Dinner - AnnaTheApple

March 19, 2015March 30, 2017

Hello tasty food – Hello Fresh Review

This post has been a long time coming.

[I have not been compensated for this review. I just fancied doing it.]

I mentioned a while ago that I caved into the pressure of a door-to-door salesman touting a Hello Fresh subscription discount. I was that sucker. What’s the one thing they say? Never buy or sign up to someone knocking at your door.

But it did sound very good to me (I hear your thoughts: of course it would). I signed up to the three meals for two people. My discount took £20 off for two boxes and then I could cancel my subscription or continue on at £39 per box. Note how I say per box not per week. You can decide how often you want the box delivered – whether that’s once a week or once a month or whatever.

But what actually is it? Well, it’s a food and recipe delivery service. In each box I receive the ingredients for three meals and the three recipes to go with it. The only thing you need to have is oil/butter, salt and pepper. If the recipe calls for a tablespoon of cornflour then Hello Fresh have made sure to give you a tiny container with exactly that amount. Even teeny tiny bottles of soy sauce or sesame oil. Everything is provided for in the exact amount you need.

The meat is ethically reared, the vegetables are seasonal and fresh and the fish is coastal fresh, line-caught and free from any artificial preservatives. And so far all the ingredients have been in great condition and delicious.

Also, all the packaging and the box are recyclable and you can send back (for free) the cooling wool lining (used to wrap the meats and fridge products) back to Hello Fresh so they can recycle it there.

The meals are well balanced and the portions are brilliant – and considering this is me we’re talking about (the girl with a tiny T-rex inside her) this is something.

Every meal we’ve had so far I’ve enjoyed. There was one meal, a prawn and Serrano ham linguine, that I changed slightly for me (but kept the same for Ben) as I really don’t enjoy pasta. So I served it up with roasted sweet potato fries instead and it worked perfectly.

These aren’t super fast meals though. It takes me roughly 30-40 minutes to have it cooked and on the table (though the recipes are very clear and easy to follow).

Pork loin with leek mash and onion gravy

And the meals often require more pans than I’m used to, meaning lots more washing up. However, I love cooking. I find it a great way to de-stress from work and my long commute. I make sure I read the recipe at work so I know what I’m going to do and then when I get home I just get going. I know I already have everything at hand for the meal.

Pork loin with leek mash and onion gravy

I’m also learning how to cook better. I’ve never made onion gravy from scratch before or cooked certain cuts of meat so I feel like my culinary skills are broadening and my cooking CV expanding.

Things like the above photo: I’ve never beat down a chicken breast before to make it thinner and quicker to cook (we have since bought a rolling pin rather than using a tin of chickpeas…).

Pan-fried chicken and tarragon sauce

All the meals come with their nutritional information and are around 400-800 calories per meal. They’re very balanced in protein, carbs and fat and I’m always left satisfied.

Pan-fried tilapia with chorizo roasted potatoes

At the end of the week Hello Fresh ask for feedback for the meal and you can say whether you would want it again or not. So if you didn’t enjoy a meal for whatever reason you don’t have to have it again. You can give feedback as well if there was something about the meal you didn’t like or didn’t work for you. You can also see the meals coming up for the next week and you’re able to swap a meal with two other options (I’ve now do this with pasta meals).

Pan-fried tilapia with chorizo roasted potatoes

As you can see above, I sometimes add some more veggies (broccoli in this case) to some of the meals as I can’t help myself. Not because the meals aren’t filling (as Ben never needs anything more) but because I just love my veg!

Chicken Shawarma

All in all, we’re big fans. It makes life so much easier to just know what you’re going to have for three meals in the week. You know they’re going to be filling, nutritious and tasty. It’s definitely something we’re going to continue on.

There are several options of boxes to choose from at Hello Fresh: bigger family boxes, vegetarian ones and the classic one that we have. I think it’s a good value for money for quality, delicious food.

