hello fresh box review.

delicious, healthy and balanced recipes with fresh ingredients, step by step simple instructions and you don't even have to weigh the ingredients. hello and welcome... to hello fresh! delivered straight to your door, the boxes come in three or five meal quantities, a choice of meat or vegetarian and each recipe typically takes around 30 minutes to prepare.

in my meat & fish three meal box for two people i received the ingredients for smokey chicken skewers with corn and potato salad, fearless sesame salmon with cous cous and cherry tomato salsa and a two chicks chorizo tortilla espanola with mixed leaf balsamic salad.

day one
so firstly i got stuck into making the chicken skewers. note the exact four skewers in the above picture - they mean it when they say they hate waste and i think that's such a good idea. though i wouldn't have minded if they sent me a few more ingredients... these were delish and i've made them again already!

the high quality ingredients included chicken thighs from tim hixson - a third generation butcher based in smithfield market. 

so i begun by chopping the new potatoes and putting them on to boil for 12-15 minutes.

following the step by step photographic instructions, i next chopped the ingredients to made the chicken marinade. this is made up of paprika, coriander, garlic, lime juice, red onion, olive oil, salt and pepper. (oh i should say - most of the recipes include olive oil, salt and pepper and butter which aren't included) look how colourful it gets!

you then grill these for around ten minutes on a medium to high heat, turning occasionally. 

you then move onto the potato and corn salad, which is made up of the boiled potatoes, sweetcorn, coriander, olive oil, salt, pepper and finish with sour cream.

serve with a slice of lime and a sprinkle of paprika. laaavely!

day two

fearless sesame salmon with cous cous and cherry tomato salsa - let's go!

begin by preparing the (perfectly weighed out) cous cous with boiling water and setting aside. xhop up the tomato and coriander for the salsa and onions for the cous cous. you now begin caramelising the onions ready to stir through later - this will take around 20 minutes on a low heat.

you now add a little olive oil to the salmon and roll in sesame seeds. cook hour minutes each side only turning once. again this is seeeriously high quality produce - the queen also gets her seafood from fishmonger james knight of mayfair.  *curtsies* 

lastly, stir the cous cous with the red onions and the rind of a lime.

bring the meal together by laying the cous cous on a plate, followed by the tomato and coriander salsa and lastly the tasty salmon.

day three

lastly is the two chicks chorizo tortilla espanola with mixed leaf balsamic salad... 

this one is a little more tricky and takes 45 minutes. i've never been much of a pro at omelettes and they often just end up as scrambled egg - but the potato added a different texture to it and i was pleased with the results :) look they even gave me a little packet of brown sugar for the salad dressing.

you begin by cutting up the potatoes into half the size of golf balls (a measurement i did admittedly struggle with a little) and baking for 20 minutes with olive oil until softened but golden. i actually put them in for around 30 mins as it said bake for longer if needed.

whilst they are in the oven, caramelise the sliced onions.

you next mash together the potatoes with the salt and pepper and two chicks eggs whites. what a clever way to transport eggs, hey?

you then add the chorizo, onions and red leicester cheeeeese (coming back to it's home in the midlands!) it didn't say to but i tore up the chorizo slices.

you then olive oil a pan and pour in the potato-y egg-y cheese-y chorizo-y mixture. i was warned it wouldn't look pretty yet so sorry for the pictures. you blast it on a high heat for one minute, then turn it down for five.

so next is the flipping part which was a tad fiddly but quite a clever way of doing it. oil a plate, flip onto said plate, slide back into the pan. sorry there are no pictures of this... it got a bit technical!

ta da! you then do the same again to cook the other side...

slice into the tortilla and serve with the tomato and balsamic salad. the dressing for this was made up of balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, olive oil and brown sugar.

and there you have it... three meals which have genuinely inspired me and i have tried since. as someone that cooks and makes meal plans already for myself, the best thing i got from this is new ideas for recipes and flavours. i have to admit i sometimes leave something out of a recipe if i don't have it in the cupboard (note to self: put spice rack on christmas list) and in this case there was no excuse not to make everything as the chef intended. 

i think this would really suit a busy couple or family who maybe don't have time to think about planning healthy, balanced meals - or maybe just as a treat now and again. they will probably realise that cooking quick meals with lots of fresh ingredients is as easy and they thought - with no waste at all and lots of clean plates. i actually just looked at their website and they now have a bbq box... tempted! 

psst look i really did make them again... 

what do you think to the recipes? would you try a hello fresh box?

you can get £20 off your first hello fresh box with the discount code NER3EE - for example that's just £19 for a meat and fish box for two - bargain!

thank you to hello fresh for sending me the meal box to review - i was not paid to write this post.