rest of the recipe was great including the tomato based sauce which was simpler than my normal batch made version. The kids hadn’t tried Gnocchi before and both enjoyed it. Again the portion was generous enough for us and there was a small amount left over.

Getting started

• How did you find the ordering process? I found the ordering process very easy for the first order. The second order had to be amended as they had chosen my next meals for me but overall wasn't hard.
• How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer? I thought the variety of meals was excellent. There were multiple options for meat eaters and vegetarians alike.
• What made you pick the recipes you went for? I chose things that looked delicious but that the children would also eat.
• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel? I was a bit surprised at the presentation as the vegetables were in two paper sacks and everything else was loose in the box.

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook? They were easy to prepare but it didn't save any time and seemed as easy as meal prepping myself.
• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight? I was disappointed as I was hoping that they would be pre-prepared to save time from cooking after work. The recipes were simple and didn't take too long, but overall weren't any quicker to prepare than one of our usual meals.
• Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested? The suggested preparation and cooking time were spot on.
• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all? No, they were cooked on a weeknight and so I was trying to get dinner on the table.
• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark? The children liked the Denver steak but particularly enjoyed the pesto new potatoes that was served with it. The sea bream was very nice and the children enjoyed it but much preferred the steak from week one.

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals? Yes
• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀 Yes, I was the only one who couldn't manage everything because the portions were generous, particularly the steaks!
• Did the portions work well for your household? Yes, everyone was full afterwards.
• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine? I could see the recipes becoming part of our daily routine but not Mindful Chef.

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients? Very good.
• Has anything surprised you so far? Two things surprised me, unfortunately not in a good way. The first was that I received an e-mail before my first delivery was due to say that the recipe card was not going to be in the package. The recipe was provided online but this was a lot less convenient than having the physical recipe while cooking. Secondly, the bags weren't clearly marked with which recipe they were for.
• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking? It helped reduce the mental load in terms of providing the exact ingredients needed but other than that it didn't reduce the actual preparation or cooking time which is what I really need.
• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals? I usually meal plan and shop on a weekly basis. Mindful Chef took away the need to buy the ingredients and helped prevent wastage by only providing the amount of ingredients needed. In this first week, it felt like it didn't really reduce the after-work stress of coming home and preparing a healthy, balanced meal.

Made my first meal tonight which was Tofu Pad Thai. It was absolutely delicious and so easy to follow the recipe. There was ample vegetables and easily fed 4 people. The instructions are explained very well. When my box arrived all the vegetables were packaged really well and cool packs were provided to keep everything fresh. My 8 year old enjoyed helping me prepare tonight’s dinner and said she would eat again. It was lovely having everything delivered and not to worry about what to cook for dinner. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s meal.

I found the ordering process straightforward, was easy to select how many people and any filters you might want to apply. We looked as a family, mostly because despite my best efforts, my children are fussy and I wanted them to actually try things. I'm the only veggie so picked a vegan sweet and sour and then a cod nuggets to ease us in as the children will eat these hopefully. There was a good variety of meals, I liked that there was a good range of veggie and vegan. I am less convinced with the family friendly ideas but I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

The box arrived on the date specified. I liked how clear the communication was throughout about this. I was intrigued on the day it was delivered because I had an email saying it had been delivered to my shed/outhouse - but I have neither of these. When I got home, it was sat directly in front of my front door (there are other locations they could have popped it to be less conspicuous). However, everything was in there and kept cold so all good. I particularly liked that you get the whole booklet of recipes so I could look through for a future order.

First recipe was easy to follow, the recipe instructions give informed about how long for prep and for cooking so was helpful to fit it in. We made the vegan sweet and sour, there was a bit of prepping and chopping. I was surprised that the rice was Tilda packet rice and that I didn't need to cook it, but that was a nice surprise and sped things up (as well as meaning less pots and therefore less washing up!) Me and my husband thought the food was great, the children were slightly less keen. Both liked the vegan chicken which was good (I didn't tell them it was vegan chicken). I will definitely make it again!

I’ve now cooked and eaten both recipes for this week and am impressed. Honestly I was thinking that the meals were a bit expensive previously and wondered if they would feel worth it but both have been delicious with generous portion sizes (granted we are two adults and two toddlers but we had leftovers each day).

I found the recipes straightforward to cook, even amidst the chaos of parenting. They did take slightly longer than the recipe suggested but I think that is down to user distraction.

