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

Did our second recipe. It was cod nuggets with sweet potato wedges. My son 'helped' make it, costing the cod with the breadcrumbs. Was easy to make (although I learned I am terrible at cutting wedges). The children enjoyed the cod, one said it was better than usual fish fingers. They weren't keen on the sweet potato wedges, but I enjoyed them. Recipe took about the time that it said it would take.

We made the hoi sin salmon tray bake tonight.

It was pretty easy to prep and cook. I was suprised they provided hot honey for a family friendly recipe and I had to swap it out. Husband and I enjoyed it, kids not enamoured - they said the noodles too slimey!

Food all looked excellent quality.

It was very easy to choose which meals i wanted to order. There were plenty me and my husband would like, my kids are far pickier.

My husband made the first one, rainbow mince. Tasted lovely. However, at first he wasnt sure which recipe it was out of the book. He also had extras left over... carrot and one of the garlic ginge sachets... he assumed it was just one sachet. I guess if the box was for 2 people only one sachet would be needed. But because it was for 4, he needed to use two.

It was my turn to make the 2nd one... pine nut pesto risotto. I knew id like it, but the visible veg meant my children wouldnt, so i had to seperate some to stay plain for them. I too messed up with the recipe.... it said: Making the rissoto. Found 2 ingredients that belonged in the beef one ... Toast pine nuts, remove from heat. Chop the onion and garlic finely while you heat the pine nuts. Add onion, where does it tell u to remove pine nuts from pan to save until later?? Mine were then in the risotto, not on it.

Second bit i messed up: Also slice up the onion and garlic. Doesnt say seperate. Then it says add onion to pan to cook for 4 mins, add the garlic for 30 seconds... nope... all in at the same time.

Maybe if i read the recipe through, first... instead of just following blindly step by step? However, id rather just go step by step and save time. So i think the wording of the instructions needs fine tuning for the lazy ppl like me out there.

Im looking forward to whats next.... i think its the meatballs and a korean chicken thing. I dont think the korean chicken was in family friendly, cos there was only about 10 options in that, but it will be loved by my kids more than the visible veg options that were available.

I know not all kids are veg adverse like mine...

Now we have completed the trial, I’ve answered all questions below, considering the entire experience. There will be some repetition with some of my earlier posts.

Getting started

• How did you find the ordering process?

Fairly easy

• How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer?

Limited - there were more in the wider offer that were more appropriate for my family. Our last two meals, salmon tray bake and sticky beef, both had spicy elements I had to leave out.

• What made you pick the recipes you went for?

They had meat or fish that I know my kids like, otherwise I would have been more adventurous.

• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel?

It was all well packed and looked good, generous veg and meat portions but carbs lacking. Too much plastic to portion out small ingredients, much of which I had in my cupboard anyway so felt wasteful. Broccoli and honey featured in so many meals so didn’t feel varied enough flavour-wise

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook?

Not much easier than normal meals, lots of chopping!

• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?

Only on days I was working from home. I was hoping for something easier, that’s the only reason I’d go for a box like this

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

More or the same

• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all?

No - I like to cook alone

• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?

Trout pasta went down the best (sauce was delicious), and the sticky beef. Both salmon meals were less popular with the kids even though they usually love salmon. We make our own salmon rice bowl and to be honest our own recipe is tastier! The tray bake was good but kids reported noodles too slimy.

The sticky gochujang beef recipe advised adding salt at almost every step which would have been too much - I ignored this instruction.

Beef was quite chewy.
Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals?

Hit and miss as above

• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀

No massive wins, and they didn’t clear their plates

• Did the portions work well for your household?

Very generous protein and veg but rice and pasta portions were too small for a family of 4

• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine

No

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients?

Pretty good - only the garlic was a bit tired

• Has anything surprised you so far?

Not particularly

• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking?

Yes this is what it did do - know ingredients were there, and not having to sub in stuff or run to shop is good

• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals?

We cook from fresh a lot, so it wasn’t hugely different. I’d probably add more flavour ingredients in my own recipes (such as garlic, soy sauce, tamarind etc - I think the results were often a bit bland).

