Simply Cook: Honey Mustard Chicken

I’ve been remiss at reviewing any of my Simply Cook ‘meal kit’ spice boxes, but then I also got so many freebie boxes for referrals that I’m still fighting them for cupboard space 😉 And I can but do better starting now.

Plate of honey mustard cream chicken

So… unlike other meal kits (say, Hello Fresh or Gousto) with this one you have to buy your own ingredients other than the sauce/flavouring. That’s a pro or con depending on individual: for me it’s great, as I’m such a picky eater. So with this one I didn’t have to be all ‘urgh, chicken thigh – too fatty!’, or dump a bag of icky mushrooms. I did need to provide the chicken (breast), crème fraiche, honey, onion, cornflour, and whatever veg I wanted to go with it.

Cooking was simple enough: dice and fry the chicken, then the onion, adding the provided pots of white wine reduction and stock (with added water). As I keep finding with these, there is just far too much sauce – the photo above is half the kit make, it was swimming! And I did lower the quantity of water added, but obviously not by enough.

Taste-wise, this was nice enough, perhaps a little strong on the mustard and ‘umami-ness’ of it all. But, very edible. I think it would have been better splitting the sauce between three, as it did feel a bit much by the midway point of eating.

I didn’t end up using the third pot provided in the kit, as it was a herb blend to put through mashed potatoes. I think that might have gone well, balancing the richness of the mustard sauce a little, perhaps? I’ll keep the pot to one side and try it at some point in the future.

I popped the second half in the fridge and reheated it the next day, which worked okay. I served it with rice, which I think worked better in terms of mopping up the sauce (maybe the mashed potato would have worked, of course).

Would I get it again? Nah, probably wouldn’t bother. So I’ll rate it as 6/10 – not bad, not great.

Now just to figure out what to do with most of a tub of crème fraiche…!

You can see the full ingredients, etc for this recipe on the Simply Cook website.

A New Year’s Resolution, and slow cooked porridge

Honestly, I never actually abandon this blog despite the loooong gaps between posts. But the main purpose is for me to have my own ‘recipe book’ online for easy access, and if I don’t cook new things – well, there’s nothing to blog about!

Oh, hang on. Cooking new things sounds an awful lot like a goal for the year…

So, yup, here we are: 2024, and an intention to cook at least one new thing each month. And blog about it. 12 posts will be a whole lot more than I’ve managed of late 😉 (where does the time go, honestly?!).

If you’re not familiar with AppleJellyJam (ie this blog!), I do things my own way: there is a page for each recipe, with *just* the recipe – that’s what the links at the top of the page (and all due apologies, I totally know that words better on a full browser, not so much on mobile. One of these years…). Blog posts are chattier about the process, but it is always backed up with that just-the-info page. So you never have to read my sixteen pages of back story, like Ever Other Food Blog Ever! 😉

Well, not this time: I tried a recipe, I didn’t much care for it, it gets waffle but no linked page! Or rather, you can have the link I used: Slow-cooked porridge from BBC GoodFood.

I actually went looking for this after a friend recommended overnight porridge in the slow cooker. It’s not that porridge takes that long from scratch, but the big draw for me was the idea of stewing apple right along with the oats. You also make 3-4 portions at a time, and just reheat it from the microwave on other mornings. Sounds good? Hmm.

I did have my doubts looking at the recipe – it seems like a *lot* of liquid. It was a lot of liquid. I went with:

  • 1 cup oats (in fairness, mine weren’t jumbo, and that would have helped)
  • 2 cups milk (skimmed. Also I didn’t have that much milk to do it all)
  • 2 cups water (seriously? How much liquid?? But I don’t argue first go)
  • 2 small apples, peeled, cored, and finely chopped
  • a sprinkling of cinnamon

And that’s it! Bung it all in, cook on low for 8ish hours aka overnight.