The meals were both enjoyed by the whole family with gnocchi quickly becoming a new recipe in our usual rotation as it was a firm favourite. The ingredient quality was good and packaging very useful to just pop in the fridge (although these were quite big so whilst convenient would not work if you were low on space).

I particularly liked the recipe booklet being included as that allows you to cook other options in the future that you didn’t try, this was a nice touch. Overall this has been a hit with the family and has reduced the mental load of planning and cooking.

• the ordering process was very easy the difficult thing was deciding on two meals for my family 😂

• The variety of family friendly meals was really good there was something for everyone
• I chose the recipes i chose because they were easily adaptable to suit my family and they were also something my family would

• The box arrived well packaged with ice packs in it that could be popped in the freezer and re used. The food looked fresh.

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook?
• The recipes were very easy to cook and they were easy to follow step by step too.the ingredients were packaged in a bag so all you had to do was take the bag out of the fridge and not search for the ingredients.

• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?They fit really well into my usual daily mealtime routine. They were definitely manageable on a weeknight

• They took around the suggested time to make.

• my 2year old helped to prepare the food and even had a go at stirring the food in the pan.she really enjoyed helping and asked to help next time!

• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark? We really enjoyed the mild beef chilli con carne.

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals? yes even my fussy partner and my 1year old ate it.
• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀 my 2year old cleared her plate and asked for more. My one year old demolished it too!
• Did the portions work well for your household? The portions were a great size for my family
• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine. I could see them being incorporated into my regular routine occasionally but not all the time.

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients? The ingredients are all so fresh which is great.

• Has anything surprised you so far? Just the ease of making the meals
• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking? It helps by not having to think about what’s for dinner that night because it’s already been decided in advance.
• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals?

it helps with knowing what meal we’re having and the ingredients are already in the box I don’t have to worry about running into the shop to get everything or worry about whether I’ve forgotten anything.

I forgot to take photos of box one and the meals as my 2year old was very excited about the box and everyone grabbed and ate their meals before I got chance to take photos 🤦🏻‍♀️

We tried our first meal a couple of days ago, we went for the pizza style risotto (chosen by my children).

Delivery was on time, and well communicated. The ingredients were packed well and very good quality.

The recipe took about 40 mins in total to make (as opposed to the 30 advertised) and was fairly involved with chopping/stirring etc so while it was nice having the ingredients together and ready it didnt save much time compared to our usual meals. It was nice to try something new though, and the recipe was easy to follow, and turned out well.

The portions were the right amount for us as a family of 2 adults and two children under 10. Myself and my husband really enjoyed the meal, and appreciated the hot honey to add to our portions. However the children weren't a fan of the texture of the brown rice, so didn't eat very much, my daughter mostly just picked the cheese off the top! They normally enjoy a risotto. While I understand brown rice is healthier I think white rice could be a better choice in an option marketed to families.

My son wanted to add his own review for the meal;
'It was nice plump and ripe ingredients with good stretchy mozzarella cheese and it turned out to be a good meal but it was a bit over the top on price for just one dinner 3 stars'

I cooked our second recipe last night and it was really good, it was supposed to have sweet potato wedges but neither of my kids like sweet potato so they had regular wedges and me and my husband had the SP ones which was absolutely fine and obviously I knew it would be like that when I ordered. Last night it was peri peri chicken thighs with wedges, peas and mange tout, the food was really well packaged and the veg and potatoes were really fresh and in good condition unlike other food boxes I’ve tried. Portion size, we could have done with more and I did buy two extra chicken thighs but that’s because my son is 17 and my daughter 12 so I think we are on the upper age limit of a “family” sized recipe. If the kids were younger (maybe under 10) then the portions would be perfect.

Overall how are you finding the meals so far?
Really great, tasty and fresh. Kids and husband are really enjoying them and it’s pushed me to cook different stuff rather than the usual 6-8 things I do on rotation.

How easy are the recipes to follow?
So easy! I’m not the best cook but I can follow a basic recipe and I’m doing ok so far!

What did your family think of the meals?
The kids were sceptical at first and when I read them out they weren’t that interested but once it’s in front of them they have loved both meals.

Are you considering continuing with Mindful Chef after the trial?
I am actually but I need to check the portion sizes because a family friendly meal for 4 isn’t big enough (my kids are 17 & 12)!

I’ll add a photo of last night meal.

Our second box has just arrived and I've unpacked everything. I'm a bit concerned the ice bags have pretty much defrosted - everything was still cold but how much longer would they have lasted as this delivery was much earlier than the last one? - but really quite happy overall with what we chose for this box.

