Coconutty Caribbean Soup with roasted sweet potato from my second box

My first half priced pack with the chosen three meals was delivered on the following Saturday. It worked out quite well because I had a busy week ahead and wasn't going to be home. So I cooked all the meals before I left on my work travels on Sunday and packed everything in small containers for husband to heat up for lunches and dinners until I came back Thursday evening after our annual sales conference in Southampton and a quick trip to Amsterdam.

And I could brag to my colleagues about husband's menu: Sweet chilli beef, Yellow Indonesian vegetable curry, Mexican style chicken with refried beans and Middle-Eastern spiced lamb shank with saffron rice (weekend's leftovers). Some of my younger female colleagues were rolling their eyes, and 20 years ago I would have been right there with them.

Gender equality has always been very close to my heart as my brothers will testify. Our hoovering areas were measured with mathematical accuracy and my sister and I once imprisoned one of our brothers downstairs until he'd hoovered the area allocated to his lazy golden boy arse.

But more recently I've realised it's about bigger things than hoovering and cooking, and that I quite like husband getting my car washed, unblocking the drains, worrying about the boiler which I didn't realise is almost a full time job etc.

So I saw in my mind's eye husband obviously distraught at being left without the wife for so many days, missing the healthy packed lunches of overnight oats with blueberries, salads etc. But also possibly rubbing hands together at the thought of a sneaky fast food lunch or a nice takeaway pizza to eat in from of football in the evening. So I told him if he wanted to get a takeaway while I was gone, he could and he wouldn't get a bollocking if I came back to find some uneaten food in the fridge or a pizza box in the recycling bin. But he insisted he prefers my home cooking. Bless him.

When I got home there was only some of the Indonesian vegetable curry left. And that's not necessarily a sign that it wasn't good. There was quite a lot of it to begin with and it is a proven law of physics that a male homo sapiens will be unable to eat the vegetarian options if there is still meat in the fridge.

HelloFresh Sweet chilli beef, Yellow Indonesian curry, Mexican style chicken

The cost of the box with 3 meals for 2 people is £34.99. The introductory offer was 50% of week one and three. You can choose your delivery day and change it in the app whenever you need. You can also skip any week and stop the deliveries completely whenever you wish. So if not cheap, it is a very convenient system.

The choices of recipes each week is quite good. There are 14-16 recipes each week to choose from, usually 4 vegetarian, 2 fish/prawn, 3-4 chicken and the rest beef, pork or lamb. Some weeks there is also a premium recipe which can be venison, duck or a nicer cut of lamb. You pay £4.99 extra for the premium recipe.

The amount of food is pretty generous for two people. There is not a huge amount of meat, around 250g, but with the vegetables and everything else it makes two generous portions with possibility of  leftovers for some of the recipes.

Some of the pastes and ready spice mixes are quite potent and salty, so worth just having a taste and adding to your own taste. The yellow Indonesian curry would have been way too hot (for husband, things rarely get too hot for me) if I had added all the paste, I only used a fraction. The chilli beef was the first one I cooked so I added everything according to instructions, and it ended up very tasty and nice, but a little bit on the salty side. Doing it again, I would leave some of the soy and ketjap out. For the Mexican chicken I left out quite a bit of the Mexican spice mix because it tasted quite hot.





For the reduced price of £17.50 a pack (3 meal  s for 2 people) it is good value for money, but for the normal price it starts to get a bit expensive for what you get. There is a definiate convenience value of course and the recipes are interesting and tasty.

New Year's Eve. Was thinking of doing a bit of an inventory of the year, but thought I'd call my parents first. In the aftermath of my English Christmas they came to enjoy here Dad has been taken to hospital (pneumonia) and mum is incarcerated at my sister's after being judged unfit to stay at home alone with the dog.

The main incriminating circumstance for mum was that she lost her phone immediately after dad was taken to hospital (it later resurfaced in the laundry basket) and none of us could get hold of her so we all got really worried of course and had to alert the neighbours to check she was ok. Never better, said the perky lady. So my ever decisive (=scary) younger sister went and abducted both her and the dog and took them to hers until dad is released from hospital.

Mum didn't answer her phone again. Where she's put it this time is anyone's guess, but I managed to reach her at my sister's number and we had a good chat. She was all chipper and explained to me that she's visiting my sister and might stay until dad gets home from hospital. She thinks she has a choice. It's called Stockholm syndrome.

I called dad at the hospital where he was sounding croaky and horrible, but was quite optimistic about his chances of survival. He admitted he didn't hear most of what I said and what he heard he didn't really understand, but was glad I called.

So on a personal level it's been a year of ups and downs. I've had a great year at work. This is our first full year of marriage, and although we have been together for a long time we are still in a lovely love bubble and so happy it's ridiculous. But it has also been a year of heavy stuff, a seriously ill child of a friend, my mum's diagnosis, husband losing a sister, my beloved doggie friend getting cancer, some other health scares and seeing some of my friends go through the same thing with their loved ones. Bloody middle age. Tonight I will raise my glass to all the good things that these special people have brought into my life hoping they will continue to do so in 2016 and for many years to come!

My 5 best dinners of 2015

1. Anyone who's ever read this blog is probably completely fed up with my Provencal duck legs, but they are BLOODY AWESOME.

2. Yippee - not long to go until it's BBQ season again - these are my favourite barbecue meats, chicken in orange, saffron and yoghurt marinade and succulent marinated lamb.

3. If you thought fish soup is nasty or boring THINK AGAIN - this Bouillabaisse will change your life. OK, it won't change your life, but it tastes really good.

4. If you don't make this gorgeous Greek chicken, orzo, rice and feta dish you are crazy. CRAZY, I tell you.

5. With these Persian spiced lamb shanks I rest my case for 2015.

And special recognition for being a bit pretentious with foam and stuff but still delivering utterly lush nosh goes to:

6. Gordon Ramsay's Maze and our Anniversary dinner

I do realize he is not in the kitchen himself, but you know what I mean.


Sunday was the first anniversary of our big do in Finland. We had been officially married for two weeks, but Saturday 23rd was when we had a church ceremony and reception for family and friends. It wasn't a massive event - I think we were a little over 50 people, but it was very emotional, fun and something we will both remember for the rest of our lives.

Maze by Gordon Ramsay, Grosvenor Square - review

So to celebrate the special day I had booked us a table at Gordon Ramsay's Maze in Grosvenor Square. We don't dine in Michelin star restaurants all that often (= next to never). I got a voucher to Maze as a present (bribe) from a business partner last Christmas, and we just haven't gotten round to using it, so I thought it would be a perfect Anniversary Dinner.

We started with cocktails in the bar, a Bloody Mary for me and Mojito for husband.


We were then taken to our table. The waiter recommended that we order four dishes each. I questioned it because it seemed a lot, but in the end we went with it. Three would have been enough for us though with the little extras that were served for free.

A little complimentary starter of salmon mousse sandwiched in puff pastry

We both chose different things, I went all for fish and seafood and husband chose a mixture of seafood and meat dishes.

Plate of crackers and bean dip to go with our starters

Four course seafood menu

Here is what I had. I started with the sushi selection which was amazing, and quite a lot of food. My favourite was the maki on the right with the pink mousse (lobster?) on top, but it was all fantastic.

Sushi selection of maki and nigiri

Overall the arctic king crab dish was maybe my favourite. It looked amazing and the crab was moist and tasty. Just beautiful.