We did use Hello Fresh for a while, but it was not cheap and we stopped. May be worth revisiting.
We only use them when on a good offer. There are friend referrals etc.
We did use Hello Fresh for a while, but it was not cheap and we stopped. May be worth revisiting.
guosto do referral offers - think you get three boxes cut price or something? DM me if you'd like a code (I would get one box reduced).
Realistically, the exercise won’t be stopping so the food does need to improve.
You could just eat later. I don't usually start cooking until 8:30 anyway which means dinner at 9-9:15 most days.
You could just eat later. I don’t usually start cooking until 8:30 anyway which means dinner at 9-9:15 most days.
Much later and I'm asleep!
Club runs finish at 8:15pm ish, 15 mins to get home means that 2 days per week I'm the same as you.
The other 2 week days (Friday isn't a week day on my house!) are similar, maybe 15 mins earlier.
We tend to go to bed around 10pm so eating any later is a challenge!
Once you get to know how much stock goes with how much rice you can bang it all in at once, stir every now and then, and just top up towards the end of cooking if needed.
I really disagree with that comment - the rice should be kept relatively dry (ie, the stock/wine should be absorbed quite quickly as it is added a ladleful at a time so the rice is moist, not in a pool of liquid) and be stirred regularly to release the outer parts of the grains of the rice to create the creamy texture that you need. If you bung it all in together you are just boiling rice in stock.
We tend to go to bed around 10pm so eating any later is a challenge!
lol I don't get home from training on Mondays and Wednesdays until nearly 11pm... I admit on those days dinner is usually scrambled eggs on toast or an omelette 🙂
Instant Pot does a lot of this for us. It can slow cook etc but a lot of the time we stick stuff in to pressure cook for a certain time then it just keeps it warm till we're ready. Not being stood near the stove or stirring away is great, and if one of the kids needs something you don't come back to a burned mess. Loads of good recipes including risotto without stirring, and it does great soft boiled eggs in about 9 mins total.
too much liquid too quick in risoto and you end up with savoury rice pudding .
the key to slow cooker is dont just assume you can leave it for 10/12 hours while at work .
you do have to pay attention to cooking times - different meals need different times.
i find the slow cooker does work best for bean and veg stews / curries / chillis .
My favorite being back vein/Spaull chilli - cheap fatty veined meat marinaded , browned in the griddle and then cooked for 24hours in the slow cooker till it does a "puleld pork" style fall appart when the fat has melted.
What a flavour.
Dinner 9-9.15 pm that's 8hrs later than I was taught , tea time between 5.30 and 6
Is this a North/ South divide thing or am I a complete philistine ?
I really disagree with that comment – the rice should be kept relatively dry (ie, the stock/wine should be absorbed quite quickly as it is added a ladleful at a time so the rice is moist, not in a pool of liquid) and be stirred regularly to release the outer parts of the grains of the rice to create the creamy texture that you need. If you bung it all in together you are just boiling rice in stock.
Wine and lemon juice need adding to rice and stirring takes two mins tops. After that as long as you add the right amount of stock and cook gentle its fine, might not be top quality but its quick easy tasty food. Theres too much emaphasis on what chefs do these days and so many people dont cook food from scratch and therefore eat unhealthy fatty sugary crap. Who has time to spend an hour stirring risotto? No one so people buy some ready made shite. Spag bol is the same, those stir in sauces are shit, just add some tinned toms and some italian herb mix and leave it to simmer for a bit, tastes great. Oh no you cant do that, in Italy people dont use those herbs and dont add veg or whatever, who gives a crap just get cooking and spend less time worrying about chefs.
You can do risotto in oven too.
Dinner 9-9.15 pm that’s 8hrs later than I was taught , tea time between 5.30 and 6
Is this a North/ South divide thing or am I a complete philistine ?
North/South divide I think, then I've added a touch of Spanish daily life to completely mess up the timings 😀
Is this a North/ South divide thing or am I a complete philistine ?
Yes. (-:
I've tried to excise the word "dinner" from my vocabulary, it just confuses people. I have lunch (when I can be bothered) and tea.