Denver Steak Salad and Dan Dan Noodles were our choices, more for the adults this time as we really couldn't decide on something that we thought the kids would even try, let alone eat a small portion of. We will of course try them with the food when we make it, but probably as an extra or side to something else that we know (or rather, hope) they will eat.

We will be looking to have the Steak on Sunday (hubby's better at cooking this and I'm at work all day so that will be nice to come home to) and the Noodles on Monday. We can work the Steak into the kids' dinner on Sunday and have time to sort an alternative if needs be, and on Monday they're in nursery all day and might not be hungry enough for a full meal (they tend to get a large snack about an hour before they get home) but I will likely whip them up a little noodle and broth bowl with some veg for when they get back, their choice to eat it or leave it. This is what we usually do when we know they won't eat the full meal, best of both worlds I think.

It seems there's a lot of food in the box for these meals this time around, unless it's because we don't plan on splitting it 4 ways this time because we know the kids aren't likely to eat the whole thing? I'm not sure, but if I make a dish for me and hubby with a pak choi we only use 1 between us (as most recipes request) - we received 3 for our noodle meal! I'd have used 2 for 3 people on the best of days, so I'll have to see what the recipe is going for. There are 2 rather large (and gorgeous looking_ steaks, I just HAD to send a photo to hubby at work, and the chicken is spot on the pack size I would buy for the 4 of us if we were all eating the same.

Looking at it, the quality of the meat is visibly much better than what we get at the supermarket (so would obviously explain the high cost of the meals) and even the whole cucumber and large carrots sent look top quality too. The mince in the last box didn't really look any better quality than the shops we go to, maybe that's more to do with the way they vacuum pack everything now, maybe it's because they were a lot higher in fat content than we're used to. It's definitely obvious where the money is being spent for these meals, I just can't honestly say that I would be able to justify this on our budget for our family, not when our kids are a bit too young to be eating this sort of stuff on the regular (not to mention they're such picky little munchkins!) and we don't really have enough disposable income to warrant doing this even once a week for the 2 meals. As I've said in another comment, these boxes are costing roughly half our usual weekly grocery spend, and we still have to factor in nappies/pull ups, wipes, fruit pouches for the awkward 3yo as well as meals/snacks for the other 5 days that these boxes wouldn't cover. So I'm much more impressed with what's in this box compared to the last, and I know that the quality is there for the price of them, but I'll be cancelling the whole thing now we've had our second tester box because we have discussed it and it's just not something we can afford or even try to work into our budget. Maybe the odd box if I have a look on there and there's a couple meals we REALLY want to try/eat (they can replace that fortnight's takeaway maybe!), but again, all the ingredients we have from this box right now can be found cheaper at the supermarket so I could just recreate it at home and save half the money.

Still looking forward to making and eating these though, I wasn't as excited about the first box but I am for this!

It’s been a real treat to take part in the Mindful chef product test- thank you!

I found the ordering process super simple, with a good mix of family meals to choose from. I was impressed with the number of family meal options - and also with the options that I found modify for family members that prefer simpler meals. For the first week I went for the turkey and noodles and the veggie chilli. I choose these as they suited fussy eaters and also meals that I could serve up the next day as left overs.

The box arrived on the day advised and a helpful text was sent nearer the time indicating time of arrival. Each meal was packed separately and easy to repack into the fridge. It all felt quite glam having meals delivered to the door ready to cook!

So- our first meal was turkey stir fry- see photos! I found it very easy to cook, everything was portioned, easy to locate, and the recipe was clear. The fresh ingredients provided seemed really fresh and the meat was of higher end quality. I’m not a confident cook, so it would have been helpful to have a clearer photo to check I had prepped everything correctly- but I didn’t find it stressful at all. It defo took me longer than the time in the booklet to prep and cook- but it was my first meal so I imagine I will speed up!

The end result tasted really good- you could tell the ingredients were fresh and of good quality. I’d like to cook this meal again- it went down well with the teenagers! As we are a family of 3 we had quite a lot left over, buy more than happy to have a meal to eat for lunch the next day.

It was a good experience overall - it was great to not have to think about what to cook, also not to have to shop. Also brilliant to get back into cooking and have a really lovely tasting family meal.

I’ll update when we try the next meal!