All in all, grateful to be involved in the test, but the boxes do not add enough value to my life to justify the expense (£60 for 4 nights of meals with nothing else is a lot, we spend £120 on a food shop that we can eek out for 2 weeks, although have to top up fruit and veg)

Our 2nd box arrived on Saturday, it had the recipe booklet in it this time which I was very pleased about. No damage to the box this time and everything was well packaged. Unfortunately DD's been sick this weekend so we've not done much cooking, but I'm hoping we can make the first meal tomorrow.

Hello!

My first box has just arrived and here are my initial thoughts:

The ordering process was pretty straightforward - liked the fact you could filter to view family recipes only. We went for hearty options, and will be interested to see if the four servings allows for leftovers.

A good range of options to suit fussy eaters (especially my eight-year-old!).

Ordering process was smooth and quick - I did it on my desktop and was straightforward.

I’ve just opened my box of two meals, and liked the fact the meals were sectioned out into two brown bags, and the meat kept separate. I’ve tried other meal box options in the past, and didn’t like the fact everything seemed to be chucked in the box, and you had to go through the recipes line by line to see what ingredient belonged to what recipe - so this is a big bonus.

Cooking our first recipe tonight, so will report back on progress!

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

• How did you find the ordering process? Very easy process.
• How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer? Rather poor, especially if you have you picky child.
• What made you pick the recipes you went for? - only ones my family would eat
• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel? looked fresh, didnt like the amount of plastic though.

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook? - easy to cook but the prep time. We timed was greatly optimistic! Despite cooking pretty every night for 25 years we couldnt match the prep times or get close.
• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight? yes mangeable despite being new recipes.
• Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested? More - always.
• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all? Noooo only in the eating
• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark? Favourite has been the hoi sin salmon - the rest while lovely were far too small for a family of four (which inc two active teens)

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals? Our picky child didnt, the rest did
• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀 Too spicy on a couple of them which put youngest child off
• Did the portions work well for your household? It didnt - far too small and would often have to add in or eat again an hour later.
• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine not until portion sizes are increased.

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients? For the most part - again did not like the amount of plastic
• Has anything surprised you so far? the cost vs what was received.
• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking? No unfortunaetly not as we would have to think of things to add in to bulk up the meals. How ever I did like the ideas and would be interested in the recipe book
• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals? small portions, but similar. Enjoyable process.

Made my second recipe which was Green Harissa Chickpea Stew. My kids loved helping with this one and rinsing and drying the chickpeas. It took a little longer than the 15 minute's of prep but it was easy to follow and the whole family enjoyed it. I do like the convenience of getting all the ingredients to make a meal but my fridge isn’t that big and I find the bags the food comes in do take up quite a lot of room.

Second box arrived earlier! Same issue with DPD doing a drop and run on the front step - rather than the ‘safe place’ which is our garden. Not actually a problem and definitely a DPD issue rather than a Mindful Chef one.

I don’t want to complaint about the massive packaging too much because I understand that the food needs adequate protection - no one wants it to be bruised, smashed or broken and I know that brown cardboard is both recyclable and made from mostly recycled paper, has a relatively low environmental impact etc however it is a lot. I honestly couldn’t have fit it in the recycling bin two weeks in a row if it didn’t happen to be emptied in between - which it wouldn’t be every other time if ordering weekly.

Anyway, packaging aside the quality continues to be excellent, the meat all looks great and has really good dates. The veg all fresh and tasty looking. There is an avocado in one of the recipes and it is perfectly ripe 😱 how have they done that? I often can’t get a ripe one when I’m picking myself from tesco! The meals labelled in their brown bags with the corresponding recipe number is brilliant. DH is cooking one tonight because he gets home first - he’s not quite such a confident cook so will be interesting.

So I have completed the trial now, and will write up the two meals from this box (pork meatballs gnocchi and sticky Korean beef) separately.

Getting started

How did you find the ordering process?
Ordering process was fairly easy. Bit of a faff to change the meals that are preselected, but nothing out of my ability range.
How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer?
I thought the variety of family meals was good. However, having looked ahead at some potential meals in the future I do think there will be some repetition, and some of the recipes look very similar.
What made you pick the recipes you went for?
I went for dishes I believe we would eat, but also things I may not already cook. For example, we have had an Asian style beef dish both weeks as I wouldn't usually cook them.

First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel?
Very well packaged and looks posh 😀. I do feel a bit guilty breaking the cardboard box down afterwards though - seems too good to not be reused.