And voila… urm, oaty … pudding?

slow cooked porridge

Admittedly, a bowl of porridge isn’t going to look that spectacular regardless, but the oats – remember I said I maybe should have bought jumbo oats? – had disappeared into nothingness. It tasted of oaty apple and cinnamon and not too bad at all (needed more sweetness), but the texture was just weird. I ate it, over three mornings, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. And the kicker? It took almost as long to reheat in the microwave as it does to just make porridge! Hah!

So as you can imagine, I’m not planning on trying this again. Yes, jumbo oats might help. Less liquid might help. Some honey/syrup/sugar might help. But honestly, just not worth the effort for the result. I am enjoying feeling healthy from the switch to porridge for most breakfasts, but I’ll stick to making it a little more traditionally. Or, y’know, out of a sachet in the microwave ‘cos mornings, bleh 😉

One bonus tip: you can buy liners for slow cookers. I dread to think what kind of a baked on mess this would have made, and decided not to find out. Liner worked well! Wouldn’t use them for everything, but a good mess saving possibility.

Simply Cook – the experiment!

Once again hoping for some fresh inspiration and nommy meals, I decided to take up an offer for a free box from Simply Cook. This is that bit different from firms like Hello Fresh (which I first blogged about here) or Gousto (which I still mean to try), as you don’t get the entire set of ingredients delivered. Instead, you get a recipe card and set of three spices/flavour pots to use with your own fresh produce.

a Simply Cook box of spice kits

This has pros and cons. For some, this is a whole lot less convenient that having everything delivered to your door to start cooking – you still have to go to the supermarket, alas! 😉 It also means you don’t get portioned-out amounts. For instance, I had to buy a whole tub of cream for a dish that needed 3 tablespoons, and then had to figure out something to do with the rest.

However, for people that don’t mind shopping so much and probably for those who do already cook (not because the dishes are complex – far from it – but because of that “Okay! What do I make with the leftovers?” factor), then there are some advantages. For a start, each box arrives with 4 meal kits. Unlike Hello Fresh, however, you aren’t then in quite such a rush to make 4 new dishes. The kits I got all had a best before date a couple of months off, which turned out to be a great thing!

Secondly, and importantly for me, it lets me be pickier about the ingredients I buy, and vary them from the recipe where desired. Chicken breast not thigh, regardless of the recipe, for example (yes, I know, but I just don’t like them), or I can try ‘Miso salmon’ by turning it into Miso chicken and not poisoning myself! 😉 (as an aside, I was quite impressed with the dietary restrictions flags on the kit selections, but more on that later).

So, how does it all work? Well, first you grab one of the many, MANY offers or referral codes (I don’t generally do stuff like this, but heck, here’s mine: SimplyCook.com/invite/GCMGF8) which gets you a box for FREE (or, in some cases, for a nominal £1 towards postage) because why wouldn’t you?! (Nb, this is UK-only as far as I’m aware)

You then pick out four recipes that are delivered to your door in a box that fits through a standard letterbox. It does sign you up to a subscription scheme – with optional frequency from 1-4 weeks – but it’s easy enough to cancel as soon as you have your freebie. This doesn’t close your account, so you can order from them again in a timeframe that suits you.

Of course, you might be impressed and want to take the subscription! In which case you will be sent a box every 1-4 weeks, as selected, and charged (at time of writing) £9.99 for the privilege, which I do think is a little steep but ymmv. Word of warning, though: make sure you have your next recipes selected, or they will send you their choices! Definitely worth filling in the ‘back up box’ in case you forget, and also marking your absolutely not ingredients (e.g. anything fishy for me) – this will also filter what you see on site, so it’s doubly useful.

You will also get more offers! If you refer a friend, each of you gets a freebie. Get 5 referrals and your subscription price is permanently decreased (to £7.99). Another BIG warning, though: your earned freebie will NOT cover a subscription box! It’s an extra. And, biggest negative so far for me, the freebie options (after your first one) seem quite a limited selection of the range, which was disappointing. I’ve also discovered that cancelling the subscription – not because I didn’t want more, but because I couldn’t lengthen the delivery gap beyond 4 weeks and I needed a break from that – results in (a) your account staying open, and (b) more offers emailed to entice you to restart e.g. a free box.

