Simply Cook Review

 Disclaimer:  I have no connection with this company, I am not being sponsored in any way whatsoever for this post, I got the first box free, as does everyone, paying only £1 for postage.

Why?
Someone in our SW local Facebook group mentioned this company, saying that quite a lot of the meals are synned on the SW site which made it easy to incorporate them into the daily planning.  She also said she was enjoying them.

I'm always up for trying this sort of thing.  In the past I have tried Muscle Food 'Do the Impossible', Hello Fresh and a third one which I've forgotten the name of so trying this was a non-brainer

What is is?
Simply Cook is really a meal kit.  You get the spices and the info and you provide all the ingredients.  Not quite as simple as Hello Fresh but it means you can substitute, add to, etc, without feeling you are not using what you have paid for.  I prefer it that way.

How does it work?
The first box of four meals is a freebie with just £1 postage to pay.  Can't argue with that, can you?  

So I went on site, chose my four meals, entered my details and placed an order.  Yes, you have to fill in your card details but, as with all the others I have tried, it is genuinely easy to cancel and there are no commitments to ordering a certain number of deliveries before you can cancel.  You do have to order four meals at a time in a box but it can be as far as six weeks apart and, again, it's easy to cancel.
You just have to remember to do so - I make a note in my diary.

After the first freebie, each box costs £9.99 plus £1.00 postage.  I chose kits to serve two but some have the option of serving four.  

Something I liked was that as an alternative or if you just forget, you can fill in info for a back up box - choose four meals that you like (you can change them any time) and they can be sent by default; or you can click the 'surprise me' box meaning that they will choose four based on your history preferences.  I did the former but I have already chosen my next box, for delivery mid August (you can choose them more often, if you want).

What happens after you have ordered?

(apologies for the awful light in the photos - it was one of those days!)

My order arrived quickly.

The kits come in a strong, flat box that fits through the letter box so there's no problems with being out or anything.  Everything is recyclable except for the peel off lids on the individual pots.  

Inside this flat box were an information leaflet, four recipe cards (more about them below) and four little boxes, one for each kit.

Inside each smaller box are three pots of spice paste, seasonings, sauce, whatever you need to make the meal. On the back of each box is information about what's in each pot and on the web site there is full nutritional information, including possible allergens, calories, etc.
It's all there, not hard to find and looks very complete.

Each pot is marked with the best before date.  In my order, one was BBE November 2022 and the others are in 2023.  No problems there whatsoever.

On to the recipe cards.

They are smaller than A4 but larger than A5 and on thin, wipe-able card so pretty robust.

On the front there's the mandatory photo, a brief description, basic nutritional info such as whether it is gluten free, calories, cooking time, etc plus a description of the three pots.

On the back there's a list of ingredients needed - nothing too fancy or unusual as all the unusual things are provided.  There are also suggestions for variations, the actual recipe which is easy to follow, a tip for extras and, a neat little refinement, one side is perforated from top to bottom so you can tear it off and it's a shopping list.  I won't be using it but what a good idea!

How much choice is there?

Absolutely loads!

The cuisine tends towards the eastern but not solely.

At the moment there are 149 kits to choose from.  I haven't been doing it long enough to know how often new kits come up but it does say they are always developing new kits so - I will see.

What are the meals actually like?

I've made up two of the kits so far and am making up a third this evening.
Each kit says it serves two but I found it enough for three - fine by me and it makes it all better value, for sure.

The first was nasi goreng, a street food type of chicken and rice dish.  Frankly, it was absolutely delicious.  The recipe, made straight apart from adding some red pepper, was enough for three of my portions so I have two in the freezer for easy meals.  Each portion is three syns.

I had to provide rice, onion, a carrot, some red pepper, chicken, prawns (an optional extra) and spray oil plus a bit of sugar and water for the pickling liquid to go on the cucumber.  Oh, and the tomato and cucumber, of course.  I had everything already.

The pots were nasi goreng spice, ketjap manis and pickling spice powder.

If I want to make it again, I can get nasi goreng spice paste in Tesco and I already have ketjap manis.  Making a quick pickling liquid is not difficult and I have two thirds of the pot provided unused anyway.

Then I made murgh kari, a fairly typical tomato based curry.  It used rice, onion, chicken thighs, chopped tomatoes, a bit of sugar (I used Sugarly) and oil (Spray oil for me) and Greek yogurt and I added red pepper and mushroom.  I had it with a flatbread rather than the suggested rice and side salad, but there's loads of flexibility in the sides, it's just up to what you like, have, want to cook, etc.

The pots were garlic paste, murgh kari paste and Anisa's seasoning.

I made it in advance, partly because it was such a hot day and partly because I know curries are much nicer reheated (I didn't add the yogurt until after the reheating!).  It was absolutely and totally delicious.  Wow!

Is it worth it?

If you're looking for something that's quick, pop in the microwave and reheat, ready meal type stuff, then no, certainly not.  It's proper cooking with the spices and sauces all provided instead of making them from scratch.

However, if you're looking to widen your range of meals, increasing the variety of flavours you use and enjoy, making your meals loads more interesting and varied - definitely it is worth it.  They are not hard to make at all.
(and the second and third portions definitely come into the frozen almost-ready meal category!)

The kits are not expensive in themselves but remember you have to provide your own ingredients.  

Most importantly - the meals so far have been simply delicious!

Here's the link to the Simply Cook site.

https://www.simplycook.com

There is some sort of thing where I can refer you and you get your free box and so do I.

If you would like to do that, here's my invitation link for you to use.  And thank you.

https://www.simplycook.com/invite/YPG20X?t=cp&pg=ref&via=mb

Thanks for reading.  Any questions?  Ask in the comments below and I will try to answer them.

BBC Good Food did a review earlier this year:  Here's the link to it.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/review/simply-cook-recipe-box