Cooking & eating

How easy were the recipes to cook?
Okay, this was my main bugbear with this experiment - the recipes weren't as easy to cook as I would have liked. I cook from scratch most evenings, and am pretty well versed in what I do, and I found these recipes harder to prepare than what I usually cook. Maybe it's because I don't have to follow recipes much anymore but I found a lot of them a bit of a faff. For example, I probably wouldn't make my own meatballs or burgers ordinarily - I don't think the effort is worth the result, and I would probably be inclined to just buy ready made ones if that was what I was planning to eat for my tea.
Also the recipes took longer to cook than stated, taking 45 to 50 minutes on average.
I must admit I didn't relish making some of the meals because of the faff aspect, so if I was to shell out to have a subscription box I think I would like to be paying to make my life easier.

How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?
They were manageable, but like I stated above, not particularly quick.

Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested?
More in three of the recipes, apart from the sticky beef.

Did your children get involved in the cooking at all?
Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?
The children are teenagers so not interested in helping.

Despite what I stated above, me and my husband both really enjoyed the taste of all the meals. My children did eat about the same amount as they usually do, so unfortunately can't report that anything was a hit for them.

Family mealtimes

Did the whole family enjoy the meals?
Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀
Me and my husband really enjoyed the flavour of all the meals. The children not so fussed, but I don't think that's an indictment on mindful chef - they are just too hard to please.

Did the portions work well for your household?
Portions were more than enough for two overweight adults and two teenage boys.

Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine
This I am not so sure on. I really enjoyed the taste of the meals, and the quality of the meat has been great. But the preparation is an issue.

Overall thoughts as you go

How are you finding the quality of the ingredients?
Honestly, the meat is 10/10. Can't complain about the quality. Veg is also ok.

Has anything surprised you so far?
Not wanting to bang on, but I thought there would be more prepared elements to make cooking more convenient.

Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking?
It reduces the mental load of planning for sure, but not the mental load of cooking.

How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals?
I cook from scratch most meals, and use fresh ingredients. In that it isn't that much different. The meals and flavours of mindful chef is different to what I usually cook though.

All that above being said, we are staying on for an extra week of mindful chef, using up our remaining credit and paying for the rest as my husband really loves it.

Another great meal , plenty for 4 people. Easy to prepare. Excellent instructions. Chicken korma.

Pan fried Denver steak. 10/10 best one yet. Steak was perfect, salad refreshing, potatoes delicious. Easy to prepare and even better to eat.

Slow pulled pork. There was tons of meat. Really tasty and filling. A delicious meal. Easy to cook and prepare.

Cooked our first meal tonight (slightly late starting the trial as the email ended up in my junk folder). We went for the Szechuan beef stir fry, and I was impressed. Everything in easy portions, and delighted to see microwave rice (yes, I’m lazy) which sped the cooking process up a lot. Ingredients were all pretty fresh, the only minus was the packaging for the honey, found it a bit tricky to empty into the pan, especially when it only called for cooking for 30 seconds.
All in all, everything was taste and fresh (liked the elements of the recipe for keeping the heat mild for younger eaters). A big thumbs up from me, husband and our 10-year-old, our eight-year was less keen and thought it was ‘too spicy’, but that’s his shorthand for when he doesn’t like a meal! Fair bit of rice and some of the beef left over, so will get a lunch out of it tomorrow, delighted!

Week 2 Meals feedback and overall/final thoughts feedback. I think that is my two-week, two-box trial finished - thank you again for the opportunity and I hope this feedback is useful