Right. That was all the dull stuff – on to the cooking! You’ve got your 4 to choose from, and each kit contains 3 little tubs which are added either at different times in the cooking, or to different elements of the dish. E.g. 1 pot to add to the chicken, 1 to the rice, and one garnish element. You also have the recipe card which includes a shopping list.

Top tip: when selecting recipes, it might be useful to find common ingredients e.g. several that use cream, to streamline the shopping requirements.

Each recipe is for 2 servings, and several have quantities given to double the portions. Which sounds great, but they don’t give you extra flavourings so this can end up with a bland meal. Obvious in hindsight, but disappointed me when I first failed to realise! Of course, if you’re not a fan of spicy food this might be a way to tame it a little.

So far I’ve tried 6 of the recipes – yes, a little behind in starting this post series! A quick round up of my first experiments, then:

  • Mexican pulled chicken burger – started with a banger, as this was delicious! Mole chicken, spiced wedges, plus a recipe for coleslaw that I’m still using (slightly adapted). I’d’ve filled all my earned freebies with this – but it’s not available for earned referral boxes, sob 😦
  • Red lentil and squash curry – not bad, but see above re trying to make the extra portions and ending up bland
  • Chicken Makhani – a not bad curry, quite rich (cream and butter, what did I expect?!) but not one I’d get again
  • Penne alla Rustica – surprised with how much I liked this, chorizo not being a fav ingredient. Again, quite rich, but really tasty and made a nice ‘special’ kind of meal
  • Jambalaya – see above re ingredient matching, as this used up the rest of the chorizo! It was okay, but definitely not one I’ll repeat
  • Tamil black pepper chicken – made last night, post coming soon, but spoiler: it was DELISH! 🙂

My other kits to try are:

  • Balinese chicken
  • Jerk chicken
  • Chicken katsu curry
  • Creamy honey mustard chicken
  • Sicilian roast chicken
  • Churrasco Piri Piri chicken
  • Chicken tinga
  • Crispy chilli beef
  • Cajun sweet potato bake
  • Miso aubergine

Simply Cook Mexican Pulled Chicken

So… is it a recommendation so far? Well, absolutely no harm grabbing the free box and giving it a go, I say! It has its pros and cons, a final pairing of those for now:

On the plus side, it’s a relatively straightforward way to try some new flavours, and the cooking has all been very easy. However, it’s not as ‘transferable’ as e.g. Hello Fresh – by which I mean, I can’t so easily decide to replicate these myself now. That does fit with the idea of pushing you to subscribe, but also doesn’t feel quite so much as ‘expanding my repertoire’. Ah, well – can’t have it all!

Stay tuned and I’ll attempt to actually remember to post about the dishes made going forward 😉

(images taken from Simply Cook website as I haven’t been that organised so far taking my own)

Bean burgers

Well, it’s been a year – literally, looking at the last post’s date. Urm, oops?! For reasons, really haven’t been doing much cooking, and very little ‘new’ and blog-worthy. Hoping that gets to change now, and indeed I have started with a few bits here and there. Now just to remember to blog 😉

cooked beanburger on a cheese-topped bun, with potato wedges and salad on plate in background

These bean burgers – so adaptable – have been in rotation for a long while now, based on the HelloFresh recipe I tried ages ago. So that experiment was worth it! I found their take very basic, and have been on a mission to improve it since. Finally feeling I’ve ‘cracked it’, was beyond time for a blog post – not to mention a page for the recipe so *I* don’t forget what went so well for next time!

What I most love about this recipe is how versatile it is. From the korma burgers originally – which I’ve used with other curry pastes, added veg, and even some lime pickle and/or mango chutney – I’ve gone on to make pesto burgers (nice, but maybe a little more limiting on suitable toppings), BBQ/jerk burgers, and several variations on a more mexican-y based option.

I also feel they’re nice and healthy, much more so than store-bought ones that so often disappoint. You can vary the sizing, too – having made some just too big, I now try to restrain myself and match the burger buns! But nothing stopping you doing smaller ones for kids, etc.

