Mindful Chef is one of the recipe box schemes that I particularly like. I first used them back in 2016, and since then I have had several continuous subscriptions with them, with breaks in between.
What always makes me stop is when life gets busy or complicated. Having the box arrive with fresh ingredients means you need to be organised to use them within their use-by dates – not usually a problem with Mindful Chef, actually, as they are pretty good at providing ingredients well within their shelf life.
But having used them regularly for a while, when COVID-19 overwhelmed conventional delivery services, I burned out on them a little. Having 6 days of food scheduled every week (based on 3 x 2 person meals per box) proved too much for me. “But all I want tonight is a sandwich” I’d yell to myself, as I’d slip the meat into my freezer for later, and add the cans of beans or coconut milk to my larder.
Some months later, I recently received a promotional invite back in, and I have now resubscribed, but on a more sustainable basis – a box every 3 weeks. So one week in 3, I will be cooking properly from the Mindful Chef boxes, while in between I can eat snack-food, pies and BBQ to my heart’s delight, without worrying what else is in my fridge.
So this week’s meals are:
- Peanut & Sesame Chicken Pad Thai with rice noodles.
- Mexican Rubbed Salmon, coconut and lime rice.
- Spanish “Cod”, Chickpeas and Peppers (The “Cod” is actually Haddock, via a substitution, but perfectly fine.)
As before, I have gone for the 2 portion meals, as they simply work out more economic. Buying a two person 3 meal box, I reckon it averages at about £7.50 per portion. Mindful Chef will supply single portion boxes, but the price goes up to about £11.00 per portion. For some dishes, I will be splitting the ingredients and cooking them on two different evenings. Other dishes I will cook both portions, if I think it is something that will reheat nicely, like the chicken, perhaps.
One of my challenges is going to be seeing if I can adopt their multi-pan recipes to my Foodi approach to cooking. I’m not going to be silly about it; if I have to put the oven on as well, I will. But I reckon most of the dishes can be cooked in a Foodi, and the exercise should be fun.
Note: The above link is my personalised referral link. If you use it, I will get a £10 credit, and you will get a 25% reduction from your first 4 boxes. Or else you can sign up without my link for whatever their current offer is.
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