We set up our account there and then and chose our 3 meals for our first box, paid and walked away having booked our delivery for the following Saturday. During the next week we planned when to have our various meals - one on the Saturday night, Sunday and then Wednesday.
There's no need to stay in for delivery so long as you have somewhere safe to leave the box, or with a neighbour. I ended up staying in anyway - I was far too excited to go off out for the day.
Delivery is between 8am and 7pm by courier - mine arrived just before 6pm which was cutting it a bit fine in view of the fact we'd decided to have our first meal on delivery day! The contents are packed in a sturdy box and inside is a plastic bag which contains sheep's wool together with a couple of large blocks of ice to keep everything cool. You could re-use the sheep's wool bag but to be honest I didn't bother, and just chucked it in the bin. The ice blocks went into the freezer for emergency use (replaces the frozen pea ice pack nicely). A quick unpack and put everything where it needs to go. I put all the fridge items together on a shelf and left everything else (spices, herbs, stock cubes, garlic and onion) in the cupboard, all together so they wouldn't get used for something else during the week. Absolutely EVERYTHING is pre-weighed and labelled - if your meals require 3 cloves of garlic that's what you get!
We decided our first meal would be Mexican Pork & Black Bean Rice. The recipe cards which come in the box are very detailed. It tells you exactly what you need in picture form, how long it will take, nutrition information and what extras you will need - salt, pepper, cooking oil is not included.
Portion sizes are generous, and all you need to add is a nice glass of wine and a pudding, although I was so full after I could only manage a small yogurt.
On Sunday we decided rather than having a roast we would have our second meal - Pork Belly, Lentils, Pea Shoots & Eggs. Again, the recipe card is very detailed and advises you that you require a pestle & mortar, I didn't have one so adapted the end of my rolling pin in a small bowl to crush the fennel seeds.
We left our final meal until mid-week due to Shaun's shifts and he wanted to have a go at cooking the meal by itself whilst I took Danni for her weekly food shop. Shaun is a "chuck it all in a pan, season as you go, and if it turns out edible it's a bonus" kind of cook. He usually gets it right, but really struggles with recipes. He did very well and produced a very tasty Feta Stuffed Courgette & Spicy Yogurt for Wednesday's evening meal. I made a bit of a mistake and chucked all the spice in the yogurt, even though the recipe card warns you to go easy if you don't like it hot! Oops!
All in all we really enjoyed our week of alternative meals. I absolutely love the fact that absolutely EVERYTHING is weighed out and the recipe cards are so detailed you really can't go wrong. There is no waste - unless you can't finish the meal. Everything is home grown - so you shouldn't get anything which is "out of season" and the meat, yogurt and cheese all had good use by dates on them so you're not rushing to use the ingredients. I managed to convert everything to record on Slimming World and you get to keep the recipe cards so you can make the recipes again by buying your own ingredients.
Our Gousto account is currently frozen so we won't get anything else until we subscribe. You can order as often as you like. You can order 2, 3 or 4 meals, for 2 people or a family of up to 5 (2 adults & up to 3 children) at what I consider to be a very reasonable cost. I think we're going to have a box once a month.
Please note no monetary gain has been made from this post.
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