If you’re interested, you can use this code ZVUM4A to get £20 off your first two boxes too. It’s my own referral code (I would then get £12 off my own subscription – just so you’re aware).

Do you have any questions?

Do you subscribe to any weekly or monthly boxes?

Do you enjoy cooking meals from scratch?

March 9, 2015

Feeling strong and an uncomfortable watch

The weather this weekend! It gives me good vibes 🙂 OK it was still a bit nippy, and very windy on Saturday but the dark days are behind us!

Friday morning I had one of those gym seshes that just felt AWESOME. I got in some plié squats, box jumps and scorpions amongst other things. If you’ve never done scorpions they are killers – THIS link is from Runners World and it gives a good demo and also a good list of strength moves.

Rocking the Helly Hansen leggings with my ankle weights – hot stuff 😉

I’m still enjoying the gym and maybe it’s all in my head but I do feel stronger in my running and in general. I’ll need to think carefully about how much gym I do when I get into higher marathon mileage though. But that’s ages away!

Waking up on Saturday morning and looking out the window to decide what to wear for parkrun made me smile. No jacket required! Long-sleeve top yes, but no double layers. Woohoo! Though I was wrapped up fairly warm for helping the guys set up the course.

Let’s not get too optimistic yet. And we’re still on the winter course until the cricket pitch gets drier *sighs*.

8am and the sun is peeping through

My parkrun went well. I put in a good amount of effort but the wind made this feel so much tougher. We run alongside the waterfront for a bit and the wind was just awful. But I felt strong and though I wasn’t that much faster than two weeks ago (my last parkrun effort) I’m starting to feel more confident that I’m going in the right direction. I got 21:57 and first lady (but a many of the speedy girls weren’t there to be fair).

Mentally I feel really good about running at the moment. I’m loving it! Though, as ever, I do feel there is the Sword of Damocles hanging above my head for my next injury but so far I’ve not experience any niggles or issues during or after, bar the usual and normal aches of running. I think I just need to continue thinking positive and keep being sensible.

The rest of Saturday involved looking after (or at least, leaving be) my very hung-over husband who had gone out the night before with work. It was mildly amusing but I did feel bad for him. He remained on the sofa the majority of the day.

For lunch I whipped myself up a stir-fry style meal.

Basically it’s a load of veggies (kale being a big contender here) stir-fried in coconut oil with fish from a frozen fish pie mix (random but gives a nice selection of different fish and something I always have in the freezer). I then added a dollop of cream cheese to give it a delicious creamy sauce. All on a bed of courgette noodles (or at least what I can attempt with a vegetable peeler…). I don’t think the picture does it justice to how huge this portion was! Got my 5 a day in one meal 😉

That evening we watched Nightcrawler which was a really uncomfortable watch.

Source

It was really good, don’t get me wrong. Just very intense and I spent most of the movie cringing and shouting at the telly. I do recommend though. Jack Gyllenhall…I see you very differently now!

Sunday I got up feeing refreshed and ready to hit the road for a nine mile run. I decided to just run whatever the hell pace I wanted (within reason as I did need to finish the run in one peace and not destroyed). More like, I just wanted to run at a pace that felt comfortable and not pushing.

I didn’t feel totalled at the end of the run which was nice, but I was so thirsty. Quite funny considering my post about hydration last week! I think it’s going to be a lot sooner that I’ll need to take water with me. On my last mile I was just visualising a cold glass of water. When I got home I quickly downed about 500ml. It wasn’t a pleasant experience as it hit my stomach quite badly and I felt quite sick (that sloshy full sicky feeling). Too much water too quickly – lesson learnt!

On the subject of long runs, one of my running club friends, Michelle, pointed me to an article (HERE from the Guardian) regarding long run paces when training for a marathon which I found highly interesting. It made me wonder how much I’ll slow down for my longer runs. I will slow down, but not dramatically for the 10-15 mile runs as I know I’m confident in those distances. It’ll be the 16+ runs where I take it nice and gradual…but then I’m hoping by the time I get there I’ll be naturally faster anyway? Well, it’s all a guessing game for me and whether I even do an 18 mile run is a bit of a question mark anyway!