Eight shaped bean burger patties, ready to cook

They also totally match my love of batch cooking. I got nine burgers out of a recent batch – making them pretty cost effective, too. I reckon these worked out at something like 30p per burger?

So what made this batch so much better? For a start, I got my breadcrumb ratio right! I always make a double batch from the original recipe, with 2 tins of beans (kidney and black, or pinto, for variety), but have sometimes forgotten to double the breadcrumbs – oops! Makes for very crumbly burgers when you haven’t used enough binding. I also took a while to decide if panko breadcrumbs were used in the same ratio as regular ones – yup, 100g = 100g.

Talking of breadcrumbs, hoping you don’t buy yours! I have a bag in the freezer, and every time there’s a tail end of a loaf needing used, I quite often just crumble it and add to the bag.

The other new ‘win’ was bringing in just a little of the fabulous Cookie and Kate veggie burger recipe, in the form of adding a mashed, pre-roasted sweet potato. Really helps with the binding, and it’s delicious!

The photos above make everything look a little red, but this is from the addition of paprika, as well as a little chilli and hot sauce (a smokey one, for a rich flavour), and tomato puree. I’d also added diced onion and peppers, because I think veggie burgers should have y’know veggies in them!

The possibilities with this recipe seem endless, so I hope if you do add your own spin you come back and tell me about it! 🙂 Happy cooking!

Tonic at Home: Starburst Martini

Eh… how long have I been sitting on one cocktail review to do?! Time to finish this series on the Tonic at Home mix’n’match hamper!

I’ll show my age here and say this was previously known as an Opal Fruits Martini – so, expect it to be sweet and fruity. The ingredients include:

  • vodka
  • creme de cassis
  • apple juice
  • raspberry syrup

Tonic at Home Starburst Martini

It pretty much does exactly what it says on the tin: it’s a sweet and fruity kind of a thing. It’s borderline on being too sweet, but not quite, although I thought it would have been nice with a little bit more of a sherbet-y tang. Still, very drinkable.

Also worth mentioning that this did lurk in my freezer for quite some time and it was perfectly fine. Not sure how much I breached the recommended timescales, but didn’t seem to affect it.

So… would I drink this again? Sure, no issue – although it wouldn’t be my first choice. There are some nice variations on the recipe online, many involving strawberry (liqueur and lemonade) although there seems to be a wide range. From my own cocktail cupboard, I would need to buy creme de cassis, although I might try it with Chambord (raspberry liqueur) at some point. Hmm, that does sound nice…! 😉

Tonic at Home: Lychee Daiquiri

If I’m being honest, I have very little idea of what lychees taste like. Like this, perhaps?! As a cocktail, it’s a lightly fruity, sherbet-y kind of a taste, and I like it. It is quite tangy, though – I was pretty sure there was lemon juice in there at times. What we actually have is:

  • Bacardi
  • lychee puree
  • apple juice
  • sugar syrup
  • citric/malic acid

That seems really simple, and it was easily my favourite of the daiquiris in the Tonic at Home Mix and Match hamper.

Tonic at home Lychee daiquiri

Reading a little more into what makes a daiquiri, it’s a family of cocktails with rum, sugar/syrup, and citrus juice. So the strawberry daiquiri is actually a variation, as it doesn’t use citrus juice. You may have also heard of a caipirinha, which is similar (and delicious), but uses a sugar cane spirit. There’s the equally classic Mojito, which is rum, sugar, lime, mint and soda water. And the classic Margarita is also similar, but uses tequila instead of rum.

Lychee isn’t the easiest of flavours to buy in this country – unless you’re talking shampoo, it seems! But I’ll keep an eye out for it, as this has been a very pleasant introduction to the flavour. And an education into daiquiris in general!

Tonic at Home: I’ll Be Your Wingman

I must confess, out of everything in the Tonic at Home Mix and Match box, I genuinely thought I was going to dislike this quite a lot. There are so many ingredients, several of which I’m really not keen on, and the only hint I had about what it might actually taste like was a mention of – bleh! – parma violet sweeties, on the Tonic website.