We have tried two meals so far.
Ordering and delivery was easy and worked smoothly. I really like that it came with the recipe book so we can try others out in the future - often we get recipe boxes as we are bored of the same meals so getting this was fantastic.
We had the salmon tray bake and the pasta Bolognese - both were delicious, recipe was really easy to follow and there was no challenges.
It’s brilliant to have a gluten free box where you don’t have to do lots of extra label checking - this saved a lot of my weekly mental load when meal planning.
I would agree with comments about portion size - 250g of pasta is not enough for a family of four - if they were toddlers it may have been ok but with pre teens it was not nearly enough.
Looking forward to next weeks box

We got our second box yesterday. No email this time to say when it would be delivered but luckily we were in. Food looks good on first glance but I remember someone saying above how much broccoli features - we now have three large heads in the fridge as both meals contain broccoli! This is fine for us as it’s one of my kids’ favourite vegetables.

It is my son’s birthday weekend so he got the choice of which to try first - sticky hoisin salmon tray bake tonight and sticky beef tomorrow.

We cooked our final meal last night and it was a good one: Pork Meatball Gnocci Bake. Really tasty and easy to cook. When I first saw the gnocci ants I was sceptical there would be enough but the was plenty for our family of 2 adults and 2 teenage girls. However I think if you were a family with kids of the ages we have (14 and 18) you would not be choosing from the family friendly selection if you subscribed to the service so maybe portions not such an issue
To answer a few specific questions:

How are you finding the quality of the ingredients?
Excellent, very impressed with the quality of the meat and fish. When we eat meat we do get free range and I know its not cheap. That price point is reflected in the MindfulChef range.

Has anything surprised you so far?
No. I was already aware of the amt of packaging you get in meal subscription boxes. Which I think.is the biggest surprise the first time.

Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking?
It would help with menu planning and associated ingredient buying as youre selecting from a small predefined choice. I menu plan on Sunday night and list everything out I need to buy and when I need to prep things. That is NOT my fave time of the week! It doesnt help with cooking as you're still doing it all, including chopping the veg .... for the price I think precooked veg is not beyond the realms of expectations. I usually prep meals the night before and focus a lot on slow cooker or using my oven timer. There was a lot of interactive cooking here which if the adult(s) work I just cant see is helpful to a family mid week and at the weekend if you're cooking from scratch why wouldn't you save your money and source the ingredients yourself.

For me, if i were the type of person to subscribe to a meal subscription service it would be a no, whatever the age of my children. Its too expensive and the only time it saves me is the initial shop and I can do that online anyway. Id like to see more slow cooker meal choices, and ideas for prep ahead. The quality of the food is excellent and I enjoyed all 4 meals. I note and admire the awards for B corp and being a sustainable development winner and donating meals. Its obviously a company with its heart in the right place and good aims but there is a lot of packaging which I've banged on about enough!! I live in North Wales and the food used is not local to me so I know I can do better for my local community producers myself.
I have been delighted to take part and wish the company much success.

Well I've cooked both meals now and looking forward to next week's delivery
It has been so nice to not have to think about what to cook for tea and then not to have to look to see what I've actually got in already or whether I need to nip to shops for a top up.

The portion sizes were good eg the salmon size I was impressed with. I only have a 3 and 8 year old boy though, it might be different when they are teenagers with much bigger appetites, there probably wouldn't be enough then. The meat felt like good quality too, the steak strips weren't fatty or gristly.

The recipes were super easy to follow and relatively quick to cook which you need. It did feel like a lot of plastic going in the bin and not sure if it could be reduced somehow, be good if it could.

The salmon recipe had hot honey in it and it absolutely had a kick! Maybe I should have thought about that when I ordered it but the fact it said it was family friendly made me think it would be fine for children, but it was too spicy for mine. Do the menu choices have a spice rating on them? I didnt think to look so I will look more carefully next time. I really enjoyed both recipes though really tasty and not food I would know how to cook normally, as in I wouldn't know how to make the sauce from scratch so good to have something different from usual.

For our second meal we made the hoi sin salmon bake which was delicious!
How easy were the recipes to cook? Very easy
How did they fit into the weeknight routine?
I was happy with the amount of prep but it would have been more helpful if the veggies were pre chopped
.
Did they feel manageable on a weeknight? Yes, it was easier than the beef we did last time, as it was more of a put it in and leave it

Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested? Same time as suggested.
Did your children get involved in the cooking at all? Not with this one, no.
Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark? Favourite with the majority was the beef, but salmon was highly commended
.
Did the portions work well for your household? Yes definitely
Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine? Yes, both of them
My second box is coming on Tuesday and will report back how we get on with those 2 meals.