The box was on the porch at 1:40 on Monday, heavier than I expected, with an ice pack the size of a paperback and a cardboard lining that had clearly never met a Yorkshire drizzle. Rob had taken it in when he got back from work, which I'm told counts as him helping with tea.
This was our first meal kit: HelloFresh, three recipes for four people, £24.79 including delivery thanks to the first-box offer. Next week's box shows £37.19 on the app, and I noticed the app is much less keen to show me the one after that. I'm writing on Thursday, once all three meals have been cooked and eaten, or at least cooked.
Picking the recipes took twenty minutes on the Wednesday night before. The app offers about forty a week, and I filtered out anything described as "creamy", "chunky" or "in a rich sauce", which is to say anything Alfie could see. That left roughly eleven, and the three I chose are below. I'd quietly like to apologise to the other twenty-nine.
What came in the box
Three paper bags, one for each recipe, each holding a collection of tiny plastic ones: a sachet of panko crumbs, a pot of stock paste, a nip of soy sauce, a little bag of spice mix. The meat sat in its own pack under the ice pack and the vegetables were loose in the bottom. I counted 31 separate bags, sachets and pots across the three meals, and I only know that because I tipped them all out onto the counter to count. There were three glossy A5 recipe cards as well, with photographs the finished plates only loosely resembled.
I can see the appeal. Nothing is left over. There's no half a jar of anything in the fridge door, no sad bag of coriander going slimy in the salad drawer. Every spoonful of spice is measured out for me, and the recipe cards are, I have to say, better written than most of the ones I've printed off.
Three teas, three verdicts
- Monday, chicken katsu curry. The card said 35 minutes and it took me 52, partly because the pan was hot and Alfie asked questions at the stove. Isla called it "dinner at a restaurant". Alfie had the sauce in a separate bowl, "like a dip", and ate everything.
- Tuesday, pork and apple burgers with wedges. The card said 30 minutes and it took 40, fitted round Brownies, so we ate at 5:15. Alfie called his burger "a big sausage" and ate two halves.
- Wednesday, meatballs in a smoky tomato sauce with orzo. The card said 30 minutes and it took 45. Alfie could see the sauce, and said so. He ate the meatballs one at a time off the edge of the plate and left everything else. Isla and Rob finished his sauce between them.
The work-night question
None of the 30-minute recipes took 30 minutes. They took 40 to 52, working from a card, with kit that wasn't quite where I'd put it. I'd get faster. It's a first-week figure, so I'm not holding it against anyone.
The thing I liked, and I didn't expect to, was not thinking. I didn't plan, list, shop or decide for three teas. Mondays and Tuesdays are my office days, I'm home by ten past three, and having a card on the fridge that told me what to do next felt like someone had taken a small stone out of my shoe. I think that's what people are paying for.
The arithmetic for the first box is friendly: £24.79 for twelve portions is £2.07 a plate. But I know where that price came from, and I know it won't last. The offer drops with each box, and I've put a note in my phone for the day I'd have to skip or cancel, because I know myself. I haven't priced the same three teas at Aldi yet. I want to do that properly once I've tried a few boxes, not on a hunch after one good week.
Monday's box is already booked. The porch has been swept, and I've told Rob that carrying it in counts as a job.
