Meet The Box Thinkers: Tracey

Once upon a time…

Somewhere way back in my ancestry, there must have been some sort of bistro cook (if there’s such a thing!) because I always put food first. If you have good food, you have a good energy supply and therefore, you become positive – so I feel that’s the way forward.

Dinner for five

I had four Italian friends over last Tuesday and I used one of the HelloFresh recipes I’d previously created on them and I thought, ‘I’m really going to tempt them now!’ I made a menu and I really went to town on all the table décor you know – I had champagne and an ice bucket. It was the one with the proper mince beef – Middle Eastern spiced beef ragout with coriander and flaked almonds. And one of my Italian friends said [about the meat], ‘this can’t be from the supermarket! This tastes like it’s come straight from the cow!’

Keep it fresh

It sounds a bit corny, but I prefer to eat something really fresh and cooked properly and HelloFresh’s taste is amazing, so you don’t really crave things you shouldn’t be eating anyway. Some people put their food in the microwave and then PING – that’s it. That food is so bland.

I would drive 15 minutes

One HelloFresh recipe I loved was chicken curry and there was gram flour to make your own chapatis – every mouthful was just oh, amazing! I tweaked it a bit – marinated the chicken a little longer and so on, but all the ingredients were HelloFresh. After cooking it, I wrapped it up in foil, popped it into a carrier bag and drove it to my mum’s 15 minutes away. We had fresh mango chutney on top and crème fraiche to cool the curry a bit. Your whole palette just comes alive!

A little gift

Cooking with HelloFresh is like a hobby. It’s like a little gift to myself and I love it.

It was really funny, so when I first discovered HelloFresh, this lady working on your behalf came to the door and I never buy anything from salespeople at the door. I had an apron on at the time and she said, ‘oh, do you cook?’ And I said ‘yes’, and she said ‘that’s good’ and I said I was busy and she said she’d come back later. So two hours later, she came back again and I said the same thing – ‘come back later’. So on the third time, I said, ‘I’ll try two boxes and see how we go’. I downloaded the app while I was online and it was easy – I haven’t looked back since.