Tonic at Home I'll Be Your Wingman cocktail

  • pink gin
  • violette (violet liqueur)
  • raspberry syrup
  • cherry puree
  • elderflower cordial
  • aquafaba – aka chickpea water, for a vegan-friendly ‘froth’

It… wasn’t that bad. Oddly thick, I wasn’t expecting that, but it tastes like fruit and berries, and not – as I feared – of sickly flowery sweets or elderflower.

I have no idea where the name comes from, or if there are other versions of this other than Tonic’s own. Despite it tasting a lot better than I expected, I wouldn’t go out of my way to have another nor will I be attempting to make my own. Although I say that, and then wonder about cherry cordial, raspberry syrup, and Sprite… hmm, maybe not 😉

Tonic at Home: Strawberry Daiquiri

If you look up the Strawberry Daiquiri on Tonic’s website, they’ve managed to omit any mention of strawberry in the listed ingredients! The packet has more accurately listed:

  • Bacardi (white rum)
  • strawberry puree
  • sugar syrup

I mean, how simple can you get (at least before you add some chemical-y sounding bits, but let’s not go there ;))?

Tonic at Home Strawberry Daiquiri

This is another one that seems simple enough to replicate at home, and to be honest I think it’d taste better. There was something disappointing about this – it’s not unpleasant, it just failed to impress me in any way. I still drank it, of course! 😉

Looking online for recipes, there are some decent-looking twists on this, including fresh lime juice or lemon and lime soda. Frozen strawberries make for a nice chilled drink – best use for those, really, it’s not a fruit that freezes well – and some places recommend a mix of fresh and frozen fruit.

Eh, it was alright, but definitely not a favourite from the Mix and Match hamper.

Tonic at Home: Pornstar Martini

About the only think I’m not keen on with this cocktail is the name – it’s not a real martini 😉 The name doesn’t mean a great deal, it turns out, it was just meant to sound “bold, sexy, and playful”. Hmm.

Anyway, Tonic’s recipe lists:

  • vodka
  • passion fruit puree
  • caramel syrup
  • aquafaba – this is chickpea water, used to give a vegan-friendly ‘froth’. You don’t taste it, honest 😉

Tonic at Home Pornstar Martini

I’m slightly surprised not to see any mention of a passionfruit liqueur, such as Passoa. Ah, yes – we’ve stumbled across another one that I’ve both tried elsewhere, and that I’ve had a go at making at home! This is quite a popular one for making at home, with all of the ingredients readily available.

Typically, you are served a small glass of Prosecco with a Pornstar Martini, although whether you pour that in with the main cocktail is up to you.

I’m quite a fan of these. Vodka is a nice easy spirit to drink with any flavour, and passionfruit has that delicious mix of sweet and tangy. It feels and smells so very tropical, too.

So yeah, I liked this one, but I think I’d rather buy some Passoa and a carton of passionfruit juice, and make my own. Sorry, Tonic! Still, a nice inclusion in the Mix and Match hamper – so nice, in fact, you get two!

Tonic at Home: Cosmopolitan

There was a long while when the Cosmopolitan was ‘my’ cocktail, mainly because it was so easy to make – and absolutely nothing to do with any TV shows, honest! 😉 Vodka, cranberry juice, and orange liqueur – Cointreau for me, Triple sec in the Tonic at Home cocktail – simple and delicious!

Of course, that just means that when I’m trying a new ‘version’, my first reaction was more along the lines of “Hmm, that doesn’t taste quite right.” I think the difference is that Tonic adds sugar and some chemicals, and I don’t really feel they’re in the drink’s favour at all. I’m also fond of the ‘twist’ of lime juice usually added, so sweet definitely feels a bit wrong here.

Tonic at Home Cosmopolitan cocktail

That said, it’s still very drinkable, and it did grow on me as I finished the cocktail (hic). Still, far from my favourite from the Mix and Match hamper – I think I’ll stick to doing this one myself, with just three ingredients and my own control over relative quantities.