Mindful Chef - what we thought

So you know if you’ve put on a few pounds (I refer you back to my earlier ‘cruise baby’ remarks), and you say ‘oh, if only I was a celeb and I had someone to cook me delicious, healthy meals, it would be soooo easy to be healthy…’. Well, I’ve kind of been doing that with Mindful Chef - and do you know what? It’s fab.

Mindful Chef is a new recipe box company set up by three mates: Giles, Myles and Rob, aims to take all the guesswork out of healthy eating, by providing everything you need to create delicious dinners with really healthy ingredients. After choosing your between 2 and 5 meals online (you can choose them by different ingredients, whether you want fish, vegan, etc), you get the ingredients delivered to your door:

They offered to send us a couple of their recipe packs to try out. Here’s how we got on:

Beef rendang with lemongrass, mangetout and brown rice

You get all the ingredients delivered you in brown paper bags, so we got lovely organic beef steaks, a little pack of rice, a chunk of ginger, a lemongrass stalk etc. The instructions are pretty easy, although it did tell me to add 400ml boiling water to the rice and simmer for 20 - 25 minutes. It boiled dry twice, and took much, much more than 400ml, so I don’t know quite what I did wrong there (ridiculous isn’t it? The amount of times I cook rice and suddenly I can’t do it). Apart from that, it was easy to do and the end result was absolutely delicious (if not particularly photogenic).

Pork and apricot kebabs with pistachio and mint quinoa (top)

Mr E isn’t particularly fond of pork so I wasn’t holding out much hope that he’d like this recipe, but oh wow, it was definitely our favourite - and so pretty too!

Fresh apricots and chunks of pork loin are threaded onto kebab sticks, griddled and served with a deliciously tasty quinoa. The only thing we didn’t really like were the roasted tenderstem broccoli. I think if I made it again I would steam them. The whole dish, though, was really fresh and yummy. We would definitely make this again and I think it would make a great barbecue recipe too:

Our verdict

Of course, getting this sort of high quality food delivered to your door isn’t going to be the cheapest way to eat, but with prices from about £4.50 a meal (and absolutely no food waste), I can certainly see it appealing, and it’s a great way to eat healthy, creative and delicious dinners every day. Forget your Weight Watchers ready meals, this is a much better way to eat well: portion sizes are pretty big and the food is fresh and colourful. We also thought it would be really great if you were going on holiday for a week to a holiday cottage - you could have fab food delivered and not need to worry about shopping while you’re away.

I love what the company stand for: provenance is really important, and the team source most of their produce from West Country farms near them. Packaging is recyclable and can be picked up by the driver on a Sunday evening (if you work, you can have your meals for the week delivered, chilled, to your office on a Monday each week). I think even if you didn’t do it all the time, a short spell of eating like this would put you in the right frame of mind for eating right long term, or maybe give you a kick start if you’re feeling like you’ve gone a bit off track.

And if you’re just massive foodies, like we are, it gives you the chance to try something new and add to your repertoire of healthy dishes. It’s a win/win!

Mahoosive thanks to Alice and the gang from Mindful Chef 🙂