Of course, "tea" then confuses Americans, they think I'm referring to a brew. And a "brew" in the US is a beer. I think I'm just going to quit eating.
practise mise-en-place
I had to google that. That's ace though, my spice jars being in alphabetical order isn't OCD after all, it's mise-en-place! Brilliant.
10 years working in hospitality means that you get used using the correct terms:
Lunch - the middle of the day.
Dinner - the evening meal.
Not difficult is it?
Wine and lemon juice need adding to rice and stirring takes two mins tops. After that as long as you add the right amount of stock and cook gentle its fine, might not be top quality but its quick easy tasty food. Theres too much emaphasis on what chefs do these days and so many people dont cook food from scratch and therefore eat unhealthy fatty sugary crap. Who has time to spend an hour stirring risotto?
However I enjoy cooking and devote lots of time to it. I have done risottos many, many times, both the 'easy' way and the correct way - the results are very different. I don't dispute you can make a perfectly nice meal by bunging stuff in and leaving it, but IMO it is miles apart from cooking it as it should be cooked (and I have never put lemon juice in a risotto either)!!!
For an easy to cook rice-based recipe (done in the oven), this Thai steamed rice with sea bass is my favourite (sorry for the Jamie Oliver content, but some of his recipes are undoubtedly good).
Dinner – the evening meal.
Middle-aged ladies that serve small portions of bad food at school? Lunch ladies?
Has there ever been lunch ladies when you were back at school? The sit com dinner ladies was it based on eating after 6pm ?
Not difficult is it?
When's teatime?
When’s teatime?
10:30 and 15:00.
In between breakfast and lunch and then again between lunch and dinner.
In fact, it's almost teatime now....
Yeah, we try and eat quite low carb (not zero carb though, and I accept I did mention spag bol in the original post), so the odd pasta dish works but we’d only really eat it once a week unless one of us was racing at the weekend.
a lot of things that work with pasta work just as well with chickpeas or white beans
However I enjoy cooking and devote lots of time to it. I have done risottos many, many times, both the ‘easy’ way and the correct way – the results are very different. I don’t dispute you can make a perfectly nice meal by bunging stuff in and leaving it, but IMO it is miles apart from cooking it as it should be cooked (and I have never put lemon juice in a risotto either)!!!
This. Although I have put limes (and fish sauce) into a rissotto when I make more of a Thai style one. And I use Paella rice often so my cooking is a bit blurred between different rice based dishes.
a lot of things that work with pasta work just as well with chickpeas or white beans
Not a macaroni pie though. That'd be disgusting with chickpeas.
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I really like the Hughe's three good things, lots of simple dishes, most quick and easy to do.
Although I have put limes (and fish sauce) into a rissotto when I make more of a Thai style one.
See my above link - the Thai Sea Bass and Rice (although it clearly isn't a risotto) but it has the rice and the limes mmmmmmmmm
I like to cook big pots of curry, pasta sauce or stew and keep them in the fridge to eat over the next few days. Maybe freeze a bit too.
My preference is to reheat in a pan, rather than microwave - but I'm not judging anyone else.
the copyright on Jamie’s wang has now expired and its now in the public domain
I heard that rumour as well.
I've been on Hello Fresh for about 6 weeks now and pretty impressed so far. Yes, it can feel expensive but a lot of the meals can be bulky portions so it's possible to get 8-9 meals a week out for £30. Costs do go up if you keep picking the premium stuff like steak or fish. But IMO it's cheaper (and obvs better) than binning £15 of stuff you bought and haven't got to cooking yet. I have rapid meals as a preference so I can choose to cook at lunch or tea time 😉
So, err anyone got any hello fresh/guosto codes they want to give away?
Oh, on batch cooking,
It doesn't just have to be meals. Freeze individual servings of base curry sauce, pasta sauce etc.
For things like fajitas I've come up with my own spice mix recipe, then swapped "half a teaspoon of" for "jar of" and whipped up a huge batch in a mason jar. Then just chuck a couple of tablespoons in when cooking, takes all the faff out of it. Ditto curry powder.