The rest of the day involved the usual: lots of walks with Alfie, housework, seeing my mum and just general chilling! Lovely 🙂

How was your weekend?

What pace do you run for your long runs relative to your shorter runs?

What movies have you seen lately?

February 23, 2015February 23, 2015

A little bit of the good stuff

And there goes another weekend! I feel recharged and ready to do another week. I know recent research says you can’t catch up on sleep you’ve missed in the week by sleeping more at the weekend but it just feels so good to get those extra hours!

I really do try and stay up later at the weekend but by 9pm my body is fully shutting down into sleep mode. I’m not ashamed to say I do love a good early night! I got up at 7am on Saturday to get to parkrun for 8am to help set up the course. I really enjoy doing this as there’s a usual crew of people who I get on really well with and have a natter with. And parkrun itself is always good fun. Ben didn’t join this week as he’s being sensible with his leg. A good plan but I missed his company.

Netley Abbey has been getting quite popular (over 240 people this week) so it’s a bit crowded at the start. I wanted to push it so found a nice spot near the front so I wouldn’t get absorbed into the crush at the beginning. I was pleased to have taken about 30 seconds off of last week’s time so I feel I’m making progress (22:02 – cool time!). I’m not sure how much faster I’ll get on the current course though (two hills you do three times) as my 5k times will never be that speedy (for me) as I don’t really care to focus on short-distance speed. I just use them as a faster run.

After getting home, showered and breakfasted the usual Saturday chores ensued. Then after lunch we met up with our friend Nathan to go for a little walk around a lovely area called Forest Bere.

I love going for walks at the weekend. I find it can be very easy to get stuck inside when the weather isn’t that warm and just watch TV or mope about. It was lovely and fresh. We walked 2.5 miles but had to get back relatively soon as the car park closed at 4.30pm which was a bit annoying. Obviously we took Alfie too.

I how the photo captures Ben mid-stride

We treated ourselves to an Indian take away that evening, which I was really looking forward to, but it was really disappointing. It tasted really nice but the portion sizes were really small. My tandorri chicken starter was pretty much just a drumstick and everything else just kind of looked a bit stingy, you know? And one onion salad when we ordered two (I love me some onion salad). Bit of a let down for a Saturday treat!

Sunday morning I went for my long run. I suppose you could say that my ‘long’ runs at the moment aren’t really that long (especially comparing them to you lot training for impending marathons!) but I’m tying to build things up gradually as I have a while yet until my marathon. While it’s great to have so much time, I’m also terrified it’s too much time to play with and that I’ll injure myself somewhere along the line!

Injury paranoia aside, I got a good seven mile run in (average pace 8:11min/mile).

At first I felt sluggish but then I got really into it and found it really hard to make myself go slower (like I said I would) but I just found myself feeling strong, not out of breath or feeling like it was an effort. My justification is that when I start getting to 10 miles and over then I’ll force myself to take it easier and use it for time on my feet. When I’m around distances that used to be very comfortable for me as a normal run I’m happy to be a bit quicker (let’s remember these fatal words if weeks from now I’m injured…).

The rest of Sunday was fairly miserable with just continuous rain (of which I missed on my run thankfully). This meant a rather unpleasant walk with Alfie.

That face: “Why are we out here??”

I had my wellies on and umbrella and at first Alfie was happy to smell bushes and do his thing, but then he would walk as close to me as possible to get sheltered from the rain. I felt mean being out in the rain with him but he had to go!

I will do a proper post on this but I just have to mention how much I’m absolutely loving this recipe box delivery service called Hello Fresh (I’ve not been contacted to do a review by them, I’m just a very happy paying customer – though I do have a discount code if anyone’s interested!). They deliver a box to your house with three recipes (though you can do five) with all the ingredients you need to make the meals. It’s amazing.

