Meals made easy with Riverford Veg Boxes

I’ve often heard of other people who buy in vegetable boxes and I think it’s a great idea for a healthier lifestyle if you’re a ‘foodie’ and know what to do with stuff but I’m not a foodie. I like food but I’m not often inspired by it so if I received a random box of vegetables I probably wouldn’t know what to do with it.

When I initially saw an email asking if I would be interested in reviewing Riverford my initial reaction was to say no, but then I read on and realised that they don’t just do organic vegetable boxes, they do ‘meal’ boxes. This was more like it!! They offer a range of different boxes (too many to mention) so it’s just a case of looking to see which ‘box’ is best for you. Choose from Recipe boxes, veg boxes, meat boxes, fruit boxes, salad boxes – they probably even do a box of boxes I don’t know! The contents change on a weekly basis so you get some variety week on week. All of the vegetables are grown organically on the farm and the Riverford recipes have been specially selected to be healthy and inspiring. You can even swap or add contents to your boxes up to 2 days before delivery so it’s worth looking to see what is available.

We chose a Quick Recipe box since we generally don’t get a chance to eat until the Beans are in bed and then we don’t want to wait for hours whilst our food cooks. The box arrived by courier and was very well laid out to make it easy to see which ingredients were for which meal. We received three meals to serve two people although we found the portion sizes to be quite large (even by Hubby’s ‘feed the street’ standards).

Our first meal was Courgette Kuku with green alfalfa salad which I really enjoyed. Hubby tends to do most of the cooking for him and me as I cook for the children earlier in the day (and I hate cooking). He found the recipe cards clear and easy to follow and he said that it felt nice to really ‘cook’ for a change instead of just going through the usual rituals of the same old meals we eat week on week.

All of the flavours really complimented each other. There was far too much for Hubby and I to eat so Hubby popped some in a tub to take for lunch the following day.

On the second night we had Venison and Mushroom Stroganoff. I will admit, this was the meal I was least looking forward to since I don’t really like red meat (it’s a texture thing). Hubby ate all of his meal and enjoyed it but this one wasn’t for me so I declined after two mouthfuls.

Our third meal was Pork Meatballs with Ginger Spiced Sweet Potato and Coconut Lentils. Once plated up, I wasn’t overly keen on the overall look of the meal but it tasted delicious and will definitely be a meal which we repeat (just with a little less coconut or perhaps more desiccated). Pork isn’t usually a meat I would choose to eat but using Pork Mince to make Meatballs really worked nice and the flavours worked well together.

On the whole we were very impressed with our Meal Box. It would have cost us £39.95 for the three nights of meals but as I said, the portion sizes are large so we were easily able to chill the leftovers for Hubby’s lunch or they could be frozen as a ‘meal for one’. The nice thing about the Meal Boxes is they take away the “what shall we have for tea?” scenario that I hate week on week, we didn’t have to think about it because the thinking had been done for us and we could see at a glance exactly how many calories our meals contained.

As well as all the lovely which which was packed very carefully, were information and recipes books. I particularly liked the a-z of veg, is it bad that at nearly 40 years old I had never even heard of some of them, let alone eaten them?

Now if only I could work out how to get my Beans to eat vegetables I would be onto a winner!

DISCLAIMER: We received the Riverford Quick Recipe Box free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion. All words, images and opinions are my own and may not be copied without my permission. I have not been instructed what to write.