Gousto Time
As part of helping my son to making his own choices in life, this week we encouraged him to try a Gousto box to boost his cooking skills and support him to prepare for more independent living. Additionally, this will also help him to contribute to the food choices and preparations for family meals.
After helping him set up his Gousto account, we filtered all the recipes down to the gluten- and dairy-free options. This means everyone at home can eat the meals he makes. As a new customer, Gousto offered a great introductory discount on the first two boxes. He looked through the recipes, selecting five meals for four people, and prepared for a week of cooking. A few days later the first box arrived, containing everything he needed to make a start in the kitchen.
The first step was to make sure all the cold ingredients went into the fridge, before sorting the remaining ingredients into recipes. As we had included prawns in the meals, we selected them as the first meal to make, and categorised the other meat and meat-free recipes to make sure the ingredients were used in perishable order.
Gousto are generous with their portions, as well as using as much recyclable material in their packaging as possible. Their boxes are a great choice for when time is short and you have run out of recipe ideas. You can skip boxes or pause your subscription to suit your needs. For us, on this occasion, they are a learning step for my adult son, who lives with Autism, and needs a little more structure in the kitchen, with the option to discuss variations.
With a little help, he made an Indonesian-style king prawn curry with green bean. It took longer to prepare and cook because we slowly examined each step, checking the recipe method and adapting it to suit his level of instruction. The resulting meal was delicious, and he even discussed ways he felt he could repeat the recipe to suit his own preferences.
By keeping the recipe cards, Gousto make it easy for you to repeat each recipe, adding ingredients to your shopping list to make the meals again, and again. Next time, he already knows he prefers much finer slices of onion in his curry, instead of large chunks, and he certainly prefers his rice without green beans. These are choices we are encouraging him to make; from recipes we hope he will really love to re-create.
Tonight he is looking forward to cooking his second recipe choice. To see the satisfaction he received by producing a meal we all enjoyed (and the fact that the cook never has to do the dishes in our home), this was money and time well spent.
Our other recipe choices this week include: a Korean-style Bibimbap, a chickpea, spinach and coconut curry, an oven-baked nutty sweet potato and corn curry, and a meat-free shepherd's pie.
If you are thinking about trying recipe boxes for the first time, or have tried alternative brands, we would encourage you to think about cooking with Gousto. The large portions and clear instructions, as well as ready-measured ingredients, make their boxes a great choice. You can select boxes for 1 - 5 people, with 2 - 5 recipe choices. Try as little or as much as you like. Additionally, each box helps cut your carbon footprint and offers plenty of meat-free options.
A lot of the choices available seem to be curry variations, and since my son loves a curry, to make some meals more varied we will swap out some of the rice for alternatives, like jacket potato or salad.
For more information and to start selecting your first box visit Gousto today.