Cooking & eating
Denver Steak Salad

• I let hubby do this one as I was at work all day and he usually cooks steak a lot better than I do. He said it was quite easy to prep everything, but he cooked the steak for what he thought was right for medium rare for him and medium for me, and they all came out mooing. Edible, just a lot more raw than I usually like.
• He spent a fair bit of time on prep, and the potatoes took a good 40 minutes in the oven rather than the 25-30 that the recipe recommended, so I wouldn’t say this is a very good ‘quick mid-week meal’. Definitely need a good bit of time to spend on this one, especially if the steak takes a little longer to cook than a standard steak would.
• I’d say a fair bit more than what the recipe stated. Should have been started and on the plate within 35-40 minutes according to the card, it took that long just to sort the potatoes and the steak (which wasn’t cooked to the degree we wanted it in the end anyway) plus time spent on the salad. It did say to prep the salad whilst the potatoes were in the oven, but he had the kids on his own all day and then he cooked ours while I sat with them for their dinner (they wanted pasta, we weren’t going to say no!) and he still got interrupted just checking on the potatoes. No way could only one of us do this whole thing on a weeknight without having to leave it and come back because of an argument, a fall, or just a general question from the kids.
• This is one we hope to do again, hubby really enjoyed the salad so we’ve kept the book for this one as it’s an easy-enough salad to throw together. My main concern is the amount of oil in the meal, and he even added more because ‘there wasn’t enough’.

Family mealtimes

• Hubby and I enjoyed it all, the kids enjoyed nibbling on our potato wedges
• Kids ate something else as they specifically asked for pasta, we were going to try them with the steak and wedges (which they did have some of) however I’m glad we didn’t with how short we fell of cooking the steak properly.
• I thought they were two large steaks that we would be able to cut down into portions depending on the 4 people’s preferences – turns out they were two packs of two quite thick steaks! I mean it didn’t stop the two of us eating the whole lot, and we were quite satisfied afterwards. I’m not sure half of our portions would have left us feeling quite as full if we’d split this meal between 4 people though.

Cooking & eating
Dan Dan Chicken Noodles
I’m not even going to go through the questions on this one as I literally threw in the towel after about 15 minutes.
The carrots we were sent had gone rotten and mouldy (arrived Friday, I attempted to cook Monday, they were stored in the fridge but that’s where we store our carrots and the ones I bought from the supermarket last week were still absolutely fine in the same place I put these carrots!) and the garlic was all soft and squishy, and I didn’t plan to shop for these items until Wednesday because we were having this meal ‘kit’ tonight and something else we had everything in for tomorrow so I was a bit of a loss on losing those ingredients.* *
I put all the sachets with the meat in the fridge so they didn’t get lost – guess what? They got lost. The peanut butter went walkabouts and I’m still struggling to work out how I lost a pouch of hoisin sauce between putting it in the fridge and not getting it out of the fridge! I’ve checked every cupboard and had half the fridge contents out, it’s just vanished. So I couldn’t even make the sauce.
I had to google how to cut a pak choi because the method stated it so matter-of-fact, like there was only one possible way to cut a pak choi; I have a ramen recipe that literally asks for it to be cut into 4, so I know there’s more than one way to ‘prepare’ a pak choi!
My little boy was ill at nursery so whilst I was struggling to work out how to make a recipe that I didn’t seem to have half the ingredients for in the end, I was also trying to show him some attention and keep an eye on him because he was really struggling by the time we got home. So for a 20ish minute meal that I hadn’t even got halfway through after 15 minutes, for the sake of my own sanity and to save my little boy feeling more upset than he already did, I gave up. The chicken is cooked and veg is prepared, I will try and find the sachet of sauce and pick up some more garlic as planned on Wednesday but I can honestly say I don’t think I will be trying to do this again. I’m more likely to just use what I made tonight for a general stir fry in the next couple days, thankfully the noodles never made it into the pan so the only waste from this attempt was the already-rotten veg!

