Riverford Organic: Review and Competition

Let me open this post by admitting to one thing; I cannot cook, I can bake but I cannot cook and since I find it very painful to stand for long, I normally spend as little time in the kitchen as possible.

That said I never say no to trying something new and quick meals offer me the chance to spend as little time preparing as possible, while still enjoying healthy, delicious meals.

So I was interested to see what the organic vegetarian recipe boxes from Riverfield Organic were like.

If you are yet to hear about Riverfield Organic, let me tell you about them; they offer a mix of boxes which contain either 2 or 3 meals for 2 people, with some being perfect for vegetarians and others which contain meat.

The one constant between all the boxes however is you are getting fresh produce from regional farms. They also offer a range of fruit, veg, salad, meat and dairy boxes, alongside drinks and all those delicious things you love to grab from farm shops, all delivered fresh to your front door.

This whole idea expanded from Guy Watson delivering, fresh fruit and veg, to around 30 local friends and family and has expanded to them delivering around 47,000 boxes each week, nationwide.

To give Riverfield Organic a try I was kindly sent one of their 2 quick meal vegetarian boxes; which contained the ingredients to make mushroom stroganoff and scrambled tofu with tomatoes.

I have to admit neither of us liked stroganoff, so we actually didn’t cook this meal. However never fear as it didn’t go to waste, our next-door neighbour had it from us to cook for himself and his partner and they both apparently enjoy it very much.

We did however cook for ourselves and enjoy, the scrambled tofu and tomatoes with sesame noodles & cime di rapa.

It is worth noting that while you get most of the ingredients in the box, things like oil for frying, salt and pepper for taste, come from your own store cupboard, other than all the ingredients and of course the directions are included.

Ash and I cooked the scrambled tofu and tomatoes between us, I have to say it took us a lot longer than 30 minutes, I think perhaps an hour and a quarter to do.

However, as I said before, I am an awful cook and Ash isn’t much better, plus I did have to keep taking breaks due to the pain (I had a stool at the old place, which made things a lot easier, but it had to go back when we moved and I’m yet to have one redelivered to the new address) as well as there being bits I couldn’t do at all (thank you fibro) so we aren’t the best people to say if the timings are good or not.

That said the instructions included were clean and concise and walked you through every step of the process, so we were never at a loss as to what we should be doing next.

Considering neither of us are good cooks, I was really surprised at how the meal turned out, with it not only being edible but also tasty as well.

Personally I really love the overall idea of this box, I think perhaps definitely Ash would have been better with a box that included meat, though I hate dealing with raw meat so he would have had to do all that himself.

The two quick vegetarian meal box comes in at £24.95, which for fresh, organic ingredients ready to go I think is a really great price and it is certainly something I myself am thinking of buying again and I know my parents have been pondering buying a box or two themselves. If you are worried about getting the same meals over and over, each week the box is different and uses seasonal ingredients that are in good supply from the farms.

If you fancy trying a box for yourself, you can of course order one over on the Riverford Organic website, or you can enter to win one for yourself in my competition below.
*PR Sample