Once More With Gousto | Three New Ranges That Deliver Everything You Need

January is a weird time of year. The excesses of Christmas (both spending and over eating) have faded almost as quickly as any poorly conceived New Year’s resolutions. Luckily for us all, Gousto have come up with five resolutions that we can actually stick to and achieve until Santa’s next big night out.

Of course you don’t have to stick to all of them. We chose #4: Spend more time together and with the help of Gousto’s recipe boxes we’re going to smash it. Although #5: Spend less, save more was obviously an attractive option – but more on money-saving a little later.

Yes we do already cook together but it usually involves me working out the ingredient’s weights and all the chopping and slicing and dicing – only to find out that the recipe served six, not four and I halved the ingredients rather than use a third. Looks like Saff and I have a meal for three again.

And don’t even get me started when you realise that you’re missing a vital ingredient. Time to improvise, fiddle with the recipe and generally mess it up. Then arguments start, fuelled by a complicated recipe, our patience with each other ends along with the possibility of a decent meal – it’s not called being ‘hangry’ for nothing.

Boxing clever

That’s why Gousto is a kitchen game-changer! Each box, that’s delivered to your door for free (and seven days a week), has everything we needed to cook together without calling in the divorce lawyers. What’s more, these recipes are family friendly too. My 13 year-old daughter, a notoriously fussy eater, fell in love with the Gousto cooking concept.

Gousto is targeted at people who want to cook and enjoy good, wholesome food together but don’t always have the time, ingredients or know-how to do it well – and they’ve hit the bull’s-eye. They’re all about ‘good food’ too, that means knowing where your food comes from and seeing exactly what goes into your meal – as you’re cooking it from scratch for yourself.

All the ingredients are perfectly measured out for you so nothing goes to waste (which is so very important to us) and the included printed recipe cards are so easy to follow. They have all the nutritional info on them too, we also love the fact that they’ve pre-punched holes so you can start building up your very own recipe book – clever!

We let the cat out of the bag… and he jumped into the box!

Gousto lets you choose what you want to cook from over 24 weekly recipes (more than any other recipe box), including gluten and dairy free options. They’ve even just launched three brand new ranges – Boost & Balance, Plant-based and Fine Dine In. Plant based is oh-so popular at the moment, fuelled by Veganuary, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing. So put aside any preconceptions of vegan food being a plateful of limp old tasteless salad – Gousto plant-based dishes such as curried coconut quinoa with roasted cauliflower and kale blows that notion out of the water.

The Gousto Fine Dine In range has been developed with our ‘spend more time together’ resolution in mind. These gourmet-style recipes, created to showcase rich European cuisine, launch in February. We can’t wait to cook the pan-fried, 21-day-aged British rump steak with Boulanger potatoes and a bordelaise sauce (made with pancetta lardons).

We know it’s going to be good as we were treated to a taster at the Gousto launch event, prepared by the one and only Alan Rosenthal – the company’s Head of Food. Saff has been a fan since cooking his Chicken stew with cider and tarragon from his Ultimate One Pot Dishes book.
We ordered our three recipes online, it really couldn’t be easier – browse over all 24 of the weekly recipes or filter by category, choose whether it’s a meal for two or four, pick a delivery day, enter your details and pay – simples!

All the ingredients arrived safe and sound, all in perfect position.

So three days later (on the booked day), our Gousto recipe box was delivered. We were pleasantly surprised by how well packed and labelled all the pre-weighed ingredients were. Each recipe uses fresh, quality ingredients including 100% British meat, sustainable fish and free-range eggs all from trusted suppliers.

Not bad for our first attempt

First up was the Chickpea shawarma salad with sumac pitta chips from the new Plant Based range. We’d recently tried the Veganuary specials at Natural Kitchen and we were really impressed so we thought we’d take a ride on the vegan bus and see if we could cook something as tasty. The outcome was fantastic, just the right mix of warming Middle Eastern spices, an extra chilli kick and acidity from the lightly pickled cabbage.

Take away night without the takeaway

The next night (Friday) is often our takeaway night. That’s why we opted for the Easy lamb biryani, that and the fact it had ‘easy’ in the title. Friday night is all about trashy TV and a glass (or two) of wine and cooking just gets in the way. This recipe involved very little prep and was being dished up a mere 20 after we opened the packet of lean mince and ten minutes of that was while the rice cooked as it simmering away in a covered pot. Cheaper and healthier than our local Indian takeaway plus there was enough leftover for lunch the next day.

My daughter was the pasta master!

Our third and final recipe was the One pot chorizo and yellow pepper conchiglie. You had us at ‘one pot’. Life’s too short for too much washing up especially when the children (well in our case child – Charlotte, the fussy 13-year-old) are vying for your attention. Luckily for us, Charlotte loves to help out in the kitchen and she couldn’t wait to get stuck in to this one pot wonder. Again the recipe card is so easy to follow although this time there’s more prep work and chopping to be done, a good chance to practice those knife skills. But it’s worth the little extra effort; the salty chorizo and sweet yellow pepper combine perfectly in this Mediterranean inspired dish.

So if, like us, you’re finding that your spare time is becoming a rare commodity, Gousto will help you claim some back by giving you fresh, perfectly measured out ingredients and fool-proof recipes delivered to your door for free seven days a week. You really can’t ask for more than that, unless they start delivering chefs to actually cook the meals for you! We wouldn’t mind seeing the occasional slow-cooker recipe to make life even easier.

As one of the UK’s lowest priced recipe boxes, starting from just £2.98 per serving (with free delivery), Gousto’s don’t break the bank. We found of the recipes for two we tried that their was enough spare for a little lunch for one the following day saving you even more cash.

Winner, winner, Gousto dinner.

We know what you’re thinking, but no, we don’t eat like sparrows – the portion sizes are extremely generous. We told you we’d cover money-saving later. If that’s not enough Gousto have given us a code to get 50% off your first two boxes*. Simply click here and enter the code INF18A.

Need more than that? We also have an exclusive competition where you could win one of two Gousto family recipe boxes – enough to make four meals..

Find out more details on Gousto click here

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This is a sponsored post, this does not affect our review in any way. We always write with complete honesty.