Tuesday 20 September 2022

So, What Did My Gousto Box Teach Me

 

So, what did my Gousto box teach me?

It taught me that I much prefer simply cooked and simple tasting meals, and it taught me that I prefer a little dash of mustard in my cheese sauce, and that I love sticky onions.

Was my £15 spend worth it, oh yes.  

It made me think and it made me want to let go of so many of the bad food habits that I've been slipping into just recently.  Now is the time to head back to simplicity and my new Wartime Rationing Challenge ... and what a perfect and at times tasty way to find out.  So, for £15 it was worth it, would it have been worth the full price of £42 ... NO!!

Our evening meal on Sunday eaten in front of the television watching an episode of McDonald and Dodds was the Classic Plant Based Cheezeburger with Sticky Onions.  It was supposed to be served with a side of chips, but we both decided that would be too much.


Instead, I added the small bag of mixed leaves from the pack to a handful of homegrown leaves and one of my homegrown cucumbers, and a couple of extra cherry tomatoes from the plant outside the back door were added to the tomato trimmings that I had after taking off the 4 slices that I needed for the burger.


It was delicious, and the extra salad and no chips was the perfect amount for us both.  Alan is a real salad fiend and will choose salad over chips every time we are out for a meal.  His is the larger salad on the left ... I get jaw-ache with all that chomping if I eat as much as him. 😄


I had saved one of the recipes that was the quickest to make for us to eat during the Queens funeral yesterday, this was the Plant Based Broccoli Cheeze Pasta.  It was absolutely delicious and in my opinion the star of the four meals.  I managed to make it in just over the quoted 10 minutes, while the Queen's coffin was on the way to Windsor.


We had it with a glass of wine and a toast to Her Majesty.

Wasn't it a brilliant day, and in my opinion the only thing that is spoiling it for me now is the constant nit-picking of mostly American 'journalists' who are just determined to fan the fires of old news and create rifts that are mostly not even there.  Here in the UK, we do this sort of occasion so well and I am honoured that this is the second State Funeral to be held in my lifetime, although of course I have no memory of the first one ... did we even have a television in our small family home then?


The meal I had on Saturday was the Tofu Fish, Chips and Mushy Peas.  

The least said about this one the better.  Alan had said a firm no to this particular meal, so it was just for me.


The chips were fine and luckily, I could have both portions, although cooking them in the required amount of oil and in the oven made my little lodge smell like a Chippy for a full 48 hours afterwards.  The peas were lovely not mushed up, oh how I hate mushy peas of any description, slightly squished maybe but mushed ... never!!

But Tofu Fish I did not enjoy at all, I was brave and used the Marmite in the batter and rather amazingly that was the nicest part of it, but I have never been a tofu fan, and this has cured me of any desire to try to get it into my diet.


The final meal should have been this one, but to be honest I just cannot face all the faffing about with the Aubergine Pickle so I will be simplifying it right back to Coconut Dahl and Rice ... and enjoying it my way.

So, getting the Gousto box for that brilliant price was really worth it for the lessons that I have learned this week, and to really bring it home to me that eating simply IS the way forward for me, whether it be wartime rationing as is the plan or simply eating foods that do not require a multitude of steps to bring forward a flavour.

I guess I am just a simple girl ... and perhaps I had forgotten that.  

Sometimes you need a little reminder.


Sue xx



20 comments:

  1. I'd been given a couple of vouchers for a Gousto box which I did not want - so passed them on to my then uni son and girlfriend. They loved the first £15 box and happily got the second one (not at the full £42 thanks to the voucher) and were very disappointed - every meal was something they did not like (they are not fussy at all) or found so complicated that they struggled to create the dish, ending up to do as you did, simplifying. They cancelled their subscription.

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    1. That is a good thing about this subscription type it is easy to cancel and stop the subscription at any stage, even just after the bargain opening offer boxes.

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  2. Thanks for showing us the Gusto box, very interesting.

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  3. Glad you got to enjoy the box your way. I am not a tofu fan myself, have tried it several ways but didn't like any of them.

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    1. Nope, I know for sure that I am not a tofu fan either now. :-)

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  4. I thought the whole thing was beautiful and well deserved. Thanks for sharing your experience with this box.

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    1. It was a nice little blip in my usual shopping habits, but one that I doubt I will repeat.

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  5. I am so sick of hearing about who slighted who, and what so-and-so's body language meant, and who was wearing what...honestly. It was beautifully done. Nothing else matters.

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    1. Exactly, social media has turned so many people of all ages into nit-pickers and gossips, and tabloid newspapers just fan the flames to get their papers sold.

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  6. I ha very to agree, I much prefer simple tastes. I have wondered if it is because I can really taste the flavors? I have eaten simply and mostly homegrown all my life and that makes me wonder if mt palate isn't burned out with too many exotic, spicy, etc tastes?

    As for journalists, I listened to BBC, the American version, and thought their coverage good but a bit overdone. But then, I am not
    British so the Queen did not have the same importance in my life. My mother was English and loved her, perhaps because they were about the same age?

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    1. I do enjoy a well-cooked simple meal and the flavours that it leaves you with. I think that is one of the reasons I have few desserts these days. I prefer to let the enjoyment of my main course linger.

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  7. Interesting - thank you for reviewing Gousto. I suppose I might give it a go at some point, if I get a really good deal, but I am happiest doing my own thing really, subbing and adapting. I love cooking - but in my own way!
    I'm really looking forward to the modern rationing project.
    xx

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    1. It was good to try it out, and it stopped me going to the supermarket and being tempted to buy more foods that just won't fit into my rationing plan. Alan went shopping last night while he was hungry and came back with a lot of very 'tasty' foods ... mostly Belgian Iced Buns and the like!!

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  8. Well, at least you tried and have the recipe cards for future use from those you liked.

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    1. The one recipe that I decided to keep was the one for the cheeze sauce that went alongside the spaghetti, and I have made a note of that, all the recipe cards have now gone into the recycling bin.

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  9. The meals looked yummy and tofu is a funny thing ,I make a sticky chill tofu which we really like, " tofu "bacon " too, Since being shocked by the pre diabetes diagnosis I have changed my way of eating , much fewer carbs and loads more veggies and fruit, I will either end up being a fruit bat or a rabbit but I am enjoying the food plus I have lost 8 pounds in a week, whoop whoop :)

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    1. Oh wow, that is amazing Mrs Fruit Bat, oops I mean Chrissie ... well done. xx

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  10. My son ordered me some hello fresh boxes to try same sort of thing, and although it was nice, I am with you just want simple foods without all the faff.

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    1. Exactly, the recipe I enjoyed the most was the simplest one and apart from the cheeze sauce used in it, was the sort of thing I make for myself all the time.

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