Sunday night’s dinner was sizzling sesame beef. The recipes are very easy to follow and taste SO good. Yes there’s prep and cooking involved, but I love it and I’m learning so much about ‘proper’ cooking. The meals are nutritionally balanced which is a bonus as well. And most importantly, Ben likes it too!

And that’s a wrap. OK not a hugely exciting weekend but it ticked the necessary boxes required 😉 Except cake. There was a distinct lack of cake.

How was your weekend?

Do you like to get outside during the colder months? Or do you snuggle indoors and hibernate?

Have you ever tried Hello Fresh or something similar?

November 20, 2014January 14, 2015

Rants and Raves #3

I’m feeling grumpy. It can’t be helped really. It’s Thursday, when really it should be Friday.

I don’t want to moan…but I will. Sorry. I’ll try not to just rant the entire post.

Rant: With Ben being away it is quite lonely at the moment at home. I get very set in routines when I’m on my own as well. Walk Alfie, cook dinner, watch TV, go to bed. Nothing exciting really happens. I’m used to having him there to joke and laugh with, or moan and groan at…depends on the day and mood really 😉

And with the 8 hour time difference it’s a struggle to keep in contact with him. Especially as with him being in China they don’t allow Facebook or Twitter, and I need to wait for him to get access to the limited Wifi in order to either WhatsApp or Skype. Humph.

Rave: Although saying that, with Ben not being here, this means dinner can be whatever I want it to be without having to worry if Ben will a) like it b) eat it.

Looks rather grim doesn’t it? But actually it was really tasty. I literally threw chickpeas, Brussels sprouts, courgette, onions, mushrooms and kale together with cream cheese and BBQ sauce. It’s just what I fancied. For me BBQ sauce and cream cheese are big winners.

Rant: perhaps ‘rant’ is too strong a word here…but Ben does make me laugh. He goes to Hong Kong and China and he eats… Italian. To be fair, he can’t go wherever he pleases as he’s with work colleagues but still. He ate Japanese one night which I suppose is at least that vague area of the world to some extent. Though he did tell me he had the strangest Hawaiian pizza which had a sweet dough with tomato sauce, tinned fruit salad, olives and cheese on it. I did say to him he’s probably better off actually eating the local food! *sighs*

Rave: Alfie is very loving at the moment as I’m the only one there. Despite Ben’s side of the bed being free, he still cuddles into me at night. My furry hot water bottle.

But it also means I’m the one who has to clean up his sick when he wasn’t well the other day. This is usually very firmly a blue job…but currently no blue is here to help.

Rave: getting cool things in the post. I received a Fuelify goodie box which contained a lot of exciting products.

A full review will be coming soon!

Rant/Rave: a mix of the two if you like. It’s no secret that I hate my commute. It’s a fair way from Southampton to Basingstoke and can take on average an hour (sometimes more) to work and then from work every single day. It grinds on me. Even when it’s plain sailing it still takes 40 minutes. To me this is absolute dead time. The radio is OK but I despair of BBC Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw in a morning (I was a huge Chris Moyles fan – sorry non-Brits, basically Radio 1 sucks as the best DJ left a few years ago and now it’s run by a moron) and I’m not quite ready to switch to BBC Radio 2 (which is aimed at a slightly older audience).

Aaaaanyway, long story short, I’ve signed up to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (30 free days) as I saw they had audio books available too. I do read a lot as well on my Kindle, but thought while I drive I could listen to another book. Normally audio books are fairly hefty in price so I was pleased this was part of the deal. I decided to go for Life of Pi.

I’ve got the book on my Kindle but when I tried to read it I just couldn’t get into it. But listening to it is fantastic! In just over two days I’m 40% into it and it’s so good. I need to see the film as well now. Listening to it in the car just makes the journey zoom by as I get sucked into the narrative.