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients? The quality seems good. I don’t recognise half of the packaging, and the half I do is all branded and well-known, quality names, so I can’t complain at that at all. The red peppers received for the Chilli and Lamb Meatballs were great quality, seemingly perfectly picked for the meal kits. The mince seemed good quality too, although I’m not sure our stomachs agreed with the beef mince for some reason; only 3 of the 4 of us even tried the chilli, my 3yo refused to even taste it, and all 3 of us had dicky tummies that evening and through to the next morning. It wasn’t anything that we couldn’t handle, but it still wasn’t pleasant and that’s the only meal in a few days where all 3 of us had eaten the exact same thing. The steaks were amazing, and the chicken looks lovely although I have yet to eat it. I wasn’t happy with the carrots and garlic going off over the weekend, we stored everything as we normally would and the items we buy from the supermarket tend to last a week or two at least, so why these went off after 3 days I don’t know.
• Has anything surprised you so far? The claims I read in the first leaflets about how people could use it as a way to eat healthy and lose weight and there I am staring at 10% fat beef mince and full fat greek yoghurt for my first meal… I follow a diet plan and it’s unthinkable to me that I could eat that regularly and still lose weight because that’s the reason I am on the diet plan – too many full fat and higher calorie foods. So on that basis I’m not sure I would ever look into this as an option because it just doesn’t work for me, having everything full fat or higher in fats. Not to mention we try not to choose these options for our children as we don’t want to overload their little bodies with too much at such a young age. They have things like full fat mayo and milk and I’m sure their yoghurts and cheeses are fatty at nursery, but with meat we go for the lean and least fat we can as we know they’re getting what they need elsewhere so we can try and opt for healthier versions there where possible.
• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking? Being perfectly honest, I haven’t felt like this has reduced the mental load, no. The only thing I haven’t had to do is the physical shopping for the ingredients, but as a family of 4 I have to go shopping at least once a week no matter what, and this company (or any company, for that matter, offering similar meal boxes) can’t replace every single aspect of our eating habits at home no matter how organised the boxes are or how pre-portioned the meals are. What about breakfast? Lunch? Milk, bread, other staples? Nappies, wipes? We need all this in our house still, so as much as it would save some space in the trolley and I wouldn’t have to choose between different sized packs of meat, it doesn’t really save the chore of shopping in the first place. Plus, buying in bulk is the better option at the moment – pre-portioned tends to cost more, with the smaller packs of things being more expensive than the bigger even in the discounters. I couldn’t even say that doing this twice a week would save the mental load of those days because, as I found out trying to cook the final meal, having everything pre-packaged and pre-portioned is fantastic – but if it’s something you don’t tend to shop for and don’t have any as ‘backup’ in your cupboard, when it goes missing you have nothing to substitute for it! We literally do not have hoisin sauce or peanut butter as a staple in our cupboards, and knowing I should have had everything I needed for that last Noodle meal meant I delayed the shopping and we had no garlic or carrots for when the ones sent went bad. So no, the mental load is still there, it’s just a different kind of mental load.
• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals? To be blunt, it’s pretty much the same. We make a meal plan (choose the meal off the website’s menu), I check what I need to buy and pick it up after work (no purchasing necessary as pre-packed and sent to my doorstep, however as pointed out above, I still need to shop at some point!), I set everything out when it comes time to cook (unpack the box/bag when it comes time to cook), and get cooking. Literally the only thing this is saving me is shopping for that particular meal, but as my husband even pointed out, I can go shopping for the week and buy a whole 7 days’ worth of meals – all 3 meals for 4 people, plus snacks and treats and toiletries – for around £120 if we go all out and really top up on everything we need. For £60 we got 2 meals that left at least 2 of us feeling hungry after each one, and for the convenience of being delivered to our doorstep, it isn’t actually worth it. I think I would rather go shopping on a busy Saturday morning with both kids on my own and get the whole weekly shop whilst dancing around other shoppers and the kids getting bored and irritated than spend half of my weekly budget to have just 2 meals delivered and only really delay the inevitable for 2 more days. The Chilli being an example: I can buy a 750g pack of mince (500g sent), a pack of peppers rather than just 2, a pack of onions as opposed to 1, a tin of tomatoes, a carton of passata, a tin of kidney beans, even add some more veg like mushrooms, carrots and celery, the herbs and spices we have in the house all the time, oh and a bit of chilli as it really was missing the heat in that recipe… I estimate that to cost around £15 and it would make 6-8 portions plus we would have veg left over for other meals/snacks. Whereas the meal sent by Mindful Chef – although I’m sure they are very high quality ingredients – cost nearly £30 for just one meal and the amount sent didn’t fill us up, let alone allow for freezing more for a later date. So in terms of planning and prepping, being able to buy in bulk and not buy limited amounts for set-sized meals works better for us, both financially and in terms of avoiding waste and hunger!

Week 2 meals had mixed reviews from the family. Sticky hoisin salmon traybake was easy to make and there was plenty of salmon for 4 people. However we all felt it was lacking flavour. There wasn't any hoisin flavour.
Our second meal Korean sticky beef took a bit more prep, having to cut up the beef into strips. We all loved this meal, so tasty. Both of these meals were £24 each, I couldn't justify spending that much on a family meal.