Yeah on the slow cooker but Anchovy pasta.
Put pasta on to cook empty oil from tin of anchoviy into fry pan and heat. Chop anchovies and two cloves of garlic finely add to oil on low. Quarter a pack of baby tomatoes Chuck in the pan stir to break up the anchovies and toms add some ricotta to make creamy and grated parmesan, good pinch of chillies. Pasta should.bw done, drain and mix through.
However I enjoy cooking and devote lots of time to it.
Which is fine but decent nutritious, cheap, easy to cook food can be enjoyed by anyone, thats my point. Having others like yourself make it out to always take hours doesnt help many people. Having tv chefs on all the time showing all the skills and 25 different ingrediants make it look out of reach to many.
Having others like yourself make it out to always take hours
I didn't make it it takes hours - I just said it didn't really qualify as quick...
Although risotto in itself is quite slow to cook – it needs a good 30 minutes of quite close tending really.
Jamie's 15 minute meals book is awful. So many different ingredients needed - I had a fridge rammed with half empty jars of things like harissa, red pepper, pickled lemons, spiced wangs etc etc. used once and the recipes were so dull never used again.
Anybody wants the book, paypal me £3 and I'll wang it in the post it to ya!
See my above link – the Thai Sea Bass and Rice (although it clearly isn’t a risotto) but it has the rice and the limes mmmmmmmmm
Just call it paella and escape the confusion. And try paella rice as it soaks up so much stock...
spiced wangs
Do you need to marinade it before you stick it in George Formby?
This is so complicated.
Could be a handy replacement if you run out of frozen sausages.
I think you'd have to go deeper than the usual lawn depth for George.
Could you not just knock the exercise on the head and spend the evening making pies?
Marinade for 15 minutes overnight, slow cook for 12 mins on gas mark 6 and gobble them up.
Middle-aged ladies that serve small portions of bad food at school? Lunch ladies?
Mid day assistants at our kids school.
And sandwiches from home.
Packed dinner?
In a dinner box?
Having tv chefs on all the time showing all the skills and 25 different ingredients make it look out of reach to many.
Partly that and partly they always assume you have 87 varieties of pots, pans, serving dishes, roasting tins, knives and other implements and even things like multiple ovens!
Get some frozen veg in, that way a lot of the easy stuff is right there and you can do one shop a week for things like onions, garlic, fresh chilli, mushrooms, shallots etc and that should be all you need to buy on a regular basis. Other than that, batch cook stuff so get in a kilo of mince at a time for bolognese or chilli.
A few tins of chickpeas, tomatoes, beans and so on as standard, they're cheap and can form the basis for a lot of sauces / stews / curries. And then a bag of pasta and a bag of rice.
You can do risotto in oven too.
You really can't.
You can do risotto in oven too.
You really can’t.
I regularly make something similar to the H FW one
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/oven-baked-risotto
https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/international/european/italian/oven-baked-wild-mushroom-risotto
https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/baked-chicken-porcini-risotto/
Although risotto in itself is quite slow to cook – it needs a good 30 minutes of quite close tending really. Unless you know of a different way – I would be keen to know!
That's a quick meal in my book. 5 mins of veg prep, 30 mins cooking, on the table.
You need to keep a close eye on it, yes. Ideally, you'd be standing over it more or less continuously, but despite what @poly says, you can make a perfectly decent risotto and do the dishes/empty the dishwasher/whatever else you do in the kitchen at the same time.
I regularly make something similar to the H FW one
I've no doubt that the oven baked rice is tasty. All I'm saying is that for a proper risotto, you need to make it on the hob and stir it. It's really not much effort and you can have a meal on the table in 30 minutes or so.
Well, you write a sternly worded email to Hugh, Delia, Jamie and whoever the other one was.....I'm sure they will appreciate your input, as do I.
I’ve no doubt that the oven baked rice is tasty
Are you one of those people who likes to tell people their bolognese is merely a ragu as they added herbs or garlic. Or their chilli con carne lacks authenticity for its use of beans and tomatoes?