I’ve also downloaded Great Expectations to listen to next as I’ve never read it. I’m aiming for the more ‘dense’ books as I’ve found I can get into it easier than if I tried to read it. I’m still reading another book at the same time as well. Will see if I’m swayed by this Kindle Unlimited business by the end of the 30 days I think!

And that’s all I have in my current lonely, empty existence…well it’s not all bad. The house is extremely tidy and I’m only using one loo in the house (we have three) so that means only one bathroom needs cleaning this weekend! Wahay it’s the small things, right? 😉 I’m going to my parent’s house on Friday night for an Indian and staying over with Alfie so that should be good. Then really it’s just one week till Ben’s back! Hurrah!

What have been your rants and raves this week?

How do you cope when you’re alone in the house?

Do you listen to audio books?

July 16, 2014

Men drink beer, men bring back meat…

Sometimes during the week Ben might go out with some boyfriends (doesn’t work does it? – boy mates) to go do what men folk do…like drink beer and talk about whatever those men folk talk about. My delicate feminine mind couldn’t handle whatever goes on in those meet-ups I’m sure 😉

While he’s out this is usually my time to take charge of the television…catch up with the Kardashians or check in with the Housewives (both Real and fake – though likely the same thing). Maybe even have a solo-Anna family Guy sesh, who knows! Rock and roll.

Usually this is also the time I can have whatever I want for dinner without Ben turning his nose up (“how many vegetables are you having?” or the always pleasant “that looks like sick”). Very exciting. Anyway, I digress. So Ben went to the pub and very likely two hours later I went to bed (as I said: rock and roll).

In the morning Ben and me got up and were catching up, having not had the chance to do it the previous night, and he casually mentioned that he won some meat. Random but OK, that’s quite cool. What kind? “Beef something” he says.

Getting my breakfast ready I open the fridge door to find a rather large hunk of meat sort of crammed in among the yogurts and butter.

A bit of meat he says?! This could feed a small family for two weeks!! I was stunned. We don’t even eat beef that regularly! Ben appeared rather sheepishly and went “yep that’s the one”. You don’t say…

Could have been worse, Nathan (one of said boy mates) won six pork steaks and woke up in the morning to find he had eaten half of them when he got in…

Anyway I carved that bad boy up (the meat, not Nathan) on Sunday afternoon and it literally took me 45 minutes. I cut some of it into chunks after my dad suggested using some of it for casseroles and slow cooker meals, and cut the rest into steak portions. All now safely in the freezer.

It’s mildly amusing that last week I cooked us some organic beef steak and Ben really wasn’t a fan. Probably me not overcooking it and it turning out a bit more chewy than we like.

I sprinkled the steak with some steak seasoning (Schwartz) and we had it with vegetables and roasted sweet potato chunks (and BBQ sauce of course).

Well beef will be on the menu now for a fair while so I might have to get the cooking of it right! Well, practice makes perfect I suppose.

And while we’re on the subject of recent eats, we’ve also been enjoying pork steaks with a honey and soy sauce marinade served with a new-to-me vegetable/fruit (?): plantains.

I fried seasoned slices of plantain in coconut oil. I’m not going to lie, they didn’t entirely rock my world. But they were a nicely carby addition to the meal. We were slightly disappointed that they didn’t taste a little of banana… 😉

And one last meat-related point. Probably the worst time to win a huge hunk of meat is when you go to Casa Brasil, the all-you-can-eat Brazilian rodizio restaurant. I think I ate gammon, roast pork, pork ribs, beef sirloin, beef rump (I think?), and another type of beef (more chunky but lovely and salty)…

So yeah, perfect timing when I can’t even look at the deli meat in Tesco at the moment.

Have you ever won a food item in a raffle?

Have you ever tried plantain?

Are you a big meat eater? What’s your favourite meat? I must admit I’m a very boring meat eater in that my favourites are chicken and turkey. Though I love ribs…heavenly.

**Psst! Check out Laura’s blog Wholeheartedly Healthy for a brilliant giveaway –> HERE ! **