Catching up as late due to the message going into my junk mail. First box arrived on Friday, we ate the first meal today, hidden vegetable beef bolognese with penne pasta.

All ingredients for this recipe were in one bag (in contrast with Gousto and Hello Fresh where it can often be a hunting expedition trying to work out what tiny packet goes with which meal), the veg all looked nice and fresh apart from one slightly duff carrot tip, and the tomatoes were exceptional. Lots of plastic wrappers which I suspect couldn’t be helped.

DD7 helped to cook, she enjoyed the novelty of everything being labelled and laid out in front of her. DH swept in and did some fancy chopping with the red onion so it was a nice team effort (DS10 set the table). Much easier to involve the children in meal prep when it’s all laid out and ready to go.

Easy to cook, loads of veg included and the lentils bulked it up nicely. There was enough for 2 adults and 2 children plus a portion for lunch tomorrow. The only issue with the cooking was the pasta took almost double the time on the packet/our normal pasta to cook, not sure why.

Looked nice and smelled good. Tasted slightly sweet (assume this was down to the carrots), DH and I really enjoyed it but it was slightly bland in flavour. The children asked for bread on the side with theirs.

Pleased with the decent best before dates and will cook the second meal on Wednesday, looking forward to it.

Not sure yet whether the meals represent good value for money when weighed up with the convenience, as we’ve played it safe with the week 1 recipes. Quantity was decent but more than I’d pay normally for a home cooked meal if full price.

First meal cooked this evening, creamy peanut pork. Absolutely delicious, scored a 10/10 from the children, who are now very keen to try the next recipe that arrived in our box yesterday. Love the brown bags with all the ingredients kept together, seems like a small win not to be rooting around the fridge / cupboards for ingredients, every second of time saved is much appreciated after a long working day.
Very impressed with the portion sizes and quality of ingredients.

Our third meal today; I found it harder to choose this week because less of the ‘family-friendly’ meals appealed to my family. I can see that this is a tricky concept because families are all different, kids have different ideas and limits just like adults do. Maybe ranking the meals by spice level would be better? Or being able to filter out specific ingredients? Anyway if it had been a free choice I wouldn’t have picked any of the ‘family friendly’ ones for us.

DH cooks on a Monday and wanted to try cooking one of the meals, he isn’t a super confident chef but he does cook for the family a couple of times a week so he isn’t incapable. Originally he planned to cook the Pork Loaded Sweet Potatoes but he felt the recipe was complex and was worried he wouldn’t get it done in the time available so switched to the Sweet and Sour Chicken with Brown Rice. DH often cooks a stir-fry (using packet sauce and a pack of mixed stir-fry veg) so it was interesting for him to do this in a different way. He was overwhelmed by the idea of ‘whilst the chicken is frying, prep the veg’. He was worried about messing up/burning stuff - I think that’s where lack of cooking confidence can complicate things. This resulted in the whole meal taking much longer - which isn’t great for us on a Monday when we have a lot of clubs to get to but there you go.

I was prepared to be underwhelmed by this meal because, as mentioned, we eat a lot of stir-fry anyway. I only chose it because it was on the family friendly menu - but we were all pleasantly surprised! We all enjoyed the wholegrain basmati, so that’s a huge win, I’ve never tried the kids with it because in my head it was chewy and horrid but the Tilda microwave packs were excellent, flavoursome and soft - big hit. The sweet and sour chicken, veg and sauce were really tasty. I don’t normally buy pre-cut chicken because I find the chunks to be a bit big/inconsistent and that was the case here but it did save a chunk of prep time. I value the chicken being free range.

Portions were plentiful - two packs of micro rice, three peppers, a pack of mangetout and plenty of chicken. We all ate plenty and had a small amount left over.

We made the first of our 2nd week's meals tonight, the pork meatballs with gnocchi. Unfortunately this one wasn't as much of a hit as last week. My husband cooked it, the recipe said 10 minutes prep and 35 minutes cook time but it took much longer. He said the recipe seemed a bit odd, or at least just not the way he'd have cooked it.
Taste wise, me and DH liked it but the kids wouldn't eat it. For a "family friendly" meal it had a lot of onion and garlic in it, and I think the flavour was too strong for them. Portion wise though there was plenty for the 4 of us.

