Hello Fresh

SueDonim, your onion!

but HF is a great way of trying new things - absolutely agree goldengirl. I've kept the recipes I used, not that I really needed to as all their recipes are online anyway!

www.hellofresh.co.uk/recipes/

Cavewoman, I've visions of your spuds boiling away in a bucket!

We've had Hello Fresh meals and enjoyed them. Cooking / prep usually takes under 45 minutes and you can't argue with that. I've tried things I wouldn't normally have tried. I've stopped the deliveries now but still have the recipes which I use. Cooking is not one of my favourite activities but HF is a great way of trying new things.

I truly can't remember a time when I couldn't cook.
My father died when I was 11 and I would come home from school and start the meal.
I school holidays I would make stews etc from scratch.
I went to a Grammar school where from day 1 until GCE we had a half days cooking and home economics lesson every week.
We did everything from basics to full meals.
My D and GD do not take after me at all, they have had all the chances to cook with me but they don't have the interest, although my D does cook "most nights" for her family.

Suedonim
I peeled (huge) potatoes for mash and boiled them without cutting them into quarters. Luckily MIL popped round and put me right.

Impressive!

I don't think I learnt much cooking at school, except for making sponge cakes. I didn't learn much from my mum either as she didn't like anyone messing about in her kitchen.

I remember the first time I prepared an onion. I ended up phoning my sister-in-law to ask how to do it. I had been peeling all the layers off, one after another, and ended up with just a tiny bulb of onion.

I think it's a brilliant idea, not only for time-strapped people, but a great way to show them that cooking from scratch really isn't hard. In an age when it's so easy to pick up a ready meal or a takeaway, so many people never really learn to cook properly simply because they don't have to. I think our generation were lucky in that respect because a) we more likely to have been taught proper cookery at school, b) we were brought up by mothers who home cooked everything so it was seen as the norm for us, and c) we didn't have the range of ready meals and takeaways when we started out on our own, so we had to cook.
I can remember when we moved into our first house, a few weeks after we married, and I was waiting on delivery of a cooker, so I borrowed a little table top mini oven with 2 electric rings. I cooked a full roast dinner on it - chicken, roast potatoes, 2 veg, and even made stewed apples and custard for pudding!

Yes, if you've plenty of time to shop & cook, I'm sure that's better, Bathsheba. I guess Hello Fresh is a midway between cooking from scratch and ready meals.

I imagine that a gift of these for anyone very time pressed would be welcome.
I've had them come to the door, and did explain (nicely) that since I have plenty of time to do my own shopping, I wouldn't be interested.
They still keep sending me stuff through the post, though.

very annoying!

Yes, maybe I was SueDonim. The meals were nice, but I wouldn't say they were fantastic. I can see how they appeal to busy people, as everything's provided, measured for you, so there's no waste and no wondering what to do with leftover ingredients and so on. The fact is, though, that I'm retired and have plenty of time to cook meals every bit as good as these were - and I usually have most of the store cupboard ingredients in anyway. (And I can substitute courgettes for something else in a recipe if I choose! )

I treated my daughter to some Hello Fresh meals when she went home with her new baby last year. She and her Dh said the meals were fantastic and afaik, they didn't have anything repetitive as you describe. Maybe you were just unlucky with your choices!

Though I actually don't mind cheese in a meal. I could eat the stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner - might be why I struggle with my waistline

Eglantine

Oh I feel that way about cheese! Almost every readymeal seems to have cheese in some form or other, in the sauce, in the stuffing, sprinkled on top, layered in between, little cubes, cheddar cheese, blue cheese,goats cheese.

I’m starting to sound like Bubba when he talked about shrimp.......