Dinner tonight -
the meat has been very popular with the husband and son! The dressings were really very nice, a definite improvement on our usual mid week dinners which wouldn’t be made with such additions!

I'm two weeks into testing and very impressed with the experience so far. As mummy to a fussy 6 year old the boxes cater to the needs of all the family and have more than enough in each box to feed

The ordering process was simple and easy.I like that you can see the titles of the meals and easily add / delete from your basket at the click of a button and the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer offers a good mix of meals containing both meat, carbs and protrin meaning I was tempted by more than 2 meals per order.

The recipes I went for felt like relatively exciting meals that I would opt for in a restaurant.

When our box arrived I was so excited as was my son - everything looked and felt new, fresh and appealing. The box is huge and I like that the food is portioned out into meat ( in a chilled section with ice blocks ) and then recyclable.brown bags containing the veg. I would have loved the bags to have been a little smaller and to have a seethrough element though. Laying out all the ingredients felt exciting on each occasion.

Cooking & eating

The recipes were really easy to cook following the picture and the instruction booklet , my son really enjoyed cooking along with me and we were easily able to cook up.a.meal by dinner time. The mix of colours of peppers and brocolli had my son excited to help with washinh and chopping and aligned with the recipe times in the booklet.

Family mealtimes

I found it easy to adapt the meals to each individual family members taste and even found myself plating up the food.like a chef would so my young son really liked the look of it.

The meal boxes.felt like.good value for money so I could you see these meals becoming part of my regular routine, however, part of the appeal was that these meals are exciting and new so unless recipes are kept fresh the novelty might wear off.

Overall thoughts as you go

A recipe box totally helps to reduce the mental load of planning and cooking and saves me hopping between suprrmarkets to do top up.shops for ingredients.Mindful Chef helps me to.implement my vision of planning and cooking gourmet meals, as often im lacking inspiration and ingredients.

So far my experience has been positive but the boxes are quite big and therefore harder to dispose off and it could.be nice to have video recipies to cook.along to as well.

We had the pork meatball gnocchi bake tonight and it was really nice! Food was very fresh and in great condition, the recipe was easy to follow and there was actually enough for the 4 of us although I don’t eat meat so I just swerved the meatballs! Best one so far according to the family!

I’m loving this trial because it’s shown how much I stress about what to make for dinner, having it all just turn up makes a massive difference and the kids are definitely trying new stuff. I’d definitely consider staying with the subscription but couldn’t afford more than two meals a week.

We made the pizza style risotto tonight. Everything looked good in the bag, although the basil had seen better days. This one seemed more simple to cook than the meatballs, and the time seemed a lot more accurate.

I just don't think I could justify the high cost of the plan, all of the meals our family would eat can be made a lot more cheaply. I did pick the more simple meals so we didn't have a lot of meat or anything of higher quality. I think the only way I'd get this again would be if we ordered it for just the two of us and made the kids something different on those days.

I was looking forward to the second week more as there seemed more exciting choices available when I ordered. We went for the sticky beef and the pork meatballs with gnocchi.

The items arrived in great condition and were well packed again. I was also very pleased to receive the recipe book this time which made the cooking a lot more enjoyable for me.

We had the pork meatballs and gnocchi first and I attempted this on a busy night I was going out. It took maybe 15 mins longer than stated and I ended up not being able to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls before I had to go out. We all enjoyed this one, my toddler initially refused to eat it but once she tried it she enjoyed it. I had some the next day reheated which was also delicious. The only thing I would say was that the recipe didn’t seem complete and was missing the part about adding the sauce.

We had the Korean style sticky beef last night which was very easy to cook. I think if I made it again I wouldn’t add the water to the sauce as it just seemed to thin it out too much and there was a watery sauce rather than the sticky sauce I expected. Despite that the meal was very enjoyable again. It was nice to have the rice to put in the microwave which saved on washing up and time.

I think this subscription is on the pricier side but the quality is good and maybe for special meals or occasions it would be something I’d consider. I loved the way it felt relatively healthy and it was exciting getting the delivery and took out some of the weekly planning stress. Cooking wise I felt the timings were a bit off on every recipe as the prep times seemed to be very short for what needed doing.

I also think some more filters could be useful, unless I missed them there was no allergen filter for things like peanuts and milk. We have some allergies in the wider family and this would be useful rather than having to go into each recipe to check.